Number 45

THE THEOLOGICAL CONSPIRACY

It was a full-blown conspiracy when it first came to the surface in history. It is not known how it started or who instigated it, but all at once it was in full operation. Its chief purpose can be set forth in few and simple words. Its goal was to get the Jew out of all God’s plans and purposes and to get the Gentile in; to take every precious promise that God had made to Israel and apply each of them to organized religion called "the church," and this a Gentile church, of course; to take the glorious Old Testament concept of the kingdom of God upon the earth and make it to be a promise of "the church" in heaven.

In order to comprehend this great conspiracy, we need to know something about the early history of that which today is called "Christianity." It is also important to have certain approximate dates in mind as points of reference. Taking the commonly received date of A.D. 1 for the birth of Jesus Christ, we come to A.D. 38, the date of His death. From His resurrection to the great dispensational change marked by Paul’s pronouncement in Acts 28:28, we have another 33 years. This brings us to A.D. 66. A few years later, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman General Titus (A.D. 70). During the years between A.D. 1 and A.D. 66, there were millions upon the earth whom we can now designate as believers in and followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and the overwhelming majority of these were "Jews that believed." Although a certain number of Gentiles became believers, these were a minuscule minority who became partakers of Israel’s spiritual things (Rom. 15:27). In fact, their salvation was primarily in view of Israel’s need, "to provoke them to jealousy" (emulation) (Rom. 11:11). And while many today are prone to point to those in Israel who did not believe, let them remember that their unbelief could not make the faithfulness of God without effect (Rom. 8:3).

Between A.D. 70 and A.D. 150 there is no recorded history so far as the people of God are concerned; and this is that period of time in which the transition was made from the age of the apostles, all of whom were Jews that believed, to the age of the so-called "church fathers," none of whom were Jews. At this point we will do well to consider the scholarly words of Dean Stanley in his History of the Eastern Church.

"The first period is that which contains the great question, almost the greatest which Ecclesiastical History has to answer, — How was the transition effected from the age of the Apostles to the age of the Fathers, from Christianity as we see it in the New Testament, to Christianity as we see it in the next century, and as, to a certain extent, we have seen it ever since?

"No other change equally momentous has ever since affected its fortunes, yet none has ever been so silent and secret. The stream, in that most critical moment of its passage from the everlasting hills to the plain below, is lost to our view at the very point where we are most anxious to watch it; we may hear its struggles under the overarching rocks; we may catch its spray on the boughs that overlap its course; but the torrent itself we see not, or see only by imperfect glimpses. It is not so much a period for Ecclesiastical History as for ecclesiastical controversey and conjecture. A fragment here, an allegory there; romances of unknown authorship; a handful of letters of which the genuineness of every portion is contested inch by inch; the summary examination of a Roman magistrate; the pleadings of two or three Christian apologists; customs and opinions in the very act of change; last but not least, the faded paintings, the broken sculptures, the rude epitaphs in the darkness of the catacombs, —these are the scanty, though attractive, materials out of which the likeness of the early Church must be reproduced, as it was working its way, in the literal sense of the word, ‘under ground,’ under camp and palace, under senate and forum,—’as unknown, yet well known; as dying, and behold it lives.’

"This chasm once cleared, we find ourselves approaching the point where the story of the Church once more becomes history —becomes once more history, not of an isolated community, or of isolated individuals, but of an organized society incorporated with the political systems of the world."

This was the lament of Dean Stanley in 1861; and if we consider all the research and discovery that has taken place in the more than 100 years that have passed since he wrote, we find no facts of any kind that shed any light upon that strange, silent, and secret period between A.D. 70 and A.D. 150. Thus, today we still stand amazed at how a great company of isolated individuals who believed that Jesus was the Christ, and these predominately Jews that believed, became in 80 years an organized society, incorporated with the political systems of this world, holding beliefs and practicing rituals which were unknown in New Testament times. Furthermore, how was it possible that the great company of "Jews that believed" should in such short time become a company of Gentiles of great power in the Roman Empire, and also become anti-Semitic and the leading persecutors of Israel?

There can be only one answer to this. That stream which disappeared from view when the last word of the New Testament was written is not the same stream that emerged into view eighty years later. Christianity as we see it in the New Testament is not the Christianity that we see 100 years later; the ecclesia (out-called ones) of the New Testament is not the church of the Latin fathers. To use the words of Dean Stanley — "when this chasm is once cleared, and we find ourselves approaching the point where the story of the New Testament once more becomes history," we find a great theological conspiracy in operation whose evident purpose is to get the Jew out and get the Gentile church in, even going to the extreme of insisting that all Jews must desert their heritage and become Gentiles if they want to be any part of that which is called "Christianity."

This conspiracy led to the most terrible persecution of a people, a persecution that has no parallel in history. The anti-Semitism of that which called itself Christian does not need to be detailed in this brief study. The facts of history cannot be denied. There is no record more sickening in the annals of man’s inhumanity to his fellow-man. However, the persecution of Jews by those who call themselves Christian is not our main interest at present. We are chiefly interested in that theological conspiracy and its one goal of getting the Jew out and putting "the church" in his place. This conspiracy carried on its work before the reformation under Luther, and it was in no way touched by the reformation. In fact, the theology that came out of the reformation was just as anti-Semitic as that which preceded it.

This conspiracy can be seen in the idea, almost universally accepted in Christendom, that Israel was rejected and set aside at the Cross and has no further place in God’s program or purposes. All promises that God ever made to Israel are thrown up for grabs; and then the theft is justified by claiming that "the church" is "spiritual Israel" and, therefore, is the real owner of Israel’s place and blessings. Thus, a sharp distinction is made between "the church" and Israel, so that any Jew who would become a part of the church must sever himself from Israel.

Out of this comes the idea that the book of Acts is the history of the beginning and growth of "the church." The truth that Israel is still the center of all God’s activities throughout the Acts period is ignored or denied. "Get the Jew out and get the Gentile in" is the theological battle cry when men handle this book. Church theologians simply will not face up to the truth that in the eight year period after the resurrection when thousands were flocking to the Savior, and doing so at the risk of their lives, there was not so much as even one Gentile among them. If any think otherwise, then let that Gentile be pointed out or named.

Traditional theology would prefer that we believe that out of the 3000 who came to know Christ on the day of Pentecost, there were many Gentiles, and that these fanned out over the Roman Empire to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, and to found Gentiles churches even in such faraway places as Rome. The truth is ignored that this would make these men God’s commissioned ones to the Gentiles and set aside Paul’s claim that this was a prerogative in which he alone could boast.

Church theologians refuse to give any place to what God said to Israel through Peter when he declared, "Unto you first God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent (apostello, commissioned, see Issue No. 5) Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities" (Acts 3:26). They ignore Paul’s inspired statement made thirteen years after the resurrection to the people of Israel in Pisidian Antioch, "Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God (the proselytes), to you is the word of this salvation sent" (apostello, authorized); and also his following words, "It was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken to you" (Acts 13: 26, 46).

There are those who hold that since some Jews in Pisidian Antioch refused to believe, this determined the fate of all Israel. In fact, they insist that "the church" started here, a new development marking the end of God’s dealing with Israel. They ignore the fact that this turning to the Gentiles which took place here was strictly a local matter, that it concerned only those Gentiles who were at hand begging to be included in the gospel message (13:42), and that at Paul’s next stop in Iconium, he went at once to "the synagogue of the Jews."

Church theologians look upon Paul as a synagogue splitter and a church founder. The facts are that Paul never split a synagogue or founded a church. His actions in Ephesus, recorded in Acts 19:8, 9, did not split the synagogue and they did not start a church. True, those who believed became the outcalled (ekklEsia) of God; but they stoutly maintained and confessed their place in Israel, even as did Paul. Note his plain words in Rom. 11:1, "For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin," words spoken as proof that God had not cast away His people. Why ignore his declaration to the multitude, "I am verily a man which am a Jew" (Acts 22:3)?

If we would know the truth and if the truth would make us free, we must abandon once and for all the anti-Semitic interpretations of the Bible which today permeate the theology of Christendom from the circumference to the core.

INDEX

Issue no. 045