Accept
An Offer from God
And Forfeit Your
Ticket to Heaven
When You Die

Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness
Matthew 6:33

... and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.
Acts 19:17

I pray that you will then be filled with the fruit of righteousness,
which comes from Jesus Christ, in order to give glory and praise to God.
Philippians 1:11

The chief end of man is to glorify God . . . .
Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 1

This is purely hypothetical. I'm not saying God is making an offer to you as an individual directly.

I'm suggesting that God makes a similar offer to the Body of Christ.

The purpose of this website is to introduce you to thousands of Bible verses you've never really thought about before, and cultivate a passionate love for the Bible.

The purpose of this website is to promote the “Vine & Fig Tree” worldview. (Find out about “Vine & Fig Tree” here.)

Imagine God Himself makes you this offer (assume for now it's not a delusion, not a demon, but a real offer from God):

What? No heaven?

OK, since you brought it up, let's start by looking at Clause #3 in this offer.

Clause #3: But . . . you will not go to heaven when you die.

You won't suffer in hell, you just won't go to "heaven" as you've always imagined it. Maybe you won't have any consciousness at all.

No "rapture" either.

No resurrection.

You won't be suffering eternally in hell. Just no bouncing around on clouds playing a harp. Or whatever you imagined you'd be doing in heaven, after you die, for billions and billions of years.

Consider these words from Ecclesiastes 12:6-7

⁶ Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed,
Or the golden bowl is broken,
Or the pitcher shattered at the fountain,
Or the wheel broken at the well.
⁷ Then the dust will return to the earth as it was,
And the spirit will return to God who gave it.

The spirit will "return." Does your spirit remember being there before? If you accept this offer, it will be exactly as you remember it. Whatever that is.

I suspect most church-goers will think this is a "raw deal."

"No heaven when I die? What's the point then?"

Well, "the point" is in Clause #2 of this offer:

Clause #2: Accepting this offer will bring glory to God and immeasurable happiness to all mankind.

The point of this website (and I'll make this point in a little more detail below) is this:

What's more important to you? Your own individual happiness, or the glory of God?

So lets' go back to the first clause of this offer:

Clause #1: Do something simple (that you ought to be doing anyway)

Q.: What is this "simple thing?"

A.: "Preach the Gospel."
Preach the gospel to ten people -- friends or total strangers. Or even to just one person.

Then continue to Clause #2 of this offer:

Clause #2: Doing this will bring glory to God and immeasurable happiness to all mankind.

Your doing this simple act -- preaching the gospel (to be defined in more detail in a minute) -- will cause a chain of events that will result in "peace on earth" (Luke 2:14) and the greatest glory to God (Habakkuk 2:14; Psalm 72:19; 86:9, etc.). Your act will bring about the fulfillment of Micah's “Vine & Fig Tree” prophecy (Micah 4:1-7), the one where we beat our "swords into plowshares" and everyone dwells peacefully under his vine and under his fig tree. Billions of human beings -- literally, four, five, or six billion people -- will become Christians and glorify God.

The angels told the shepherds on the first Christmas that the birth of a Jewish boy in Bethlehem meant "Peace on Earth."

And this is the sign unto you: Ye shall find a Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest,
And peace on earth
among men in whom He is well pleased.

Probably a majority of self-described Christians today believe the future belongs not to "The Prince of Peace," but to the Prince of Darkness, the "the prince of the power of the air," "the antichrist," "great tribulation," "Armageddon," and global war and suffering.

Sure, things will be much better after The Second Coming of Christ. Then we will have "peace on earth." For a little while. But not before then.

Apparently, the angels were mistaken. They thought the first advent of Christ meant "peace on earth."
Apparently the only meaning of Christmas is

"You can go to heaven when you die, and leave all the war and suffering on earth."

This website challenges the prevailing pessimism.

Clause #2: Doing this will bring glory to God and immeasurable happiness to all mankind.

But as I said, if you accept this offer -- blessing for billions of people who give glory to God -- you will not go to "heaven" as you've always imagined it (Clause #3).

What do I mean by "Preach the Gospel?" (Clause #1)

When I say "preach" I don't mean "go to seminary, get 'ordained,' wear a black robe and stand behind a pulpit."
You can just make a phone call, send a text message, or sit next to someone on a bus.
Perhaps I should say "Proclaim the Gospel" rather than "Preach the Gospel." I just mean communicate the Gospel.
I'll show you how you can start the conversation and get right to the heart of the matter in just three words.

What do I mean by "Peace on Earth?" (Clause #2)

When I say "bring peace on earth," I mean billions of people will become Christians, we will end existing wars, prevent future wars, bring billions of human beings out of poverty, end sickness, extend life spans, and above all, bring the maximum amount of glory to God possible. Billions of people will glorify God.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism says the chief purpose for humans on earth is to glorify God. Your doing this one thing -- preaching the gospel -- will bring the greatest possible glory to God around the world.

What if I reject this offer?

A fair question. If you do not accept this offer, mankind will experience cursing rather than blessing. Phrased another way, the 21st century will be staggeringly worse than the 20th century.

In addition, if you reject this offer, you will not experience what God actually has planned for you after you die, but you will experience what you've always imagined heaven will be like. Many people imagine that when they go to heaven they will be re-united with their dog Spot, and they'll once again get to go fishing with Grandpa, or bake cookies with Grandma. "An Everlasting Playground" as Chuck Colson described it; "paradise lite" as another phrased it. You say, "That sounds pretty good to me."

Except you'll be doing what you imagine for billions and billions of years.

And then, billions and billions more years.

A New Century

Let's do a little thinking about the 20th century. What was the 20th century like?

It was the first century in the history of "Western Civilization" in which governments were universally secular. Previously, they had all been Christian [proof], because "Western Civilization" is actually Christian Civilization. [Proof]

As a result of this growing and widespread atheism, the 20th century was a century of mind-numbing violence. Atheistic governments:

• intentionally murdered hundreds of millions of human beings
• enslaved billions of human beings under atheistic communism and other forms of tyranny and loss of human rights
• destroyed or confiscated trillions of dollars worth of private property

In the 20th century, hundreds of millions of people were killed in concentration camps, Siberian gulags, SWAT team raids, pogroms, and massacres.  Hundreds of millions of people also died in wars in the 20th century. About a half a billion people murdered by atheistic governments. "Christendom" was lost, replaced by international atheism, socialism, and adultery and homosexuality replacing the traditional family. It was a terrible century.

If you reject this offer

• more than a billion human beings will be murdered by nuclear bombs, soldiers, SWAT teams, heavily-armed imperial thugs, or by ordinary neighbors turning on each other in obedience to government edicts or following their own depraved and savage nature;
• most human beings will live in a dark statist technocracy with no rights (10x worse than the worst covid lockdown)
• the standard of living will plummet into poverty for all but a handful
• it will be an age of pervasive atheism and perversion

• If you reject this offer, things in the 21st century will be even worse than they have been for the last 100 years:
  • 666 million people will die in World War III
  • 666 million people will starve to death
  • 666 million people will die of terrible diseases
  • Everyone's standard of living will decline dramatically (except for politicians and dictators, of course).
  • Billions of people will not become Christians. The 2+ billion Christians on earth today will see their children become transgender atheists.
  • Your refusal to accept this offer will really mess up the planet.

Don't accept the offer, and you get your version of "heaven," but the 21st century will be 10 times worse than the 20th century. Millions of people will not hear the Gospel, will suffer and die.

If you accept this offer

But, according to this offer, if you preach the Gospel to ten friends -- or even just one --  "Peace on Earth" will result. Specifically, the “Vine & Fig Tree” vision of the prophet Micah will unfold. Micah spoke (Micah 4:1-7) of a day when we beat our "swords into plowshares" and everyone dwells safely under his own “Vine & Fig Tree.”

Accepting this offer maximizes God's glory on earth.

It is controversial to say this: God created planet earth with a purpose. That purpose will be achieved.

Hal Lindsey's mega-best selling book in the 1970's was The Late, Great Planet Earth. It's over. Earth failed. Satan triumphed. Let's forget this "Earth" Project and get on with heaven.

This offer is about earth. It is about working (not just praying) that God's will would be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10). I wonder what percent of Christians earnestly pray that prayer, and what percent are praying for the "Rapture."

The offer again:

Preach the Gospel to ten friends  -- or even just one -- and God will set in motion a chain of events that will spread the glory of the Lord across the globe like the waters cover the sea. But no "heaven" for you when you die. No "Rapture." No Resurrection of your corpse.

If you accept this "Offer," hundreds of millions -- billions -- of human beings will give glory to God for a great Salvation. There will be "Peace on Earth" (Luke 2:14). Poverty and sickness will be radically curtailed. It will be the fulfillment of prophecies like Micah's “Vine & Fig Tree” prophecy. [The Triumph of Christianity -- verses of Scripture]

If you preach the Gospel to ten friends -- or even just one -- God will guarantee that you will cause a chain of events to unfold that will result in unimaginable blessing to all nations (Galatians 3:8; Micah 4:1-7) -- but you yourself won't go to heaven when you die.

The Gospel

The word "gospel" means "good news."

What is the "good news?" We'll look at this question in more detail below. Here's the fundamental question: Is the "gospel" good news only for me as an individual, or is it also good news for the entire human race?

This website wants you to take a look at the gospel for the world -- by taking "the gospel for ME" off the table. Below you'll find proof for the proposition that the "good news" -- the Gospel -- is Micah's “Vine & Fig Tree” global utopia.

Summary of This Website's Purpose

The purpose of this website is to encourage you to take the Bible seriously.
I will be quoting the Bible to prove my point.
(See the irony there? If you don't already take the Bible seriously, you won't take my argument seriously.)
If you take the Bible seriously, your #1 goal in life will be to give glory to God.
For most people who claim to take the Bible seriously, their #1 goal in life is their own individual pleasure.

This website challenges you to put God's glory ahead of your own pleasure.

This is an intellectual and spiritual exercise to reflect on your priorities.

Not only should you take the Bible seriously, but you should take the whole Bible seriously.

Most Christians form their understanding of the Christian faith from a handful of verses in the New Testament. But the Old Testament is also God's Word.

It's also an exercise to see if you actually understand the Biblical doctrine of "blessings" and "salvation" and "the Gospel."

The question can be framed this way: Would you sacrifice your own interests to increase the Glory of God and to maximize the blessings that others will enjoy, even if you don't get to enjoy them yourself?

Consider these important insights R. J. Rushdoony shares in God’s Plan for Victory (emphasis added):

If in terms of Matthew 6:33 ["Seek ye first the Kingdom. . ."] we believe that the Kingdom of God and his righteousness or justice must have priority in our lives, then we will not have a self-centered view of salvation …

All too often men retain aspects of this original sin in insisting that their [individual] salvation is the center of God’s plan.

God seeks His own glory and purpose; our place in His plan is not at the center …

It is arrogant for man, in plain divergence from God’s words, to see himself as more important in God’s plan than God Himself! Such a view is an echo of man’s original sin. (p. 3)

Rushdoony’s Impact on Eschatology

I'm not literally claiming that God actually made or makes this offer to you as an individual. But in an important sense, God does make an unbelievable offer to His People, "the Church," the Body of Christ.
This "offer" is just a hypothetical scenario designed to make us search the Scriptures like the "Bereans" (Acts 17:11), and "sharpen" our thinking (Proverbs 27:17).
If you don't like searching the Scriptures, you should, and maybe this website will help you develop that yearning. The Bible is a whole lot more interesting than you may have heard.

• The meaning of Preach
• The meaning of Gospel
• Salvation as Blessings
  • Peace is a promised blessing
  • Blessings come from obedience
  • Obedience is a promise of the New Covenant
• What is “Vine & Fig Tree”
• Paradise/Utopia
• Jesus is the Christ
• What is "Preteism?"
• What is an "Archist?"

What is the “Vine & Fig Tree” World?

Two centuries ago, the “Vine & Fig Tree” vision transformed America into the most prosperous and admired nation in human history. Tragically, we then experienced The Paradox of Deuteronomy 8: God blessed us, but we forgot God and said, "My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:17), and then God judged our pride by turning our prosperity into bankruptcy and admiration into ridicule and loathing. The United States is now despised around the world as a self-centered post-Christian bully.

George Washington's Diaries are available online at the Library of Congress. The LOC.GOV website introduces Washington's writings with these words:

      Peter Lillback, author of a 1,000-page study of Washington's life and thought, has found more than 40 references to the  “Vine and Fig Tree” vision in Washington's Papers. Other scholars keep finding more, it seems.
      Many other American Founders wrote of this ideal.
      "Vine & Fig Tree" is the original "American Dream."
      The phrase occurs a number of times in Scripture. These references are visual reminders of the Hebrew word for salvation, which means

• peace,

• wholeness,

• health,

• welfare, and

• private property free from pirates and princes.

When today's Americans hear the word "salvation," they usually think about going to heaven when they die. When the writers of the Bible used the word "salvation," they wanted you to be thinking about dwelling safely under your own Vine & Fig Tree during this life -- much more often than they wanted you to be thinking about what you'll be doing in the afterlife.

Let's start by looking at Micah's prophecy (on the left) and asking a few frequently-asked questions (on the right):

R. J. Rushdoony wrote the following:

In principle, Adams is advocating "Theocracy." Adams is saying we should be governed by God and His Law Book, the Bible.

God's Lawbook is better than the lawbooks of any human government.

What God is offering is Utopia. God is offering paradise that covers the earth.

All that's necessary is that we declare our allegiance to the King and accept His "offer."

I admit I'm a "Calvinist." I believe in the Sovereignty of God.

But I also believe in the responsibility of man. God promises Utopia and Paradise, but it is our job to put our hand to the trowel and build it. We do the work; God gets all the credit.

God's goodness and sovereignty is the basis for optimism.

• If God isn't good, He might promise a dystopia rather than a utopia.
• If God isn't sovereign, He might promise utopia, but be powerless to stop dystopia.

Utopia is what this "offer" sets before us. The purpose of this website is to show that this offer is actually on the table.

Micah predicted the establishment of the Messiah's reign. If he could travel through time and look at the last 2000 years of Christian progress, He would say God has already given us utopia. But God can give us much more.

Page Smith was a historian, winner of the Bancroft Prize, earning his M.A. degree in 1948, and Ph.D. degree in 1951 from Harvard. In his book Religious Origins of the American Revolution (Scholars Press, 1976), Smith writes about graduates from the older Harvard, like Samuel Adams (1740), John Hancock (1754), and John Adams (1755). He says the passage in the book of Micah about “every man…under his vine and under his fig tree” was

the most potent expression of the colonist’s determination to be independent whatever the cost,…having substantial control over his own affairs. No theme was more constantly reiterated by writers and speakers in the era of the Revolution.

Here's a few examples.

The American Revolution might thus be said to have started, in a sense, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg. It received a substantial part of its theological and philosophical underpinnings from John Calvin’s Institutes Of The Christian Religion and much of its social history from the Puritan Revolution of 1640-1660, and, perhaps, less obviously, from the Glorious Revolution of 1689.

Put another way, the American Revolution is inconceivable in the absence of that context of ideas which have constituted radical Christianity. The leaders of the Revolution in every colony were imbued with the precepts of the Reformed faith.

The Westminster Standards are the highest expression of "the Reformed Faith." Indeed, Smith adds, in early America, the Reformation

left its mark on every aspect of the personal and social life of the faithful. In the family, in education, in business activity, in work, in community and, ultimately, in politics, the consequences of the Reformation were determinative for American history.

As remote or repugnant as Puritanism may be to some, Smith says “it is essential that we understand that the Reformation in its full power was one of the great emancipations of history.”

Calvinism in America

America became the most prosperous and admired nation in history because it was a Calvinist Theocracy. <-- Check out that link. You were trained by your government-approved teachers to be offended and appalled at that claim. And it is unfortunate that Calvin and his progeny were not consistent Christian Theocrats. They tried to combine "Jerusalem and Athens." Instead of a pure "Theocracy," which literally means "God governs," they wanted clergymen to govern. They wanted princes to govern. They were called "the Magisterial Reformers."

Here's another way to sum up the "Good News":

Jesus is the Christ.

When you first hear it, you might think that the juxtaposition of "Jesus" and "Christ" is obvious and not at all controversial. But when you dig deeper, it appears that this is the most controversial proposition on planet earth.

• Jews don't believe that Jesus is the Christ ("Christ" means "Messiah").
• Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists don't believe that Jesus is the Messiah, fulfilling Old Testament prophets who voiced the Word of our Creator-God.
• Atheists don't believe anyone is or ever will be a "messiah."

And -- most surprisingly -- the vast, overwhelming majority of professing, church-going (or non-churching) Christians do not believe that Jesus is the Christ today.

• Maybe they believe that Jesus has the "right" to be the Christ
• Maybe they believe that Jesus offered to be the Messiah, but the Jews rejected His offer, so He settled for offering them a ticket to heaven when they die ("Savior," but not "King"). (An offer they also reject, because who wants to spend eternity hanging out with a deluded con-man who falsely claimed to be the Messiah and rejected the Law and the Prophets [held dear by the Jews]?)
• Most likely they believe that Jesus will someday ("soon") become the Messiah, when He comes again, a second time.
• But they all agree that Jesus is not -- today -- reigning as Messiah (exercising His rightful powers at full level, high-octane, from a throne in Jerusalem). The Messianic reign is for tomorrow, not today.
• Why do they celebrate CHRISTmas instead of JESUSmas? Why do they call themselves CHRISTians instead of JESUSians?

This website defends the proposition that Jesus is the Messiah right now, and has fulfilled or is fulfilling all the "messianic prophecies" -- even those prophecies most Christians reserve for "the millennium."

Jesus is the Christ. Today.

This means we can have peace on earth. Today.

Many people complain that the Bible is filled with war, slavery, and violence. "How can that be the Word of God?" they ask.

But the world before Christ really was filled with war, slavery, and violence. Many historians note that most human beings died violent deaths, or died prematurely from the violence of slavery, conquest, captivity, and all forms of human violence.

If they could travel through time from their day to ours, every prophet who spoke of the coming Messiah would fall on his knees in gratitude to God for the fact that most people on earth today die peacefully, not violently. They would be utterly speechless walking down the aisles of your local WalMart. The character of human life was changed dramatically by the babe born in Bethlehem. And further change is possible:

Christ has already eliminated 99% of all the violence that existed in the world before the first Christmas.
With the poet who "heard the bells on Christmas day" we should note that with the birth of Jesus, 

This website claims that Christians could end 99% of the remaining violence in the world in 2022.

But we have to believe in the real meaning of Christmas:

Jesus is the Christ.

I want to consider with you four subjects:

1. The Bible
2. Man and Society
3. God and Government
4. The Gospel

Within these four subjects are seven steps to prove my thesis:

1. The Bible

• Daily Sharpening

• Principles of Interpreting Prophecy

• The Blessings of Obeying the Bible -- God's Standard (Blueprint)

2. Man and Society

• Purpose of Man (Calling)
         To build the Kingdom of God by working (obeying God, serving others)

• The Fall of Man -- the Desire to "be as gods"
         To build the Kingdom of Man without working (playing God, oppressing others)

3. The Kingdom of God and Salvation

• God saves sinners (archists) from the consequences of their sins (archism)

• God's Kingdom vs. Man's Government

• Salvation = Freedom from archists.

• "Archist" defined

• The Vine & Fig Tree society.

4. The Vine & Fig Tree Gospel

In these seven themes there are 12 key Scripture texts I would like you to consider before we get to the verse which proves that Micah's “Vine & Fig Tree” world is the Gospel.

Bible

1. Acts 17:11

2. Proverbs 27:17

Prophecy: Principles of Interpretation

3. Isaiah 9:6-7

4. Daniel 2

5. Isaiah 65:17-20

Man's Purpose

6. Genesis 1:26-28

God's Blueprint

7. Leviticus 26

Government: Man's vs. God's

8. Isaiah 33:22

9. 1 Samuel 8

10. Mark 10:42-45

Salvation as Freedom from Archists

11. Over 300 "Salvation" Verses

12. Habakkuk 2:14 - Salvation and Civilization

“Vine & Fig Tree” is “the Gospel.”

What is "Preterism?"

The word "preterism" comes from the Latin word for "past." To say that "Jesus is the Christ today" is to say that Jesus became the Christ in the past. This is an example of "preterism."

Matthew 1:23 says that the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 was fulfilled in our past. This is an example of "preterism."

The opposite of "preterism" is "futurism." The futurist says Jesus will begin reigning as the Christ in the future.

Most people who call themselves "Christians" today believe that Micah's prophecy will not begin to see fulfillment until Jesus returns to earth a second time. But the Bible teaches that Jesus was born during "the last days" of the Old Covenant, and He put into effect a New Covenant, and as a result of this New Covenant, billions of human beings have been streaming to "the mountain of the Lord," and the world is more obedient to God's Commandments today than it was before Jesus was born. The world is more peaceful. The mainstream media and secular academia do not want you to understand this.

Nor do most clergymen. The more perceptive clergy will say that our belief that Micah's prophecy is already being fulfilled, and that we should continue beating swords into plowshares, is "dangerous." They will warn you that we are promoting the ancient heresy of "anarcho-preterism." They are correct (we are indeed promoting "anarcho-preterism") except for two things:

1. This position is not "heretical." It is the core of the evangelical message of the Bible. (The word "evangelical" comes from "evangel," which means "good news."). That's what this website is all about.
2. This position is not "ancient." I just made up the term "anarcho-preterism" last Thursday.

Distilled into a single proposition, Vine & Fig Tree stands for this:

Jesus is the Christ Today

To say that Jesus is the Messiah today is to say that Jesus became the Messiah in the past, rather than saying He must come again (in the future) before He can begin His Messianic Reign.

It's easy enough to prove that Jesus was made the Christ in the past. Peter explains it in Acts chapter 2. After the Apostles spoke to a large audience of people "from every nation under heaven" (Acts 2:5) in all their various foreign languages, Peter explained that this was a fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy. He further explains how Jesus had already fulfilled the Davidic prophecies about the enthroning of the Messiah:

God made Jesus of Nazareth the Christ -- 2000 years ago -- fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies concerning the throne of David. Peter and other devout Jews came to believe this; Christians should believe this; today's Jews do not. What was happening in Peter's "present" happened in our "past."

Even more offensive to modern Christians than the belief that Jesus is the Christ today (and we shouldn't be waiting around for a second advent of Jesus) is the claim that Jesus is THE Christ today; that in our day there is no other legitimate Christ, no other legitimate king.

Nobody believes in "kings" anymore. So let's update our language.

• Jesus is the only legitimate President, Governor, Prime Minister, Premier, Chief Executive, or Emir.
• Jesus is also the only legitimate Legislator. Jesus is a One-Man Legislature.
• Jesus is "the Supreme Judge of the World" (to quote the Declaration of Independence); the only legitimate Judge or Justice.
• Jesus is the only legitimate Department of Homeland Security and Joint Chiefs of Staff.

As we will see below, Isaiah 33:22 confirms this:

For the Lord is our Judge,
The Lord is our Lawgiver,
The Lord is our King;
He will save us

As we will see below, it was a mistake for Israel to want an earthly king to replace God (1 Samuel 8).

This means that a Christian economy is 100% "capitalist" and 0% "socialist."

Many people today grossly misunderstand those terms. They think "capitalism" means politicians support big corporations. They think "socialism" means politicians have "compassion for the poor." What causes confusion is the term common to both ideas: "politicians."

From a Biblical perspective, politicians are wanna-be christs.

What is an "Archist?"

Another way to state "the Offer" is this:

If you preach the Gospel, God will rid the world of "archists."

What is an "Archist?"

An "archist" is a "ruler." We here at Vine & Fig Tree invented the word "archist," deriving it from a Greek word found in Mark 10:42-45, from which the English word "anarchist" is derived. 

An "archist" is a false Christ. An "archist" is a false god. The Bible is against false gods. The Bible is an Anarchist Manifesto.

In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10 (see more below), Jesus discovers His disciples arguing about who is going to be the "greatest" in the Kingdom of God. Their concept of the Messiah was someone who would use force and violence to vanquish the Roman occupation army that held Israel under tribute. They looked forward to the coming of a Messiah who would enlist them into a Messianic Israeli Army which would "stick it to" the Romans. But just as Micah said we should beat "swords into plowshares," Jesus said His disciples should "love your enemies," and if their soldiers conscript you to carry their provisions for one mile, you should go with the occupation forces two. (This form of pacifism completely refutes the legitimacy of "national defense.") The disciples didn't understand that Jesus' Messianic Kingdom was quite unlike the kingdoms of the world.

The word translated "rulers" comes from the Greek word from which we derive our English word "anarchist" ("a + archist" -- the first "a" is the Greek letter "alpha," known as the "alpha privative," meaning "not"  --     a[n]archist  -- the letter "n" bridges the "alpha privative" and the word "archist").

"Lords," "rulers" and "great ones" are "archists."

An "archist" believes he has the right to impose his will on other people by force. He need not rely solely on persuasion. He need not give others anything of value in exchange for what he wants from others. He can threaten violence, and carry out those threats if he doesn't get what he wants. It would be sinful for others to engage in such violent extortion or vengeance, but the "archist" claims a "legal" and moral right to do what others must not do.

Jesus prohibits His followers from aspiring to rule over others. It is a sin to "govern" other people. Jesus said a Christian must not be an "archist."

Christians are to be "servants."

A Christian society is an archist-free society.

We have been brainwashed in "public" schools (run by archists) to believe that an "anarchist" is:

• a bomb-throwing
• assassin
• who rejects the doctrine of private property,
• seeks to foment disorder, lawlessness, chaos and riots in order to overthrow the government by force and violence
• and establish some dreadful political ideal like "the dictatorship of the proletariat," where everyone is his own god and criminals run wild.

Anyone can be called an "anarchist" by someone who wants to vilify an opponent, but most of those who call themselves "anarchist" have reached their "anarchism" by their opposition to violence. I am a pacifist, therefore I am opposed to any institution of systematic violence and coercion (e.g., "the Mafia," "the State," etc.). To rid society of "government" is to rid society of violence and the violation of God's Law. Eliminating "the State" requires a profound elevation of morality in society. Theocracy is the only path to Anarchy. Anarcho-Theocracy is the Biblical goal.

By etymological definition, the opposite of an "anarchist" is an "archist." By being trained to believe that "anarchists" are bad, we've been subtly inculcated with the belief that those who "protect" us against "anarchists" (logically, "archists") are good.

But the Bible says archists are bad, and explicitly prohibits us from being archists.

Throughout the Bible, "archists" are false gods. Jesus said His disciples are not to be like the archists, the "kings of the gentiles." The Bible -- from cover to cover -- says we are not to trust in archists. God alone is our king. We are not to trust in false gods.

We've all been trained to react with horror to the word "anarchist."

Jesus says His followers are not to be archists. Connect the dots.

www.HowToBecomeAChristianAnarchist.com

Mark 10:42-45 (and other passages we're going to be considering in a moment) teaches that

• Christians are prohibited from aspiring to be "archists."
• Christians are prohibited from trying to elect an "archist" to any public office.
• There should not be any "public offices" at all.
• Eliminating "public offices" would dramatically raise our standard of living (if we obey all the commands of Jesus the Christ).

It will take approximately 90 minutes for me to lay out my arguments and for you to follow them Biblically in a loving (1 Corinthians 13:5-7) way.

Perhaps the main question being asked by this "Offer" is this:

Is "Peace on Earth" Even Possible?

Most church-goers say "No!" Not until the Second Coming of Christ, and then only for a few years; Jesus rules on earth less than one-sixth of the time that Satan has ruled the earth. Then Satan rises up at the end of the millennium and Jesus, with his tail between his legs, takes his cosmic football and goes home, not wanting to face certain defeat.

This "offer" seeks to prove that "Peace on Earth" is not just possible, but mandatory. Beating "swords into plowshares" is our duty. Right now.

And our success is guaranteed.

As we will have seen, Christians are commanded to be "servants," not "archists."

We're ready to start the argument sequence.

1. The Bible is our starting point

I am a "Bible-believing" Christian. Feel free to accuse me of engaging in bibliolatry, fundamentalism, extremism, creationism, Calvinism, Theonomy, etc. Guilty as charged.

The first text I want to impress upon you is Acts 17:10-12

Now these [The Bereans] were more noble than those in Thessalonica,
in that they received the Word with all readiness of the mind,
searching the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so.

The Bereans appeared to be like modern libertarians, with their bumper-sticker that says "QUESTION AUTHORITY." The Apostles gave them the Gospel of Jesus Christ but the Bereans didn't just take the Apostles' word for it, but checked what they were told against a higher authority, the Scripture. The Bereans are more dogmatic authoritarians than those who mindlessly accept the word of clergy or creeds.

Additionally, the Bereans studied the Bible "daily." The verses on that link show that daily engagement with the Bible is an imperative.

This attitude makes one a better Christian, as seen in our second text.

Just as iron sharpens iron,
friends sharpen the minds of each other.
Proverbs 27:17

My goal in this article is to be your "friend." I hope you'll be my friend as well, and challenge my thinking in a loving way.

I am not against "authorities" or "experts." I rely on them and quote them. An "expert" can be your friend and sharpen you, but you might have to pay the expert ("mentor," "professor" "seminary"). This article is free. May you be sharpened. May we be friends.

2. Interpreting Prophecy

How do we correctly interpret Micah's  “Vine & Fig Tree” prophecy, as well as others which speak of the Messiah? Sometimes the form of prophecy can confuse us. Often it is poetic, rather than "scientific" or "historical" or reminiscent of journalistic "neutrality." It is designed to encourage us today. That is, to encourage us to obey God's Commandments.

The Bible teaching ministry I founded is called  “Vine & Fig Tree.”  The name comes from the 4th chapter of Micah. It talks about a day we beat "swords into plowshares." I believe that's not just a prediction about Micah's future, but a command for us today. I believe the Bible -- from cover to cover -- commands pacifism. War -- "the sword" -- is an evil.

You are welcome to try to "sharpen" me on this issue. Others have certainly tried. I am willing to admit that ISIS-inspired psychos kill innocent people around the world, and sometimes it's hard to believe that the Babe born in Bethlehem and laid in a manger on that "Silent Night" was really the Messiah, the Prince of Peace. But despite ISIS, I believe Micah would agree that Jesus is now reigning as Messiah and Prince of Peace.

In Micah's day, seven hundred years before the coming of the Messiah, half of all human beings died as a result of archist violence.
There was no such thing as "liberty" in Isaiah's day. Today we enjoy liberty because the Messiah came two thousand years ago.
Today, the vast majority of human beings die of "natural causes" rather than violence. The exceptions to that blanket statement are easily remedied by professing Christians in America. It's a matter of ethics, not fate or eschatology. We are commanded to bring about the continued and expanded fulfillment of these prophecies. Jesus gave us enough to consider them "fulfilled," and everything beyond that is just frosting on the cake.

Sanctified Imagination

If Micah could travel through time 2,700 years to our day, he would fall on his knees in praise and faithful gratitude to God for fulfilling his prophecies. We are not so grateful. We should be.

But we can start where we are and imagine even greater fulfillment of the "messianic" prophecies. We should take upon ourselves the exercise of faith and imagine how the earth will look 2,700 years into our future, and work and plan for that day.

Micah and Isaiah would say that their prophecies have been gloriously fulfilled. Those of us living today are the beneficiaries of centuries of theological sanctification from Isaiah's day, and can imagine even greater ways in which those prophecies can be further fulfilled.

But most Christians do not believe that Christ is fulfilling those prophecies and reigning as Messiah today.

The premillennialists are wrong for a number of reasons.

A. The Messianic Kingdom is Everlasting.
Not just 10 centuries, as millennialists hold

Isaiah 9:6-7
⁶ For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
⁷ Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

The Messianic Age Never Ends --  "world without end." Of the baby Jesus it was foretold:

Luke 1
³² He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:
³³ And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

This reign began 2,000 years ago. And it has only just begun.

while it is fashionable for modern Christian intellectuals to speak of our civilization as "post-Christian," we should turn that around and make it Biblically accurate: Our culture is not post-Christian - our culture is still largely pre-Christian!⁶
6. Cf. Loraine Boettner, The Millennium (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1957), pp. 38-47, 63-66; Benjamin B. Warfield, "Are There Few That Be Saved?" in Biblical and Theological Studies (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1968), pp. 334-350. Warfield cites William Temple: "The earth will in all probability be habitable for myriads of years yet. If Christianity is the final religion, the church is still in its infancy. Two thousand years are as two days. The appeal to the 'primitive church' is misleading; we are the 'primitive church'"; and James Adderly: "But we must remember that Christianity is a very young religion, and that we are only at the beginning of Christian history even now" (pp. 347f.).

and

The actual number of the saved, far from being limited to mere tens of thousands, is in reality a multitude that no one could count, so vast that it cannot be comprehended. For the fact is that Christ came to save the world. Traditionally -- although Calvinists have been technically correct in declaring that the full benefits of the atonement were intended only for the elect - both Calvinists and Arminians have tended to miss the point of John 3:16. That point has been beautifully summarized by Benjamin Warfield:

You must not fancy, then, that God sits helplessly by while the world, which He has created for Himself, hurtles hopelessly to destruction, and He is able only to snatch with difficulty here and there a brand from the universal burning. The world does not govern Him in a single one of its acts: He governs it and leads it steadily onward to the end which, from the beginning, or ever a beam of it had been laid, He had determined for it. ... Through all the years one increasing purpose runs, one increasing purpose: the kingdoms of the earth become ever more and more the Kingdom of our God and His Christ. The process may be slow; the progress may appear to our impatient eyes to lag. But it is God who is building: and under His hands the structure rises as steadily as it does slowly, and in due time the capstone shall be set into its place, and to our astonished eyes shall be revealed nothing less than a saved world."
Benjamin B. Warfield, from a sermon on John 3:16 entitled "God's Immeasurable Love," in Biblical and Theological Studies (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1968), pp. 518f.

[New York City contains not just residences, but businesses (e.g., "Wall Street") and parks (e.g., "Central Park"). The "Texas" link we provided above does not make this distinction.]

Then there are other planets.

People who want Jesus to return and set up a 1,000 year kingdom (when He's already/only been reigning for twice that long) and then end the whole "earth" business are quitters with no vision. That's probably most church-going Christians.

B. The Messianic Kingdom Grows Gradually

Daniel 2
The transformation is not instantaneous.
The Messianic Kingdom is not handed to us fully-developed on a silver platter
after we passively wait for it.

The statue in Daniel 2 represents the archist paradigm of the pre-Christian world. In Luke 4, Jesus was tempted by Satan:

⁵ The devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. ⁶ And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. ⁷ Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.”

Jesus destroyed the entire demonic imperial paradigm. The Last Adam restored the seed of the First Adam to our original purpose of building the City of God. But the weeds of the City of Man still need to be cut down as a part of tending The Garden. Replacing the City of Man with the City of God is a process called "sanctification." It applies socially as well as individually.

Isaiah 9:6-7 also shows us this idea of perpetual growth. The NRSV renders verse 7:

His authority shall grow continually

The  Vine & Fig Tree prophecy of Micah (4:1-7) also shows numerous evidences of continual growth:

• The nations are "streaming" to hear God's Word (verse 2), but they have not all gathered there yet.
• The nations are learning God's Law, but they are not fully "learned."
• The Law-Word of God has not fully "gone forth."
• The Messiah has not finished "rebuking" the nations,
• nor rendering decisions in their disputes. (verse 3)
• Not all swords have been hammered into plowshares
• "They" (the nations) must beat "their" own swords; the Messiah doesn't do it for them in one fell swoop.
• "Assembling," "gathering" and "making" (verses 6-7) are processes, not instant passive (for us) transformations. We the People have duties to carry out.

C. Process, not Perfection

The Messianic Kingdom grows. Of its increase "there will be no end" (Isaiah 9:6-7). That means it will never be "perfect." Even in "the New Heavens and New Earth" there is sin and death. But it is so much better than life in Isaiah's day, that it could only be communicated using wild, poetic language that has led many to believe it would be sinlessly perfect.

Isaiah 65:20

No longer will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days,
Or an old man who does not live out his days;
For the youth will die at the age of one hundred

And the one who does not reach the age of one hundred
Will be thought accursed.

Psalm 37:22

For such as be blessed of Him shall inherit the earth; and they that be cursed of Him shall be cut off.

Why would anyone in "the New Heavens and New Earth" be thought "accursed?" What basis would there be for entertaining such a notion, if there will be no sin? No sin, no curse.

 

Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

It is justly observed here by Mr. Scott, that “the event alone can certainly determine whether this is meant literally or figuratively; but it is evident that the universal prevalence of real Christianity would so terminate wars, murders, contentions, idleness, intemperance, and licentiousness, as greatly to lengthen out the general term of man’s life. Many diseases which now destroy thousands and tens of thousands in the prime of life, and communicate distempers to succeeding generations, would, in that case, scarcely be heard of any more; and thus the human constitution would soon be much mended, and children would generally come into the world more vigorous and healthy than they can do while vice so greatly prevails. What God may further intend in this matter we cannot determine.” Vitringa’s view of the passage seems to have been, that “there shall be no violent or punitive death in this holy city, but that all the inhabitants being holy, all shall die full of days and happy....”

In the eyes of most Christians, God Himself -- the Second Person of the Trinity -- comes to earth twice, and is still unable to persuade or empower human beings to exercise dominion in a loving, honest, and faithful manner. The first Christmas was full of promise, but ends in failure. So Christ comes a second time, thousands of years later, bringing an army of resurrected saints with Him, takes a seat on a throne in Jerusalem, rules with a rod of iron in a believers-vs.-unbelievers police state, and still, it all ends in failure. Toward the end of the 10th century of Christ's Messianic reign, Satan reigns for "a little season" (Revelation 20:3), encouraging masses of people to rebel against the personal, visible reign of Jesus Christ Himself. Seeing that He is going to lose the game, Jesus takes His football and goes home.

The very popular Christian writer Dave Hunt has written:

In fact, dominion – taking dominion and setting up the kingdom of Christ – is an impossibility, even for God. The millennial reign of Christ, far from being the kingdom, is actually the final proof of the incorrigible nature of the human heart, because Christ Himself can’t do it.[1]

"Impossible even for God." The Creator's idea of creating man in His Own Image and telling man to exercise dominion over the earth, converting the earth to God's Temple, building the City of God, was a mistake. Progress is not possible. Only regress. Earth is a failure. Jesus' prayer ("Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven") is just tilting at Satanic windmills. As Hal Lindsey put it, "Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth." Poor God.

Didn't God know when He created human beings that it would all turn out in failure? Why did He bother?

Jesus is the Messiah today, forever; not to be waited for in the future, to reign for a few short years, and to then lose a war when Satan is released "for a little season."

Prophecy as Law

When God promises a blessing (or when He threatens a curse) we know what God thinks is good or bad. If we respect God, we feel a moral obligation to pursue the good and eschew the bad.

David Chilton reminds us (Days of Vengeance, p. 27) of the words of B.B. Warfield: Prophecy is about Ethics, not just speculation about what will be handed to us on a silver platter in the future. It's real purpose is to cultivate obedient lives.

"We must try to keep fresh in our minds the great principle that all prophecy is ethical in its purpose, and that this ethical end controls not only what shall be revealed in general, but also the details of it, and the very form which it takes."

Benjamin B. Warfield, "The Prophecies of St. Paul," in Biblical and Theological Studies (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1968), p. 470.
 

4. The Blueprints

There is a standard by which we judge our efforts at constructing the Kingdom of God. It is the Bible.

Specifically, God's Law. (All of Scripture is Law, because all of Scripture is breathed-out by God, who is our Lord, and every utterance of a Sovereign is to be respected and obeyed by His vassals.)

The Bible makes up the blueprints for the building of the New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God. These Blueprints were drafted by the Master Architect. We are to follow the blueprints as servants and laborers, but God gets the glory. As Calvin put it:

As soon as we acknowledge God to be the supreme Architect, who has erected the beauteous fabric of the universe, our minds must necessarily be ravished with wonder at his infinite goodness, wisdom, and power.

Rushdoony has written that God's Law is God's Plan for Victory and Dominion. God's Law commands us to build the Kingdom of God, and tells us exactly how to do this. God's Law both commands and promises success in building the Kingdom of God.

Such Promises ("blessings") are found in our fourth text: Leviticus 26 (see also Deuteronomy 28).

Obedience to God's commandments brings blessings, specifically, the blessing of peace.
Peace means freedom from the initiation of force or threats of violence by others. Since archists are those who employ violence as a means to an end, "peace" means "freedom from archists." The Bible distinguishes "workmen" from the "horns" of power (Zechariah 1:18-21), and if we work to build God's Kingdom and do not become archists, God will keep those nasty archists away from us:

Proverbs 16:7
When a man’s ways please the LORD,
He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

3. The Purpose of Man

Our text here is "the Dominion Mandate," Genesis 1:26-28. Also, Genesis 2:15,19

Here we read the purpose for which God created Man.
Human beings were created to "exercise dominion" over the earth as stewards of God's property.
This means growing and building the Kingdom of God, for the glory of God.
This means transforming a wilderness into a Garden, and the Garden into the City of God, the New Jerusalem, a city of unlimited growth and wealth.

I have benefited from a book entitled, Images of the Spirit by Meredith G. Kline. Kline suggests that the physical theophanic Glory of the Holy Spirit, who hovered over the original earth creation in Gen 1:2, served as the "divine model" for man's creation. In expounding these themes, Kline develops a system of typology where the Garden of Eden, the tabernacle, temple, priest and prophet are all modeled after the archetypal form of the Glory-Spirit, which is a model of heaven itself. Jesus taught us to pray that God's will would be done "on earth as it is in heaven." Comparing the first chapters of Genesis and the last chapters of Revelation suggests that man's original purpose is nothing less than building the City of God, the New Jerusalem. Edenic motifs are clearly seen in Revelation 21. The "newness" of the "New" Jerusalem is the absence of the ceremonial temple, and the liturgical or restorative patterns of reconciling God and sinners found in the Old Covenant. Just as man was to "dress and keep" the Garden, so he was/is to dress the entire world into the City of God.

Many people object to the idea that man builds the Kingdom of God. They say this is "humanistic," and that the Polis of God must be created wholly by God with no participation by man, and then handed to man on a silver platter. Correct thinking on this issue requires a "paradigm shift." Hal Lindsey represents the old paradigm:

There used to be a group called "postmillennialists." They believed that the Christians would root out all the evil in the world, abolish godless rulers, and convert the world through ever-increasing evangelism until they brought about the Kingdom of God through their own efforts. Then after 1000 years of the institutional church reigning on earth with peace, equality and righteousness, Christ would return and time would end. These people rejected much of the Scripture as being literal and believed in the inherent goodness of man. World War I greatly disheartened this group and World War II virtually wiped out this viewpoint. No self-respecting scholar who looks at the world conditions and the accelerating decline of Christian influence today is a "postmillennialist."
Hal Lindsey, The Late, Great Planet Earth, 1970, p. 176

The idea that Christians would bring about the Kingdom of God "through their own efforts" is a real red-flag for these kind of Christians. They say it reeks of "secular humanism."

Obviously, "anarcho-preterists" do not believe that The City of God is designed by a joint act of Congress. The New Jerusalem is not the vision of an ecclesiastical council or synod, or ecumenical one-world religion. But even as the leaders of church and state conspired together to kill Jesus, even today they are unwittingly orchestrated by the "Invisible Hand of Divine Providence" to enlarge the City of God.

The New Jerusalem is the Bride of Christ, and she must adorn herself for her Husband with righteous acts (Revelation 21:2; 19:7-8; Psalm 45:9-14; Isaiah 54:5; 61:10; 62:4).

But God still gets all the credit.

Consider the "Division of Labor" (Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12).
There is not a single person on planet earth who can build a pencil from scratch. This is because all the labor and skills required to extract the raw materials from God's Creation and assemble them into a pencil are divided among many human beings, no one of them possessing all the skills and knowledge needed to plant and harvest trees, extract and refine chemicals, and build the equipment which fabricates a pencil. While Faber-Castell might get credit for making pencils, many other companies had a hand in the task. Previous generations saw the global human economy as being overseen by an "Invisible Hand." Also called "Providence," about which we'll see more below.

Ultimately, only God can get credit for building the New Jerusalem, but man is commanded to do the work.

Imagine the construction of a large apartment. I mean really large, like 432 Park Avenue, the tallest residential building in New York. Or five of the ten tallest buildings in the world, found in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. One of these buildings can house 25,000 human beings. Who gets "credit" for building one of these buildings? Maybe the architect -- except it was a team of architects. Maybe the CEO of the Construction firm, but he personally does not know how to build a cement mixer. Suppose your vocation is being a plumber, and you were hired to install a unique sink in one of the residences on the 32nd floor during the construction of one of these buildings. Do you get credit for building the building? Of course not. You knew very little about what kind of building was being constructed. You were just fulfilling your individual calling as a plumber. Should you say, "This is not my building, so I'm not going to contribute to its edification?" That would be disobedient.

Each human being has a calling to build part of the Kingdom of God. It is man's job to build the kingdom. God gets all the credit.

Man's divine purpose on earth is to create a flourishing anarchist society, overseen only by an Invisible Hand.

Click bait. To "click," just keep reading.

7. Gospel / Good News

• It is a way of looking at God and Providence. ("Government")
• It is a way of looking at our duty to serve our neighbors and the world. (service)
• It is a way of looking at prophecy and the future. (civilization)

Freedom from archists is the Gospel (good news).

Preach the Gospel

I'm suggesting that God makes this offer: "preach the gospel" -- announce the "good news" -- and God will bring "peace on earth" (Luke 2:14) and a “Vine & Fig Tree” world.

For purposes of this "offer," all you have to do is preach the Gospel to ten human beings. Friends or total strangers. Or even to just one.

By "preach" I don't mean go to seminary to get prepared to "preach" in some formal rhetorical or ecclesiastical sense. I just mean send an email, make a phone call, or walk across the street and knock on the door. It's the message -- the Good News -- that's important, not the polished delivery of erudite oratory. The power is in the Word.

In the Roman Empire at the time of the New Testament, a "preacher" was an imperial messenger, or "herald," who brought official announcements from the Emperor. Since imperial announcements always take the form of "We're from the government, and we're here to help," the "herald" or "preacher" is said to have brought a message of "good news," which is the meaning of the word "gospel." "Help" in this case is the Biblical word "salvation." David Chilton gives an example of the imperial gospel of Rome, and contrasts the imperial gospel with the good news proclaimed by heralds of the Christ:

After Julius Caesar died (29 B.C.), a temple honoring him as divus (god) was built in Ephesus. The Caesars who followed him didn't wait for death to provide such honors, and, beginning with Octavian, they asserted their own divinity, displaying their titles of deity in temples and on coins, particularly in the cities of Asia. Octavian changed his name to Augustus, a title of supreme majesty, dignity and reverence. He was called the Son of God, and as the divine-human mediator between heaven and earth he offered sacrifices to the gods. He was widely proclaimed as the Savior of the world, and the inscriptions on his coins were quite frankly messianic - their message declaring, as Ethelbert Stauffer has written, that "salvation is to be found in none other save Augustus, and there is no other name given to men in which they can be saved" (Christ and the Caesars [Westminster, 1955], p. 88).

The witness of the apostles and the early Church was nothing less than a declaration of war against the pretensions of the Roman State. John asserted that Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God (John 3:16); that He is, in fact, "the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:20-21). The Apostle Peter declared, shortly after Pentecost: "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). "The conflict of Christianity with Rome was thus political from the Roman perspective, although religious from the Christian perspective. The Christians were never asked to worship Rome's pagan gods; they were merely asked to recognize the religious primacy of the state…. The issue, then, was this: should the emperor's law, state law, govern both the state and the church, or were both state and church, emperor and bishop alike, under God's law? Who represented true and ultimate order, God or Rome, eternity or time? The Roman answer was Rome and time, and hence Christianity constituted a treasonable faith and a menace to political order" (Rushdoony, The One and the Many, p. 93).

Christian "preachers" were therefore perceived by the Empire as radical, revolutionary, anarchists; threats to the stability of the Empire.

The Biblical Gospel is thus not "good news" for the Empire.

[It is a remarkable fact that Jesus taught His disciples to "Render unto Caesar," Paul wrote to Christians at Rome to "be subject" to the Emperor and pay their taxes (Romans 13:1-7), and Peter wrote to obey "every ordinance of man" (1 Peter 2:13ff.), and yet tax-paying model-citizen Christians were put to death. Why would the Empire kill this reliable source of tax revenue and model citizenship? Answer: because Empire is a false religion, and Christianity is a rival religion in absolute opposition to the central claims of Empire.]

The Biblical Gospel is an attack and a re-writing of the imperial "gospel." Christians re-defined the meaning of "preach" as well as the "gospel" that was preached.

I'm going to define the word "gospel" in a way that you may not have heard before, even though it's right there in the Bible.
The whole point of this website is to get you to learn the Bible better, love what you learn, and live it out in your life.

The "Good News" is that Jesus is the Christ. Jesus, not man, is King. (For more historical information, see What is the Gospel?. See also Paul's Gospel and Caesar's Empire by N. T. Wright. A bit of a digression: The New Testament and the "State" by N.T. Wright.)

When Caesar's herald/preacher came into town to announce the parousia ("coming") of the Emperor, there was an implicit or explicit call for allegiance on the part of those who heard the Empire's "Gospel." The hearers' could not expect to receive Caesar's "salvation" without this allegiance. This is also true of Jesus' "Gospel of the Kingdom." See Justification by Allegiance.

"Gospel" means "Good News." The "good news" is usually said to be "Salvation." But what is the Biblical doctrine of "Salvation?" Is it only "You get to go to heaven when you die?" No, this offer doesn't mean you preach "The Four Spiritual Laws," or "The Romans Road to Heaven," I mean the doctrine of "salvation" which the whole Bible -- from Genesis to Revelation -- announces.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT "THE GOSPEL" IS?

What is "the Gospel?"

The literal meaning of the Greek word for "Gospel" is the "good news."

So what is the "good news?" That sounds like a simple question, and most Christians could probably give a simple answer, but their answer would be, in most cases, simply inadequate. The overwhelming majority of "christians" today have a crippled view of "the Gospel."

Q.: Are you sure you're going to heaven?

A.: Yes, because I believe the Gospel!

Q.: What is "the Gospel?"

A.: "Believe the Gospel and you shall go to heaven."

Q.: But what exactly is "the Gospel" to be believed?

A.: The Gospel is the 'Good News' that everyone who believes the Gospel -- whether Jew or Gentile -- gets to go to heaven.

Q.: But how would you state the content of "the Gospel" that both Jews and Gentiles should believe?

A.: That you go to heaven based on whether you believe the Gospel, not based on your works.

Do I sense an impenetrable circle here?

I'm betting you've never thought about the "gospel" as I'm going to present it. I'll back my viewpoint up with hundreds of Bible verses. I want you to become like the Bereans (Acts 17:11).

The word "Gospel" means "Good News."

So what is the "Good News?"

Most Christians believe the "good news" that if you say the magic words, you'll go to heaven when you die, but in the meantime life on earth is getting worse and worse, the darkness will spread over billions and billions of people, and Satan ultimately triumphs.

Is that the "good news?"

Before you answer that question, consider this question: "Why did God put human beings on planet earth?"

It is common among some Christians to say that someone who has died has "gone home to be with the Lord."

Why did God kick us out of our homes and put us on this planet?

Isn't this planet our home?

Did God have "high hopes" for human beings on this planet? Wasn't the first command recorded in Scripture to "exercise dominion" over the earth (Genesis 1:26-28)? Was God unable to see into the future and see that mankind would fail at this task? Did God make a mistake? Why not just let us stay at home?

It is certainly true that the First Adam rebelled against God. But what did "the Last Adam" (1 Corinthians 15:45) do?

Here's my answer: The job of the First Adam was to develop the Garden of Eden into the New Jerusalem. (The last three chapters of Revelation echo the first three chapters of Genesis: the "City of God" is a fully-developed Eden.) The "Last Adam" restored fallen mankind to our original position of fellowship with God, and after we clear out all the weeds that our sin caused, we will resume our dominion assignment and succeed in building the New Jerusalem, the global City of God.

For you "heresy-hunters," I'm advocating a radical post-millennial view. Actually, a "preterist" view, from the Latin word for "past." "Preterism" stands in contrast to "futurism." Most Christians today are "futurists." More to come on this.

Futurists tend to be "New Testament Christians," while "preterists" (and Christian Reconstructionists) put an emphasis on the whole Bible, from cover to cover, including the Old Testament.

Most Futurists today believe Jesus came to give us a ticket to heaven when we die. In the meantime, Satan rules the planet. The future has no hope. Their story of the Bible goes like this:

• God created planet earth;
• God put human beings on earth to be good stewards, and transform the Garden of Eden into the City of God;
• Satan tempted man;
• Man rebelled against God, choosing to be his own god instead;
• Satan now controls the world;
• Jesus came to de-throne Satan and reign as the Messiah, but the Jews rejected Him;
• He promises to come back and try again
• In the meantime, things are going to get worse and worse;
• Satan has successfully ruled this planet for the last 6,000 years, including 2,000 years since the first coming of Jesus;
• At His second coming, Jesus sits on a throne in Jerusalem, reigning as Messiah.
• But His reign only lasts 1,000 years -- less than one-sixth the amount of time Satan rules over the earth -- when Satan leads a rebellion.
• Jesus can tell that Satan and his forces are not playing God's game by God's rules, and Satan is going to win the game, so Jesus decides to take his cosmic football and go home. History ends.

In other words, Satan wins.

Pretty dismal story, isn't it?

Not much of a "gospel" ("good news") is it?

Sure, God sent His Son, who died on the cross, so that some of the players can be forgiven for their rebellion and go home with God, but God's original purposes for man and the creation were thwarted by Satan, the ultimate victor.

Didn't God know that His plan of giving human beings dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:26-28) was doomed to failure?

Didn't God know that His plan of sending His Son to establish a Kingdom of Peace would be defeated by Satan and the human beings that Satan won to his false gospel?

The popular Christian writer Dave Hunt has written:

In fact, dominion – taking dominion and setting up the kingdom of Christ – is an impossibility, even for God. The millennial reign of Christ, far from being the kingdom, is actually the final proof of the incorrigible nature of the human heart, because Christ Himself can’t do it.[1]

"Impossible even for God." Wow.

The Creator's idea of creating man in His Own Image and telling man to exercise dominion over the earth, converting the earth to God's Temple, building the City of God, was a mistake. Progress is not possible. Only regress. Earth is a failure. Jesus' prayer ("Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven") is just tilting at Satanic windmills. As Hal Lindsey put it, "Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth." And always will be. Poor God.

Global Transformation

In contrast to a "futurism" (which really has no future), is a radical preterism. It looks like this:

• Christians follow Christ's "Great Commission" and continue to evangelize, disciple converts, and reconstruct society along Biblical lines.
• B.B. Warfield, a towering figure among Reformed theologians, came to the conclusion that before Christ's Second Coming (in our future; Warfield was a "partial preterist," not a "full preterist") Christ's church would discharge the Great Commission and the Holy Spirit would convert every human being on planet earth, so that
       the earth will be filled With the knowledge of the glory of the LORD,
       As the waters cover the sea.
       Habakkuk 2:14
• Warfield was an opponent of "perfectionism," but let us suppose that an obedient church not only preaches the gospel and sees the world converted, but makes disciples of the converts, teaching them to observe all that Christ commanded, and just as the church saw fruit in perfect evangelism/justification, the church's work is blessed by the Holy Spirit and the world experiences perfect discipleship/sanctification, and a universally converted world is also a perfectly obedient sanctified world.
• The Bible says that obedience to God's Commands brings blessings (Leviticus 26), while disobedience brings curses (Deuteronomy 28). Perfect sanctified obedience then brings unparalleled and unimaginable blessings on earth, including long life-spans (Isaiah 65), and the eradication of thorns, thistles, sweat, and pain in childbirth. And
  • Of the increase of His government and peace
    There will be no end
    (Isaiah 9:6-7).
• God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven (Mathew 6:10). That is to say, perfectly.
• A “Vine & Fig Tree” world is the result (see below).
• Again, the full expansion of God's blessings under these circumstances is literally nothing less than "unimaginable." We can't even imagine it, just as the prophet Micah, living 700 years before the birth of Christ, could not have imagined the standard of living we enjoy 2,000 years after Christ.
• The "Last Adam" (1 Corinthians 15:45) completely triumphs over and reverses the effects of the First Adam.
• James Jordan writes,
  • The Bible pictures the earth as a house, as in Job 38:4-6. Just as the earth is pictured as a house, so is heaven. Heaven is a separate house from earth, and is the model home that earth is to imitate. We pray, therefore, "Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as in heaven." The goal of history is for heaven to impress itself on earth, so that eventually heaven and earth are one, and there is one house."
• Jordan does not deny the unbridgeable gap between the Creator and the Creation (Romans 1:25), however, some theologians have written about the "divinization of man," and perhaps also of the entire creation.

Many futurists -- even those who acknowledge that there may not be any verses of Scripture which were intended to predict an event thousands or millions of years after the closing of the canon -- believe there must be a radical, discontinuous event in our future in order to reverse the curse that was brought about by the First Adam. But this is not a claim made by the Bible itself. There's no Biblical reason why universal sanctification cannot reverse the curse.

Childbirth is an interesting case in point. When God announces that Satan's temptation has resulted in pain for women in bearing children, it is clear that this is a change from the way things originally would have been: joyful, pain-free childbirth. Futurists believe that "in the resurrection" (Matthew 22:30) there is no marriage, no sex, no childbirth. (While futurists do not take literally Paul's claim that "there is neither male nor female" [Galatians 3:28], they generally take Jesus literally on this point.) That means that during all of human history, Satan triumphs over God's original plan of joyful pain-free childbirth. Women will never experience God's original vision, not in history, nor even in eternity. Never. Satan wins.

So here's the question:

Which perspective gives more glory to God:

1. A creation that was surrendered by the First Adam to be ruled by Satan, and has to be completely destroyed, in a discontinuous transition from failure in history to glory only in eternity
    or
2. A creation that is re-made by the Last Adam, in history, so that the knowledge (and glory) of God covers the earth and continues to increase for an innumerable billions of years

I'm arguing for Option "B."

David Chilton writes:

while it is fashionable for modern Christian intellectuals to speak of our civilization as "post-Christian," we should turn that around and make it Biblically accurate: Our culture is not post-Christian - our culture is still largely pre-Christian!⁶
6. Cf. Loraine Boettner, The Millennium (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1957), pp. 38-47, 63-66; Benjamin B. Warfield, "Are There Few That Be Saved?" in Biblical and Theological Studies (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1968), pp. 334-350. Warfield cites William Temple: "The earth will in all probability be habitable for myriads of years yet. If Christianity is the final religion, the church is still in its infancy. Two thousand years are as two days. The appeal to the 'primitive church' is misleading; we are the 'primitive church'"; and James Adderly: "But we must remember that Christianity is a very young religion, and that we are only at the beginning of Christian history even now" (pp. 347f.).

and

The actual number of the saved, far from being limited to mere tens of thousands, is in reality a multitude that no one could count, so vast that it cannot be comprehended. For the fact is that Christ came to save the world. Traditionally -- although Calvinists have been technically correct in declaring that the full benefits of the atonement were intended only for the elect - both Calvinists and Arminians have tended to miss the point of John 3:16. That point has been beautifully summarized by Benjamin Warfield:

You must not fancy, then, that God sits helplessly by while the world, which He has created for Himself, hurtles hopelessly to destruction, and He is able only to snatch with difficulty here and there a brand from the universal burning. The world does not govern Him in a single one of its acts: He governs it and leads it steadily onward to the end which, from the beginning, or ever a beam of it had been laid, He had determined for it. ... Through all the years one increasing purpose runs, one increasing purpose: the kingdoms of the earth become ever more and more the Kingdom of our God and His Christ. The process may be slow; the progress may appear to our impatient eyes to lag. But it is God who is building: and under His hands the structure rises as steadily as it does slowly, and in due time the capstone shall be set into its place, and to our astonished eyes shall be revealed nothing less than a saved world."
Benjamin B. Warfield, from a sermon on John 3:16 entitled "God's Immeasurable Love," in Biblical and Theological Studies (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1968), pp. 518f.

What does a "saved world" look like?

That may be the main point of this "offer."

Warfield was a robust post-millennialist. He believed there would come a point in time when every single human being on the face of the earth was a born-again Christian. Before the "second coming" of Christ.

Warfield wrote vigorously and profusely against "perfectionism." But what if the Body of Christ not only fulfilled the Great Commission of Evangelism and everyone was "justified by faith," but the Church fulfilled the Great Commission of Discipleship, and everyone was not just "saved," but sanctified. "Nothing less than a saved world," and nothing less than a sanctified world.

That's the answer to the question, "What is the Gospel?"

I'm not going to defend the claim that in the Bible the word "Gospel" never means "going to heaven when you die."
What I'm defending is the claim that most of the time in the Bible the "Gospel" is a "saved world." (The emphasis is on the word "saved." Sometimes the word "world" actually means "land." It could also mean "nation" in some contexts. A "saved nation" means a nation that experiences the blessings of “Vine & Fig Tree” security and prosperity.)

I'll start with the very clear declaration in Galatians 3:8

That's "the Gospel."

The Scripture preached "the Gospel" to Abraham. The Scripture preached the "Good News."

Q.: What was the good news?
A.: World-wide blessing.
Q.: What is "blessing?"
A.: Salvation: Being delivered from our enemies and living securely in peace and prosperity, free from archists in a  “Vine & Fig Tree”  world.
Q.: How do we obtain God's blessing?
A.: By faithfully obeying His commandments.
Q.: Is that possible before the Second Coming?
A.: That is the promise of the New Covenant.

Jeremiah 31

³¹ “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— ³² not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. ³³ But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

Ezekiel 11:19-20

¹⁹ And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:
²⁰ That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

Ezekiel 36:27

²⁷ And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

Jeremiah 31:33 + Galatians 3:8
New Covenant = obedience to God's Law
New Covenant = blessing throughout the world
New Covenant = salvation/peace/safety
New Covenant = freedom from archists

Your church will not likely support you in pursuing New Covenant obedience to God's Law.
Especially if God's Law is understood as prohibiting archism.
You may be interested in joining "The Perfect Club."
Your church may become your mission field.

Gospel as "Blessings"

Galatians 3:8 says this is the Gospel:

"In thee shall all nations be blessed."

What does being "blessed" mean?

The televangelists say that if you give their "ministry" a "seed offering" of your entire Social Security check, that God will "bless" you with a pink Cadillac. Or something.

That's not the Biblical view of "blessing."

In the Bible, "blessings" are the rewards that God promises to those who obey His Commandments.

Paul, for example, tells the Ephesians,

Ephesians 6 ¹Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ²“Honor your father and mother” [Exodus 20:12], which is the first commandment with promise: ³“that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”

If you aren't convinced of the relationship between "blessing" and "obedience," please read Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. Both chapters are devoted entirely to the concept of "blessings for obedience" and "curses for disobedience." It's a major theme in the Bible.

For all intents and purposes, "blessing" in the Bible means "salvation." I'm going to prove that claim in spades.

Among the "blessings" promised in Leviticus is presence of the Kingdom as described by the prophet Micah, in his “Vine & Fig Tree” prophecy, and the absence of all the bad things that happened in the 20th century, and that will happen in abundance if you reject this "offer." But we'll get to that. For now, consider

Leviticus 26:

³ ‘If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them,

⁴ then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

⁵ Your threshing shall last till the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last till the time of sowing;

you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.

⁶ I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none will make you afraid;

I will rid the land of evil beasts,

and the sword will not go through your land.

⁹ ‘For I will look on you favorably and make you fruitful, multiply you and confirm My covenant with you.

¹² I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.

¹³ I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves;

I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you walk upright.

¹⁴ ‘But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments,

¹⁵ and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant,

¹⁶ I also will do this to you:

I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart.

And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

¹⁷ I will set My face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies.

Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you.

²³ ‘And if by these things you are not reformed by Me, but walk contrary to Me,

²⁴ then I also will walk contrary to you, and I will punish you yet seven times for your sins.

²⁵ And I will bring a sword against you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant;

when you are gathered together within your cities I will send pestilence among you;

and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

²⁷ ‘And after all this, if you do not obey Me, but walk contrary to Me,

³¹ I will lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet aromas.

³² I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it.

³³ I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you;

your land shall be desolate and your cities waste.

³⁶ ‘And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies;

the sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee;

they shall flee as though fleeing from a sword , and they shall fall when no one pursues.

³⁷ They shall stumble over one another, as it were before a sword , when no one pursues;

and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies.

³⁸ You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.

³⁹ And those of you who are left shall waste away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands;

also in their fathers’ iniquities, which are with them, they shall waste away.

⁴⁰ ‘But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, and that they also have walked contrary to Me,

⁴¹ and that I also have walked contrary to them and have brought them into the land of their enemies;

if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they accept their guilt—

⁴² then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham I will remember;

I will remember the land.

⁴⁶ These are the statutes and judgments and laws which the Lord made between Himself and the children of Israel on Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.

Blessings: "Dwell in your land safely." "None will make you afraid."
These phrases occur throughout the Bible.

Cursings: God will send a sword.

Blessings if we obey, cursings if we disobey.

Futurists will say that human beings will not be obedient until after the Second Coming of Christ, some time in our future.

But it was a central part of Jeremiah's promise of the New Covenant that God's people would have God's Commandments written on their hearts and would be obedient.

Familiarity with Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 is essential here. No doubt Paul was familiar with the concept, since he repeated it in Ephesians 6:1-3.

The word "gospel" means "good news." In the Bible, the "good news" is that Jesus is the Christ, the promised Messiah, who brings the “Vine & Fig Tree” world.

The good news is "Joy to the World!"

"He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found"

"Salvation" Reverses the Fall

I spoke above about James 1:27 and the definition of True Religion. I'd like to look at two other places where this concept of pure religion is found.

First, in the third section of Matthew 25, Jesus talks about the judgment of the sheep and the goats. The sheep had pure religion because they looked after "the least of these."

Second, in Mark 10:42-45, Jesus finds His disciples arguing about who is going to be the "greatest" in the coming Kingdom. Jesus says the greatest will be those who serve, presumably serve "the least of these," like the widows and fatherless of James 1:27.

But Jesus also says the reverse: not only will the greatest in the Kingdom be those who are servants, but Jesus warns about those who want to be like "the kings of the Gentiles." They like to impose their own will on others by force and threats of violence. They invade and conquer with military violence. Jesus says they like to rule rather than serve. I've created a new word for people who want to rule rather than serve. The word for "rule" in Mark 10:42-45 is the Greek word from which we derive the English word "anarchist." Jesus tells His disciples not to be "archists" like "the kings of the Gentiles."

Israel lusted after the kings of the Gentiles (1 Samuel 8), and wanted a king like the Gentiles had. God says the desire for creaturely "archists" is a rejection of God the Creator. Jesus is the only legitimate "Archist." 

Jesus is the One True Archist

Reflect on Leviticus 26 above. The "enemies" who bear "the sword" and prevent God's people from "dwelling safely" are "archists."

The Fall of Man

Man's basic sin against God is the desire to "be as gods."

Genesis 3
⁴  And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
⁵ For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

An aspect of this rebellion is the desire to get something for nothing, or something without working for it. (James Jordan has argued that Adam and Eve would eventually have been allowed to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, but they were required to work for it first and become mature.)

This is a major motivation for forming "the State" and conquering other people. (The other one being vengeance.)

God is man's Governor. Man rejects God's Government by desiring to be his own governor.

God punishes man for his rebellion by granting him his wishes. When man lusts for political power, God gives it to him.

Then in His mercy, God saves the repentant sinner by delivering him from the political disease.

If we obey God's commandments, we will not have war; God will not send "the sword" against us.

Those who bear the sword are archists who seek to "be as gods." Scripture repeatedly refers to archists as "gods." And archists often refer to themselves as "gods." We saw this above. When Jesus was asked about paying tribute to Caesar, He asked to see the tribute coin. Rushdoony writes:

The practical reality was thus made clear. These men used the coins of Tiberius which carried a "bust of Tiberius in Olympian nakedness, adorned with the laurel wreath, the sign of divinity." The inscription read, "Emperor Tiberius August Son of the August God," on the one side, and "Pontifex Maximus" or "High Priest" on the other. The symbols also included the emperor's mother, Julia Augusta (Livia) sitting on the throne of the gods, holding the Olympian sceptre in her right hand, and, in her left, the olive branch to signify that "she was the earthly incarnation of the heavenly Pax."⁷ The Coins thus had a religious significance. Israel was in a certain sense serving other gods by being subject to Rome and to Roman currency.
⁷ Ethelbert Stauffer, Christ and the Caesars (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1955), p.124f.

Hundreds of verses in the Bible make this clear: archists = "gods"

I will argue below that peace is possible only in a state of "an-archy," that is, the absence of "archists." This is a "paradigm shift."

When we disobey God's Law, God sends archists as a judgment/curse against us. Archists and their "sword" are a curse which God "ordains" (Romans 13).

We see this repeatedly in the Scripture. Israel lusts after gentile archists (like Moloch, which means "king"). God delivers Israel into the hand of these pagan archists, and Israel cries out for deliverance, and God delivers them by sending a deliverer, or "savior" or "judge" who "saves" Israel from the pagan archists.

"Salvation" -- in case after case in the Bible -- means freedom from sword-bearing archists. To vote for a creaturely sword-bearing king to bring salvation is to reject God the Creator as Savior (Romans 1:25; 1 Samuel 8).

Here's how Nehemiah sums up Israel's history of rebelling against God's Law and then being "saved" from the consequences of their disobedience:

Nehemiah 9:23-31

23 You also multiplied their children as the stars of heaven,
And brought them into the land
Which You had told their fathers
To go in and possess.
24 So the people went in
And possessed the land;
You subdued before them the inhabitants of the land,
The Canaanites,
And gave them into their hands,
With their kings
And the people of the land,
That they might do with them as they wished.
25 And they took strong cities and a rich land,
And possessed houses full of all goods,
Cisterns already dug, vineyards, olive groves,
And fruit trees in abundance.
So they ate and were filled and grew fat,
And delighted themselves in Your great goodness.
26 “Nevertheless they were disobedient
And rebelled against You,
Cast Your law behind their backs
And killed Your prophets, who testified against them
To turn them to Yourself;
And they worked great provocations.
27 Therefore You delivered them into the hand of their enemies,
Who oppressed them;
And in the time of their trouble,
When they cried to You,
You heard from heaven;
And according to Your abundant mercies
You gave them saviors who saved them
From the hand of their enemies.
28 “But after they had rest,
They again did evil before You.
Therefore You left them in the hand of their enemies,
So that they had dominion over them;
Yet when they returned and cried out to You,
You heard from heaven;
And many times You delivered them according to Your mercies,
29 And testified against them,
That You might bring them back to Your law.
Yet they acted proudly,
And did not heed Your commandments,
But sinned against Your judgments,
‘Which if a man does, he shall live by them.’
And they shrugged their shoulders,
Stiffened their necks,
And would not hear.
30 Yet for many years You had patience with them,
And testified against them by Your Spirit in Your prophets.
Yet they would not listen;
Therefore You gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands.
31 Nevertheless in Your great mercy
You did not utterly consume them nor forsake them;
For You are God, gracious and merciful.

To be "saved out of the hand of their enemies" is to be saved from the sword of archists. God sent Israel many "saviors." When Bible-believers think of a "savior," they think of someone who will save Israel "out of the hand of their enemies." The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph, and said:

Matthew 1:18-23

Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.

A first-century Jew, steeped in the Scriptures, would hear this as a promise to save "His people" from the consequences of their sins, the curses imposed on them by God because of their rebellion against His Law. John the Baptist's father "Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying"

Luke 1:67-80

⁶⁸ “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel,
For He has visited and redeemed His people,
⁶⁹ And has raised up a horn of salvation for us
In the house of His servant David,
⁷¹ That we should be saved from our enemies
And from the hand of all who hate us,
⁷⁴ To grant us that we,
Being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
Might serve Him without fear,
⁷⁵ In holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.
⁷⁹ To guide our feet into the way of peace.”

The Babe born in Bethlehem saved Christians in the first century from their enemies: the Jews who collaborated with Rome. Then the Rock destroyed Rome, and has filled the earth with Christian Civilization -- The City of God. The growing and filling continues.

Consider this classic Christmas text:

Luke 2:8-20

⁸ Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. ¹⁰ Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. ¹¹ For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹² And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”

¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:

¹⁴        “Glory to God in the highest,
              and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

What would a first-century Israelite think if an angel of the LORD announced the coming of a "savior?" They would doubtless think back to all the saviors in the [Old Testament] Scriptures. Those saviors did not just promise a ticket to heaven when everyone died. They promised to save Israel from the consequences of her sins. Those consequences included "the Sword." Freedom from the sword is one aspect of the holistic Biblical concept of Salvation, and one of the benefits of a Biblical savior. The savior brought the benefits ("blessings") of obedience upon a people who had not been obedient, but who had repented of their disobedience.

Jesus was a Savior in this Biblical tradition. He came to bring Salvation. He came to save His people from their enemies, so they could get on with the work of building the New Jerusalem.

A Biblical "Savior" Brings Biblical "Salvation"

"Salvation" is holistic/cultural/economic, not just a ticket to heaven when you die. We'll see this below in more detail.

1. The word: yasha
2. The deed: what "saviors" did -- they did just not pass out tickets to heaven when you die

1. evil/enemies were raised up by God as "punishment" or incentive to repent
2. evil/enemies are the consequence of unrepentant sin
   1. idolatry - false religion
   2. political alliances with pagans
   3.  trusting in violence/archism
3. Deliverance from evil = saved from sins (and the consequences of sin, which are God's judgments)

The Hebrew word in the Bible

Imagine you're sitting on the front porch, and God walks up to you and says "Can I join you?" You say yes, and God asks if He can tell you a story. You say yes, and God begins to recite the Bible. Approximately 70 hours later, He finishes His story. What's the point?

Each of these verses containing save/savior/salvation is found in an account of history. Each of these historical pearls are strung together in a necklace we call Scripture. Over and over, we are given this message in God's Word:

Idolatry --> Slavery --> Salvation

"Idolatry" is the desire for a false god, a creaturely archist, instead of the True God, our Creator-King. (I Samuel 8; Romans 1:25)
When we commit idolatry, God gives us over to our gods/archists/idols in the form of conquest, slavery, war, or other evils.
If we repent of voting for archists, God sends a savior to deliver us from the political and social consequences of our idolatry.

Government

1. Capitalism or Socialism?

We keep moving in a socialist direction rather than a capitalist direction because moving in a capitalist direction leads to anarcho-capitalism <-- everyone has been programmed in socialist schools (or "private" schools approved by the socialist planners) to oppose "anarcho-."

2. The Biggest Lie

A society that is Biblical is archist-free. Our next three texts show this.

Consider Isaiah 33:22

For the Lord is our Judge,
The Lord is our Lawgiver,
The Lord is our King;
He will save us

Notice all three "branches" of government are seen here.

God governs from heaven through Providence, not visible physical enthronement in Jerusalem. This is the major error of the "pre-millennialists." See this discussion of the "invisible hand." Micah's Vine & Fig Tree prophecy (Micah 4:1-7) says

And He will judge between many peoples
And render decisions for mighty, distant nations.

While it's true that Jesus is the Word, the Word does not judge by sitting on a visible, physical throne in Jerusalem. "The Word" that judges nations is God's Law:

For from Zion will go forth the Law
Even the Word of the LORD from Jerusalem.asdf

As we saw above, man's chief purpose on earth is to build the City of God. The New Jerusalem is not handed to man on a silver platter fully-built. It is built by the "invisible Hand" of "Divine Providence," but God uses obedient and responsible human agents. An "invisible" Hand requires visible human servants, who are hands, feet, eyes, and other "members" of the Body of Christ.

Israel rejected this concept.
Israel wanted visible physical archists like the Gentiles had. Emperors, Pharaohs, Molochs, and Caesars.
This brings us to our sixth key text: 1 Samuel 8

Read the passage. Read the commentary in that link. The Bible says Israel, in desiring a king like the Gentiles had, was rejecting God. This is an awe-ful and profound indictment. Israel, "the chosen people," rejected the God who chose them, preferring the central-planning archist gods of the pagans. The Israelites were idolators.

Of course, Israel's rejection of God didn't stop God from governing. We hear much from premillennialists that Jesus offered Himself to Israel as Messiah, but Israel rejected Him as King, so He could only be "savior." This is nuts. Jesus was King whether the Jewish establishment wanted Him or not, and He destroyed apostate Israel in a day of fiery vengeance.

Luke 21:20 
“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near. ²² For these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.” 

Luke 19:14,27
¹⁴ But his citizens hated him, and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We will not have this man to reign over us.’
²⁷ But bring here those enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, and slay them before me.’”

Matthew 22:1-14
But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. (cf. 2 Thessalonians 1:3-10)

We see the error of 1 Samuel 8 in Christ's apostles before they were filled with the Spirit. They not only wanted Jesus to be a visible physical archist to overthrow the Roman occupation army, they too wanted archist powers to take vengeance on their oppressors. None of this has a place in Christ's Kingdom. This is seen in our seventh text, Mark 10:42-45, where the Greek word underlying the English word "anarchist" is found. (We looked at this passage above.)

In the ancient world, all empires and politicians were religious. The emperor/pharaoh/caesar was a deity. Politicians were gods and mediators/priests.
Today the politician -- and the Polis -- is said to be "secular," but this is only evidence of the religion of Secular Humanism.

In the Old Testament, archists were called "gods" (Ps 82, etc.).
The desire for a physical, visible archist = idolatry
Human archists = false gods = idols

There is no such thing as a "good" archist.
By definition, "the government" is an institution which claims the right to steal, kidnap, and murder. If it doesn't make that claim, and does not accomplish its goals through violence (which would otherwise be universally acknowledged as sinful in "the private sector"), it's not a "government" and is not made up of archists. It's just a Rotary Club or some other voluntary association. (Which would be a good thing. Voluntary non-violent non-coercive associations provide all the governance any human society needs:
       • homeschools educate,
       • businesses discipline, and
       • competitive free market Dispute Resolution Organizations resolve disputes.
This is "governance" without "the government.")

"The State" is a criminal enterprise. It is prohibited by God's Law, even if God Himself "ordains" it (brings it into existence), like God created Assyria (Isaiah 10) or Rome (Luke 21:20-22) to judge (rape, pillage, burn, destroy) Israel.

Salvation

Anarchist optimillennialism is a new paradigm. A new way of looking at human social organization ("government").

And a new way of looking at "salvation."

Let's elaborate a bit on the "blessings" and "cursings" which are found in God's Law (e.g., Leviticus 26).

When Israel rejected the government of God and lusted after Gentile archists, God delivered Israel into the hands of her archist lover/idol. Then Israel cried out for deliverance from these archists. This deliverance is the doorway through which we can gain a larger understanding of the Biblical doctrine of "salvation."

Most Christians think "salvation" means "going to heaven when I die." They focus on a tiny fraction of the Bible, and ignore the vast majority.

"Salvation" -- in the vast majority of Biblical texts -- means "anarchism." "Salvation" means a "libertarian" society. Some would call it an "anarcho-capitalist" society.

The Libertarian Party requires party members to affirm but one proposition:

I do not believe in or advocate
the initiation of force
as a means of achieving political or social goals.

People who will not make this pledge are "archists." They believe they have a right to impose their will on other people by force, usually by "the sword" -- political or military power.

Being an "archist" is un-Christian (Mark 10:42-45). We are not to spread Christianity with the sword. We are not to vote for archists who promise to bring salvation.

What is "Salvation" in the Bible?

Not "What is 'salvation' in the minds of most professing Christians?"

What does the Bible say?

The Hebrew word most frequently translated "salvation" or "save" is yasha'. In various derivatives it can be translated "deliverance," "victory," "safety," "security," and "welfare." (The Greek equivalent also carries the idea of "health.")

What does the government promise? We have a Department of Health, a Welfare Department, a Department of Homeland Security -- all components of the Biblical concept of "salvation." "The Government" (a.k.a. "civil government") is always a substitute for God. God is our Governor (Isaiah 33:22), and He brings salvation.

The Hebrew word for "save" or "bring salvation" is "yasha." Here is how a very mainstream, non-anarcho-preterist scholar defines that Hebrew word:

Yasha and its derivatives are used 353 times. The root meaning . . . is “make wide” or make sufficient: this root is in contrast to sarar, “narrow,” which means “be restricted” or “cause distress.” To move from distress to safety requires deliverance. [T]he majority of references to salvation speak of Yahweh granting deliverance from real enemies and out of real catastrophes. That which is wide connotes freedom from distress and the ability to pursue one’s own objectives. Thus salvation is not merely a momentary victory on the battlefield; it is also the safety and security necessary to maintain life unafraid of numerous dangers.
Hartley, John E. (1999). 929 יָשַׁע ["yasha"], in R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, vol. 1, pp. 414-15.

I admit that I say many controversial things. That definition is not one of them. It is thoroughly Biblical. That's a very conservative, mainstream reference work. Let's look at it in more detail.

Consider first the phrase "safety and security necessary to maintain life." This is also the "safety and security necessary to maintain a prosperous and humane society." In order to go to WalMart and buy a shopping cart full of food and household accessories, there has to be a global network of businesses who create and transport millions of products by making billions of economic calculations and transactions. Millions of human beings have to get to work on time, run the trucks on schedule, choose to work instead of stealing and robbing, and work the graveyard shift so that when you get to the store, all the items you want are neatly arranged on the shelf in an order which makes it possible for you to quickly find what you need and get on with life.

Who should we trust for "safety" and "security?" What does the Bible say?

The Bible repeatedly says that if we obey God the Lawgiver by loving our neighbor through productive service, God our Judge and King will "bless" us with peace and prosperity. "Peace" means "safety" and "security." These are all components of the Biblical picture of holistic "salvation."

But there are those who want to supplant God the King by promising to give us salvation if we will vote for them.

• "safety" is part of holistic Biblical "salvation"
  • the government has a "National Highway Traffic Safety Administration."
  • it also has an Occupational Safety and Health Administration
  • there's the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
  • don't forget the Consumer Product Safety Commission
  • I'm sure you check the government's FoodSafety website every day, just like Betsy Ross, Dolley Madison, and Abigail Adams used to do.
• "security" is part of "salvation"
  • we've been trained to think the government provides "National Security."
  • or " Homeland Security
  • or Social Security (not)

"Safety" and "security" are blessings from God, not government. We enjoy "safety" and "security" when our nation is Christian and observes "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God," that is, the Bible. Nobody enjoys "safety" and "security" when the government becomes a tyranny which bans the Bible and people behave like pagans.

• The Bible promises that as Christianity pervades a society, even pagans will start acting like Christians.
• Then we will all enjoy "salvation."
•  Jesus is "the savior of all men, especially those who believe." 1 Timothy 4:10

Here are other key descriptions of Biblical "salvation," according to our mainstream source above:

• being placed in a "wide" space
• having "sufficient" quantities of things needed (God's Covenant promises more than you "need")
• opposite: having your options "narrowed"     \   Q.: Who does these things?
• opposite: being "restricted"                             | A.: Archists
• opposite: experiencing "distress"                   /   "Blessing" = "salvation" = freedom from archists
• "the ability to pursue one’s own objectives" without someone else telling you what to do and imposing their will on you by force
• living life unafraid of "dangers" [dangerous people, i.e., archists who threaten your liberty and prosperity]

The Bible describes "salvation" as being placed onto a large piece of property that supplies everything you need:

• Psalm 118:5 
  I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.
• 2 Samuel 22:20 
  He brought me forth also into a large place: He delivered me, because He delighted in me.
• Genesis 26:22 
  He moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he called it Rehoboth, saying, “Now the LORD has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.” 
• Hosea 4:16 
  For Israel slideth back as a backsliding heifer: can now the LORD feed them as a lamb in a large place?
• Psalm 31:8 
  and hast not delivered me into the hand of the enemy; Thou hast set my feet in a broad place.
• Psalm 18:19 
  He brought me forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.
• Psalm 66:12 
  Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.
• Psalm 69:35
  For God will save Zion, and will build the cities of Judah: that they may dwell there, and have it in possession.

In the Bible, Godly men are shown to be concerned about living in a “large” land. Of course, in a more agrarian society, “large” is better, as far as land goes. But when God promises to save us by putting us into a “large land,” it’s clear that more is included than going to heaven after living for decades in a narrow land before we up and die. What is the modern equivalent of a “large land?” It varies from person to person, but it includes some form of economic prosperity and political Liberty. “Liberty” and “large” are Biblical concepts we are not familiar enough with. Let’s review them and put them in our brains, so that as we read the Bible we will be more aware of them.

• Genesis 34:21
  “These men are at peace with us. Therefore let them dwell in the land and trade in it. For indeed the land is large enough for them. Let us take their daughters to us as wives, and let us give them our daughters.
• Exodus 3:8
  So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.
• Judges 18:10
  When you go, you will come to a secure people and a large land. For God has given it into your hands, a place where there is no lack of anything that is on the earth.” 
• 1 Chronicles 4:40
  And they found rich, good pasture, and the land was broad, quiet, and peaceful; for some Hamites formerly lived there.
• Nehemiah 7:4
  Now the city was large and spacious, but the people in it were few, and the houses were not rebuilt.
• Nehemiah 9:35
  For they have not served You in their kingdom,
        Or in the many good things that You gave them,
        Or in the large and rich land which You set before them;
        Nor did they turn from their wicked works.

One of the blessings promised to the obedient in the Bible is "liberty."

• LEVITICUS XXV.X (25:10)
  proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants.
• Psalm 119:45
  And I will walk at liberty,
           For I seek Your precepts.
• Isaiah 61:1
        “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me,
        Because the LORD has anointed Me
        To preach good tidings to the poor;
        He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
        To proclaim liberty to the captives,
        And the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 
• Jeremiah 34:8
  This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people who were at Jerusalem to proclaim liberty to them:
  Jeremiah 34:15-17
  15 Then you recently turned and did what was right in My sight—every man proclaiming liberty to his neighbor; and you made a covenant before Me in the house which is called by My name. 16 Then you turned around and profaned My name, and every one of you brought back his male and female slaves, whom you had set at liberty, at their pleasure, and brought them back into subjection, to be your male and female slaves.’
  17 “Therefore thus says the LORD: ‘You have not obeyed Me in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother and every one to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim liberty to you,’ says the LORD—’to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine! And I will deliver you to trouble among all the kingdoms of the earth.
• 2 Corinthians 3:17
  Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
• James 1:25
  But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.
• James 2:12
  So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty.

"Liberty" means "freedom." But "freedom from what?" In the pages of the Bible, the answer is almost always: "freedom from archists."

One of the blessings promised in Leviticus 26 is "peace," or freedom from those who bear the sword. Those who bear the sword are archists. They are also called in the Bible "enemies."

Of course, "freedom from" is always for the purpose of "freedom to" -- freedom to serve and obey the Lord.

The name "Jesus" comes from the Hebrew word Yhowshuwa', which is derived from yasha', which is the Hebrew word most frequently translated "salvation." "Jesus" means God will save. It was said of Jesus at His birth:

Luke 1:71  

That we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all that hate us;

74 That He would grant unto us, that we
being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve Him [exercise dominion and build His Kingdom] without fear [living under our "vine and fig tree" "with no one to make them afraid" (Micah 4:1-7)]

This is what "salvation" means in the Bible.

The specific enemies Christians had in the first century were of the Jewish establishment, but I believe Jesus the Messiah will save us from our enemies today -- whoever they may be, whenever we live -- if we obey God's Law.

"But isn't the real meaning of salvation 'being forgiven of your sins and going to heaven when you die?'"

Most church-goers ask this.

Forgiveness of sins = restoration to fellowship with God,
Forgiveness of sins = restoration to our original Edenic Mandate to build the Kingdom of God.

Forgiveness of sins is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

The overwhelming majority of Christians today agree with Jews who say that Jesus is not the Messiah. The vast majority of Christians believe that Jesus will not reign as Messiah until there is a second Christmas -- a second Advent, or "second coming of Christ" -- which is really the first coming of the Christ, since at His first Advent Jesus came only as "savior," -- that is, someone who secures for us a ticket to heaven when we die -- and not as "Christ" -- that is, someone who delivers us out of the hand of our enemies, sets us in a wide open place, opens the bounties of heaven, and makes our land like Eden, so we can enjoy a  “Vine & Fig Tree” society.

Many Christians in our day say that the Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah, therefore He could only offer to be their Savior. This is so confused it's hard to know where to begin.

1. Most Jews accepted Jesus as Messiah; only the corrupt upper-crust establishment rejected Jesus (Acts 2:41, 47; 4:4; 5:14; 6:7; 12:24; 19:20; 21:20; Matthew 13:31-33; John 12:24,42; 3:2; 11:45; 19:38; Colossians 1:6).
2. Jesus' claim to be a "savior" (i.e., to forgive sins [but not to punish sins as a Messiah would]), was considered blasphemous by the Jews who rejected Jesus as Messiah (Matthew 9:2-8; Mark 2:3-12, Luke 5:18-26)
3. Just because someone does not want Jesus to reign over him as Messiah is no impediment to Jesus (Luke 9:14,27). Jesus reigned as Messiah over the apostate Jews by directing Titus to destroy those who rejected Jesus as Messiah with the Roman legions in AD 70.
4. There is no Biblical distinction between a "Messiah" and a "Savior."
   Most Christians today say Jesus came 2,000 years ago only as "Savior," and only when He comes again (in our future) will He reign as "Messiah." But if you look at how the Scriptures use the words "save" and "savior," you can easily see why no 1st-century Jew would have understood such a distinction. It is not in the Bible. In the Scriptures, "saviors" did the work of "messiahs." We saw above how Nehemiah says God sent many "saviors" to Israel after they became dissatisfied with their Gentile archist lovers:

   Nehemiah 9:27

   Therefore Thou deliveredst them into the hand of their enemies that vexed them: yet in the time of their affliction, when they cried unto Thee, Thou heardest them from the heaven, and through Thy great mercies Thou gavest them saviors, who saved them out of the hand of their adversaries (cp. Luke 1:71,74).

   The idea that Jesus is only a "savior" but not the Messiah is is not a Biblically tenable position. There is almost no hint in the Bible that any "savior" would do nothing to "save" his people in this life, but only in the next.

A "savior" brings "salvation." Doesn't that make sense? But what is "salvation?" It is not, Biblically speaking, going to heaven after you die, having lived a life without being "saved" in the holistic Biblical sense of that word. In the Bible, saviors brought freedom from archists for God's People. See the discussion of the Hebrew word for "salvation" above.

These "saviors" were sometimes called "judges." The various "kings" of Israel could also serve as "saviors" because they would "save" Israel from her oppressors (1 Samuel 9:16; 2 Samuel 3:18, etc.).

"Saviors" in the Old Testament served what we could call primarily "messianic" functions." Biblically speaking, "savior" is virtually a synonym for "messiah." And "Messiah" is a political term, that is, a term that does not have primary reference to us after death, but reference to our lives today, in their holistic cultural, social, political, civil, economic, recreational, and legal dimensions.

A "Messiah" brings political changes. A "savior" brings "salvation." But the Biblical definition of "salvation" is not just a short-term relief on the battlefield, but long-term liberty from archists. See the definition of the Hebrew word for "salvation," yasha, which we looked at above.

A true "savior" is the Messiah who brings Christian civilization, that is, "salvation" over the long haul, now over twenty centuries.  See the five books listed here: Christian civilization. (That's an important link.)

Jay Wile writes (An Interesting Observation from China | Proslogion):

Recently, I read an article by Dr. Paul Copan entitled, “Jesus-Shaped Cultures.”¹ In that article, he makes the case for how faithful Christians have transformed the societies they have served. For example, he discusses the Ethiopian famine that took place in 1984 and 1985. Brian Stewart, a CBC journalist, noted that it was Christians who were on the front lines of the famine, giving aid to the suffering. Their service was such a powerful witness to him that it started him on his journey to becoming a Christian himself.

While Copan’s article is interesting, it led me to a book that I thought was even more interesting. It is entitled Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China And Changing the Global Balance of Power, and it is written by David Aikman, who served as a journalist for Time Magazine from 1971 to 1994. In his role as a Time correspondent, he visited China several times and even lived in China for two years as Time’s bureau chief. He returned to China in 2002 to gather the information he needed to complete his book.

He begins the book in a dramatic way. It is worth quoting at length:²

The eighteen American tourists visiting China weren’t expecting much from the evening’s lecture. They were already exhausted from a day of touring in Beijing. But what the speaker had to say astonished them.

The Victory of Reason Listen Now | Download

“One of the things we were asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world,” he said. “We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic, and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next, we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West has been so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubt about this.”

This was not coming from some ultra-conservative think tank in Orange County, California or from Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. This was a scholar from China’s premier academic research institute, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing in 2002. (emphasis mine)

In his book, Aikman suggests that Christianity will transform China to the point where it won’t even be communist anymore. He suggests that in the next thirty years, nearly one-third of China could be Christian, making it one of the largest Christian nations in the world and a strong ally of the U.S.

2. David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China And Changing the Global Balance of Power, pp. 5-6

See also: The Iona Institute | Christianity the reason for West's success, say the Chinese

In asking whether Habakkuk's prophecy has been or is being fulfilled, and whether the knowledge of God covers the earth as the waters cover the sea, don't ask those who should admit that they know the Lord; ask the Scriptures whether they ought to admit it. Sometimes they won't, but many times they will. Truth is truth, whether we admit it or not.

Today, the Chinese are "streaming" to Zion (Micah 4:1-2). So are people in Latin America, Africa, and even India, according to Philip Jenkins. Humanity has been flowing to Zion for 2,000 years, but the rate may be accelerating. This phenomenon is not yet on the radar of archists. It will dramatically increase when Christians become widely recognized as a Dispute Resolution Forum. It will exsanguinate the State by doing so.

The "Good News" -- Jesus is the Christ

There is another way to look at the preaching of the gospel.

In order to bring about the “Vine & Fig Tree” world, there must be a general agreement around this simple proposition:

Jesus is the Christ

Most Christians agree on these facts:

Jesus of Nazareth was

• born of a virgin
• in a stable in Bethlehem
• was tortured to death by the Empire
• rose from the dead on the third day
• ascended to the right hand of the Father in heaven
• commanded His followers to "make disciples of every nation"

Therefore Jesus is the Christ.

Most people might think that the juxtaposition of "Jesus" and "Christ" is obvious. But when you dig deeper, it appears that this is the most controversial proposition on planet earth.

• Jews don't believe that Jesus is the Christ ("Christ" means "Messiah").
• Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists don't believe that Jesus is the Messiah, fulfilling Old Testament prophets who voiced the Word of our Creator-God.
• Atheists don't believe anyone is or ever will be a "messiah."

And -- most surprisingly -- the vast, overwhelming majority of professing, church-going (or non-churching) Christians do not believe that Jesus is the Christ today.

• Maybe they believe that Jesus has the "right" to be the Christ
• Maybe they believe that Jesus offered to be the Messiah, but the Jews rejected His offer, so He settled for offering them a ticket to heaven when they die ("Savior," but not "King"). (An offer they also reject, because who wants to spend eternity hanging out with a deluded con-man who falsely claimed to be the Messiah and rejected the Law and the Prophets [held dear by the Jews]?)
• Most likely they believe that Jesus will someday ("soon") become the Messiah, when He comes again, a second time.
• But they all agree that Jesus is not -- today -- reigning as Messiah (exercising His rightful powers at full level, high-octane, from a throne in Jerusalem). The Messianic reign is for tomorrow, not today.

This website defends the proposition that Jesus is the Messiah right now, and has fulfilled or is fulfilling all the "messianic prophecies" -- even those prophecies most Christians reserve for "the millennium."

Jesus is the Christ

The two most controversial words in that statement are the words "IS" and "THE."

   
Most church-going Christians believe that Jesus will become the Messiah at a future Christmas, a future advent, a future "Second Coming." But the word "IS" -- present tense -- is the wrong word to use about Jesus being the Messiah. To say that Jesus "is" the Messiah is to say that He already became the Messiah and began ruling in the past. The word "preterit" is from the Latin word for "past," and the idea that Jesus began ruling as Messiah in the past is called "the heresy of preterism." 
 

The word "Christ" also has many meanings. The basic meaning is "anointed," as in "king" (Matthew 21:5 ), e.g., "King of Israel" (John 1:49). Jesus is also called a "Ruler" (Micah 5:2), a "Potentate" (1 Timothy 6:15 ), a "Governor" (Matthew 2:6 ), a "Captain" (Hebrews 2:10 ), a "Prince" (Isaiah 9:6 ), and many other words (some of which we aren't familiar with in our day, like "Horn" [Luke 1:69 ]) which are political in nature.

Many political terms can be inferred:

• Jesus is a "servant," which is another word for "minister," and Jesus is surely the "Prime Minister."
• In his inaugural address, George Washington spoke of "that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations." The one who "presides" is the "president."
• Jesus is our King, our Lawgiver, and our Judge (Isaiah 33:22) -- all three branches of government under the U.S. Constitution.

Our point is that Jesus is the -- THE -- the ONLY -- legitimate king, prince, ruler, president, prime minister, governor, legislator, judge, and potentate. If Christians would simply practice what they preach -- by obeying His commandments -- we will have a peaceful, orderly, and prosperous society -- the “Vine & Fig Tree” society. We need to reject all political saviors.

Jesus said the kings of the Gentiles love to impose their will on other people by political and military force, but Christ's followers are not to do these things (Mark 10:42-45). Mark uses the Greek word from which we get our English word "anarchist." He says the kings of the Gentiles love to be "archists." But Christians are NOT to be "archists." A Christian historian named John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, also known as "Lord Acton," said "Power corrupts." That is, the desire to have the "authority" to subject people to violence if they don't do what you want them to do, makes you less of a Christian. To say that Jesus is the -- THE -- the ONLY -- legitimate king, prince, ruler, president, prime minister, governor, legislator, judge, and potentate, is to say that all other earthly kings, princes, rulers, presidents, prime ministers, governors, legislators, judges, and potentates are illegitimate usurpers, corrupt, and anti-Christ.

In order to bring about the “Vine & Fig Tree” society, people must believe that Jesus is the Christ, that His Kingdom is the only government we need on earth, and He already established His right and authority to transform the planet. But He chooses to bring about that transformation through His Body, His disciples. We ought not to wait around for another incarnation of the Christ ("Second Coming") before we carry out "the Great Commission."

Another Gospel? Another Religion?

In 2 Corinthians 11:4,  Paul warns against someone "who comes preaching another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted...."

In Galatians 1:6-8, Paul says

I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, ⁷ which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. ⁸ But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.

Paul was battling two different false gospels. There was the "good news" of "salvation" by the Roman Empire, and there was a false gospel of the Judaizers: salvation by circumcision and adherence to "the traditions of the elders" (Matthew 15; Mark 7).

Some people will allege that this website is promoting "a different gospel." I understand this concern. There is very definitely a contrast between the idea behind my hypothetical "offer from God" and the "offer" you hear in most churches on Sunday mornings. In fact, I will concede the point (if anyone chooses to make the point) that there is not a single entity on planet earth that calls itself a "church" that would allow me to occupy its pulpit and "preach" this "gospel."

I will concede that the agenda behind this hypothetical "offer from God" is a completely different version of Christianity than the one you hear from Joel Osteen or Kenneth Copeland -- or even more orthodox preachers. Your own pastor will likely warn you against this new "gospel."

I get that.

I've been told by pastors not to show up at their church.

My feeling is one of sadness, loneliness and isolation. I'm a long-term optimist, but a short-term pessimist. I don't know if you're going to accept this "offer" or not. But I believe in time billions will.

I feel like I have a completely different religion from most Christians. But I believe I'm following the Bible. Please let me present my Biblical evidence, and you can be the judge.

J. Gresham Machen wrote a book entitled, Christianity and Liberalism. Machen claimed that the Christianity of the Protestant Reformation and the "Christianity" of liberal/modernist "mainline" protestant churches were two entirely different religions. "Liberalism," Machen said, was not genuine Christianity.

I would like to suggest that preterist reconstructionism and futurist pietism are two entirely different religions.

James 1:27 says

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

The religion of today's Christians -- "futurist pietism" -- is not one of caring for widows, but rather creating widows. <-- That sentence, I feel, is critical. We're talking about two very different religions, I'm afraid. Please let me explain.

I was born in the year of "Sputnik," the Russian satellite that inaugurated "the Space Race" which was a part of "the Cold War." I was raised to believe that "socialism" was evil and "capitalism" was good. I wasn't yet in high school when the Vietnam War raged, and when the nation was divided by anti-war protesters. I believed that the anti-war protesters were a bunch of anti-American commies. They may well have been incited by Communists and used by Communists as tools or pawns in Moscow's attempt to bring down the American/capitalist system. But they were on the right side of an immoral war.* The United States dropped more tons of bombs on the tiny countries of Laos and Cambodia than it did on the entire world during World War II.

Then there was "the War on Terror." The United States destroyed the largest community of Christians in the entire Arab world, in Iraq, and overthrew a secular dictator who gave religious freedom to Christians (unlike Muslim nations like Saudi Arabia, where preaching the gospel would get you beheaded), and protected Christians from Islamic terrorists. The U.S. replaced this secular government with an Islamic theocracy under Shariah law.

During my lifetime, "my" government has killed, crippled, or made homeless TENS OF MILLIONS of innocent, non-combatant, non-white civilians around the world. The United States drops a bomb somewhere in the world every 12 minutes, on average. Barack Obama, who won the Nobel Prize for Peace, dropped tens of thousand of bombs, used drones to assassinate people without due process, and maintained U.S. military bases in nearly 100 nations around the world.

It was only when I became a fundamentalist Bible-believing creationist Christian that I began to question all this. Then I became a Reconstructionist and preterist.

Pietist/Futurist Jesus-ians "support the troops" as they create widows around the world, then traumatize those widows with another round of bombs and savage violence.
Reconstructionist/Preterist Christ-ians beat "swords into plowshares" so everyone can dwell peacefully under his “Vine & Fig Tree” with no archists "to make them afraid." 

The difference between those who believe Jesus is the only legitimate Archist
and those who believe we need creaturely archists to run society
is as great as the difference between Machen and liberals.

The United States is an anti-Christian empire, like Rome. It is the most evil and dangerous government on planet earth. [proof]

American Christians are a voting bloc that can change the United States overnight. Doing so could change the entire world in a weekend. But American Christians do no such thing. They have given their electoral approval to killing, crippling, and making homeless tens of millions of civilians and beating plowshares into the swords of the "military-industrial complex." Their government welfare system creates widows and fatherless kids by paying mothers to kick the fathers out of the home in order to qualify for a government check.

Sadly, Micah's “Vine & Fig Tree” vision of "swords into plowshares" and teaching the Law of God in a Messianic Reign established in "the last days" of the Old Covenant (around 33 A.D.) is arguably a completely different religion than the one found in America's churches today.

There are 30,000 verses in the Bible. In a year, your pastor's sermons will explain maybe 50 of them. At the end of the year you might remember a dozen. One verse or paragraph for every one hour of preaching. The picture you get from a few dozen verses is a completely different picture than the one you get from the Bible as a whole. I dare say it's a different religion.

Whatever forces are at work creating churches full of people who are unfamiliar with the bulk of the Bible are the same forces that work to keep Christians ignorant of the history of Christ's reign over the earth as Messiah.

Dwell in safety || None to make you afraid

The Bible is replete with this theme.

Notice in the following verses, social/political/military peace is promised. This is part of the Biblical doctrine of "salvation": freedom from archists. No fear of archists and the sword they bear.

Micah 4:4
⁴ But they shall sit every man under
          his vine and under his fig tree;
and none shall make them afraid:
for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken it.

Strong's Number 2729

Isaiah 54:14

In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come near thee.
 

Jeremiah 23:5-6

Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
 

Ezekiel 34:25

And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.
 

Ezekiel 34:28

And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid.
 

Ezekiel 38:11

And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
 

Ezekiel 39:26

After that they have borne their shame, and all their trespasses whereby they have trespassed against me, when they dwelt safely in their land, and none made them afraid.
 

Leviticus 26:5

And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.
 

Leviticus 26:6

And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.
 

Job 11:19

Also thou shalt lie down, and none shall make thee afraid; yea, many shall make suit unto thee.
 

Isaiah 17:2

The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid.
 

Jeremiah 30:10

Therefore fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, saith the LORD; neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid.
 

Jeremiah 46:27

But fear not thou, O my servant Jacob, and be not dismayed, O Israel: for, behold, I will save thee from afar off, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and be in rest and at ease, and none shall make him afraid.
 

Ezekiel 34:28

And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid.
 

Ezekiel 39:26

After that they have borne their shame, and all their trespasses whereby they have trespassed against me, when they dwelt safely in their land, and none made them afraid.
 

Nahum 2:11

Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the feedingplace of the young lions, where the lion, even the old lion, walked, and the lion's whelp, and none made them afraid?
 

Zephaniah 3:13

The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid.
 

1 Kings 4:25

And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.
 

Proverbs 1:33

But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.
 

Proverbs 3:23

Then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble.
 

Proverbs 31:11

The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.
 

Jeremiah 23:6

In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord Our Righteousness.
 

Jeremiah 32:37

Behold, I will gather them out of all countries, whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my fury, and in great wrath; and I will bring them again unto this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely:
 

Jeremiah 33:16

In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The Lord our righteousness.
 

Ezekiel 28:26

And they shall dwell safely therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards; yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them round about them; and they shall know that I am the LORD their God.
 

Ezekiel 34:25

And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.
 

Ezekiel 34:28

And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid.
 

Ezekiel 38:8

After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
 

Ezekiel 38:11

And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
 

Ezekiel 38:14

Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord GOD; In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it?
 

Ezekiel 39:26

After that they have borne their shame, and all their trespasses whereby they have trespassed against me, when they dwelt safely in their land, and none made them afraid.
 

Hosea 2:18

And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.
 

Zechariah 14:11

And men shall dwell in it, and there shall be no more utter destruction; but Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited.

Notice that in some of the verses above, living "safely" but without true faith is a prelude to judgment. God executes His judgment through archists.

We see this repeatedly in the Scripture. Israel lusts after gentile archists (false "gods," like Moloch, which means "king"). God delivers Israel into the hand of these false gods, these pagan archists, and Israel cries out for deliverance, and God delivers them by sending a deliverer, or "savior" or "judge" who "saves" Israel from the pagan archists.

The Creator is our only legitimate Source of "National Security," not creaturely archists.

Jesus is the Savior of the World

We all know John 3:16 -- "God so loved the world. . . ." Does that mean God wants believers to go to heaven when they die, or does it mean God intends to bring salvation to all nations? I'm not saying it's not either/or. Perhaps it's both/and. But I think this much is clear: John 3 is not speaking only of going to heaven when you die and excluding any consideration of Global Salvation for all nations.

In John 3, Jesus is talking to "a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews" (verse 1). Not wanting to be "canceled" by the other Pharisees, Nicodemus

came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”

Seemingly, Jesus ignored what Nicodemus said, and changed the subject:

³ Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Where did that come from?

Many people say that Jesus was "a great teacher." Actually, He was a lousy teacher. He deliberately confused people. He spoke in parables not to teach and clarify, but to hide:

Matthew 13
¹⁰ And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?”
¹¹ He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. ¹² For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. ¹³ Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. ¹⁴ And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says:

‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand,
And seeing you will see and not perceive;
¹⁵ For the hearts of this people have grown dull.
Their ears are hard of hearing,
And their eyes they have closed,
Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
So that I should heal them.’

¹⁶ But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; ¹⁷ for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

Isaiah was told to preach to ears that would not hear. What was Isaiah and other prophets saying? What was Jesus telling Nicodemus the Pharisee? One idea being conveyed was that salvation was not just for the Jews, but also for the Gentiles.

Isaiah 45:22
“Look to Me, and be saved,
All you ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.

1 Chronicles 16:23
Sing to the Lord, all the earth; Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day.

Psalm 65:5
By awesome deeds in righteousness You will answer us, O God of our salvation, You who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth, And of the far-off seas;

Psalm 67:2
That Your way may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations.

Psalm 74:12
For God is my King from of old, Working salvation in the midst of the earth.

Psalm 98:3
He has remembered His mercy and His faithfulness to the house of Israel; All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

Isaiah 45:8
“Rain down, you heavens, from above, And let the skies pour down righteousness; Let the earth open, let them bring forth salvation, And let righteousness spring up together. I, the Lord, have created it.

Isaiah 49:6
Indeed He says, ‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob, And to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’”

Isaiah 49:8
Thus says the Lord: “In an acceptable time I have heard You, And in the day of salvation I have helped You; I will preserve You and give You As a covenant to the people, To restore the earth, To cause them to inherit the desolate heritages;

Isaiah 51:6
Lift up your eyes to the heavens, And look on the earth beneath. For the heavens will vanish away like smoke, The earth will grow old like a garment, And those who dwell in it will die in like manner; But My salvation will be forever, And My righteousness will not be abolished.

Isaiah 52:10
The Lord has made bare His holy arm In the eyes of all the nations; And all the ends of the earth shall see The salvation of our God.

The Jews who heard the words of Isaiah and Jesus in faith wrote the New Testament, which is the fulfillment of the Old Testament.

John 3:17
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

John 4:42
Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”

1 John 4:14
And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world.

John 1:29
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

Acts 13:47
For so the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have set you as a light to the Gentiles, That you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.’”

2 Corinthians 5:19
that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

1 John 2:2
And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.

1 Timothy 4:10
For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.

1 Corinthians 15:45
And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

Romans 5
17 For if by one man's offence death reigned by one;
21 even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

John 6:33
33 For the bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.

When the Lord spoke to Isaiah and the prophets, that He would save the whole world, was He announcing a doctrine of "universalism," that every individual would go to heaven when he died? Even universalists would say no -- provided they understand the prophetic meaning of the concept of "salvation." That is, even if eternal paradise after death has been granted universally to all individuals, that's not what the prophets were talking about when they foretold the "salvation" of the entire world.

In the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, "salvation" means what economist Murray N. Rothbard described as "anarcho-capitalism" -- a vibrant global network of commerce liberated from the "strife," "war," and coercive regulatory "domination" of the City of Man. The economics of the New Jerusalem rather than the Old Babylon.

Contrary to amillennialists like Michael Horton, Christians best "serve" the world by helping to "save" it. For "serve" see here. For "save" see here. "Save the world" does not mean "preserve the world in a state of rebellion against The City of God." It means convert the whole world into the City of God. "In earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10).

This is "good news." This is "another gospel." Not the "gospel" of the televangelists, but the Gospel of Scripture.

Back to John 3.

³ Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Does "Kingdom of God" refer only to heaven-when-you-die? What would a Jew like Nicodemus have thought "the Kingdom of God" meant?

Building the Kingdom of God

Kingdom as "Administration"

Here's how God will bless your "preaching" of this Gospel.

The Chain of Events
Starting with you and ten of your friends
 -- or even just one.

Wouldn't it be amazing if Kim Jong-un, Vladamir Putin, and Donald Trump all became converted to the true Gospel, repented of and publicly denounced their adultery and bomb-dropping, and began dismantling their empires, repealing all their lawbooks, and encouraging everyone to recognize Jesus as the only legitimate Christ and work to create the “Vine & Fig Tree” society?  Yes, that would be amazing. And what if some big-name celebrities did the same thing, and all their millions of fans were encouraged to study and apply the “Vine & Fig Tree” gospel.

Alas, I don't have any way to preach to Vladimir Putin or Joe Biden.

At least not directly.

But there is a way to reach powerful "influencers."

I created this website because there is a theory called "Six Degrees of Separation," which says that I can reach any human being on earth with no more than five affiliates. Thus:

I know

1. you, and among all your many friends you know
2. a friend, who among all his many friends knows
3. a friend, who among all her many friends knows
4. a friend, who among all his many friends knows
5. a friend, who among all her many friends knows
6. Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran

Think of it in geographical terms:

I know

1. you in California, and among all your many friends you know
2. someone in New York, who among all her many friends knows
3. someone in England, who among all his many friends knows
4. someone in Singapore, who among all her many friends knows
5. someone in China, who among all his many friends knows
6. Xi Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China

This is how you preach the gospel to the world's leaders.

When you tell five friends -- or even just one -- that Jesus is the only legitimate Christ, and He is fully Christ today, without waiting for a "Second Coming," it may be the case that one of your five friends will "unfriend" you, and never speak to you again. I'm reminded of a prophecy in Isaiah 19:18. Maybe one of your friends will say you are preaching "another gospel." At least one of your friends believes "the gospel" is nothing but going to heaven when you die. But the other four friends will embrace the “Vine & Fig Tree” Gospel, the "good news" that Jesus is the Christ and He has full Kingdom Authority today. They will tell five friends. God will guide this message around the world.

OK, the "offer" is now off the table.

We now return to "real life."

God guarantees nothing anymore.

Would you still be willing to join me in

1. Preaching the Gospel
2. beating swords into plowshares
3. thinking more about "peace on earth" than heaven?

Downsides:

1. If you preach the Gospel the way Peter and the Apostles preached the Gospel, you'll go to prison or be executed.
   • Q.: Why did Rome persecute Christians who obeyed the government and paid their taxes?
   • A.: Because "obedience" was actually pacifism, which goes against Roman Law and ideology. Consistent pacifism, even though outwardly "obedient," is anarchism.
2. "Beating swords into plowshares" denies the fundamental rationale for having a State. Again, pacifism = anarchism
3. Preterism -- believing that Jesus is now the Prince of Peace, became the Christ in the past, and that
   • Christ's "Second Coming" was His coming in vengeance against those who murdered Him at His First Coming
   • is considered a heresy. You will be kicked out of your church.

Appendices

Governments Used To Be Christian

After the fall of the pagan Roman Empire, Christianity spread throughout the West. Two legal traditions emerged: The "Common Law" tradition, and the "Civil Law" tradition. Christianity flourished more under "Common Law" jurisdictions than "Civil Law" jurisdictions, but both were essentially Christian. See this page: The Common Law and Christianity. That page contains these pages:

• Common Law: Roots and Fruits
• 6th-Century Christian Britain from King Arthur to Rome’s Austin
• King Alfred The Great
• Whether Christianity is Part of the Common Law | Thomas Jefferson disagrees with everyone who came before him.
• God Law: Christianity's Bosom-Buddy Relationship With the Common Law | Duhaime's LawMag
• The Christian Roots of Common Law ALOR
• Religious Foundations of Law in the West: An Historical Perspective on JSTOR | Harold J. Berman
• Christianity and the Common Law | An article from The American Law Register in May 1890, which collects all the legal authorities quoted on this page affirming that Christianity is the foundation of the Common law, and then concludes that everybody for the previous 1500 years was wrong, on the grounds that "Christianity, as a religion, is an affair of the individual alone." Nobody from Justinian to Witherspoon would agree with that claim. Christianity was a public religion. America's Founding Fathers acknowledged that Christianity was "our holy religion." It was precisely this modern trend in the late 1800's which prompted the Supreme Court of the United States in 1892 to affirm that Christianity is part of the common law, and that the U.S. "is a Christian nation."

After Revolutionary War, the victorious Americans imposed "The Treat of Paris" on the defeated British. It began with these words:

DEFINITIVE TREATY OF PEACE BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY,
CONCLUDED AT PARIS, SEPTEMBER 3, 1783;
RATIFIED BY CONGRESS, JANUARY 14, 1784;
PROCLAIMED, JANUARY 14, 1784.

IN the name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity.

It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the hearts—of the most serene and most potent Prince George the Third, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Duke of Brunswick and Luneburg, Arch Treasurer and Prince Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, &c., and of the United States of America, to forget all past misunderstandings and differences that have unhappily interrupted the good correspondence and friendship which they mutually wish to restore; and to establish such a beneficial and satisfactory intercourse between the two countries. . . .
Treaty With Great Britain, Harvard Classics (1910), Vol.43, p.185

France, in the "civil law" tradition, styled kings "Défenseur de la Foi."

After the fall of the pagan Roman Empire, various kings, philosophers, and clerics began speaking of "The Holy Roman Empire." The entire world was to be Christianized. Admittedly, and tragically, too many Christians believed this noble goal could be faithfully achieved through the use of "the sword" -- the violence of "civil government,"  "The Monopoly on Violence."

* I believe Martin Luther King, Jr. was a pawn of Communists. Communists opposed the Vietnam War just like Communists said they opposed segregation. But how many blacks were allowed to live under Communism in caucasian Russia (outside the Gulags)? The Communists' point of opposing evil is less about ending the evil than it is disrupting the system by disorderly protests against the evil.

Polis

"Polis" is the Greek word behind the English word "political." It is most often translated "city-state." The City in ancient Greece was often an independent State. It was also wholly religious, not "secular" as states today purport to be.

For more on the polis see here. For Biblical grounds to equate "Kingdom" and "Polis" see here.

Because man is created in the Image of God (see Kline above), man is qualified/commanded to build God's Messianic Kingdom on earth.

Augustine wrote of The City of God, which is in conflict with "The City of Man."

Babylon was a city and an Empire. Rome was a city and an empire.

Salvation = Civilization

The English word "civilization" comes from the Latin word for "city." Augustine wrote his book The City of God in Latin. The Latin title is Civitas Dei.

Polis is the Greek word for "city." Philippians 3:20 says our "citizenship" is in heaven. That's the Greek word politeuma, πολίτευμα, related to the Greek word Polis. So the Greek word derived from "city" is translated into an English word derived from the Latin word for "city." I think that's funny.

St. Augustine wrote of the conflict between the City of God and the City of Man. The City of God is the city of Providence, and the City of Man is the City of Archists. A civilized society is one that obeys God's Commandments. People don't hurt other people and take their stuff. When people vote for archists, they vote for taking vengeance, hurting people and taking their stuff. Archists bring the sword of war: destruction on a massive scale. A vote for archists is a vote for the decline of civilization.

A true "savior" is the Messiah who brings Christian civilization, that is, "salvation" over the long haul, now over twenty centuries.  See the five books listed here: Christian civilization. (That's an important link.)

Jesus, the Jews, and the Torah

It is a popular myth that

• Jesus threw out the Law in favor of Grace
• The Jews were appalled at Jesus, because the Jews were "legalists" who observed every last detail of Old Testament Law, and were shocked at the idea of deviating from God's Law by one iota.

The Bible says the exact opposite:

• Jesus came to put God's Law into force (Matthew 5:17-20)
• The Jews rejected the Torah in the Scriptures and replaced God's Law with their own man-made customs and traditions (Mark 7:1-16).

For a thorough defense of this contrast, see Jesus and the Law of Moses (Torah). See also Why Jews Don't Believe In Jesus.

Can there be a "Good" Archist?

The British historian Lord Acton put it this way:

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.

The exercise of political power is problematic. We should assume that "great men" -- that is, powerful men -- men who wield "the sword," that is, the compulsory force of "the government" -- are morally corrupt. Bad men, not good men. This assumption should be considered confirmed if he increases his own power during his time of "public service."

We've been taught that "anarchists" are bad. The opposite is true, according to the Bible: Archists are the bad guys.

The Biggest Government Lie of All Time

Night and Day

A favorite Christmas carol mentions this announcement:

Another Christmas carol notes that Christian churches pay lip-service to this announcement::

But the poem, written during the Civil War, expresses some doubt:

The poet today might write about "The War on Terrorism."

But the poet had something many of today's Christians lack: Optimism:

Probably a majority of self-described Christians today believe the future belongs not to "The Prince of Peace," but to "the antichrist," "great tribulation," "Armageddon," and global war and suffering.

Sure, things will be much better after The Second Coming of Christ. Then we will have "peace on earth." But not before.

Apparently, the angels were mistaken. They thought the first advent of Christ meant "peace on earth."
Apparently the only meaning of Christmas is

"You can go to heaven when you die, and leave all the war and suffering on earth."

This website challenges the prevailing pessimism.

Many people complain that the Bible is filled with war, slavery, and violence. "How can that be the Word of God?" they ask.

But the world before Christ really was filled with war, slavery, and violence. Many historians note that most human beings died violent deaths, or died prematurely from the violence of slavery, conquest, captivity, and all forms of human violence.

If they could travel through time from their day to ours, every prophet who spoke of the coming Messiah would fall on his knees in gratitude to God for the fact that most people on earth today die peacefully, not violently. They would be utterly speechless walking down the aisles of your local WalMart. The character of human life was changed dramatically by the babe born in Bethlehem. And further change is possible:

With the poet who "heard the bells on Christmas day" we should note that with the birth of Jesus, "The world revolved from night to day."

The New Testament was written in the last days of the Old Covenant. The "night" of the Old Age was passing (Hebrews 8:13). We are Now in the Daytime of the New Covenant, and we are now to live in the Day (Romans 13:11-13; Luke 1:78; Malachi 4:2; Revelation 22:5; 1 John 2:8). In fact, as James Jordan points out, the entire Old Covenant economy could be viewed biblically as being the “night” and the New Covenant as the “day.”

The moon, of course, governs the night (Psalm 136:9; Jeremiah 31:35), and in a sense the entire Old Covenant took place at night. With the rising of the Sun of Righteousness (Malachi 4:2), the “day” of the Lord is at hand (Malachi 4:1), and in a sense the New Covenant takes place in the daytime. As Genesis 1 says over and over, first evening and then morning. In the New Covenant we are no longer under lunar regulation for festival times (Colossians 2:16–17). In that regard, Christ is our light.²

Following this same idea, Zacharias prophesies at the birth of John the Baptist that he would be “the Sunrise from on high” who shall “shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:78–79). The light of Christ creates the everlasting day, so that in the New Jerusalem,

the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it (Rev. 21:23–24; compare Is. 60:19–20).

Christians who live in the Day do not need to kill. God will hold us to the higher standard.

“And [Jesus] came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both [Jews and Gentiles] have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Ephesians 2:17-18).
This is the truly “good news” of the Star of Jacob, the Star of Bethlehem, and the King which it announces.
The American Vision: Why a Star?

Christ has already eliminated 99% of all the violence that existed in the world before the first Christmas.
The Roman Empire is gone. Crucifixions and Coliseums. The Demonic Imperial Paradigm of the ancient world, seen in the statue of Daniel 2, has been crushed to powder by the Rock.
This website claims that Christians could end 99% of the remaining violence in the world in 2022.

But we have to believe in the real meaning of Christmas:

Jesus is the Christ.

1 John 2:22

Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.

The Demonic Imperial Paradigm

Nebuchadnezzar's statue (Daniel 2) represents the world before Christ. Before the Prince of Peace was born, the world was dominated by Satan and his minions. Life was violent. The "Preterist" believes that the Messiah bound the Strong Man at the beginning of the Messianic Reign. The Biblical "anarchist" believes that "civil government" has a demonic origin. Our job as Christians is to continue the task of putting to death the old man

• individually
• Socially and Politically: we need to kill off the vestigial remains of Nebuchadnezzar's statue -- Christ crushes this institution to powder when His saints reign through Him (Revelation 5:10; Revelation 22:5; Psalm 149:9).

Most church-goers believe that empires are good; that they are God-approved, morally legitimate, and socially necessary. You might think that many in Daniel's day and in Christ's day were doubtless confused by the prophecy of the destruction of the greatest empires in the world: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. After all, didn't these great empires provide social order? Wouldn't their destruction lead to "anarchy?" On the other hand, maybe they were smarter than we are. Maybe they suffered under conquest, tribute, forced labor, confiscation of children, random conscription, and other horrors of depraved, child-sacrificing homosexual would-be gods that they rejoiced at the thought. If they read the Bible, they knew that empires were a punishment "ordained" by God against a people who rebelled against God's Commandments. God ordained evils like "the sword." The Bible says all empires are evil. Their history is demonic. Their demonic character was clearly seen at the time of Christ. The Empire represents a refusal to allow God to be Lawgiver, Judge and King.

The claim that the binding of the demonic Strong Man occurred in the past, and the call to abolish archism in the present, are not refuted by a common misunderstanding of Romans 13. That passage is about the demonic "powers." God sovereignly controls all things, but that does not mean that God gives all things His moral seal-of-approval. The State has God's Seal-of-DISapproval. Our website on Romans 13 covers these issues in more detail:

www.Romans13.com

From cover to cover, the Bible is an "Anarchist Manifesto" and urges mankind to eradicate the institution of "civil government" or "the State."

"The State" -- The Polis -- began with Cain the murderer. God divided rebellious man at the Tower of Babel, confused their languages, and placed the nations under demonic guardians. With the coming of Christ, the Principalities and Powers were overcome, and on Pentecost the Gospel was heard in every language.

The Demonic Character of Human Empires in History: Its Rise and Fall
(Romans 13 in the pages of the Old Testament)

From our "95 Theses on the State"

• View | Thesis 12: The Fall Of The Angels
• View | Thesis 16: The Demonic Roots of Violent Tyranny
• View | Thesis 21: Demonic Activity At Babel
• View | Thesis 22: The Division of The Nations
• View | Thesis 30: As With All Angelic Activity, No State Action Is Coincidental or Random
• View | Thesis 35: Angels And The Pedagogical Legal Structure
• View | Thesis 41: The Character of “gods” || More here (much more)
• View | Thesis 48: The State "Serves" God by Sinning
• View | Thesis 53: Moloch-Worship and the Nature of Idols
• View | Thesis 60: Christ’s Binding of Satan
• "Unlucky 13": Isaiah 13, Romans 13, Revelation 13
• A Romans-Eye View of Romans 13
• "Principalities and Powers"
• "Principalities and Powers" - part 2
• Lakes of Fire in "Smoke-filled Rooms"
• View | Thesis 69: Sons of God and Pedagogues
• View | Thesis 83: Pedagogy and The Powers
• View | Thesis 84: The End of Archists: The Pedagogues Judged by the Church

New95Theses.com

Taken together, the two words "IS" and "THE" are branded as the heresy of "anarcho-preterism."

This website maintains that "anarcho-preterism" is "the real meaning of Christmas."