IN CONCLUSION

This condensed study (part of my “free for the asking” 46 page, May 2006 One-God Presentation[1], usually sent by first-class postage, except overseas) is not an exhaustive study of NT corruption.  For the person who wishes to pursue the subject of NT corruption, much evidence is available for particular passages that have changed, whether by accident or design, and much evidence is on hand that points out substantial changes in copies (or exemplars) of the original autographs.  Yet, the seeker of truth will soon discover that many Christian apologists still corrupt the minds of their followers by covering up corruption.  Don’t believe them.  No one knows exactly what the original authors of the NT texts wrote.

But the tracks of corrupting orthodoxy are everywhere within the copies.  The leaders of orthodoxy turned Jesus into a God and the early Christian church, in understandable ignorance, accepted that premise.  Still, regardless of corrupting influences (“palimpsest” MSS erased and reused; other fading and worn MSS retraced and who knows what is under the tracings; copyist sleep deprivation, boredom, inattention, slips, repeating lines and words, lack of any real comfort, and zealous sectarian views), I think that we have a reasonably good concept as to what was written and what the authors meant to say.  Nevertheless, our worship should be toward Holy Yahweh, not the Bible. The Bible is “holy” only insofar as it contains God’s word.  Praise Yahweh for his blessings. 

                                                                               —F. Paul Haney, May 31, 2006

                      He Who Has Ears to Hear…  (Condensed: Write us for the full Study #55-A)

 

“Listen now!  The Lord isn’t too weak to save you.  And he isn’t getting deaf!  He can hear you when you call!   But the trouble is that your sins have cut you off from God.  Because of sin he has turned his face away from you and will not listen anymore.  For your hands are those of murderers and your fingers are filthy with sin.  You lie and grumble and oppose the good.  No one cares about being fair and true…  You cheat and shortchange everyone.  Everything you do is filled with sin; violence is your trademark… It is because of all this evil that you aren’t finding God’s blessings; that’s why he doesn’t punish those who injure you.  “No wonder you are in darkness when you expected light.  No wonder you are walking in the gloom…  You roar like hungry bears; you moan with mournful cries like doves.  You look for God to keep you, but he doesn’t.  He has turned away.  For your sins keep piling up before the righteous God and testify against you” (Isa.59:1-12, The Living Bible).  This is natural unregeneratemankind.  And God commands all men to repent (Acts 17:30).  Christ: Repent or… perish! (Lk.13:1-3).  How does one obtain these ears that are tuned to the word of God?  Only God can prepare your mind to receive spiritual things (1Cor.2:14).  Believers are to “put off the old man” (cf. Rom.6:5-6) and have their minds renewed—this is the “preparing” stage that must come before salvation the event happens.  All people are not by nature God’s children.  You must become his child by being “born again” (Jn.1:12-13; 3:3ff).  How does the “old man” get put off?  You MUST be "raised with Christ" in his resurrection, the first resurrection(Rom.6:4).  But before a new believer can be “raised” or resurrected with Christ, he (the old man) has to be “buried” in his death through total immersion baptism (Jn.3:23; Acts 8:35-39), not by sprinkling, slightly dipping, or being hosed down.  “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day” (Jn.6:44).  You cannot do this on your own.  And before a person can be drawn by the Father, he must be given “ears to hear” or have his mind regenerated, no exceptions. Your mind has to be opened first and the Father does that. If the Father has not called and regenerated a person, he can in no wise come to Christ.  The word “everyone” in this passage is a universal positive and covers all that have learned of Christ from the Father without exception.  All who hear from God will come to Christ —and they will all want to come. A natural, unregenerate Adamic person cannot come to Christ on his own.  “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jer.17:9).  Man’s natural mind always rejects God: “…the carnal mind is enmity against God” (Rom.8:7).  Of and by ourselves, we cannot come to the Father or Christ, because we will not.  This means there must be a miraculous, spiritual, and positive intervention that draws us to want to listen to the Father and then come to Christ.  Pastor F. Paul Haney