“Babylon Rising” and Canon in Crisis

Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha,
Fresh Revelations,
and an “Open” Canon

By Pastor Larry DeBruyn

 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine;
but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers,
having itching ears;
And they shall turn away their ears from the truth,
and shall be turned unto fables.”
Paul, 2 Timothy 4:4, Emphasis Added.

Lewis Sperry Chafer (1871-1952), the first president of Dallas Theological Seminary, once reportedly said that all heresy is either the Bible plus, or the Bible minus. The work of radical higher criticism, as it has affected, even determined, the liberal view of the Christian faith since the late 1800s, has seen to it that there’s a lot of Bible-minus ideology amongst professing Christians now-a-days, even among so-called evangelicals. Now however, voices are emerging which advocate a Bible-plus view of Holy Scripture. One such voice has stated:

While I do believe that the Holy Bible is Divinely inspired and written by men, I do not necessarily hold to the idea that only the 66 books we now have in our (Protestant) bibles are the sole Divinely inspired books of antiquity.[1] (BR, Chapter 1, 1, Emphasis added)[2]

Why does Rob Skiba,  the author who wrote this statement above, not limit inspiration of ancient books to only the sixty-six of the Protestant canon? It appears that he and others like Tom Horn, Joseph Lumpkin, and Chuck Missler, need other books of antiquity and mythologies to integrate paranormal activity with the end-times scenario that they are seeking to create,* a scenario Skiba calls, “The Genesis Six Experiment.” (BR, Chapter 2, 1-2)

In Skiba’s thinking, “The Genesis Six Experiment” takes off from Jesus’ statement in His prophetic sermon (The Olivet Discourse) when he said, “But as the days of Noe [Noah] were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:37, KJV). This statement is then linked to Genesis 6 where Moses records that “the sons of God” (angels) mated with “the daughters of men” thereby generating a race of giants called nephilim. (Genesis 6:1-6). As Skiba states, that’s “why God decided to destroy the world with a Great Flood.” Because the nephilim had corrupted the whole earth, God destroyed the whole earth. In Skiba’s view, the same thing that happened then is happening today. For reason of angel-alien-watchers cohabitating somewhere with human females, a whole new DNA-altered-trans-human-hybrid species is arising, a new nephilim that will corrupt, if it has not already done so, human life on this planet in such a widespread fashion that God will have to wipe out the world again as He did in the days of Noah. To bolster this premise, Skiba and others use ancient writings outside the canon of Holy Scripture.

The intent in this writing is not to deal with “The Genesis Six Experiment,” or the “seed thesis” as Skiba calls it. I have done so in another writing.[3] The purpose of this article is to deal with the issue of other ancient books, and the attendant question, “Are such ancient writings, if only in part, divinely inspired and therefore endowed with spiritual authority on a par with the sixty-six books of the Protestant Bible?” To support the prophetic scenarios they create, Skiba and others, whether in whole or in part, believe they are. In their view such writings, whether in whole or in part, are inspired because they are ancient.[4]

Let it be said that Skiba is to be commended for stating upfront and forthrightly his position that besides the books in the Protestant Bible, there are other ancient and “inspired” writings out there. He hopes that readers will not consider his view of extra-Protestant-canonical-divinely-inspired writings to be heresy, and if they disagree, “to provide proof text for a contrary view.” (BR, Chapter 1, 2) Such proof I will offer as I defend the traditional, and I believe orthodox, understanding that the sixty-six books of the Protestant Bible, to the exclusion of other ancient apocryphal and pseudepigraphal books, possess divine inspiration and therefore the authority to be called Holy Scripture. In this defense, we shall deal with the Old (39 books) and New (27 books) Testament canon and its relation to the books of Jashar and Enoch. We turn our attention to the heresy, as Dr. Chafer put it, of the Bible plus.[5]

The Old Testament Canon:
Only 39 Books?
The Apostle Paul states that to the Jews “were committed the oracles of God” (Romans 3:2). Any consideration of the extent of the Old Testament canon must begin with the Jews and with Jesus. This of course eliminates all non-Jewish sources from any canon. As He both quoted from and made references to it, did Jesus view the Old Testament canon as closed and consisting exclusively of the thirty-nine books of our Protestant Bible as we have them? Or as Rob Skiba states, did Jesus “clearly” think that some of the books not found in our current Bible to be “worthy of study and quotation”? (BR, Chapter 1, 2) The answer to this question must begin with the Lord Jesus, for after all He claimed that, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18, NASB).

The Canon of the Christ
Skiba boldly asserts that Jesus and His disciple-apostles thought other books of antiquity were “worthy of study and quotation.” If so, where can it be documented that He, or for that matter any of the other prophet-apostles, quoted from other books or recommended them as if they possessed the authority of Scripture? Where? Give us chapter and verse. If Jesus thought other books to be worthy, why did He not reference them to Himself like He did the books of the extant Jewish canon of His day? But in no place did He do so. He plainly stated on a few occasions that it was the Law, the prophets and the writings alone which bore witness to Him (Luke 24:27, 44). Of the Jewish Old Testament scriptures, Jesus said, “these are they which testify of Me” (John 5:39). In other words, the traditional Jewish canon was Christocentric! Indeed as one of the ancient church fathers put it, “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.”[6] There is not one instance where Jesus quoted from ancient apocryphal and pseudepigraphal sources to testify concerning His Person. Why—because He did not consider those extra-canonical books to be inspired on a par with the Torah and therefore possess the authority of Scripture. Neither did those writings testify of Him.

Devout Jews believed that the last prophetic voice of the Old Testament was Malachi. After the decease of that prophet, there followed a four-hundred-year period of prophetic quiet which ended when God raised-up John the Baptist as the forerunner of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. As Simmons states, John the Baptist’s “public ministry ended nearly four hundred years of prophetic silence.”[7] Most of the apocryphal and pseudepigraphal writings arose during this time period because the Jewish people could not stand the silence. Enter Jesus.

During His life and ministry, Jesus often quoted from the Law (His favorite book being Deuteronomy), the prophets and the writings. He told the Emmaus disciples “that all things which are written about [Him] in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms [writings] must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44). But what books constituted the Law, the prophets and the writings? In short, the same books that, though combined and arranged differently in the Hebrew canon, constitute the same thirty-nine books of the Protestant Bible’s Old Testament. On this point, Old Testament scholar Gleason Archer (1916-2004) informs:

[The threefold] division [law, prophets and writings] consisted of the same content as the thirty-nine books [of the Jewish Masoretic Text].... Yet essentially, whether thirty-nine books [the Protestant Bible], or twenty-four [the Masoretic Text], or twenty-two [Josephus, Contra Apionem, I: 8], the basic divisions [and contents] of the Hebrew canon have remained the same.[8]

Not once in the Gospel record does Jesus quote from an apocryphal or pseudepigraphal writing. Though He could have, He did not. Skiba says Jesus valued those books, but ironically he never quoted from or alluded to them.[9] How then do we know He valued them? We do not. In short, Jesus recognized the extent of the Jewish canon to be that of traditional Judaism. This brings us to the books of I Enoch and Jashar, both of which are cited in the Bible (Enoch, Jude 14; and Jashar, Joshua 10:12, 2 Samuel 1:18, and possibly 1 Kings 8:12).

Note: Skiba’s assertion that the 1611 King James Version contained apocryphal books is correct.[10] As a kind of third testament, those translators inserted thirteen apocryphal books between the Old (39 books) and New (27 books) Testaments of that Protestant Bible, even though, for the most part, they were written by persons during the inter-testamental period, during the four-hundred years of silence, and before Jesus’ incarnation and ministry. Because they existed before He lived on earth, Jesus could have quoted from the apocrypha during His ministry, but He did not; and neither did the prophet-apostles. Though Jesus quoted prolifically from the established Jewish canon (39 books) and testified to that canon’s threefold division (i.e., the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings), He did not quote from one apocryphal book as a witness to His to messianic identity. Why not? Because unlike the Jewish canon, those books bore no testimony to Him. Unlike the Jewish canon, they did not as Jesus told the Pharisees, “bear witness of Me” (John 5:39, NASB). In short, the translators of the 1611 King James Version erred by including 13 apocryphal books between the Old and New Testaments. It was a human decision made outside Jesus’ authority and the canon He recognized, “His canon.” To this point, Skiba is correct in stating, “I’m not prepared to accept that the acquisition and accumulation of these texts was always necessarily inspired by God.” (BR, Chapter 1, 2) Neither Jesus nor His disciple-apostles recognized those 13 apocryphal books (there were 15 in all) as “Scripture.” I would also note that neither Jashar nor 1 Enoch are included among the apocryphal writings in the 1611 King James Version of the Bible.

Apocrypha means “hidden” or “concealed.” On the whole, the writings conceal more than they reveal.[11] This fits into the cultural/spiritual milieu of that ancient era. Old Testament scholar R.K. Harrison (1920-1993) wrote that,

Hidden or esoteric teachings [like the Apocrypha or Pseudepigrapha] were not part of the Hebrew tradition, which based its spirituality on the first five books of the Hebrew canon. Insofar as mysterious doctrines came into Hebrew life, they did so from pagan sources and generally involved magical practices which were forbidden to Israel [See Deuteronomy 18:9-15.].[12]

So Dr. René Pache summarized the value of ancient apocryphal texts:

Except for certain interesting historical information (especially in I Maccabees) and a few beautiful moral thoughts (e.g., Wisdom of Solomon), these books contain absurd legends and platitudes, and historical, geographical and chronological errors, as well as manifestly heretical doctrines; they even recommend immoral acts (Judith 9:10, 13.[13]
 
In light of these evaluations, are we really ready to assign “divine” origin (i.e., inspiration) to such writings? No wonder Jesus quoted only from the established Jewish canon extant in His life. We turn now to the biblical mention of I Enoch and Jashar.

I Enoch (Circa 200 B.C. to A.D. 100)
Skiba tells readers of Babylon Rising that the Jews seemed to consider the pseudepigraphal book of I Enoch to be Scripture, and makes the grandiose claim that “Jesus, Peter, Paul and Jude all made references to it.” In fact,” he goes on to state, “there are more than a hundred statements in the New Testament alone that find precedence nowhere else but in that book.” (BR, Chapter 1, 3) Upon investigation, this statement proves to be patently false.[14]

Genesis records that after living three-hundred and sixty-five years during which he “walked with God,” that suddenly Enoch “was not; for God took him” (Genesis 5:23). Any concordance study of the Bible will find references to this historical man. In addition to the mention of him in Genesis (Genesis 4:17-18; 5:18-24), the chronicler refers to him in his genealogy (1 Chronicles 1:3). Luke too mentions him in his genealogy (Luke 3:37). The author of Hebrews refers to him as a man of faith (Hebrews 11:5). In all these references it is important to note that the mentions of Enoch are to the historical person named Enoch and NOT to the books that bear his name. This brings us to Jude’s solitary New Testament quotation from the book of I Enoch (Jude 14-15). Does Jude’s mention of the book endow the whole of it to have been inspired of God? No, it does not, and here’s why.

Genesis tells us that one day, after Enoch walked with God for 365 years, “he was not, for God took him” (Genesis 5:24). What happened to Enoch? Where did he go after God “took him”? After he went missing, did he leave any report of what he might have encountered? To some persons (the books had multiple authors) millennia later, the gaps in the Genesis narrative proved too tantalizing to be left blank, so they (the pseudepigraphal authors of the books of Enoch) composed and edited (over a hundred years) the books of Enoch to fill in the blank.

So as an extant Jewish writing, Jude knew of I Enoch. In verses 14-15 of his little letter, Jude or Judas (Matthew 13:55), the brother of James and Jesus, quoted from it. Because of the quotation, some evangelicals jump to the conclusion that the books of Enoch are divinely inspired and assign a spurious canonicity to them, and this to establish credibility for the fantastic apocalyptic scenarios they create.[15 But it should be noted that Jude’s quotation of I Enoch no more endows the book to be divinely inspired than Paul’s Mars Hill citation of a pagan poet/philosopher or his  quotation of one “unruly and vain” talker who racially stereotyped Cretans to be “always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons” endowed those words to have been divinely inspired (Acts 17:28; Titus 1:12).[16] They are quotations and that’s all.

Jude (Jude 14-15) does quote 1 Enoch 1:9.[17] But in his citation of the pseudepigraphal book, it should be noted that Jude neither called Enoch “scripture” nor prefaced his quotation of it with, “it is written.” Clearly, Jude did not view I Enoch to be Scripture, to be an inspired and sacred text on a par with Scripture, but merely cited a known and surviving prophecy, authentic to Enoch, the seventh generation from Adam, of future judgment. Such a judgment was canonically predicted by the prophets (“the Lord... will come, and all the holy ones with Him!” Zechariah 14:5, NASB. Compare Deuteronomy 33:2.), confirmed by Jesus (“For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works,” Matthew 16:27; Compare also Matthew 25:31, Mark 8:38 and Luke 9:26.), and affirmed by the Apostle Paul (“the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ,” 2 Thessalonians 1:7-8: Compare 1 Thessalonians 3:13).

So why did Jude cite I Enoch 1:9? Jude may have quoted I Enoch because on the one hand false teachers rejected the authority of the Jewish canon, the canon accepted by Jesus and of the Apostles, while on the other hand they treasured Enoch and other apocryphal and pseudepigraphical books (i.e., the corpus of spurious writings, esp. writings erroneously credited to written by characters in biblical times). The teachings of pseudo-teachers thrive on pseudo-books! So inspired by the Holy Spirit, Jude told his readers that the false teachers who were disturbing their faith were heading for judgment, something that they, in their smug self-righteousness, presumed they were going to avoid! And he did so by citing a writing which the false teachers considered sacred. Take that, Jude tells the false teachers, and from one of the books you consider inspired and “sacred”![18]

The New Testament’s quotation of I Enoch is exceptional, and exceptions do not make the rule (i.e., canon means rule or measurement). The canon of writings is the basis upon which Christianity is to be received and believed. They, the writings, are God’s Holy Word. As to the rule of faith, any assumption that there exists inspired-extra-canonical writings is rogue regarding the Christian faith “which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Emphasis added, Jude 3).

Jashar (Circa 14th–10th century B.C.)
The book of Jashar (or variously Jasher or Jashur) is mentioned two, possibly three times in the Old Testament canon (Joshua 10:13; 2 Samuel 1:18; and perhaps alluded to in 1 Kings 8:12). About the Book of the Upright as it was also known (from Hebrew yashar meaning “upright”), one Old Testament scholar informs us that based upon the samples from Jashar in Joshua and 2 Samuel there’s no doubt about their authenticity, and that “the book originated in the late Amarna period [14th century B.C.]; additions were made until the time of Solomon [middle of the 10th century B.C.].”[19] The book appears to have been a collection of poems and songs which celebrated notable events in ancient Israel’s history, perhaps functioning like a modern-day Christian hymnal. Jashar’s contents may have been primarily transmitted in oral form by professional singers. Though well known in ancient Israel, the book has not survived. An introduction to one book staking claim to the name of Jashar notes:

This is one of the apochrypal [sic] Books of Jasher. There are several (as many as five) separate works by this title, all composed much later than Biblical times. This particular one is a translation of a Hebrew book printed in 1613.[20]

About the authenticity of any contemporary book of Jashar, another source states: “Printed books of Jashar are modern fabrications.”[21]

Thus, it becomes difficult to see how the example of Jashar validates Skiba’s thesis-proof that there exist ancient and inspired books outside the Protestant canon. Today, as cited by Joshua and David, the song book of Jashar doesn’t even exist. So how can it prove the divine inspiration of other ancient texts? Just because Joshua and David cited the apocryphal book did not endow it to be worthy of canonization. If it had been, Jesus might have quoted from it. Just because a book is ancient does that mean it is inspired (breathed out) from God (2 Timothy 3:16).

A “Subjective” Canon
On what basis does Skiba establish the authority of extra-canonical writings? Subjectively, he appeals to his own ongoing revelations, what he calls God’s Word “written on our hearts,” and confirming “experience” of prayer (See Jeremiah 31:33.).[22] Because of this word-writing on our hearts, Rob Skiba postulates that, “it seems more reasonable to assert that God’s Word is not so much what’s in print, but rather what is in the hearts of His people.” Then he says: “And I might add that I also believe He still speaks to and through men and women who have His Word written on their hearts.” (BR, Chapter 1, 2) So mystically, he tells readers that the Holy Spirit has also been giving him “revelation and new insights.” (BR, Chapter 1, 1) For purpose of validating the model of ongoing revelations, he tells readers: “Pray about it and see if the Holy Spirit confirms what I am saying.” (BR, Chapter 1, 1)

This attempt to mystically authenticate the divine inspiration of other religious writings and new revelations reminds me of the time when two Mormon missionaries visited me back in the mid-1970s. Seated in my living room on the sofa, they kept trying to convince me that The Book of Mormon was a divinely inspired book. I, of course, argued otherwise. Finally, exasperated with me, one of the elders slammed his Book of Mormon on my coffee table, and forcefully said to me (having momentarily lost his cool), “Your whole problem is that you need to pray about this book. If you do, you’ll come to believe it’s inspired of God.” My prayers, in addition to yours, will not make any book or confirm any other revelation as having been inspired by God. I don’t know about you, but I am totally averse to prefacing anybody’s personal revelation and/or opinion with, “Thus saith the Lord...” As Paul the Apostle compares the revelatory gifts to love, he states: “if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away” (1 Corinthians 13:8, NASB). Only God can divinely inspire any writing, and any writing is either from God or it’s not. And if it’s not, no amount of prayer over it, or should I say for it, will inspire it. As to receiving extra-heart-felt revelations that one might want to put on a par with the canonical Scriptures, I would state again:

Claims to receive new or “fresh revelations” raises the following conundrum. If the new revelations or insights repeat Scripture, then they are unnecessary. If the new revelations or insights contradict the Word of God, then they are heresy. If they add to the Bible, then they impugn Scripture’s sufficiency. And to this point Proverbs warns: “Add thou not unto His [God’s] words, lest He [God] reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.” (Proverbs 30:6, KJV)

Conclusion
Lying Spirits, Oracles and Forged Writings
If something is valuable it’s worth counterfeiting. Beginning with God’s gift of the Torah to Moses, the oracles given to the Jewish people were of exceptional worth. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that there should arise, both from within and without Israel, fake oracles and spiritual writings as false prophets and teachers would desire to get in on the “oracular action.” But Jeremiah told devout Israel: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:16; See Jeremiah 14:14.). And in light of the spiritual counterfeiting going on, the prophet Isaiah also directed and advised the Jews: “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20). In a similar way, Paul explained to the Thessalonians who were being disturbed by false teachers who were employing “a spirit [a false pneuma] or a message [a counterfeit logos] or a letter [a forged epistole] as if from us,” and thereby upsetting the faith of some “that the [apocalyptic] day of the Lord has come." Then the apostle added, “Let no one in any way deceive you...” (Emphasis added, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3, NASB).

No Bible Plus
In light all the deception going on, even during the apostolic age, Jude appealed to Christian believers to, “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Emphasis mine, Jude 3, NASB). In the New Testament the word for faith (Greek, pistis) can refer to either the dependence of trust (believing on the Lord Jesus Christ), or the deposit of truth (the Christian Gospel and the doctrines which attend it). The latter is the sense of Jude’s appeal (Compare Galatians 1:22-23.). Believers are to contend for the faith once deposited.[23] Because “the faith” was “once delivered” (Greek, hapax) to the saints, it will not change and cannot be altered. It’s like a picture that’s been taken. The faith is what it is, and should not be “doctored up” by spurious writings, no matter how ancient, like the apocryphal or pseudepigrapha. Twenty years ago Peter Jones warned that new interpretations like Babylon Rising may be a “wave of the future.” Then he adds, if these interpretations 

have their way, and they probably will... there will be a move to open the church’s canon for the inclusion of a certain number of these... ‘Christian’ Gnostic documents. And then the struggle for orthodoxy will take on proportions of difficulty the church has rarely known.[24] 

This struggle then will become ominous for as Christian apologist and theologian Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987) put it: 

Fundamental to everything orthodox is the presupposition of the antecedent self-existence of God and his infallible revelation of himself to man in the Bible.[25]

 “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables,
when we made known unto you the power
and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ . . .”
(Emphasis added, 2 Peter 1:16).

ENDNOTES
[1] Emphasis added, Rob Skiba II, Babylon Rising: And The First Shall Be The Last, 2011. Online at: (http://www.seedtheseries.com/blog/PDF/BabylonRising.pdf) 275 pages.
[2] All further references to Rob Skiba’s PDF book Babylon Rising, shall be cited in the body of my text as follows: (BR, chapter number, page number). In all, Skiba’s online book consists of fifteen chapters, with documentation and fanciful (or should we think inspired?) pictures.
[3] See Larry DeBruyn, “Demons, Daughters and DNA: The Sons of God, the Daughters of Men, and the Nephilim in Genesis 6,” June 22, 2011, Guarding His Flock Ministries (http://guardinghisflock.com/2011/06/22/demons-daughters-and-dna/#more-1846). Also published here: http://herescope.blogspot.com/2011/06/demons-daughters-and-dna.html
[4] For a resource of the multitude of ancient and so-called sacred texts, one can consult the website, Internet Sacred Text Archive (http://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm). The Bible is mentioned, but only as “one” sacred text among hundreds of others.
[5] The word heresy means “A taking for oneself, choosing, or choice; and in this connection it has a partisan flavor, and is used for an election of magistrates, in which sides are taken for one against the other.” See J.C. Metcalfe, There Must Be Heresies (Dorset, England: The Overcomer Literature Trust, n.d.): 5.
[6] The quote is Jerome’s (347-420 A.D.).
[7] William A. Simmons, “John the Baptist,” Baker Theological Dictionary of the Bible, Walter A. Elwell, Editor (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1996): 423.
[8] Gleason L. Archer, Jr., A Survey of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1964): 60. Even the apocryphal book of 2 Esdras (circa 100 A.D.) mentions that only 24 books (the Jewish equal of the 39 books of the Protestant Old Testament Canon) are to be made public, and advises, “let the worthy and the unworthy read them” (2 Esdras 14:45).
[9] Skiba writes: “For Jesus and the Disciples clearly thought some of the books not found in our current Bible worthy of study and quotation.” (BR, Chapter 1, 2) The question to be asked is, “Where?” Give chapter and verse. The evidence is that with the exception of Jude, who referenced the book of I Enoch, neither Jesus nor any of the biblical prophet-apostles quoted from a book not found in our current Bible. Frequently and abundantly, they quoted from the Old Testament canon, and in a few instances from the words of Jesus (1 Timothy 5:18), but not from a book outside the Bible. While they could have, they did not. The burden of proof is upon those who say they did.
[10] The Holy Bible, King James Version (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2005, A reprint of the edition of 1611). The thirteen apocryphal books are: 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, The Song of the Three Holy Children, Sufanna, Bel and the Dragon, 1 Maccabees, and 2 Maccabees. Two other ancient extant writings accorded apocryphal status are The Letter of Jeremiah and The Prayer of Manasseh. In all, there are fifteen books accorded inclusion in the Apocrypha.
[11] I am aware that the “concealed” aspect of the meaning of apocrypha had to do with churches wanting the books not to be read in their public assembly.
[12] R.K. Harrison, “Old Testament and New Testament Apocrypha,” The Origin of the Bible, Philip Wesley Comfort, Editor (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1992): 83.
[13] René Pache, The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture, Translated by Helen I. Needham (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1969): 172.
[14] From Enoch, there is one quotation in the New Testament and thirteen parallels, not hundreds. Admittedly, there exist in the New Testament “allusions” and “verbal parallels” to apocryphal writings outside the Jewish canon, but that is all they are. It is a delusion to transfer divine inspiration to an ancient text for reason of a biblical allusion to it. There are parallels with other ancient writings in the New Testament, but it ends at that. For a list of the allusions and parallels, see The Greek New Testament, Fourth Revised Edition, Barbara Aland, et al., Editors (Stuttgart, Germany: The United Bible Societies, 1993): 900-901.
[15] Evidently, to demonstrate his “seed thesis” Skiba would not be against citing “the many characters of Greek mythology and the mythologies of other cultures that all speak of demigod heroes and giants.” (BR, Chapter 1, 1) Since when should mythology inform theology? In fact, Paul tells Timothy not “to pay attention to myths,” presumably including not only those of Jewish origin, but also of Greek and Roman (See 1 Timothy 1:4.).
[16] Paul’s quotation reads: “One of themselves [one of the “many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers . . . of the circumcision”], even a prophet of their own [evidently claiming to be inspired of God], said, The Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth” (Emphasis added, Titus 1:12-14). When Paul states, This witness is true, he’s not validating the contents of what was said, but only that a false prophet, likely a Jew, “really” uttered as confirmed by witnesses.
[17] The exact citation from I Enoch reads: “Behold, he [God] will arrive with ten million of the holy ones in order to execute judgment on all. He will destroy the wicked ones and censure all flesh on account of everything that they have done, that which the sinners and the wicked ones committed against him.” See “The Book of Enoch,” The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume 1, James H. Charlesworth, Editor (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1983): 13-14.
[18] On this point Jude is addressing false teachers. They are the ones to whom the repeated demonstrative pronoun “these” and other appellations refer in Jude 4-19.
[19] James Orr and Roland K. Harrison, “Book of Jashar,” The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Volume Two, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, General Editor (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1982): 970.
[20] Emphasis added. See The Book of Jasher (Salt Lake City, UT: J.H. Parry & Company, 1887): 91 Chapters. Available online: (http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/apo/jasher/index.htm).
[21] A. van Selms, D.D., “Book of Jashur,” The New Bible Dictionary, J.D. Douglas, Editor (Grand Rapids, MI, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1962): 600.
[22] This aspect of the Spirit’s work refers to God’s moral Law, which under the former dispensation of Israel’s history, was written on tablets of stone, but is now upon believers’ hearts, upon whose hearts have been “born from above” (John 3:3, 7). For reason of being regenerated, God’s moral law becomes constitutional to believers (2 Corinthians 5:17). Before it was external, now it’s internal. In other words, the Word of God is written upon a believer’s heart for the purpose of influencing obedience to God’s moral law, and not for reception inspired oracles.
[23] See Richard J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter: Word Biblical Commentary (Waco: Word Books, 1983): 32-33.
[24] Peter Jones, The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back: An Old Heresy for the New Age (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1992): 94.
[25] Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Class Syllabus, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, 1970) 1, quoted by Clark H. Pinnock, Tracking the Maze: Finding Our Way through Modern Theology from an Evangelical Perspective (San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers, 1990): 44.

Republished with permission of author. Original posted here: http://guardinghisflock.com/2013/01/27/babylon-rising-and-canon-in-crisis/#more-2365
The graphic art at the top of this page is from this webpage: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aZ1NZuEj9-4/T1kMHQI7NwI/AAAAAAAAB50/vMURbEp8ky0/s1600/Apocrypha_1024.jpg

*Other HERESCOPE articles on this topic include:
"COSMS, CODES, AND CRYPTOLOGIES:"
Part 1: QUANTUM MYSTICISM IN THE CHURCH
Part 2: COSMIC CRYPTOLOGY IN THE CHURCH
Part 3: The Emerging ENIGMA Bible
Part 4: False Eschatology Arising!
Part 5: Quantum Teleporting Through Time
Part 6: Quantum Geomancy and Cryptic Mystic Math
Part 7: Quantum Prophecy
Part 8: A Quantum Cosmic Christ
Part 9: Quantum Mysticism Goes to Market
Militant Prayer: Taking Spiritual Dominion Over Dark Angels
Doomsday Datesetters 2012
New Age Date Setting
The Harbinger: A Review and Commentary
"Nephilim Eschatology: A Crash Course in the Emerging Endtime Prophecy Heresy"
Part 1: Nephilim-induced Human DNA Corruption 
Part 2: The Serpent Seed & the Nephilim
12-12-12:  NAR Date Setting
12-21-12: Evangelical Christians Believing Maya Prophecies
2012 & Fantasy-Driven Faith
2012: New Agers & Mayan Prophecies

The "Energymatter" Jesus

An Excerpt from Tamara Hartzell's new online book:

"Reimagining" God: Turning the Light off to Look for "Truth" in the Corner of a Dark Round Room


Below is a relevant discussion of the "new gospel" taught by Leonard Sweet and other evangelical and New Age leaders. Today's excerpt is from Chapter 5, p. 136.

“Jesus of Nazareth [is] the culmination of energymatter”

"The purpose of the church is to give form to,
to put into form and shape,
the energymatter known as Jesus Christ"
Leonard Sweet*

"The Gospel According to" Anything and Everyone?

T

hose who are choosing to put their faith in Oneness and its panentheistic “God” and “truth” that are in everyone and everything will see nothing “superior” about the truth of God’s Word nor see any “advantage” to having God’s Word. Rather, they are attempting to “heal the divisions” between religions by looking for and creating “the kind of coherencies and larger frameworks” that unify the religions/faiths/cultures. Consequently, the “old” light of God’s written Word of truth is being replaced with the “new light” of the collective “divine cocreativity”—i.e., collective “storytelling”—of today’s emerging interfaith community. 

In this emerging faith “relationship, not believing” and likewise “connectness rather than correctness” have indeed become central. Since nothing is “false and wrong” in this new “light” of Oneness, the need for beliefs to be “correct and true” has been rendered irrelevant. And, of course, with a panentheistic interfaith “God” of Oneness everyone can look for “truth” wherever they choose to find it and even call it “Scripture” and “the Word” and “the Gospel” if they so desire.

“Look not to one source, but to all sources, and even to all of Life, for your definition and experience of the Divine. Reject nothing, but also include everything.

“Do not say that the truth is exclusively ‘here’ or exclusively ‘there,’ but, rather, that the truth is ‘neither here nor there,’ but every where.” (the seducing spirit calling itself “God;” bold & underline added)[i]

“‘No culture is so advanced and so superior that it can claim exclusive access or advantage to the truth of God, and none so marginal or inferior that it can be excluded.’” (Leonard Sweet quoting Lamin O. Sanneh; emphasis added)[ii]

“New Lights spend their lives looking for the kind of coherencies and larger frameworks people need for unifying human experience, listening for the drumbeat of the Word amid the downbeats of the world.” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[iii]

“… Version 3.0 is the Third Testament, the Gospel According to … you.” (Leonard Sweet; last ellipsis dots in the original; emphasis added)[iv]

“New Light embodiment means to be ‘in connection’ and ‘in-formation’ with other faiths. To be in-formation means … to enlarge the community to include those whose conceptions of God differ from ours in form.…

“One can be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ without denying the flickers of the sacred in followers of Yahweh, or Kali, or Krishna.

“A globalization of evangelism ‘in connection’ with others, and a globally ‘in-formed’ gospel, is capable of talking across the fence with Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Muslim … without assumption of superiority and power.” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[v]

“Not only did God become incarnate at one time and in one place, thus becoming visible to the earth, but the gospel gets incarnated in every culture by design.…

“God’s presence is written in every handwriting. The world bears traces of the handwriting of the Word.…

“The early disciples treated with deep esteem those without faith and those with other faiths because God is active in their lives and we have something to learn from them.

“Early Christians drew upon ideas, phrases, metaphors, and customs of pagan cultures as ‘seeds’ of the divine Word that become enfleshed in Christ and in the church.” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[vi]

“Franchise is another word for dis-incarnation. And too few of these franchise ‘projects’ approached other cultures with the gospel of love: ‘Jesus loves who and what you are, and wants to inhabit who you are and what you are in such a way that it … blesses the world with new understandings of who Jesus is.’” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[vii]

“God the Spirit and Sustainer wants to work through New Lights of the twenty-first century to produce the Third Testament--our ‘new account of everything old.’

“New Lights’ mission in life, if they choose to accept it, is to continue the work of Scripture.…

“… Philip Hefner captures wonderfully our simultaneous status as dependent creatures and free agents in his recommendation that human beings be thought of as ‘created co-creators.’” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[viii]

“Community is the highest collective form of divine cocreativity.” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[ix]

“What if we were to think connectness rather than correctness?” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[x]

[But Scripture says:]

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” (2 Timothy 3:16)

“I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” (2 Timothy 4:1-4)

“For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.… We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” (2 Peter 1:16, 19-21)

“Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” (John 14:17)

“For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.” (2 Corinthians 11:4)

Reimagining Jesus
In today’s shifting Christianity, people believe they can just correct Scripture by “rethinking” and “reimagining” and “rewriting” it, so why would they see a need to be corrected by Scripture? Besides, “Yea, hath God said …?” Likewise, people believe they can just “rethink” and “reimagine” God and His Son in the attempt to fit them within the different religious/cultural contexts, so why would they see a need for the doctrine of Scripture that gives “the doctrine of Christ” by which we have “both the Father and the Son” (2 John 1:9)? Besides, a corner stone simply doesn’t work in the circle of relationship of Oneness. Hence the pursuit of “new understandings of who Jesus is” in a “Gospel”/“Third Testament” that is “globally ‘in-formed’” by other faiths/religions/cultures.

It is not at all surprising that people in this emerging faith of Oneness want “the Word” “made flesh differently”—or “reincarnated.” That is, after all, the point. Without “another Jesus” that is different from the Lord Jesus Christ they cannot “heal the divisions” between religions. So this emerging faith must change the Son of God—with the help of man’s powerful imagination, of course. Sweet, who has actually been praised as “[o]ne of the church’s most important and provocative thinkers,”[xi] has written:

“There is no matter without spirit. There is no flesh without word. The height dimension of faith teaches us that without the Word made flesh, there is no Word made power. In every epoch, however, the Word is made flesh differently. Energymatter is a dynamic process … Logos materializes in Pathos in forms fundamental to, shapes revelatory of, the age.” (emphasis added, except to Logos and Pathos)[xii]

“Early Christians drew upon ideas, phrases, metaphors, and customs of pagan cultures as ‘seeds’ of the divine Word that become enfleshed in Christ and in the church.” (emphasis added)[xiii]

“According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to inform means ‘to give form to, put into form and shape.’ The purpose of the church is to give form to, to put into form and shape, the energymatter known as Jesus Christ. New Light leaders, therefore, are in-formational connectors helping the body of Christ to become an in-formed church, an in-formational community. Informational communities exercise both informative and performative functions. The informative function is to impart ideas and to communicate concepts necessary for the life of the individual and the community.…

“New Light leadership helps patches of information become cloaks of knowledge. Information brokering is central to creating community in postmodern culture, not to mention achieving synergic states of group consciousness.…

“A major New Light undertaking is the designing of newstream communities that can be ‘in connection’ and ‘in-formation’ with the spirit of Christ. Christ will be embodied for the postmodern church in information.

“The following are five gross premises of embodiment … that build anew the body of Christ for the postmodern era -- being ‘in connection’ and ‘in-formation’ with: (1) other Christians, (2) all creation, (3) one’s ancestors and ancestral memories, (4) other faiths, (5) technology.” (emphasis added)[xiv]

It is the true Lord Jesus Christ Who is the only way to the true God. A false “Jesus,” not to mention a “Jesus” that is made-up by man, can only lead to a false “God.” And yet in today’s emerging faith of Oneness and its unifying mission to create a new kind of “Gospel”/“Testament” through a new kind of “body” of a new kind of “Christ” no one will think twice about today’s new “understandings” of who “Jesus” is. Moreover, the panentheistic “God” of Oneness is in everyone regardless of their beliefs and religion, so “people may genuinely encounter God … without explicitly knowing about Jesus of Nazareth.”[xv] Since people in this emerging faith don’t even need to know Jesus, it clearly won’t matter what anyone believes about Jesus. And thus a false “Jesus,” “another Jesus,” becomes irrelevant as well.

So according to these pagan (“quantum”) “reimaginings,” “Jesus of Nazareth [is] the culmination of energymatter”[xvi] and “[t]he purpose of the church is … to put into form and shape, the energymatter known as Jesus Christ.” “Energymatter is a dynamic process,” so “[i]n every epoch … the Word is made flesh differently … in forms fundamental to, shapes revelatory of, the age.” Thus “the gospel gets incarnated in every culture” and “ideas, phrases, metaphors, and customs of pagan cultures” are seen “as ‘seeds’ of the divine Word that become enfleshed in Christ and in the church.” And therefore:

“New Lights’ mission in life, if they choose to accept it, is to continue the work of Scripture.…

“The challenge of the church in the twenty-first century is to become … a seedbed in which the texts and traditions of the faith recreate themselves in and through the body until its molecular imagination is awakened by a living God.

“Every believer, every body of Christ is called to become the Third Testament.” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[xvii]

“Authenticity in postmodern culture must reflect this integration and wholeness.…

“All religions have something to do with the whole, the totality. Parts have no existence apart from wholes.… This is the essence of sin: Mistaking the part for the whole, or separating the part from the whole.…

“New Light leadership is fundamentally gathering communities together and building them up into a true body of Christ.” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[xviii]

“In fact, the genius of authentic Christianity is its ability to integrate ‘pagan customs’ with Christian faith and practice.” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[xix]

“The body of Christ is less an aggregate of persons than an aggregate of cultures; the body of Christ is an ark of cultural organisms, each one contributing something unique and indispensable to the body.” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[xx]

“Theologian/feminist critic Sallie McFague has argued persuasively for seeing Earth, in a very real sense, as much as a part of the body of Christ as humans.… The world of nature has an identity and purpose apart from human benefit. But we constitute together a cosmic body of Christ.” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[xxi]

“[N]ewstream communities will develop ritualized systems of relationship between the human journey and the nature of things. In the modern era worship was demystified and denatured. Postmoderns are driven by desire to explore and celebrate an ever-deepening intimacy with the Great Mystery that is the universe. Liturgies of the earth--fire, land, wind, and water--can restore the biological and physical rhythms of the planet to our computer-programmed consciousness. Outdoor earth rituals can also provide worshipers with experiences of connectedness to all earthlings: What the Sioux Indians call the creeping people, the standing people, the flying people, and the swimming people. All earthlings must be incorporated into the body of Christ in more ways than just through the ‘blessing of the animals.’ We must find ritual ways to make earthlings’ presence felt, their participation solicited, their voices heard, if the ideal of ecological worship is to be realized.” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[xxii]

Suffice it to say that in today’s emerging faith that is unarguably a “make-it-up-as-you-go-along process,”[xxiii] it will obviously be irrelevant that the “new understandings of who Jesus is” do not line up with the truth of Who the Lord Jesus Christ is and what He did for us—i.e., the true Gospel of Christ—as recorded in God’s Word of truth! Rather, it all merely becomes a “Third Testament.” And a cosmic “Third Testament” that is made up in and through a cosmic “body” of a cosmic “Christ” will indeed produce “new understandings of who Jesus is.” It will conveniently provide countless variations of “the Gospel According to …”

This phrase sounds familiar. In fact, today’s shifting Christianity, which has long since abandoned looking in the obvious place for the truth about God and His Son, should be quite familiar with all the never-ending absurd “reimaginings” associated with it. After all, according to the new way of thinking:

“The truth of thought is not dependent on its source: It’s the same truth whether from the mouth of Jesus or the ass of Balaam. Truth as words is no different whether from the utterances of Paul or the udders of a cow. It matters not.” (Leonard Sweet)[xxiv][emphasis added]

“Look not to one source, but to all sources, and even to all of Life, for your definition and experience of the Divine. Reject nothing, but also include everything.

“Do not say that the truth is exclusively ‘here’ or exclusively ‘there,’ but, rather, that the truth is ‘neither here nor there,’ but every where.” (the seducing spirit calling itself “God”)[xxv][emphasis added]

Incidentally, ideas that are pagan, and concepts of “God” and of “Jesus”/“Christ” that are different from the Christian truth of Who God is and Who the Lord Jesus Christ is, are only “necessary for the life of the individual and the community” in a community of Oneness. And a community of Oneness is a community that only has “life” if the divisive belief in the Lord Jesus Christ is “healed.” Thus, contrary to becoming “cloaks of knowledge,” this emerging faith actually cloaks knowledge on purpose. And at the same time, what better way to “heal” this divisive belief than with the pagan idea of a “God” and “Christ” that are immanent in everyone and everything? This way, it can “build anew the body of Christ”—not to mention “the kingdom of God”—in its creation and formation of a storytelling interfaith community that “include[s] those whose conceptions of God differ from ours in form.”

"For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid,
which is Jesus Christ."

I Corinthians 3:11

ENDNOTES:

[i].“God,” as quoted by Neale Donald Walsch, Tomorrow’s God, p. 208.

[ii].Leonard Sweet, So Beautiful, p. 287; quoting Lamin O. Sanneh, Whose Religion Is Christianity? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), p. 106.

[iii].Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p. 51.

[iv].Leonard Sweet, So Beautiful, p. 37.

[v].Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pp. 130-131.

[vi].Leonard Sweet, So Beautiful, pp. 165-167.

[vii].Ibid., p. 158.

[viii].Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pp. 255-256.

[ix].Ibid., p. 163.

[x].Leonard Sweet, So Beautiful, p. 139.

[xi].Sermons.com, Leonard Sweet, http://www.sermons.com/leonardSweet.asp; emphasis added.

[xii].Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p. 101.

[xiii].Leonard Sweet, So Beautiful, pp. 166-167.

[xiv].Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pp. 121-123.

[xv].Ibid., p. 274.

[xvi].Ibid., p. 65.

[xvii].Ibid., pp. 255-256.

[xviii].Ibid., pp. 114-115.

[xix].Leonard Sweet, So Beautiful, p. 155.

[xx].Ibid., p. 165.

[xxi].Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p. 124.

[xxii].Ibid., p. 142.

[xxiii].Leonard Sweet, So Beautiful, p. 204.

[xxiv].Ibid., p. 114.

[xxv].“God,” as quoted by Neale Donald Walsch, Tomorrow’s God, p. 208.

*Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p. 65 and 121-123. 

Republished with permission of the author. Several headings, the Bible verse at the end, and bold and color emphases were added to this text to enhance its re-posting. See also: The Mission of Creating "the Third Testament". Next subsection in Chapter 5 is titled "Dialoguing to the consensus/connectness/Oneness of today's new "truth"

The Mission of Creating "the Third Testament"

as "part of the 'I AM' that we are"


An excerpt from Tamara Hartzell's new online book:

"Reimagining" God: Turning the Light off to Look for "Truth" in the Corner of a Dark Round Room

A few years ago we ran a series of excerpts from Tamara Hartzell's excellent online book, In the Name of Purpose: Sacrificing Truth on the Altar of Unity posted for a free download at http://www.inthenameofpurpose.org. In the past month, she has published another excellent online book, also available as a free download. She had given us permission to re-post sections of her book. Below is a relevant discussion of the "new gospel" taught by Leonard Sweet and other evangelical and New Age leaders. Today's excerpt is from Chapter 5, p. 117.

“New Lights’ mission in life, if they choose to accept it, is to continue the work of Scripture.…

“The challenge of the church in the twenty-first century is to become … a seedbed in which the texts and traditions of the faith recreate themselves in and through the body until its molecular imagination is awakened by a living God.”
(Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[i]

“How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us?
Lo, certainly in vain made he it; the pen of the scribes is in vain.”
(Jeremiah 8:8)

“Every word of God is pure:
He is a shield unto them that put their trust in Him.
Add thou not unto His words,
lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.”
(Proverbs 30:5-6)

A

 mission that seeks to “continue the work of Scripture” and even “recreate” it is astounding. And yet it shouldn’t be surprising at all given that people in today’s shifting Christianity quite openly would rather make it up as they go along instead of believe and obey God and His Word. If they just make up “scripture” as they go along then they can thus justify today’s preferred “make-it-up-as-you-go-along process” of self-regulation, right?

“… for, behold, ye walk every one after the imagination of his evil heart, that they may not hearken unto me.” (Jeremiah 16:12)

Unabashedly preferring man’s imagination over God’s Word of truth, many people now want a fictitious “truth” and a fictitious “revelation.” And “to think connectness rather than correctness” is quite obviously today’s preferred new way of thinking. So to those in this emerging faith of intentional fictitiousness and incorrectness it will clearly be irrelevant that any creation of new “scripture” and “truth” is fictitious and incorrect.

“What if we were to think connectness rather than correctness?” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[ii]

“We were not put here to ‘keep commandments’ but to conceive beauty, truth, and goodness. We were not put here to ‘take a stand’ but to walk in the light for the greater glory of God. Biblical truth doesn’t feast on fact. It feasts on relationship and revelation, which is why eternal truth is better communicated by the fictions of parables and narratives than the facts of science and philosophy.” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[iii]

“Authoritarian stances of … ‘The Bible says it: That settles it!’ … are resented.… Instead of rational argumentation over what is ‘truth’ and ‘falsehood,’ authoritarian directives over what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ … storytelling is the postmodern means of governance …” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[iv]

“Your life and your community are living organisms: That word organism means they are by definition self-organizing, complex, adaptive, self-regulating systems. An organic system makes it up as it goes along.” (Leonard Sweet; bold added)[v]

Since people today prefer storytelling over believing and obeying God’s Word, they might as well just tell one big made-up story and call it “Scripture.” After all, in their unbelief they have already even reduced God’s Word itself to merely a “story” with “changeable” and “debatable” “metaphor” that can be interpreted and retold however anyone chooses. So what would be the difference?

Either Scripture is God’s Word of absolute truth or it is man’s word of relative “truth.” All we have to do is simply read the Holy Scriptures to plainly see that it expects to be believed and obeyed as the absolute truth of God. So, no, Scripture is not God’s Word of relative “truth,” as that would therefore make God out to be a liar. But, of course, that is precisely what today’s shifting Christianity is doing. And, along with choosing to believe that Scripture is relative rather than absolute, a growing number of people also do in fact believe that Scripture is man’s word rather than God’s Word. So to them there would be little to no difference between true Scripture and “truth” that is created/conceived/imagined/ invented/made up by man today.

This is especially so since they also absurdly choose to imagine that the word of man is the word of God. Accordingly, as mentioned earlier, the outpouring of high praise for The Shack actually includes: the book is one long Bible study; inspired writing from God Himself; the words spoken by God in this book are full of life; find the truth about God in The Shack; and so on. And its praise now even also includes—“this book could essentially serve as the quintessential ‘starter bible’”!

If fiction, not to mention blasphemous fiction, is seen as a starter Bible and as one long Bible study that is inspired writing from God Himself then why would anyone think twice about creating and producing new “Scripture” or new “truths of God”? The Shack is a prime example that they won’t, and they don’t. Besides, God’s Word of linear truth that divides true and false and right and wrong is “a stumbling block in the way” of today’s emerging faith of Oneness and its desired all-encompassing circle of relationship. So a mission that seeks to “create” and “conceive” a “new account of everything old” to replace the resented final answers of God’s absolute truth shouldn’t be surprising. This way people can “create” a new kind of “Scripture” to go along with today’s new kind of “Christian” and new kind of “Christianity” that are purposely emerging outside the resented “box”—i.e., outside the resented absolute truth—of God’s “old” Scripture. And, no, this “mission” to “create” and “conceive” a “Third Testament” that is “everything new about the old, old story”[vi] is not the “mission” of God—at least not the true God, that is.

“The ultimate story of the Bible, the metanarrative that unlocks the whole story, is that God is on a mission, and we are summoned to participate with God in that mission. The impulse to create, to conceive, is what lies at the heart of the missional.” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[vii]

“We were not put here to ‘keep commandments’ but to conceive beauty, truth, and goodness.” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[viii]

“MRI [Missional, Relational, Incarnational] is the operating software on which human life and faith were designed to run: Version 1.0 is known as the First Testament; Version 2.0 is known as the New Testament; Version 3.0 is the Third Testament, the Gospel According to … you.” (Leonard Sweet; ellipsis dots in the original; emphasis added)[ix]

“God the Creator worked through men and women of old to produce the First Testament. God the Redeemer worked through men and women of the first century to produce the Second Testament … God the Spirit and Sustainer wants to work through New Lights of the twenty-first century to produce the Third Testament--our ‘new account of everything old.’

“New Lights’ mission in life, if they choose to accept it, is to continue the work of Scripture.…

“The challenge of the church in the twenty-first century is to become … a seedbed in which the texts and traditions of the faith recreate themselves in and through the body until its molecular imagination is awakened by a living God.

“Every believer, every body of Christ is called to become the Third Testament. Philosophical theologian/science watcher Philip Hefner captures wonderfully our simultaneous status as dependent creatures and free agents in his recommendation that human beings be thought of as ‘created co-creators.’ God has chosen to work in partnership with us in the ongoing drama of creation.” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[x]

“As co-creators with God, inventing new forms of energymatter (information) is a part of the ongoing work of creation.” (Leonard Sweet; parentheses in the original; emphasis added)[xi]

“For the common sense to be the common good in the postmodern era, it must come to respect the authority of intuitive modes of knowing.…

“It is through creative intuition that postmoderns continue the work of divine creation.” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[xii]

“With the crooked lines of our lives God is wanting to write ‘a new account of everything old,’ a Third Testament.…

“The Third Testament calls us to imitate and participate in God’s creativity …

“Quantum spirituality is nothing more than your ‘new account of everything old’--your part of the ‘I Am’ that we are.” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[xiii]

So, with astronomical arrogance (to say the very least), not only does man want to “produce the Third Testament” and to “continue the work of Scripture” in “our ‘new account of everything old’” as “co-creators” in “partnership” with God “in the ongoing drama of creation” (the “drama of ‘doing God’”[xiv]), but man wants to “participate in God’s creativity” in the belief that man’s attempt to “continue the work of divine creation” is man’s “part of the ‘I Am’ that we are”! Although unbelievable, this is indeed what Oneness/panentheism’s lie of being “One with God” boils down to.

“There is only One of Us. You and I are One.” (the seducing spirit calling itself “God;” emphasis added)[xv]

“… there is no separation in God’s World—that is, nothing which is not God …

“You cannot be separate from Me, for I Am All That Is.…

“You and I are One. We cannot be anything else if I Am What I Am: All That Is.” (the seducing spirit calling itself “God;” emphasis added)[xvi]

“My Beingness is in everything. Everything. The All-ness is My Expression. The wholeness is My Nature. There is nothing that I Am Not, and something I Am Not cannot be.” (the seducing spirit calling itself “God;” emphasis added)[xvii]

And, therefore, in Oneness everything is “part of the ‘I Am’”—i.e., of the immanent “God” that is/is in “All That Is.”

“You are, have always been, and will always be, a divine part of the divine whole …” (the seducing spirit calling itself “God;” bold added)[xviii]

“Your thought about yourself is that you are not good enough, not wondrous enough, not sinless enough, to be a part of God, in partnership with God.…

“For your grandest wish—and My grandest desire—was for you to experience yourself as the part of Me you are. You are therefore in the process of experiencing yourself by creating yourself anew in every single moment. As am I. Through you.

“Do you see the partnership? Do you grasp its implications?…

“Think, speak, and act as the God You Are.” (the seducing spirit calling itself “God;” bold added)[xix]

“Create your own truth.

“In this will you experience Who You Really Are.” (the seducing spirit calling itself “God;” bold added)[xx]

“Remember, Change is a process called Life. The decision to change things is the decision to live.…

“It comes not from dissatisfaction, but from passion. The passion OF Life for MORE Life.…

“In this, and in all things, you are making it all up. That is, you are creating it on the spot. You are the Creator and the Created.” (the seducing spirit calling itself “God;” bold added)[xxi]

“You cannot create a thing—not a thought, an object, an event—no experience of any kind—which is outside of God’s plan. For God’s plan is for you to create anything—everything—whatever you want. In such freedom lies the experience of God being God—and this is the experience for which I created You. And life itself.” (the seducing spirit calling itself “God;” bold added)[xxii]

“In a word, God is freedom.” (the seducing spirit calling itself “God”)[xxiii]

“Freedom is what you are. God is that, and you are that. That is the essence of what you are.… It is the essence of your being.” (the seducing spirit calling itself “God”)[xxiv]

Sadly, more and more people in today’s shifting Christianity are eagerly participating in the creative process of this emerging faith that is “making it all up” as both “the Creator and the Created.” They are determined to create and conceive new “truth” that people are willing to accept—i.e., “truth” that gives people their desired freedom from the “old” linear truth that divides “what is ‘truth’ and ‘falsehood’” and “what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’” And what better way for people to achieve this desired “unencumbered” freedom “to simply ‘be,’” than to choose to rewrite, or “recreate,” the Word of God with their own lives (lived however they so choose of course)?! And since this merging and emerging “Christian”/New Age faith of Oneness/panentheism is replacing believing and obeying God and Jesus with being and doing God and Jesus, people can thus conveniently make it all up as they go along.

“Missional is who you are, because it is who God is.…

“The missional thrust begins in the very being of God. God goes out in love to create the cosmos: ‘Let there be light.’ The missional bent is there from the beginning.…

“The impulse to create, to conceive, is what lies at the heart of the missional.…

“Even though the word itself is an adjective, missional is all about verbs, not nouns, because only missional ‘loving’ gives meaning to our existence.…

“Drama comes from the Greek word dran, which means ‘to do.’ The incarnation is all about God’s drama of ‘doing God,’ God’s drama of love.… God did God. God lived in our midst and loved us and invited us to ‘do God’ along with him.

“‘Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.’ My translation of ‘Go Make Disciples’ is ‘Go Do Me.’ Is this not the second-best mission statement in the Bible: ‘Go Do Me’? Doing the gospel is primary speech; talking about the gospel is secondary speech.… To ‘Go Do Me,’ to ‘doing God’ by doing good, I must be simultaneously seeing, following, and being Christ. I have no theology to impart, no biblical interpretation to argue, no agenda to accomplish. I only have my life.…

“Jesus says, ‘Go Do Me.’ Go be Jesus.” (Leonard Sweet; bold added)[xxv]

“Each one of us is free to become Jesus, a living truth, …” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[xxvi]

“The era of the Single Savior is over. What is needed now is joint action, combined effort, collective co-creation.” (the seducing spirit calling itself “God;” emphasis added)[xxvii]

“Therefore, entreat those who would live the New Spirituality to consider every book sacred and every messenger holy, even as they, themselves, are holy, and as the living of their own lives writes the book of their most sacred truth. Remember that always.

“The living of your own life writes the book of your most sacred truth, and offers evidence of it.” (the seducing spirit calling itself “God;” emphasis added)[xxviii]

“[E]very body of Christ is called to become the Third Testament.” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[xxix]

“When you agree to spread the word, to carry the message that can change the human heart, you play an important role in changing the human condition.…

“It is something you are ‘being.’…

“You carry the message as you, not with you. You are the message!…

“Your message is your life, lived. You spread the word that you are.

“Is it not written: And the Word was made flesh?…

“You have My word. You have My word, in you. You are, quite literally, the Word of God, made flesh. Now, say but the word, and your soul shall be healed. Speak the word, live the word, be the word.

“In a word, be God.…

“I’m telling you Who You Really Are.” (the seducing spirit calling itself “God;” bold added)[xxx]

“With the crooked lines of our lives God is wanting to write ‘a new account of everything old,’ a Third Testament.…

“… your part of the ‘I Am’ that we are.” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[xxxi]

“Missional … is living a life born in the very being of God.” (Leonard Sweet; emphasis added)[xxxii]

Again, in this emerging faith of panentheism/Oneness there is a reason why verbs are replacing nouns. And, no, the “era of the Single Savior” is not over. Only the era of believing in the single Saviour is over. Among other things, believing in the Lord Jesus Christ is being replaced in our post-truth era with “being Christ.” Yes, we are to be “doing good” and to be “loving,” but we cannot “be” and “do” God and the Lord Jesus Christ! To be loving and to do good is not to be and do so as God, as Jesus, as Christ but, rather, as ourselves in obedience to God and the Lord Jesus Christ. They are not the same thing!

In his “do” Jesus (“Go Do Me”), “be Jesus,” “being Christ,” “do God,” “in the very being of God,” and “your part of the ‘I Am’ that we are,” Leonard Sweet dances around openly saying be God or being God. Yet this is clearly implied in what he does say. And to say “be Jesus” and “being Christ” is no different than to say “be God” and “being God,” regardless of whether or not whoever says it believes the truth that the Lord Jesus Christ is God. In any case, Sweet’s teachings and mission, as well as his shift from “Go Make Disciples” to “Go Do Me,” all take being a doer of the Word to a whole new dimension on many levels! And, as will be addressed later, to believe that man creates and becomes “the Third Testament” is as eternally significant as the rest of this emerging faith in which everything is changing on purpose.

Incidentally, Sweet writes: “My translation of ‘Go Make Disciples’ is ‘Go Do Me.’ Is this not the second-best mission statement in the Bible: ‘Go Do Me’?” Since when is “Go Do Me”—Sweet’s own “translation”—a “statement in the Bible”?! Would this be part of his intention “to continue the work of Scripture”? After all, according to the seducing spirit world:

“Divine inspiration is the birthright of every human being.…

“They [‘your religions’] have told you … that only a very few among you have achieved a level of worthiness to be inspired directly by God—and that all of those people are dead.

“They have convinced you that no one living today could possibly achieve that level of worthiness, and, hence, no book written today could possibly contain sacred truths or the Word of God.…

“Because to tell you otherwise would be to leave open the possibility that another master, another prophet, another messenger of God could come along, bringing new revelations and opening you to new understandings—and that is something that already established organized religions could not abide.” (the seducing spirit calling itself “God;” bold added)[xxxiii]

“Through Thy precepts I get understanding:
therefore I hate every false way.
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
and a light unto my path.”
(Psalm 119:104-105)

Endnotes:

[i].Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pp. 255-257.

[ii].Leonard Sweet, So Beautiful, p. 139.

[iii].Ibid., p. 111.

[iv].Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pp. 273-274.

[v].Leonard Sweet, So Beautiful, p. 43.

[vi].Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p. 259.

[vii].Leonard Sweet, So Beautiful, p. 58.

[viii].Ibid., p. 111.

[ix].Ibid., p. 37.

[x].Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pp. 255-256.

[xi].Ibid., p. 133.

[xii].Ibid., pp. 296-297.

[xiii].Ibid., pp. 260-261.

[xiv].Leonard Sweet, So Beautiful, p. 59.

[xv].“God,” as quoted by Neale Donald Walsch, Friendship with God, p. 23. Cited from Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel, by Warren (B.) Smith, (Ravenna, OH: Conscience Press, 2002), p. 23. [Note: Smith’s book has been republished as False Christ Coming – Does Anybody Care?: What New Age leaders really have in store for America, the church, and the world (Magalia, CA: Mountain Stream Press, 2011), and this quote is on p. 41.]

[xvi].“God,” as quoted by Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God, Book 3, pp. 56-57.

[xvii].Ibid., p. 50.

[xviii].“God,” as quoted by Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God, Book 1, p. 28.

[xix].Ibid., pp. 75-76.

[xx].“God,” as quoted by Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God, Book 3, p. 341.

[xxi].“God,” as quoted by Neale Donald Walsch, Tomorrow’s God, pp. 138-139.

[xxii].“God,” as quoted by Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God, Book 1, p. 61.

[xxiii].“God,” as quoted by Neale Donald Walsch, Tomorrow’s God, p. 145.

[xxiv].Ibid., p. 342.

[xxv].Leonard Sweet, So Beautiful, pp. 57-60.

[xxvi].Ibid., p. 114.

[xxvii].“God,” as quoted by Neale Donald Walsch, The New Revelations, p. 157. Cited from Deceived on Purpose: The New Age Implications of the Purpose-Driven Church, by Warren (B.) Smith, p. 62.

[xxviii].“God,” as quoted by Neale Donald Walsch, Tomorrow’s God, p. 208.

[xxix].Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p. 256.

[xxx].“God,” as quoted by Neale Donald Walsch, Friendship with God, pp. 394-395.

[xxxi].Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pp. 260-261.

[xxxii].Leonard Sweet, So Beautiful, p. 27.

[xxxiii].“God,” as quoted by Neale Donald Walsch, The New Revelations, p. 11.

Several hyperlinks and color emphases were added to this text to enhance its re-posting.
The next section of this chapter is titled: “It is through creative intuition that postmoderns continue the work of divine creation”