Author: D.C.

Most Christians are under the impression that we die because we sin, and that our sin is entirely our fault, and many of them also somehow apply the guilt of Adam’s sin to us at the exact same time. Well, the apostle Paul actually blamed our death on that very man — Adam — rather than on us, and then blamed our sin on that death rather than the other way around, in more than one place in his epistles.

First of all, he made this clear by writing that just as “in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Many Christians assume that Paul was simply referring to being resurrected here (based on the fact that the main point of the first part of this chapter is proving the resurrection of the dead), but we know that everyone who Paul said will be “made alive” includes those who will never die, such as the members of the body of Christ who will still be living at the time they’re caught up together in the air to meet the Lord when He comes for His body, not to mention the members of the Israel of God who will still be alive at the Second Coming and who will remain alive — thanks to the tree of life — until the time they’re finally also made immortal, so being “made alive” (translated from a future-tense variation of ζῳοποιέω/“dzo-op-oy-eh’-o” in the KJV, which is the same Greek word that “quickened” is translated from — and which, yes, literally just means “to be given life,” but which is almost exclusively used figuratively in the Bible to refer to our mortal bodies being made immortal) obviously can’t simply be referring to resurrection (which is an entirely different word, translated from the Greek word ἀνάστασις/“an-as’-tas-is” instead) because not everyone Paul said will be “made alive” will actually die and be resurrected (yes, that the dead will be physically resurrected was Paul’s main point in this chapter, but he used his Gospel to prove this point, and in doing so ended up covering details that went far beyond just resurrection, including elements that apply to those who won’t be resurrected — because they’ll never actually drop dead — as well).

As Paul explains later in the very same chapter, being made immortal is what we’re looking forward to as far as our salvation goes, and that being made immortal is how the death Adam brought us all is ultimately defeated, which also means that any human who is made immortal will then be experiencing the final stage of their own salvation as it pertains to Paul’s Gospel). And all that, combined with the fact that not everyone will end up as a corpse prior to being “made alive,” as we just covered — confirming that the “for as in Adam all die” part of the verse can only be referring to being made mortal, meaning being in a state of slowly dying because of what Adam did — tells us Paul was simply explaining that, for as in Adam all are dying, or mortal (and, of course, that, even so in — meaning “because of” — Christ shall all be quickened/made immortal). The Present Active Indicative tense in the original Greek of the verb translated as “die” in this verse in the KJV also makes this clear, I should add, making “in Adam all die” in the KJV a figurative translation of a Greek phrase which literally means “in Adam all are dying” (meaning all are in a state of mortality and are slowly dying).

Of course, most Christians assume that one can’t be “in Christ” without first having made a conscious decision of some sort to end up there, leading them to also assume that only those who choose to be “in Christ” (or only those who are elected by God to be “in Christ,” if said Christian is a Calvinist) can be made alive/quickened (and hence be saved), and they then read that assumption into this verse when trying to interpret it. But if you read it carefully you’ll notice that not only does it not actually say one has to make a choice to end up “in Christ” in that verse, it isn’t even talking about being “in Christ” from a positional perspective to begin with. (The reason most Christians conclude that one has to choose to be included in the “in Christ” part of this verse is generally because they’re assuming the sort of salvation Paul was writing about here is either the special “eternal life” sort of salvation he also taught about that involves membership in the body of Christ — and which isn’t a form of salvation everyone will experience — or the “eternal life” type of salvation Jesus spoke about during His earthly ministry which involves membership in the Israel of God — which is a type of salvation where one does have to do something specific if they want to experience it, and which is also not a form of salvation that everyone will experience, although whether one does end up experiencing that sort of salvation is just as predetermined from an absolute perspective as the special salvation of those in the body of Christ is — not realizing that Paul was writing about an entirely different sort of salvation here.) If that’s what Paul had been getting at, he would have written, “for as all in Adam die, even so shall all in Christ be made alive.” Thankfully, that’s not what he actually wrote at all. Instead, the way he carefully worded it (“for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive”) lets us know that Paul was using a parallelism there to tell us that everyone affected by the action of the first Adam is, “even so,” also equally affected by the action of the last Adam (referring to Christ Jesus, who is also compared to the first man by being called “the second man” in the same chapter), and completely outside of their own desire or will. The slight difference in wording might not seem important to most Christians (and those who don’t want to accept the possibility of the salvation of all humanity will automatically insist it doesn’t matter, without even taking the time to think about it), but it makes all the difference in the world when you realize that God didn’t simply inspire Paul to just throw words onto the page haphazardly, but rather that He made sure Paul laid the words out the way He did in order to make certain it’s clear that, just as nobody had any say in experiencing the effects of the first Adam’s action (mortality and, in most cases, physical death, aside from the relatively few people who will experience their quickening without having died), even so they also have no say in experiencing the effects of the last Adam’s action (eventual immortality) either. Basically, the order of the words God chose for Paul to use tells us that “in Adam” and “in Christ” simply mean “because of what Adam did” and “because of what Christ did,” and are not positional terms at all in this passage, but are rather causal terms.

The fact that Paul wasn’t referring to being “in Adam” or “in Christ” from a positional perspective there is also backed up by what he wrote in Romans 5. Of course (even if most Christians don’t realize this fact, never having thought it over particularly carefully, although this really is the only way their soteriology could possible work based on the way our brains work), in addition to assuming our salvation is (at least partly) based on possessing a certain attribute that others don’t have which allows us to fulfill a required action we have to do for ourselves in order to be saved (such as having enough natural wisdom and/or intelligence and/or humility and/or righteousness to be able to make a choice to believe the specific thing that ultimately saves us, for example, or at least having the natural ability and desire to build up that required wisdom and/or intelligence and/or humility and/or righteousness so one can make that specific choice), rather than our (general) salvation being based 100% on Christ’s death for our sins, and His subsequent burial and resurrection (with no action taken on our part at all in order to contribute to our salvation, since us having to accomplish anything at all to ensure our own salvation — even if it was just managing to repent, meaning managing to choose to change our minds and believe the right thing — would be salvation based at least in part upon something we had to do ourselves, which would ultimately be salvation by works), most Christians also assume that the blame for our mortality, death, and sinfulness falls on each of us as individuals rather than on Adam as well, but that’s not what Paul taught at all. You see, in addition to what he wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:22 about how we “all die” (meaning how we’re all mortal) “in Adam” (meaning because of what Adam did), over in Romans 5:12, Paul not only confirmed that the specific thing Adam did to bring his descendants mortality and death was his (Adam’s) own sin, but he also went on to explain that the reason we ourselves now sin is because of that mortality we inherited from Adam, when he wrote in that verse: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

This is one of the most misunderstood passages in Scripture, and most Christians have assumed “for that” in this verse means “because,” and hence have interpreted the last two parts of this verse to mean “and so death passed upon all men because all have sinned” in order to preserve their doctrine that we’re ultimately to blame for our own mortality and death (and many Bible versions have even mistranslated this verse to say as much). But, aside from the fact that this would render the verse literally nonsensical (I can’t see any way that the phrase “and so death passed upon all men because all have sinned” can legitimately follow “wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin,” and still make any sort of sense at all, at least not based on any rules of grammar, not to mention logic, that I’m aware of), if we die because we sin, the first part of the verse would be entirely superfluous, and might as well be cut out of the verse altogether, since that part of the passage would tell us basically nothing about why we sin, making it entirely irrelevant (not to mention that it would also turn the words “and so” in the verse into a lie: the words “and so” are connecting the clause in the second half of the sentence to the part of the sentence that came before it, which means that what was written in the first part of the verse has to be the reason for the clause that comes after those words, yet there’s no actual connection made between Adam’s sin and our death and sin in the verse if that clause actually means “because all have sinned,” since that places the responsibility on us rather than on Adam, contrary to what the words “and so” are telling us, as well as contrary to what Paul told us in 1 Corinthians 15:22 — which is that human mortality and death exist because of Adam — and Romans 5:12 can’t contradict any other part of Scripture).

And so, if we break it all down we can see that A) Adam sinned (“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world”), B) his sin brought him mortality leading to eventual death (“and death by sin”), C) because of this, his mortality passed down to his descendants (“and so death passed upon all men”) — and for those who haven’t figured it out yet, similar to the way the word “die” is used in 1 Corinthians 15:22, the word “death” is obviously being used as metonymy for “mortality” in this verse as well, since not everyone will literally drop dead before Jesus returns, as we already discussed — and D) for that reason, meaning because of that mortality, all of us descendants of Adam have also sinned (“for that all have sinned”), giving us a nice unbroken sequence of causes and effects (and giving a purpose to the word “that” in the verse, confirming that Paul literally meant “for that [reason] all have sinned”). But if we were to instead interpret the last two parts of the verse as simply meaning “and so death passed upon all men because all have sinned” we’ve suddenly lost the whole narrative, since this doesn’t tell us why all have sinned the way the literal reading of this verse does, nor does it explain why Paul included the first half of the verse to begin with. “That all have sinned” because “death passed upon all men” answers that question, but reversing the order (making sin the cause and mortality — or even literal death — the effect rather than mortality the cause and sin the effect) just makes a mess of the whole thing, leaving us with the question of why we sin, which was a part of what Paul was trying to explain in the first place with this verse (and as for why mortality leads to sin, it’s simply because, while we can have the strength to avoid sinning some of the time, being mortal makes us too weak to avoid giving in to sin all of the time). In fact, if our sin actually was the cause, the verse should have actually been written as: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin… but wait… that really doesn’t matter at all, now that I think about it, since death actually passed upon all men because all the rest of us have sinned, and this had nothing to do with that one man, despite what I told the Corinthians in my epistle to them, so why did I even mentioned him here?”

And for those of you who are thinking “Original Sin” might be the answer to that question, aside from the fact that “Original Sin” isn’t a term found anywhere in Scripture, it isn’t a concept found anywhere in Scripture either. In fact, the basis for this strange doctrine is a misinterpretation of the very verse we’ve just been looking at, but I don’t see anything in this verse which says we’ve inherited a “sin nature” from Adam (which is yet another term you won’t find anywhere in Scripture, but which many Christians are forced to read into it in order to hold on to certain unscriptural doctrines they don’t want to let go of), or even that guilt for Adam’s sin has somehow been imputed upon us as well for some reason, as those who believe this doctrine claim is the case. Yes, being mortal causes humans to become corrupt and sinful very quickly, but the claims of those who believe in “Original Sin” can’t actually be found in the Bible without heavily reading one’s assumptions into this verse, and to do so would be pure eisegesis. Some people do attempt to use passages such as Psalm 58:3 and Psalm 51:5 to defend their doctrine of “Original Sin” as well, I should say, but the first verse is talking specifically about “the wicked” (who are differentiated from “the righteous” a few verses later in the same Psalm, telling us this isn’t talking about all humans, but is instead about those who are particularly bad; besides we know that newborn babies can’t literally speak lies as soon as they’re born, as the psalmist said they do, because they can’t speak at all yet, so we know he’s employing hyperbole there, meaning the verse can’t be taken as literally meaning all humans start off wicked, but rather that the wicked begin their destructive path at a very young age), and there are so many possible interpretations of the second verse which don’t turn Romans 5:12 and 1 Corinthians 15:22 into a nonsensical lie, as would be the case if “Original Sin” were a valid concept, that it’s utterly foolish to even consider it as a defence of the doctrine. For example, it could simply be more poetic hyperbole (which is a figure of speech David was known to employ in this book, unless you believe his tears could literally create a whole swimming pool on his furniture), it could be using “in iniquity” and “in sin” as metonymy (which is a figure of speech used all the time in the Bible) for “in a world full of sin,” or it could even be referring to the possibility that he was born as a result of his mother having an affair similar to the one he’s believed to be confessing he had with Bathsheba in this very Psalm (and which is what many people think the verse means, believing that the way he recorded his past treatment by others in Psalm 69:4, 7-8, 11-12, and 20-21 indicates this as well — and yes, I’m aware that these were prophetically referring to Jesus, but they had a double-fulfillment, with the first fulfillment being what happened to David, even if only from a hyperbolic perspective in some cases), and these are just three possible interpretations (there are others I didn’t get into here, which you can dig into for yourself if you’re so inclined), so the concept of “Original Sin” really is a nonstarter.

And so, I maintain that the KJV actually got this correct, and that we should simply stick with what it actually says here and interpret it accordingly — in the sense that Paul meant “and so death passed upon all men, [and] for that [reason] all have sinned” — as this is the only interpretation which gives us answers to both the question of why we sin (while also explaining why Paul said, “the sting of death is sin,” since the word “death” has to be metonymy for “mortality” in 1 Corinthians 15:56 based on what we just covered), as well as the question of why we’re mortal and die (answers which don’t end up contradicting 1 Corinthians 15:22 the way the more common translations and interpretations of this verse in Romans do, I might add), keeping the blame for our mortality, death, and sinfulness squarely on the shoulders of the “one man” Paul meant for us to understand it belongs on: Adam. (At least from a relative perspective, even if God was ultimately the one behind it all from an absolute perspective.)

And so, contrary to what pretty much all Christians have been taught, we ourselves don’t die because we sin. In fact, Adam and Eve were the only humans who died because they sinned — or, rather, began to die/became mortal because they sinned. Yes, that’s what God’s warning to Adam, which is rendered figuratively in the KJV as, “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” meant. Remember, the expression “thou shalt surely die” was used in both Genesis 2:17 and in 1 Kings 2:36-46 in the KJV, and yet, based on the amount of time it would take to travel from Jerusalem to Gath and back (even on horseback, presuming my calculations are correct, although I challenge you to confirm this for yourself), there’s no way that Shimei actually died physically the day he crossed the brook Kidron, as Solomon seems to have warned him that he would in 1 Kings. And he certainly didn’t “die spiritually” that day either, as most Christians mistakenly assume the translation of “surely die” in the KJV means (an assumption they make because they recognize that this is obviously a figurative translation, based on the fact that Adam didn’t physically drop dead on the day he sinned), which confirms that the popular “spiritual death” idea is a complete misunderstanding of the term “surely die” in the KJV. As far as Shimei goes, it just meant that he could consider his days to be numbered as of the day he crossed the forbidden brook, because he essentially signed his own death sentence by doing so. And as far as Adam and Eve go, it basically meant the exact same thing, that they could consider their days to be numbered as of the day they sinned as well, just with a longer period of time before their eventual death sentence “played out.” Simply put, Genesis 2:17 is just telling us that, to die, they began dying — meaning they gained mortality leading to eventual physical death — on the day they ate the forbidden fruit (which makes sense considering the fact that the Hebrew phrase מוֹת תָּמוּת/“mooth ta’-mooth,” translated as “thou shalt surely die” in both passages in the KJV, literally means “to die thou shalt be dying”; this also tells us that “to die” can’t possibly be a reference to being punished in the lake of fire, by the way, because Adam didn’t end up in that location the day he sinned either, so becoming mortal remains the best interpretation of this warning).

Understanding this also helps explain why Jesus was able to avoid sinning, as well as why we’ll stop sinning once we’re made immortal. Basically, Romans 5:12 also tells us that mortality is passed down from our human fathers, not our mothers, since it’s Adam who is blamed for our mortality in that verse rather than Eve (who not only also sinned, but sinned before Adam did), as well as tells us that anyone with a mortal, human father will sin (presuming one doesn’t die as a baby before they have an opportunity to sin). This is why Jesus had to be born to a virgin, because He would have been guaranteed to sin at some point if He’d had a mortal, human father. Of course, traditional Christians will say that the reason Jesus didn’t sin is because He’s God, and that only God in the flesh could avoid sinning so He could be the perfect sacrifice for sin, but what they’re telling us when they say that, even if they don’t realize it, is that we humans could then never be free of sin, not even after our resurrection, since we aren’t going to become God, so that couldn’t possibly be the reason. Instead, the reason is because, not having a mortal father, He was in a state that was neither mortal nor immortal (it’s not a term found in Scripture, but because it’s useful to have a label for this, I personally refer to existing in this state as being “semi-mortal,” for lack of a better term that I’m aware of), which means that, while He wasn’t yet immortal, which means being entirely incapable of dying — as we’ll also be when we’re quickened, just like He is now — the fact that He didn’t have a human father meant that He could die but that He wasn’t slowly dying the way we mortals are either, and not having mortality coursing through His veins, but rather having the Spirit without measure, meant He was strong enough to avoid giving into temptation to sin (this combination of “semi-mortality” and having the Spirit without measure also kept Him alive, even on the cross, until He was ready to die and willingly gave up His life). This means that Adam — who, like Jesus, and like Eve, also had to have been in a “semi-mortal” state in order to be able to become mortal after sinning (and no, Adam and Eve couldn’t have been immortal prior to their sin, because “immortal” means “incapable of ever dying”) — theoretically could have also avoided sinning if the circumstances had worked out that way, although he didn’t have the Spirit without measure like Jesus did, and ultimately gave in to temptation, leading to the mortality and sin that all of us now get to experience as well, thanks to being his descendants.

That Adam is ultimately responsible for our condemnation to mortality, death, and sinfulness is also backed up a few lines later in Romans 5 as well, in verses 18–19, where Paul told us that, just as judgement to condemnation came upon all men because of the offence and disobedience of one, and not because of their own offences or disobedience, righteousness and justification of life will also come upon all men because of the obedience of one, and not because of their own obedience — which would have to include obedience towards any commands to do anything specific in order to experience (general) salvation, including commands to choose to repent and/or to believe anything specific — telling us that only two people are responsible for our current and future states, the first Adam and the last Adam, and that we’re just along for the ride. 

You see, when Paul wrote, “Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous,” he was using another set of parallelisms there, something he seemed to love using to prove this particular point in various epistles, where the “all” and the “many” in the second part of each sentence has to consist of no less than the exact same number of people who fall under the “all” and “many” in the first part of the sentences, or else the parallelisms would fall apart, as would his entire point itself. And for those who are wondering why Paul wrote “many” rather than “all” in verses 15 and 19 of this chapter, there are at least two reasons (there could be more, but I’m going to give you the most important reasons). First, verse 15 had to use “many” because not everyone will physically drop dead, as we already discussed. And second, Jesus was technically affected by Adam’s sin to a certain extent as well, in that He too was condemned to die (even if voluntarily) because of Adam’s action, since He had to die for the sins we now commit because we’re mortal thanks to Adam if He wanted to save us (which is why He could be included in the “all” of verse 18). But since He Himself never sinned, verse 19 couldn’t say “all” became sinners, which is why Paul instead wrote that “many were made sinners,” meaning every human other than Jesus. And again, being a parallelism, all the people who “were made sinners” because of “one man’s disobedience” will also have to “be made righteous” because of “the obedience of one,” or else the parallelism wouldn’t work (and please re-read that carefully: Paul said that it’s because of “the obedience of one,” and not because of their own obedience to choose to repent and/or believe the right thing, that they’re ultimately “made righteous,” even though, yes, those who do happen to believe Paul’s Gospel will get to enjoy that righteousness before everyone else, but it’s still all due to the obedience of one and not due to their own obedience).

But for those who still really want to blame our condemnation to mortality and death on our own sins rather than ultimately blaming it on the first Adam’s sin, I’d be curious to know what they believe the condemnation that came upon all men because of the offence and disobedience of one/Adam actually even is, exactly, not to mention why Paul included the part about “wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin“ in verse 12, and also why he claimed that “in Adam all die” in 1 Corinthians 15:22.

Of course, most Christians like to insist that one has to first choose to receive the free gift to be included in the second half of these parallelisms (completely ignoring the fact that this is not how parallelisms work), based on the inclusion of the word “receive” in verse 17, but Paul didn’t actually say anything about receiving the gift being a choice in that verse at all (although, if it was a choice, then receiving the “abundance of grace” mentioned in that verse would also have to be a choice). The idea that receiving the free gift is a choice is an assumption that one has to read into the verse, since it just isn’t there in the text (you won’t find the words “choice” or “choose” anywhere in the chapter), and receiving something isn’t necessarily something one chooses anyway, as evidenced by how Paul told us that, on five separate occasions, he received thirty-nine stripes. Since he would have experienced those lashes whether he first purposefully chose to receive them or not (at no point are we told that he said to his assailants, “Please whip me”; and had he instead said, “I refuse to receive these stripes,” they still would have whipped him anyway), it’s time to reconsider the idea that “receiving the free gift” is something one chooses rather than simply experiences apart from anything they have to choose to do, because, aside from the fact that this would make salvation something they gained through their own obedience rather than because of the obedience of one/Christ (thus contradicting Paul’s entire point, which is that only the first Adam and the last Adam are responsible for anything that happens to us when it comes to both our condemnation and our salvation, at least as far as our general salvation goes, which is the type of salvation Paul was writing about in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15:22), having to choose to receive it would also be something one had to accomplish in order to be saved, which by definition would make it a work one had to do in order to be saved, and the most difficult work one could ever do at that, based on how difficult most people find it to “choose to receive the gift” and “get saved” (at least as far as the traditional Christian understanding of what salvation is goes, although it’s true that their understanding is completely wrong). And so, rather than being offered money as a gift in order to pay off one’s debts, and having the option to either accept it or reject it (which is an analogy many Christians like to use when discussing salvation), it’s actually more like having money deposited directly into one’s bank account — enough to pay all their debts — and having automatic payments to those they owe money to set up entirely without their knowledge (with evangelism being about telling people the good news that the money is there and that their debts will all be paid with that money, whether or not they happen to believe it, or “choose to receive it,” because their bank accounts have already received it).

The reason most Christians insist that receiving the free gift has to be a choice (aside from simply never having considered the possibility that it might not be) is because they just don’t want to accept that condemnation and salvation could possibly be something we ultimately have no say in, which is why they also insist that we’re entirely responsible for our own condemnation to mortality and death (and its resulting sinfulness) as well, contrary to what Paul wrote (all the while often also contradictorily placing the guilt for Adam’s sin on us at the same time as blaming us, in order to preserve the doctrine of “Original Sin,” which is a doctrine that really only exists in order to be able to claim that everyone deserves to be punished in “hell” without end simply by virtue of being born, and is a doctrine which literally makes no sense at all when you take the time to actually think about it, since there’s just no legitimate way for someone who didn’t commit a particular sin to then be considered guilty of committing that sin just because an ancestor of theirs committed it; and one shouldn’t conflate the “condemnation” Paul wrote about in that passage with “guilt” anyway, because the type of “condemnation” in that verse is just the consequence of Adam’s sin that we all experience, meaning the mortality we inherited from him, which also leads to all of us then committing sins as well, and not to us somehow magically being guilty of eating the forbidden fruit ourselves, even though we didn’t actually eat it at all — which is backed up by the fact that the word “condemnation” there is translated from κατάκριμα/“kat-ak’-ree-mah” in the original Greek, which simply refers to a negative sentence and not specifically to a guilty verdict, and is a word which could also be used to say that one has been “condemned” to die of a terminal illness due to no fault of their own, which is actually pretty close to what the “condemnation” in this passage is referring to). You see, if our condemnation to mortality and its resulting sinfulness is based entirely on the action of one (Adam), as Paul said it was, then our salvation to immortality and sinlessness would have to be based entirely upon the action of one as well (the last Adam), as Paul also said it is, rather than based (at least in part) upon a wise decision we ourselves make to receive the free gift, and the pride of most Christians just won’t allow them to accept that as a possibility (because, although they’ll deny it — even to themselves — most of them, at least on a subconscious level, really want to be able to take the credit for having made the wise decision to “get saved,” based on the fact that they definitely want those who don’t make the same wise choice they believe they made to be responsible for not getting saved, based on the tragically large number of Christians who have asked me things along the lines of, “Are you saying that unbelievers will get the same reward as me? Even though they didn’t choose to accept Christ like I did?”, thus telling us they believe they earned, and even deserve, salvation because they were smart enough to choose to receive it, unlike all those sinners who aren’t smart enough to make the same good choice they did and hence don’t also deserve it the way they do, and so these Christians are basically boasting about, or glorying in, their wise decision to choose to receive the gift — as they’d be perfectly justified for doing if they had made that choice — rather than simply being grateful for having received it without ever getting to decide whether to accept it or not).

I should quickly add, some will point out that 1 Corinthians 15:1-2 also talks about “receiving” the Gospel Paul preached unto them, and that the salvation referred to in that passage seems like it could possibly be said to be conditional, at least if we take the passage on its own without considering the rest of Scripture. But even if we interpreted the passage as Paul referring to receiving salvation rather than simply receiving (or hearing) the message he preached unto them, based on what we’ve already covered (not to mention still have yet to cover), it could only be talking about receiving the special form of salvation which involves joining the body of Christ after hearing his Gospel there (a form of salvation that not everyone receives), and not the completed salvation (being guaranteed future immortality and sinlessness) which is discussed in the next two verses after those, and really throughout the rest of the chapter (as well as which is discussed in Romans 5). So even if someone did have to choose to “receive” this special form of salvation, it doesn’t also mean that anyone has to choose to receive the general form of salvation Christ won for all of us through His death for our sins, burial, and resurrection on the third day. And so, it’s time to recognize that the idea of the salvation Paul primarily wrote about (at least the general type of salvation) being based at all upon something people have to do for themselves — even if what they have to do for themselves is something as supposedly simple as having to choose to believe the right thing — rather than being based entirely upon what one/Christ did for us, is really something one must read into the text based on one’s preconceived idea that this salvation depends at least partly (even if just 1%) on us and our wise decision to believe and/or do something specific rather than depends 100% on what one/Christ did.

To learn more, please read my Consistent Soteriology Bible study, which you can find here: https://kjvgospel.com/kjv

I can’t believe I have to make this post, but some of the members of the body of Christ have made the same mistake that many traditional, evangelical Christians have made in recent years as well, and have concluded that the earth is flat, as well as that everything we know about outer space is a lie (among various other related conspiracy theories). Now, I’m not going to get into all the reasons as to why these ideas are so ridiculous myself; I don’t have the time to write up an in-depth treatise on the subject. Thankfully, I don’t have to, because there are already so many good explanations out there that I can link to, so I’m just going to post links to websites and YouTube videos that explain just how easy it is to debunk these ideas (and I’ll probably add more in the future as I come across them as time goes on).

However, before I do so, it’s important to note that the main reason some believers have even bought into these ideas in the first place isn’t because they’re into science and, through using the scientific method, have discovered something that the rest of us haven’t. The reason is primarily simply because they believe the Bible teaches that the earth is flat, and so they’re (rightfully) trying to stick with what they believe Scripture actually says. This is why the first link I’m going to share is to a webpage created by Young Earth Creationists which explains that the Bible doesn’t actually teach this at all (and that the idea that it does is based on misinterpretation of Scripture), and the next few will also be to articles by Young Earth Creationists on the topic of the flat earth theory. Of course, I’m not a YEC (Young Earth Creationist) myself. Like most of us in the body of Christ, I believe in what’s referred to as the Gap Theory; so while I believe God is ultimately behind the creation of the universe in some manner (from an absolute perspective, as we like to say), I don’t believe the planet or universe is particularly young, or that the universe was originally created in 6 days (the 6 days of Genesis 1 were about something else altogether, but that’s a whole other topic). But these pages by these creationists demonstrate well — by those who should be the most inclined to buy into the flat earth idea — that believing in Scripture doesn’t mean one has to reject what the scientific method has demonstrated to be true (and, as I said recently to someone, theology can’t contradict reality; when it does, we have to look into how we might be misinterpreting Scripture).

I should add, there’s another reason why some believers might be inclined to buy into such things as well. Because most of us grew up in the so-called “orthodox” Christian religion, we’re used to religious authorities lying to us (whether intentionally or otherwise), and hence having to become sceptical about claims made by said religious authorities. Because of this experience, a number of believers have carried that scepticism over to claims made by other types of authorities as well, including claims made by scientific authorities, and so some of the members of the body of Christ are more inclined to automatically assume we’re being lied to by anyone who calls themselves an expert or an authority on a topic, regardless of whether that’s actually the case or not.

Anyway, I encourage anyone who believes the earth to be flat, people who might still be on the fence about the matter, or even those who are just wondering what this whole debate is all about, to take the time to study the following websites and videos carefully. I’ve included a variety of websites and videos on the topic, including some about Antarctica, because of the connected conspiracy theory that nobody is allowed to visit Antarctica (or even get near it, according to some Flat Earthers) or they’ll be shot by UN or NASA soldiers (take your pick), which is a conspiracy theory that most Flat Earthers actually believed (and some still do, sadly) prior to The Final Experiment in December 2024, when a group of Flat Earthers, along with some “Globe Earthers,” finally visited the South Pole in order to see if there’s a 24-hour sun down there in December (which is something they’d long claimed was impossible, not to mention admitted for years would disprove the Flat Earth idea if they did see it, and which, of course, they did see).

So please don’t just take for granted the truth of the talking points you’ve heard a few conspiracy theorists repeat on YouTube (most of whom I’m fairly sure don’t actually even believe what they’re saying themselves, but are simply promoting the Flat Earth theory in order to make money), because anybody can actually prove for themselves very easily that the earth actually is a globe, as some of these websites and videos make clear. In fact, anyone who actually reads every page listed below, and watches every YouTube video embedded below, will admit that the earth is not flat by the time they’ve finished, with the only possible exceptions being people who are entirely incapable of understanding math and science or people who are outright lying. And if anyone ever claims that this is not the case, ask them to refute and debunk every webpage and video listed below, and if they refuse, you can call them out as being either extremely ignorant or as being dishonest when it comes to this topic.

• A flat earth, and other nonsense: Debunking ideas that would not exist were it not for the Internet (by Creation Ministries International)
• Why the Universe does not revolve around the Earth: Refuting absolute geocentrism (by Creation Ministries International)
• Is the Earth Flat? (by Answers In Genesis)
• Reflections on the Flat-Earth Movement (by Answers In Genesis)
• What The Bible Says About Flat Earth Theories
• 10 easy ways you can tell for yourself that the Earth is not flat
• Five Ways to Disprove Flat Earth From Your Backyard
• Five Impossible Facts That Would Have To Be True If The Earth Were Flat
• 8 ways life would get weird on a flat Earth
• When Flat Earthers Spent $20,000 Trying To Prove Earth Is Flat And Accidentally Proved It’s Round
• Long-Range Shooting: Unraveling The Coriolis Effect’s Impact On Sniping Accuracy
• The weather helps disprove the flat-Earth hypothesis
• The Illusion of Clouds Appearing ‘Behind’ the Sun or the Moon
• Flat-Earthers “Prove” Sun Is Closer Than Clouds
• Fact check: Laser beam tests done over water are skewed by refraction, don’t prove Earth is flat
• Experiments Involving Flashlights, Laser, & Reflected Sunlight Over Water Surface
• Curvature of Water Surface
• Do Government Documents Admit That the Earth Is Flat?
• Fact check: NASA says Earth is a globe, uses ‘flat and non-rotating’ model in equations
• Is it true that there exists no real pictures of Earth taken from space?
• Flat Earth Busted
• Flat Earth Insanity
• FlatEarth.ws: Debunking Flat Earth Misconceptions
• How to debate a flat-Earther
• How to argue with flat-earthers
• How to Win an Argument With Flat Earth Conspiracy Theorists
• Fighting flat-Earth theory
• The earth is a globe
• Felicity Aston skis across Antarctica
• People Cross Antarctica All the Time. It’s Still Crazy Hard

This often comes as a surprise when I bring it up to many members of the true body of Christ, as well as to other Universalists, but no, Jesus did not preach the salvation of all humanity during His earthly ministry. That’s not to say He didn’t teach the salvation of all at a later time, but He only did this directly to one person (the apostle Paul), after He’d already ascended to heaven (please note that teaching one person is not the same thing as publicly preaching to a crowd, in case the title of this article sounded confusing). In fact, the salvation of all can only be found within Paul’s epistles. This means that any references to salvation in any of the Circumcision writings (referring to the books of the Bible that weren’t signed by the apostle Paul) — even those that sound like they’re talking about the salvation of all — are about an entirely different type of salvation altogether and don’t apply to all humanity at all.

Now, I have touched on this before (in my article titled The necessity of two Gospels), and Aaron Welch has written an even better article on this topic as well, and even though he’s not a KJV-Onlyist, everyone in the body of Christ who is evangelizing or teaching about the salvation of all really needs to read (you can find it here: Did John reveal the truth of the salvation of all mankind in his writings?, and make sure to read both Part One and Part Two), but I wanted to touch on an aspect of it from a related but slightly different perspective than most have considered, at least in my experience.

I should say, I am writing this article primarily to members of the body of Christ, and not so much to “orthodox” Christians, so I’m assuming that nearly everyone reading this is already familiar the difference between the five ages/eons, the two Gospels, and the different types of salvation referred to in Scripture, but Christian Universalists reading this might also find it useful, so just to give a quick breakdown:

• We’re currently living in the third age (or eon, as some refer to it as) which began at the time of Noah’s Flood, while the thousand-year reign of Christ (also known as the Millennium) will be the fourth age/eon, and the fifth and final age/eon — prior to the consummation of the eons, or end of the ages, since all ages/eons, by definition, have to eventually end — will begin with the creation of the New Earth after the Millennium concludes.
• The Gospel that Jesus and His disciples preached while He walked the earth is known as “the Gospel of the Kingdom,” also known as “the Gospel of the Circumcision.” And while Paul did preach and teach about this Gospel on occasion too — especially when preaching to Israelites — the glorified Christ gave him a new Gospel meant primarily for the nations, known as “the Gospel of the Uncircumcision” (among other names, including “Paul’s Gospel”).
• While all of the following types of salvation include atonement and forgiveness of sins, among various other spiritual aspects, the type of salvation Jesus preached about during His earthly ministry was to be experienced in the kingdom of heaven during the fourth age (meaning Israel during the Millennium), although those relative few who get to enjoy this type of salvation will also miss out on the second death in the lake of fire, so they’ll also get to enjoy life on the New Earth during the fifth age, and it’s important to note that this type of salvation does not necessarily include immortality (only those raised from the dead at the resurrection of the just will be quickened, or vivified — meaning made immortal — when experiencing this type of salvation, while everyone else who is saved at the beginning of the Millennium will remain alive by consuming the fruit of the tree of life on a monthly basis. Paul, on the other hand, at least when he wasn’t discussing the same time of salvation with Israelites that Jesus preached, taught about two different — albeit extremely connected — types of salvation, known as general salvation (aka the salvation of all humanity) and the special salvation (referred to figuratively as “eternal life,” or as “everlasting life,” in the KJV). General salvation consists of being made immortal (and hence sinless), which will happen by the consummation of the eons to every human who will have ever lived, while the special salvation he also taught about includes experiencing general salvation (immortality and sinlessness) earlier than everyone else, as well as gaining membership in the body of Christ and enjoying “eternal life” (and, like the type of salvation that Israelites will experience, only a relative few humans will get to enjoy this special salvation as well).

I don’t have the space to go into any more detail on those three points than that, if the above isn’t something you’re already familiar with, but I highly recommend the book titled God’s Eonian Purpose by Adlai Loudy if you want to learn more about the ages/eons as well, although keep in mind that he made a distinction between “ages” and “eons” in his book which most others don’t, but it’s still a very worthwhile read, as long as you can handle reading a theology book by someone who is definitely not a KJV-Onlyist). As for everyone else who is already familiar with the above, let’s get to my main point, which, again, is that the salvation of all can only be found within the epistles signed by the apostle Paul (and even then, only in passages that are referring to general salvation, such as 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 for example, since the passages where he talks about the special salvation, such as 1 Corinthians 15:1-2 for example, are only about the salvation of those elected for membership in the body of Christ).

The problem is, most who teach the doctrine of the salvation of all (including many within the body of Christ) like to use passages quoting Jesus — especially verses from the book of John such as John 1:29, such as John 4:42, and such as John 12:32, for example — to try to prove that the Bible teaches the salvation of all, but none of these passages can actually mean what most people quoting them for this purpose assume they do (as you already know if you read Aaron’s article that I linked to above).

You see, what these people are overlooking is that the salvation Jesus was teaching about only takes place within the kingdom of heaven during the fourth eon (Israel during the Millennium), as I already pointed out. So if Jesus was saying that everyone will get saved in those passages, it would mean that everyone on earth will get to live in Israel during the Millennium, and that He wouldn’t say to anyone, “depart from me, ye that work iniquity,” as the Bible tells us He’s going to say to some at that time. Not to mention, no “goats” will be exiled from Israel to experience “everlasting” punishment in the parts of the world that aren’t Israel at that time either, if He was referring to the salvation of all there. And perhaps most importantly, this would also mean there are two “salvations of all” — one to be experienced during the Millennium, which is when the salvation Jesus taught about during His earthly ministry will take place, and one at the end of the ages/eons, which is when the salvation of all that Paul taught about will take place — and I trust everyone can see how ridiculous an idea that is.

And so, outside, perhaps, of a possible secondary fulfillment of these passages in the Circumcision writings (and even if I do find it unlikely, I’ll concede that it’s possible these passages do have a secondary fulfillment, but it still means that there would then be a primary fulfillment of each of these passages which has nothing to do with the salvation of all), these passages need to be interpreted and taught in the context that they were originally spoken or written (meaning concerning Israel during the fourth age, not concerning all humanity at the end of the fifth age), and so I would like to urge everyone who is evangelizing and arguing for the salvation of all humanity to stop using Circumcision writings to do so, and to begin only using the relevant passages from Paul’s epistles to prove this scriptural point.

And, again, please read Aaron Welch’s article on the topic if you haven’t already.

[Please note that I put “free will” in quotation marks because it’s a nonsensical concept that can’t actually exist in reality. This article wasn’t written to prove that fact, though, nor was it written to prove that God is ultimately in control of all things, at least from an absolute perspective (including all sinful and/or evil actions and events). However, if you aren’t already aware of these facts, please go read my (free) eBook, because I proved all of that in there.]

When I created the above chart and included it in my last article, I predicted that a lot of members of the (true) body of Christ who read it would object to me including “God’s control of all things, including sinful/evil choices and actions” among the list of Secondary Doctrines rather than Primary Doctrines on the chart, and I was absolutely correct in my assumption, because nearly everyone who read it and got back to me told me that I needed to move it to the Primary Doctrines category. This is why I took the time to explain my reasoning for where I placed this issue on the chart before publishing the article, but not everyone read the whole thing before getting back to me after seeing the chart, so I wanted to go into a little more detail here on why I listed it where I did.

First things first, the point of the chart wasn’t about whether something is true or not, so much as it was about what disagreements over doctrine that we should and shouldn’t be willing to break fellowship with other members of the body of Christ over. The Primary Doctrines category was the only category that I believe one should be willing to do so over, which is why I instead placed this issue on the the list of Secondary Doctrines (which are doctrines we should all be 100% in agreement with, but not necessarily separate from one another over if we aren’t, as opposed to Tertiary Doctrines, which we should technically be able to agree to disagree on, even if we should still feel free to defend our positions on such issues).

However, because all members of the body of Christ rightly understand that general salvation (meaning the eventual salvation of all humanity) is not based on a choice we make, but is rather based 100% on Christ’s death for our sins — along with His burial and resurrection, of course — and also understand that our special salvation (which includes our membership in the body of Christ) is based on God’s choice to gift us with the faith to believe this Good News, meaning it isn’t based on any choice we make either, most of them also assume that this means one can’t believe in the existence of something called “free will” (or believe that God isn’t in control of all things) and also be a member of the body of Christ.

The reason they make this assumption appears to be because they’re also assuming that, if someone believes something called “free will” exists (regardless of how one defines the term “free will”), or believes that God is not 100% behind every action and event that occurs, then our salvation must be based on a choice we make. I’m not sure why they’re making this second assumption, but based on the discussions I’ve had with various believers over the last couple days, it does seem that this assumption is the reason they disagreed with my placement of this issue where I did.

The problem is, a belief in the existence of “free will,” and/or a belief that God might not control absolutely every single thing that happens, doesn’t mean that one has to also believe that everything which happens in the world is based on our supposed “free will” choices, and that would include salvation (both types of salvation, at least when it comes to the types of salvation connected with Paul’s Gospel). You see, someone who believes in “free will,” and/or that God is not 100% in control of everything that happens, is still aware that there are plenty of things which occur that aren’t based on choices at all (be they “free will” choices we supposedly make, or even choices that we were predestined by God to make).

For example, a “free willer” is well aware that water is wet entirely apart from any “free will” choices one might make. They also know that earthquakes happen, as do volcanic eruptions, all apart from any choices they make as well. And likewise, while it might be extremely rare (if it actually happens at all in practice, which it very well might not), someone who believes that something called “free will” exists is technically still capable of understanding that the general salvation of humanity isn’t based on any choices we make at all either (again, be it a “free will” choice, or even a choice we’re predestined by God to make), but is rather based solely on Christ’s death for our sins, burial, and resurrection on the third day. I’m not sure why so many believers seem to miss this fact, but it is indeed still a fact, even if perhaps just a theoretical one.

Still, just in case that doesn’t make things clear enough, let’s try this using variables to clarify as well:

a = free will
b = predestination
c = choice (be it based on a or b)

Salvation isn’t based on c at all, hence whether a or b are real is entirely irrelevant to salvation (even though a doesn’t exist and b is real, whether one believes in a or not has no connection with salvation since salvation isn’t based on c, and a only matters when it comes to salvation if salvation is based on c because “free will” is irrelevant when there’s no choice involved, whether one believes “free will” exists or not).

And so, as I tried to explain in my follow-up explanation in that article, belief in “free will” could fall under what’s already listed among the Primary Doctrines, but only if someone tried to apply it to salvation (meaning, if someone believed that salvation was based on a choice one has to make to be included in it). So long as one isn’t applying their belief in “free will” to salvation, however (meaning, as long as one understands that general salvation is based solely upon Christ’s death for our sins, and has nothing to do with any choices we make, and understands that we can’t choose to have faith for our special salvation either, but rather that faith is given to us as a gift), I see absolutely no reason to believe that they couldn’t be in the body of Christ — again, at least from a theoretical perspective.

And this article is all being discussed from a theoretical perspective, because it could be that God makes sure everyone He gives faith to believe Paul’s Gospel to is also given a belief in the lack of existence of “free will” and a proper understanding of His sovereignty as well. In fact, I personally do think it’s unlikely that a believer will believe in “free will.” But from a purely theoretical perspective, although also because I just can’t say for certain that it’s impossible (since I haven’t seen any Bible verses to the contrary, nor have I met every member of the body of Christ and hence don’t know what every one of them believes about the topic), even if I don’t actually think it will happen, I’m forced to maintain the view in the article.

Besides, even if it is true that God will reveal the truth about “free will” to all believers, as I strongly suspect to be the case, understanding what I’ve written in this article also helps one really understand what 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 actually means. So even though all of this is just theoretical, it’s also still an extremely important point to grasp, because it helps clarify the details one actually needs to believe in order to be said to be in the body of Christ.

Still, if there are any flaws in my logic regarding this issue, I’d like to hear about it or them, so please reach out to me if you can see somewhere I went astray in my reasoning there.

I’ve only been a member of the church called the body of Christ for a little over 7 years now, but I’ve known, or at least have been acquainted with, various members of the body of Christ for decades now thanks to my time as a traditional Christian Universalist prior to getting saved, and I’ve noticed a trend that seems to go back farther than my own membership in the true body of Christ, which is the sad practice of certain members breaking fellowship with other members over what I would refer to as Secondary and Tertiary Doctrines.

Now, there are doctrines which we should be divisive about, in that we should be willing to break fellowship over disagreement about these particular doctrines — which I would refer to as Primary Doctrines — especially the ones connected with Paul’s Gospel because one couldn’t even be considered to be saved (referring to the special, or relative, salvation that involves being a member of the body of Christ) if they don’t understand and believe them, although also those few doctrines that are just so central to understanding scriptural truth and to proper behaviour that to believe, teach, and do otherwise would be harmful to the church. There are far less of these doctrines than one might think, however, with most of what some people might assume should fall under the category of Primary Doctrines actually falling under the categories of Secondary and Tertiary Doctrines.

Still, as far as the Secondary Doctrines go, I do believe that we should all be in 100% agreement over them, because they are extremely important. But even so, I would still argue that if someone disagrees on these, we shouldn’t break fellowship with them over their disagreement (although we should indeed be trying to convince them that they are wrong about their view on these particular doctrines).

And while we should certainly be willing to take a stand and defend our beliefs when we do hold a particular opinion or interpretation related to Tertiary Doctrines, these definitely aren’t things we should be creating sects over, meaning separating from one another over our beliefs regarding these issues and no longer fellowshipping with those members of the ecclesia who do disagree with us about them (and we absolutely shouldn’t be creating sects over what I refer to as Conscience Matters).

So what is it that falls under each category? Well, here’s a chart I created that I believe to be pretty accurate (for anyone who might be wondering and somehow isn’t already aware, everything listed under the Secondary and Tertiary Doctrines section are issues that I’ve seen disputes, and occasionally even sects formed, over among members of the body of Christ in recent years):

Now, I’m sure there are going to be some misunderstandings when it comes to certain points on the chart, so I’ll clarify on the ones I assume those are most likely to be, but I should first mention that I do personally agree that a number of opinions and interpretations connected with the items listed as Secondary and Tertiary Doctrines can indeed be detrimental to hold and teach. However, despite my personal belief about those particular doctrines, I do maintain that if something isn’t a Primary Doctrine, we should still be willing to fellowship with other believers who disagree with us and who teach opinions and interpretations contrary to the ones we hold (even if I also agree that one would be justified in not allowing them to teach their doctrines at a conference one is hosting if they strongly disagree with the doctrines that might be taught there if we did).

As for the misunderstandings I’m anticipating over why I listed what I did as Secondary Doctrines rather than as Primary Doctrines, I’ll explain my reasoning now. First of all, I expect many believers to object to God controls all things, including sinful/evil choices and events not being included among the Primary Doctrines because a large number of (if not most) believers think that belief in human “free will” (or belief that God isn’t in control of everything) is disqualifying as far as membership in the body of Christ goes, but I just can’t agree with this assumption. Now, yes, belief in a “free will” choice to get saved is certainly a disqualifying belief to hold when it comes to membership in the body of Christ (at least as far as the salvation connected with Paul’s Gospel goes) because our special salvation which includes membership in the body of Christ is based on understanding and believing Paul’s Gospel — which includes the fact that general salvation (meaning the eventual salvation of all humanity) is based solely on Christ’s death for our sins (along with His burial and resurrection on the third day, of course, but it was specifically His death for our sins that guaranteed the eventual salvation of all humanity) — and also because our special salvation is a gift of God apart from any works, and having to make a “free will” choice to have faith that Paul’s Gospel is true would certainly be a work, if it were even possible to do so in the first place (which it isn’t).

And I know some will read the above and think that what I just wrote proves that believing in “free will” does indeed disqualify someone from experiencing that special salvation, but it isn’t belief in the existence of something called “free will” that Paul’s Gospel denies so much as belief that a “free will” choice to get saved can exist that it denies. So while “free will” is indeed a nonsensical idea (not to mention a scientific and logical impossibility), I believe that one can mistakenly hold to its existence as long as they don’t believe that the salvation based on Paul’s Gospel is based on “free will” in any way, because the fact that “free will” itself doesn’t exist simply isn’t included anywhere in the passage where Paul said what his Gospel is, and if something isn’t included in that passage (which is 1 Corinthians 15:3-4), it just can’t be said to be something that someone has to believe/disbelieve in order to experience the special salvation that includes membership in the body of Christ. That said, I’ve never met a single believer within the true body of Christ who actually does believe in the existence of human “free will,” so from a certain perspective this is a moot point. However, if I did happen to know a believer who understood that the salvation connected with Paul’s Gospel isn’t based on a choice we make (be it a “free will,” or even a predetermined, choice), but is rather 100% based on God and Christ, yet they somehow did still believe that something called “free will” exists, I wouldn’t stop eating with them or discussing Scripture and theology and such with them (fellowshipping with them, in other words), and I hope that nobody else in the body of Christ would either.

The other thing I’m certain is likely to cause some confusion is my inclusion of Do not follow the Mosaic law to perfect self or spiritual walk as a Secondary Doctrine rather than as a Primary Doctrine, because Paul wrote in Galatians that anyone who teaches members of the body of Christ to follow the Mosaic law in any way for salvation is accursed. However, I already listed Do not teach body of Christ members to obey other gospels as a Primary Doctrine, which covers that aspect of the issue, and while it is true that Paul advises us not to follow the Mosaic law, as long as it isn’t for salvation, it technically isn’t a salvation issue. And there’s also the fact that Paul does seem to allow for members of the body to choose to obey certain parts of it as personal conscience matters, because they mistakenly believe that God wants them to follow certain parts of it, even if not in order to be saved, so I see no basis for including it among the Primary Doctrines (although Paul does warn that trying to follow any of the law puts one under the curse of having to follow all of it, so we should still try to convince our brothers and sisters with weaker faith to eventually stop trying to follow it at all, which is why I placed it among the Secondary Doctrines rather than among the far less important Tertiary Doctrines).

Simply put, both of the issues I listed as Secondary Doctrines could fall under what’s already listed among the Primary Doctrines if someone tried to apply them to salvation (meaning, if someone tried to make salvation a choice, when it comes to the first issue, or if someone tried to make following any of the Mosaic law something one has to do in order to be saved, when it comes to the second issue), but as long as one isn’t applying either of them to salvation (meaning, as long as one understands that general salvation is based solely upon Christ’s death for our sins, and has nothing to do with any choices we make or other actions we take, and understands that we can’t choose to have faith for our special salvation either), I do believe that they technically belong in the Secondary Doctrines category.

As for what I meant by Avoid egregious actions that bring the body into disrepute, and why I included it among the Primary Doctrines, this is primarily referring to actions that are illegal and visible to the public (not that we should be breaking the law at all), but also to public actions that are considered by society to be so immoral (even if not necessarily illegal) that even nonbelievers wouldn’t let the public know if they were participating in them, and Paul did advise at least once that such types of actions are worthy of separating from someone over (at least until they repent).

Still, I’m sure there are other things I included in certain categories that some might question as well, but at least based on my understanding of Scripture (especially when it comes to what’s actually included in Paul’s Gospel, and what his Gospel really means), I believe these doctrines and conscience matters are all in their proper places on the chart. However, if you do have any questions, concerns, or disagreements about where certain items ended up, I’m certainly open to discussing it, so please reach out to me if you want to talk about it.

[Just to give credit where credit is due, while I disagree almost entirely with his opinions on what falls under the same categories, I based the above chart on the chart that Jeremy Howard of Do Theology created.]

Most Christians believe the Bible teaches that God created the universe out of nothing. Aside from the fact that it’s entirely impossible to create anything out of nothing, this idea (which is a concept that is generally referred to as “creatio ex nihilo”) isn’t actually taught anywhere in Scripture anyway, so simply put, no, He didn’t. Instead, I believe that both logic and Scripture teach something else, which is that the universe was “creatio ex deo,” meaning created out of God Himself, and Romans 11:36 (which says: “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things”) backs this up.

I realize it probably sounds blasphemous to many, but the fact of the matter is that the whole universe really is made out of a “part” of God, so to speak. This doesn’t mean that we are God, however (which would be Pantheism), because the universe isn’t all there is (as would be the case under Pantheism). Instead, while a “part” of God does manifest within the physical universe, He ultimately transcends the universe at the same time (“heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain [Him],” as 2 Chronicles 6:18 tells us). So, instead of Pantheism, I believe that Panentheism is true instead, which basically just means that God “transformed” a “part” of Himself into “universe,” meaning into space, time, and matter, and, in fact, that the whole universe exists within that “part” of God (which is also backed up by Acts 17:28, which says: “For in him we live, and move, and have our being”).

In response to this, I have heard it said that, “I believe God spoke all into existence. Everything is vibrating. This sound/vibration came out of God and didn’t exist until spoken.“ And while Genesis does indeed seem to say that God “spoke” (note the quotation marks, indicating that I’m using the word figuratively) all into existence, it’s important to recognize that vibrations require something to vibrate. You can’t vibrate matter out of something that doesn’t exist, so it could only be God Himself that vibrated, if this is the case. Simply put, if He used vibrations to create the universe, He vibrated a “part” of Himself, so to speak, into “universe.”

Besides, for God to form the universe out of something called “nothing” (if that were even possible), there would have to be a “nothing” already existing “beside” Him, so to speak, before the universe existed, to form it out of (to create something “ex” — or “out of” — something, even something called “nothing,” that something would have to first exist in order to have something new created out of it; or, to put it another way, if I wanted to create a new “thing” out of another specific “thing,” that specific thing would have to exist for me to create something out of it specifically, even if that specific “thing” was “nothingness”). And if anything other than God existed “before” space/time/matter did, it would mean that something called “nothing” (or “nothingness”) already existed in a “universe” of its own “beside” God, since it would have always been existing outside of God, and hence would not have been created by God. In fact, it would then have had to have been created by another God (or be another God). Unless, of course, you believe that God first created something called “nothingness,” then created the universe out of that nothingness. But even then, that thing called nothingness would have had to have been created out of a “part” of Himself (unless He created that “nothingness” from another, already-existing “nothingness,” but then where did the first “nothingness” come from?), so the end result would be the same, if it were actually even possible for “nothing” to exist, which it really isn’t. You see — and this is getting into the topic of ontology — for something called “nothing” to exist, it would have to already be something, and if it’s something, it’s not nothing, which means that “nothing” can’t actually exist at all, and hence there never was a “nothing” to create the universe out of. So, simply put, in the beginning there was only God to create the heavens and the earth (the universe, in other words) out of.

This also answers the question of why there is something rather than nothing as well, by the way, because, if “nothing” can’t exist, then something has to exist, and that something was originally God.

As you may know, not every member of the true body of Christ uses the King James Version of the Bible. In fact, the truth is that the majority of English-speaking members of the true body of Christ tend to prefer using a more literal version, known as the CLV (the Concordant Literal Version), and this article is written primarily for them, because there’s a certain passage in that Bible translation which has caused a lot of confusion and concern among those members of the body of Christ — that passage being 1 Corinthians 15:1-2 — so I want to share my thoughts on it.

The reason this passage is so troubling to some is the way it’s translated in the CLV, which is somewhat different from the way many other Bible versions render it:

Now I am making known to you, brethren, the evangel which I bring to you, which also you accepted, in which also you stand, through which also you are saved, if you are retaining what I said in bringing the evangel to you, outside and except you believe feignedly.

The way the CLV renders this passage has led many believers to ask themselves whether they ever truly believed Paul’s Gospel (or evangel, as the CLV transliterates the Greek word εὐαγγέλιον/“yoo-ang-ghel’-ee-on”) and are truly in the body of Christ, or if they themselves instead actually believed feignedly. Well, to anyone asking whether they believed feignedly or not, I’d first ask them whether they truly understand and believe that when Paul wrote in his Gospel (which he laid out in the next two verses: For I give over to you among the first what also I accepted, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that He was entombed, and that He has been roused the third day according to the scriptures) ”that Christ died for our sins,” he meant that all sin has now been dealt with completely and every human who will ever have lived will be saved in the end (referring to the general salvation of all humanity, not the special salvation that one who believes this Gospel gets to experience as well); that when he wrote “He was entombed” (or “He was buried,” as the KJV puts it, since entombment is technically a form of burial), he meant Christ Himself was buried and not just His body while He went elsewhere (which means that He ceased to exist as a conscious being when He died and spent those three days in the tomb He was buried in for that time period); and that when he wrote “He has been roused the third day” (or “he rose again the third day,” as the KJV puts it), he meant that Jesus’ dead body was physically resurrected (and that He isn’t now simply existing as a glorified ghost in another dimension, the way some people believe He is). If they truly understand and believe these things, they can be said to have been saved (referring again to the special salvation, meaning they’ve been brought into membership in the body of Christ and will get to enjoy all the privileges this entails long before everyone else experiences their own salvation at a later date) and they are not a feigned believer.

That all being said, there’s another reason I believe they’re not feigned believers, and this is because I believe that “believe feignedly” is a poor translation of the original Greek in this passage. Simply put, as good a literal translation as the Concordant Literal Version might be overall (and it does seem to be a pretty good literal translation for the most part, even if it’s not a translation of the Textus Receptus), there are translations in the CLV which can lead people astray if they aren’t careful in their interpretations, and I believe this particularly applies to 1 Corinthians 15:2 in this Bible version.

That’s not to say there can’t be such a thing as a feigned believer, but I don’t believe this verse is referring to that sort of person. The word “feign” means “to purposely pretend,” so a truly feigned believer would be someone who doesn’t believe (which means they know they don’t believe), but is pretending (feigning) that they do, presumably for the purpose of leading true believers away from their faith (Paul refers to these sort of people as “false brethren” in other places). But if “believe feignedly” is a poor translation of the verse, as I believe it to be, this verse isn’t referring to that sort of person.

Instead, my understanding of what Paul was saying there is that his readers were saved (referring, again, to the special salvation of believers, not the general salvation of all humanity because of Christ’s death for our sins, burial, and resurrection) when they believed the Gospel, unless his Gospel wasn’t actually true, in which case it didn’t matter how sincere their belief was because it would then be pointless to believe it.

You see, we have to remember that the immediate context of Paul even repeating his Gospel in this chapter in the first place was in connection with the topic of whether the dead are resurrected or not. He didn’t just include his Gospel in the chapter arbitrarily. In fact, the main reason he even wrote this chapter was because there was a debate taking place in the Corinthian church at the time as to whether the dead will be physically resurrected in the future. Some had stopped believing in a resurrection at all (as we learn from verse 12), so Paul had to remind them of what they originally believed when they were saved (by repeating his evangel in verses 3 and 4, which included the fact that Jesus had been roused, meaning resurrected from the dead). Basically, Paul was telling his readers that, if Jesus wasn’t resurrected the way his Gospel says He was, their entire belief in his Gospel is for naught (or “is also vain,” as the KJV rightly renders it, meaning it would be pointless to be believed) because his Gospel would then not be true, and they weren’t even saved at all if that’s the case. And if Jesus was resurrected, as his Gospel states, there’s no reason to believe that the rest of us won’t be resurrected as well. For this reason, I think that the better translation of those words are simply “believed in vain” rather than “believe feignedly.”

In regards to this, I should also say that the key to a lot of Paul’s statements in 1 Corinthians 15 is in the fact that many of the statements in the chapter are clarified by statements made later in the same chapter (such as the clarification of what verse 22 fully means being given later in verses 53-55, for example). The original readers of Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians wouldn’t need the later statements to clarify things as much as we do, because they already knew the context based on already being aware of the debate over the resurrection of the dead which was taking place in their church back then, but we need to read the later verses to know this fact ourselves, because we weren’t there and wouldn’t have been aware of this fact otherwise.

So while there are (or at least have been) false brethren out there pretending to be in the body of Christ, anyone who truly understands what Paul’s Gospel means and actually believes it to be true is not among them, nor are they a “feigned believer.”

And as far as the part of the verse rendered as “through which also you are saved, if you are retaining what I said in bringing the evangel to you” goes (which I bring up because it also confuses people), I’m fairly sure Paul just meant there that his readers were saved (with the special salvation) if they truly believed his Gospel.

So if I had to paraphrase the whole passage, I’d render it something along the lines of:

“At this point I’m reminding you, brethren, of the evangel I preach, which is what you accepted as true and which is what you stand in, and which is also what you are saved by, presuming you truly believed the evangel I preached to you, and presuming you don’t all believe it in vain [which would be the case if it isn’t actually true].”

Which lines up exactly with how the KJV renders it, giving us another good reason to stick with the KJV.

The reason I’m not Roman Catholic is really quite simple (although if you want the proof of my reason, it will require some homework on your part): There’s just no way to reconcile Roman Catholic doctrine with Scripture. (The same goes for Eastern Orthodox doctrine, but I’m just going to refer to Roman Catholicism throughout this article so I don’t have to keep mentioning both.)

You see, Roman Catholicism teaches certain unscriptural things such as never-ending punishment, the immortality of the soul, salvation based on a “free will” choice, that there’s only one Gospel, and that Jesus only started one church, along with many other doctrines which blatantly contradict the Bible. However, if one considers the context of Scripture as a whole, the only possible conclusions one can come to are that there are multiple Gospels and multiple different types of salvation referred to in the Bible, that everyone will experience at least one of these types of salvation by the end of the ages, that the dead known nothing because they’re unconscious (and this included Jesus Christ while He was dead too), and that the type of salvation Paul taught the nations about is not based on any choices we make at all (in fact, “free will” is a logical and scientific impossibility anyway), among various other scriptural truths which contradict Roman Catholic doctrine. The bottom line is that there’s no way for someone who is being honest with the text to conclude otherwise, and if the Bible is indeed the inerrant word of God, then it simply makes it impossible for Roman Catholicism to be true.

Now, I know that Roman Catholics will claim that I’m misinterpreting the relevant passages (and that even most Protestant Christians will disagree with many of the assertions I made there too), but there’s simply no way to interpret Scripture as a whole in any other way without ignoring the clear meaning of the words in the text. And while I don’t have the time to get into the details which prove these assertions here in this post, I don’t have to, because I already did so a number of years ago in this free, in-depth Bible study: Consistent Soteriology: What The Bible Really Says About Heaven, Hell, Judgement, Death, Evil, Sin, And Salvation

If you take the time to read that whole article carefully from beginning to end, I can guarantee that you’ll be forced to agree with the above assertions (presuming you believe that Scripture is indeed the inerrant word of God, of course). That might sound presumptuous of me, but so far, of the thousands of people I’ve shared that article with over the years since I wrote it, literally every single person who has gotten back to me telling me they’ve read the whole thing has also told me that they now agree with those assertions themselves too. So if you’re curious why I believe that Roman Catholicism can’t possibly be true (and why I believe most of the doctrines that even most Protestants hold to are equally incorrect), after reading that article, you’ll understand why completely. But if you do read it all and still disagree, I’d love to hear your answers to the questions I ask throughout the article.

As I assume happens to every believer at one time or another, I sometimes have occasions where I’ll begin to question whether what those of us in the true body of Christ believe is correct, or whether we might just be fooling ourselves into believing lies. Well, when this happens these days, I simply have to remind myself of a certain factor that’s taken place repeatedly over the last few years.

You see, many years ago, I wrote an in-depth, book-length, Bible study going over our interpretations of all the relevant passages in the Bible that I believe prove the core doctrines of those of us who are sometimes referred to as “Concordant” believers (doctrines such as the facts that all humanity will eventually be saved by Christ, that two Gospels are taught in Scripture, that the dead are unconscious, and that “free will” is impossible, to name just some of our core doctrines) as well as all of the passages that are used to try to defend the opposing doctrines held by most “orthodox,” traditional Christians (such as the doctrine of never-ending punishment, the idea that there’s only one Gospel taught in Scripture, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of “free will,” to name just a few) in order to demonstrate that the latter batch of passages — which, like all passages in the Bible, are passages we ourselves agree 100% with — don’t actually mean what most people assume they do, but rather actually support our core doctrines rather than theirs.

Since publishing the study, I’ve sent it (or variations of it which contain the same information) to thousands of different Christians, with many of them promising to read it and send me a written refutation of the scriptural interpretations and arguments I made in it. Well, over the years, I’ve received exactly zero refutations of the study. To be fair, I received a few misguided attempts at refuting the first two or three points I made before they gave up, with many others simply sending me links to other articles, videos, or books that they mistakenly believed refuted whichever core doctrine(s) we’d been discussing, but had they taken the time to read the whole thing before writing what they did or just sending me random links (as I advised them to do in its introduction), they’d have discovered that every argument they (or the creators of said articles, videos, and books) made was already answered and refuted thoroughly further on in the study (sometimes in the very paragraph which came after the one they stopped reading at, ironically enough).

What’s also interesting is that a fair number of the Christians I sent it to, many of them highly educated, wrote back saying that they couldn’t make heads nor tails of what I was trying to say, with the term “word salad” tossed at me more than once. At least one of them, who claimed to have read many complicated university textbooks over the years, told me that the sentences in the document were pure gibberish, as though I’d just thrown random words on the page, and that he simply had no idea what I was trying to say in it.

Why this is interesting is because of the last group of people who got back to me (a group that includes now-former Catholics, evangelicals and other Protestants, and even atheists). You see, quite literally every single Christian who told me they actually read the whole thing through to the end without skipping over any parts of it also told me that they’re now believers in all of the core doctrines that I covered in the study (and that they weren’t before they began reading it), with many of them telling me that not only did it make perfect sense and that it was actually quite easy to understand, but also that they believed anyone who read the whole thing would definitely be convinced that the Bible indeed teaches the core doctrines discussed in the study. In addition, some of them also told me that they normally had a difficult time reading books, and that this was one of the few longer reads they were able to get through with no problem, contrary to the experience of some of the supposedly highly-educated Christians who claimed the study made no sense at all.

As just one of many such examples:

And this didn’t just happen once. Instead, it keeps happening over and over again, telling me that there’s a supernaturally-induced blindness being enforced on most people who try to read it, in order to prevent those Christians God doesn’t intend to see the truth right now from reading it and coming to believe Paul’s Gospel (of which the salvation of all, as well as the understanding that the dead are unconscious, are foundational elements), lining up perfectly with what 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 says: “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”

This, of course, also reassures me that the scriptural interpretations and arguments laid out in the study are indeed correct, and that God just won’t allow most Christians to read the whole thing because, if they did, they’d certainly come to believe the true Gospel as explained in the study, and they’d then get saved before the time that God intends for them to enjoy salvation.

So if you’re a member of the true body of Christ and are ever having doubts about the truths we believe, the fact that many otherwise intelligent Christians are incapable of even reading a study discussing the reasons we believe what we do should be all the proof you’ll ever need that you’re on the right track.

And if you’re instead somebody who disagrees with our doctrines, there’s another reason to keep in mind in addition to what you just read above, which is that I myself tried to refute the very scriptural interpretations and arguments that I included in my study, as I was introduced to them years ago, and I just couldn’t find any flaws in the actual interpretations that I eventually ended up putting in the study after looking for them and failing to find them (keep in mind the word “actual” there; I’m not referring to the straw men arguments that some people have thrown out in an attempt to pretend they’ve refuted our interpretations of Scripture). And I looked very hard, because I wanted to make sure that these doctrines indeed were the truth before accepting them myself. And I’m not the only one. Most “Concordant” believers did the same thing when they were first introduced to our “core doctrines” as well, and also failed to find errors in the arguments that convinced us to interpret Scripture the way we now do. So at the end of the day, if you do disagree with us and want us to change our minds about what we believe, you are going to have show us the flaws in the arguments that neither I nor any other “Concordant” believers have been able to find, which is going to require you to read the whole study, since otherwise you won’t ever know all the arguments and scriptural interpretations that convinced us (and you will have to know and refute all of them if changing our minds is your goal).

While it goes without saying that there are at least two Gospels in Scripture (and please read this article if you aren’t aware of this fact already), some people might ask why there are two Gospels in the first place, and why Jesus didn’t preach the same Gospel during His earthly ministry that Paul later preached to the nations. Well, the answer to that question is simply that He couldn’t, because if He had, nobody would be able to get saved (at least not in the manner of salvation that Paul generally referred to, which was being made immortal, and hence sinless, not to mention being justified in the manner that Paul referred to). You see, as we’ve already learned, the Gospel Paul preached is Christ’s death for our sins, burial, and resurrection, and this event is the very basis of our salvation (and is, in fact, the only reason anyone can be saved when it comes to the type of salvation Paul primarily taught about). This means that if Jesus had preached the same message (that His death was going to be for our sins, meaning that His death would be the basis of our salvation) as His Gospel around Israel before He died, the spiritual powers of darkness behind His death would have undoubtedly heard and learned the truth and would not have Him crucified after all (and, in fact, would have done what they could to keep Him from dying, since they don’t want humans being made immortal and sinless). Yes, humans technically killed Jesus, but it was the evil spiritual beings ruling the world behind the scenes during this age who drove them to it, but only because they thought it would put an end to His eventual usurping of their leadership. Little did they realize that they were played, since His death was the main reason He was born in the first place, but that fact was well disguised by His ministry to the Circumcision (in fact, that’s likely a large part of why God had a chosen people in the first place: basically, God plays the long game).

This is the same reason, by the way, that Jesus didn’t preach the salvation of all humanity during His earthly ministry either. Simply put, Jesus couldn’t have preached the salvation of all humanity, because His death for our sins (and subsequent burial and resurrection) is the basis for the salvation of all humanity, and had He taught the salvation of all humanity publicly during His earthly ministry, the spiritual powers of darkness would have almost certainly put two-and-two together and realized that Him dying for our sins and God raising Him would be the only possible way that all humanity could be made immortal (these are highly intelligent beings, after all), and they would have then avoided their plan to have Him killed, resulting in nobody being saved at all.