Author: D.C.

First things first, I need to point out that I’m not taking a position on whether you should consider abortion to be right or wrong for you in this article. As far as those of us in the church called the body of Christ go, worrying about whether something is sinful or not isn’t something we’re even supposed to do anyway. In fact, we aren’t supposed to actively try to avoid sinning at all (to actively try to avoid sinning is what Paul referred to as “walking after the flesh”). The truth is, all things are permitted for us, even if not all things are beneficial. So even if something is a sin, we’re technically still allowed to do it no matter what it is, even if it might still be something that would be better for us to avoid.

In addition, whatever any believer concludes about the sinfulness of an action, we aren’t meant to enforce our own conclusions about what would be sinful for us to personally participate in on others, or to judge our brothers and sisters in Christ for whatever they might decide to do or avoid. Nor are we meant to get involved in politics to try to enforce our own preferences on the rest of the world (politics and moralism are the domain of the unbeliever, and are not activities those of us in the body of Christ are called to participate in). So, if you have concluded that it would be a sin for you to do so, by all means, avoid having or performing abortions. However, like all decisions about sin, this is something for each of us to consider for ourselves and ourselves alone. That said, for those who haven’t decided whether abortion is something that might be best avoided or not, it’s still helpful to consider the facts, which is why I’ve published this article.

Before we get into any of the other details about the topic, however, it’s important to know that, regardless of one’s feelings on abortion, and even whether abortion actually is a sin or not, because murder is a legal term, abortion can’t legitimately be defined as murder in any place where it’s not illegal. Yes, abortion might involve killing, and the killing could even theoretically be a sin — I’m not making a definitive judgement one way or the other as to the morality of the act at this point — but regardless of whether or not abortion is a sin, killing can only be classified as murder if the killing is unlawful under one’s secular, human government, because otherwise capital punishment and the killing of enemy combatants in war would also have to be called murder, as would killing in self-defence, and so the claim of many anti-abortionists that abortion is murder (at least in most of the western world, or at least as of the time this article was first written) isn’t something even worth taking into consideration. Now, some have tried to get around this fact by saying, “It doesn’t matter how humans define the word. The only thing that matters is how God defines it.” Well, “murder” is an English word, and like all words, if we aren’t all using the same definition when we use it, the word becomes entirely meaningless as far as a discussion goes, and there’s no point in even using that word to begin with.

That said, even if we were going to redefine the word based on what Scripture says about the topic, something most Christians aren’t aware of is that abortion isn’t actually condemned, or even ever discussed, in the Bible at all, which means the idea that God calls it murder doesn’t appear to be true anyway. Of course, most Christians believe the Bible does condemn abortion, so we should quickly take a look at the passages which they use to defend this claim:

Thou shalt not kill. — Exodus 20:13

That verse isn’t going to work if we’re going to support the death penalty and war and cops carrying guns in the line of duty, as we’ve already discussed. Other translations render this verse along the lines of, “You shall not murder,” which is what the passage had to have meant because otherwise God would have been telling the Israelites to sin when He commanded them to kill various people back in “Old Testament” times, and since murder technically means “illegal killing,” if abortion is legal, again, it then can’t actually be labelled as murder.

Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. — Jeremiah 1:5

All this verse really tells us is that God knew Jeremiah before he was born. And unless this mean we exist as spirit babies before we’re born, all it does for those of us who aren’t Mormons is explain that God foreknew Jeremiah’s existence and planned for him to become a prophet beforehand (and what God plans for will happen, as we’ve now learned).

For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. — Psalm 139:13-16

This passage is just more of Jeremiah 1:5, explaining God’s foreknowledge and predestination, and doesn’t mention abortion at all.

And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda; And entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth. And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. — Luke 1:39-42

Apparently fetuses in the womb (the Greek word βρέφος/“bref’-os,” referred to as “babes” in this passage, doesn’t strictly mean “baby,” as it’s also used for embryos and fetuses) can leap when the Holy Spirit causes them to do so, although what that has to do with abortion being wrong I’m not sure.

And with that, I’m out of passages, unless there’s been some new ones brought up that I’m unaware of since I last studied the topic. Still, at least we know that God loves children (already born or otherwise) and would never do anything to harm them:

For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits. Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. — Genesis 7:17-23

Huh. It seems that God Himself kills babies (and there’s no way there weren’t any pregnant women alive at the time of the flood, so fetuses too, it seems). But that’s different; God can kill whoever He wants, right? At least He’d never want humans to kill fetuses or children.

Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys. — 1 Samuel 15:3

Well, apparently God not only kills children, He commanded humans to kill children in the past as well (and, again, there’s no way there weren’t any pregnant women among that group of people, meaning He commanded certain pregnancies to be aborted in the past, which means abortion can’t be a sin or else He’d have been commanding the Israelites to sin). So the idea that God believes all fetuses have “a right to life” and wants them all to be born just isn’t a defensible claim, at least not based on the Bible, which means the idea that God calls abortion murder doesn’t appear to be true anyway. And so, whatever conclusions one comes to about abortion, it seems that people will have to decide for themselves based on an entirely extrabiblical perspective (if you disagree, however, please let me know what passages I missed that prove otherwise), outside of one very telling verse that we haven’t looked at yet:

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. — Genesis 2:7

This verse tells us that it was when God breathed the breath of life into Adam’s nostrils that he became conscious, figuratively referred to as becoming “a living soul” in this verse (keeping in mind that “souls” don’t exist as ontological objects, but rather that the word is used as metonymy for a human existing as a conscious being in this verse). Now, I can’t definitively prove that the time every subsequent human became “a living soul” was at the time they breathed their first breath on their own, the way it was for Adam, but this is far more scriptural of an assertion than any of the arguments against abortion based on the Bible are, so I’ll just leave that there for you to consider. (And to quickly get the inevitable questions about how fetuses seems to be able to react to outside noises, songs, voices, and such out of the way, if it’s true that babies become “living souls” upon their first breath, these would then simply have to be unconscious, autonomic reflexes programmed into developing fetuses; most of us believers would say that, in reality, the “life” of the yet-unborn fetus is the life of the mother, and that it “lives” its mother’s life, so to speak, rather than its own — and this applies to the oxygen it receives as well, since it receives its mother’s breath through its umbilical cord while gestating rather than having its own breath of life prior to birth.)

Still, based on other doctrines they hold to, it’s surprising that most Christians aren’t the most pro-abortion group of people out there. Why? Well, most evangelicals, aside from certain Calvinists, believe in a doctrine called “the age of accountability.” A child supposedly reaches the age of accountability when they are old enough to understand the difference between right and wrong and can be held accountable for their sins. Up until they reach this age, children who die supposedly go to heaven as ghosts (or so the doctrine goes, although if you’ve read the articles on this website, you know that the dead cease to exist as conscious beings) because they’re too young to understand the consequences of, and hence be held responsible for, their actions. However, once someone reaches this age (which supposedly varies from individual to individual) they will end up in an inescapable place called hell if they happen to pass away without first becoming a Christian (or they would if the popular doctrine were scriptural).

Now, I’d estimate that 90% or more of the human population would suffer in hell without end, if the traditional view that this is the fate of non-Christians who die in their sins were true, so if never-ending torment in hell for non-believers past the age of accountability did happen to be true then perhaps abortionists should be considered the greatest missionaries there are since they’d probably be responsible for helping more souls avoid hell than all of the missionaries alive today combined. Not only that, shouldn’t those Christians who have babies be thought of as the greatest monsters there are, seeing as they’re willing to risk the souls of their offspring simply to satisfy a desire (either for children, or simply for sex for those who believe that birth control is wrong)? If there was a greater than 90% chance that your child will end up in hell if they reach the age of accountability (the odds might vary depending on where and when you happen to live, but they’re still pretty grim), wouldn’t you be much better off killing them before they get that old? If you believe in never-ending torment for those past this age, then would not someone like Andrea Yates, who killed her children so they would be sure to avoid such a terrible outcome, be one of the best examples of good motherhood we have? Sure, it might be a sin to commit murder, but sins can always be forgiven while you’re still alive, and her children are now guaranteed a place in heaven, or so the logic should go if these traditionalists are correct (especially since we’ve already determined that abortion can’t legitimately be considered to be murder in most cases).

If a parent allowed their child to participate in any activity where their kid has a 90% or greater chance of dying, or even just getting seriously injured, one would (rightly) consider that parent to be negligent and report that parent to the child protective agencies, and yet how many Christian parents are willing to gamble their children’s soul with a fate far worse, and infinitely longer, than simple death or injury? And as we’ve already learned, abortion generally can’t be classified as murder, so, again, women who have abortions, and even the doctors who perform them, should be seen by Christians who believe in never-ending torment as the greatest heroes ever for saving so many souls.

No matter how horrible this might sound to you, I challenge you to show me where I’m wrong. I’ve made this challenge before and have yet to have anyone correct my logic, and I don’t expect to have it happen anytime soon either.

That said, since I know the Bible teaches the salvation of all mankind because of what Christ accomplished, I obviously don’t believe that anyone ends up suffering in hell without end, so I am not suggesting anyone actually kill their children here. I’m simply making this point to challenge yet another inconsistency in Christian ideology.

Of course, most people today also aren’t aware that abortion (at least if performed during much of the first two trimesters) was not actually considered to be immoral by most Christians throughout much of history either (at least among Christians who hold to Sola scriptura, and the theological perspectives of those who don’t hold to Sola scriptura are rarely even worth considering). This doesn’t necessarily matter as far as one’s consideration of the morality of abortion goes, since those of us in the body of Christ don’t base our theology on what Christians have historically considered to fall under the purview of “orthodoxy” or “orthopraxy” anyway (because we consider the doctrines of the Christian religion to be entirely wrong about nearly everything), but it is still useful for us to know that, until relatively recently, evangelicals and other Protestants have actually been mostly okay with abortion, and that it was only due to the machinations of certain politically-minded evangelicals — who decided to join forces with the Roman Catholics in their fight against abortion (although it appears that even Catholic opinions on abortion have changed over the years) in order to create the movement sometimes known as the Religious Right so they could gain political power (mostly so they could fight against desegregation and continue to promote racism, at least in the United States, although the rest of the evangelical world tends to follow what American evangelicals do) — that nearly everyone has been swayed into incorrectly assuming abortion has always been thought to be a sin by all Christians.

And it’s also important to note that a large number of Christians who today claim the “Pro-Life” label are only actually against abortion when it comes to other people’s abortions, thinking that the abortions they themselves have had are somehow okay, but that everyone else’s abortions are wrong and should be illegal, basically telling us that they believe the only moral abortions are the abortions they have, as well as that a large reason they’re fighting against abortion is actually because they want to punish other women for enjoying sex, and to ensure that those women suffer long-lasting consequences for their actions (they’ll argue that it’s actually because they think abortion is immoral and that they believe in “the sanctity of life,” but their hypocrisy, along with the way they treat those who have been born — especially in the United States, where religious conservatives only appear to care about the unborn until they’re born, after which it’s up to those who are born to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, as far as they seem to be concerned — reveals the real truth about them to the rest of us: that they don’t actually believe in “the sanctity of life,” or in ethical practices at all, for that matter). In fact, this quote on Facebook by a Christian pastor named Dave Barnhart explains the real reason most conservative politicians and religious leaders fight against abortion:

“‘The unborn’ are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It’s almost as if, by being born, they have died to you. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without reimagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.

Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.”

But what are the scientific facts when it comes to abortion? Well, from what I’ve been able to determine, the brain physically can’t have consciousness until at least 24 weeks of gestation have passed (and likely more; maybe much more) because it doesn’t have the structures necessary to develop consciousness or sentience (at least based on what I could find when researching for this article). Therefore, since only about 1% of abortions take place after the 21st week, abortion in the overwhelming majority of cases doesn’t seem to kill something that was ever a conscious being, and hence doesn’t seem to be the killing of something that was ever a “person.” Sure, it might kill something that has human DNA, but the root of a human hair that has been plucked from a human head also has human DNA and nobody would call its removal from someone’s head the killing of a human person because it was never a conscious human itself, and if a fetus was never a conscious being either, there’s no legitimate way that I’m aware of to say a “person” is being killed in an abortion performed within that timeframe (in addition, scientists believe that it takes even longer than that — not until at least the 29th week — before a fetus could feel pain, in case that’s a concern you might have). And yes, at this point, many people will try to argue that Jews and many slaves weren’t considered to be legal “persons” by the Nazis and certain slaveholders in the past either, but this is just an attempt to distract from the point that most fetuses were never conscious beings even once prior to an abortion, whereas the Jews and slaves in question were, which means this is nothing more than a bad faith argument with no bearing on the topic at all.

It’s also important to note that abortions in the third trimester basically only ever take place because something has gone horribly wrong and the baby is going to die anyway (often in an extremely painful manner), and many times because the pregnant mother will jeopardize her health (and even her life) if she continues with the pregnancy as well. No woman goes through months of pregnancy only to abort it near the end unless something is very wrong, and it’s almost certain that no doctor would do so for any other reason either (and no, the mythical “post-birth abortions” that some people bring up in order to win elections aren’t actually a real thing either), so these are all facts to keep in mind whenever someone insists that abortion is definitely wrong.

Now, some like to argue that a fetus has a soul, and that killing a “living soul” would be wrong. Well, whether or not fetuses have souls, killing someone or something that has a soul isn’t necessarily wrong anyway. We kill animals for food (and animals obviously have souls — or, to be more precise, are “living souls” — which is a fact the Bible clearly agrees with as well, I might add, since the word translated as “life” in Genesis 1:30 is the same Hebrew word — נֶפֶשׁ/“neh’-fesh” — which is translated as “soul” in other passages), and God commanded the killing of lots of people in Bible times, as we’ve already discussed, not to mention killed plenty of them Himself, so killing “living souls” is obviously not something God forbids, nor considers to be inherently wrong. So even if fetuses actually were “living souls,” it wouldn’t necessarily even matter.

All that said, I’m still not here to tell you that you should (or should not) have or perform abortions. This is a very personal matter, and one that people have very strong feelings about. The only thing I’m here to do is to remind you that, regardless of the conclusions you’ve come to as far as the sinfulness of abortion would be for you, if you’re in the body of Christ, you are not called to condemn the rest of the world for what they do, or to try to influence it to straighten up their walk. All you’re called to do is walk after the Spirit, and let the rest of the world make their own decisions about morality.

When you tell most Christians that the outcome of Paul’s Gospel is that everyone will eventually experience the free gift of salvation, they’ll inevitably say that people have to receive the gift in order to be saved, as though that statement helps support their position that not everyone will be saved.

You see, what they really mean when they make this statement is that everyone has to do something specific in order to be saved, which is choose to receive the gift, rather than simply receive the gift. What’s the difference between choosing to receive a gift and simply receiving a gift? Well, contrary to what most Christians assume, “receiving” something isn’t necessarily an action one does voluntarily. For example, Paul wrote about how he received thirty-nine lashes five different times, and if you think he wouldn’t have experienced those lashes unless he first chose to receive them, you need to reconsider a few things.

To put it in perspective, let’s say that you know someone who has their monthly rent payment automatically withdrawn from their bank account every month by their landlord, and that they didn’t have enough money to cover their rent anymore, which was going to result in them being evicted if they didn’t pay by the first of the next month. Then, let’s say I decide to give them a special gift, and direct-deposited enough money to pay their rent for the rest of their life into their bank account, and ask you to tell them the good news of what I did. Whatever you or they do at that point, their landlord is going to be able to withdraw the necessary funds to pay their rent next month (and every month after that), which means they won’t get evicted regardless of whether or not they choose to believe the money is in their bank account, or choose to ”receive” the gift from me (or even whether they ever hear the good news about the free gift they’ve already received from me at all).

Now, you can tell them that the good news about my free gift means they’ve been given the option to choose to “receive” my gift, otherwise they’ll end up homeless, but the truth is that they’ve already received it (they just don’t know it yet). And so you’d then be lying to them if that’s the “good news” you conveyed to them, because they’re guaranteed to have a place to live whether they choose to “receive” the gift I’d already given them (however that’s even supposed to happen) or not. In fact, even if you ignored my commission to tell them the good news, they’d still have a home next month. Of course, if they don’t know the good news about my free gift, they might try to find a way to work for the money they think they don’t have, but the fact remains that they’ve already received it, all without knowing it (or even having to know it). But wouldn’t you rather tell them the actual good news, which is that they’ve already been saved from homelessness, and that they can now relax and enjoy the freedom which comes from knowing they’ll always have a place to live, and that they don’t actually have to do any work at all to earn that salvation from homelessness (not even the work of having to choose to believe the good news, or having to choose to ”receive” the gift they’d already received at the time I gave it to them, prior to even finding out about it)?

The fact of the matter is, the Christian insistence on having to choose to receive the free gift of salvation in order to be saved is, in actuality, a rejection of the free gift, because they’re teaching that we have to do something specific in order for the gift to apply to us: choosing to “receive” it. So while, just like everyone else, even Christians have already received the free gift, also just like nearly everyone else, they’re unaware of the fact that they received it without having to choose to do so, and so they reject the fact that the gift is truly, 100% free (which includes free from having to do anything at all to receive it, even if that “something” is as simple as having to choose to “receive” it). God really is the Saviour of all mankind, and everyone will experience that salvation. However, those who happen to hear and believe the good news of the already existing salvation of all mankind (because of what the good news that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day, means) will have a special, early experience of that salvation (this is what “specially of those that believe” means; the word ”specially” doesn’t mean “exclusively”), because we’ve come to realize that the gift was received by everyone already, and we know that this means there isn’t anything we have to do to earn (or even activate) the free gift — not even having to choose to “receive” it. In fact, if we did have to do something in order to be saved, that would make us our own (at least partial) saviours, since it would mean that what Christ accomplished just wasn’t enough to save us, because we have to activate that salvation ourselves through a wise choice to “receive” the gift.

Really, the only choice when it comes to believing the Gospel is whether or not to believe the Good News that everyone will be saved because of what Christ did. But regardless of what you choose to believe, the fact remains that everyone will be saved because of what Christ accomplished.

If someone sent you a link to this article, there’s a good chance it’s because you’re the type of person being discussed in it, so please read the whole thing carefully to learn how to make sure you aren’t included in this group.

When a Christian discovers that my current interpretations of Scripture aren’t the same as the interpretations they hold to, on most occasions they feel compelled to tell me I’m wrong and that I need to stop interpreting Scripture that way. The problem is, nearly every Christian who has condemned my beliefs will try to convince me I’m wrong without ever even trying to find out not only the details of what it is I actually believe Scripture teaches (leading most of them to jump to conclusions and assume that I believe things I don’t actually believe at all, demonstrating just how little they even know about the very subject they’re claiming I’m wrong about to begin with), but why I believe Scripture means what I believe it does as well (and yet somehow believing that their displays of ignorance are supposed to convince me that they’re right and I’m wrong). They appear to think that, simply because they’re telling me my interpretations are incorrect (even though the majority of the time they don’t know what my interpretations even really are, much less the basis for them), I should just take their word for it, stop believing that the Bible teaches what I believe it does, and start believing exactly as they do, all for no reason other than the fact that they’re telling me I should. My years of intense study of the Scriptures are meaningless to them, because they can’t imagine the possibility that their religious leaders could ever misinterpret Scripture, and so there’s just no way their religious leaders’ teachings that they’re parroting to me could possibly ever be wrong. Regardless of how I came to the theological conclusions I have, in their minds, there’s no chance that I could be correct, simply because my beliefs no longer line up with what they’ve been taught to believe.

That said, how it is that they appear to think I came to the conclusions I’ve come to is interesting. Based on things Christians have said to me over the years, it really seems that most, if not all, of them assume I just decided to believe random “heretical” things one day, and then tried to find Bible verses to back up my beliefs, and when I presumably couldn’t find any passages that actually taught the supposed “errors” I now believe (as they must assume to be the case), I had to have then picked random Bible verses and misinterpreted them into meaning what I wanted them to mean, at least in my deceived mind. Many also seem to assume that I don’t believe the whole Bible, but that I actually reject parts that I don’t like. What they don’t appear to realize is that, A) I believe every word in Scripture, and B) while I actually grew up believing very strongly in most of the doctrines they hold to (depending on their denomination, of course), I’d been challenged by different people at various points in my life to consider whether the doctrines my religious leaders had told me are true actually lined up with what Scripture taught or not, and that my response to these challenges are the real reason I now interpret Scripture the way I do.

The truth is, there was never a case where I first chose a new doctrine to believe on my own, and then went looking for scriptural backing to support it. In literally every single instance that my doctrinal beliefs changed, the reason I began considering the accuracy of specific doctrines in the first place was because I was challenged by someone else to consider the possibility that I might be wrong about something I still believed to be true. And while I did dig into Scripture with an open mind, accepting that I could theoretically be wrong about something, I never once went into a study beginning with the assumption that the doctrines I’d grown up with — and still held to at the time I began digging to confirm whether they were true or not — were incorrect. Neither was I looking for “an excuse to sin,” as some Christians like to accuse me of. The only ”sin” I was guilty of here was not simply accepting that my religious leaders couldn’t possibly ever misinterpret the Bible, and going ahead in searching the Scriptures for myself to confirm that I’d been taught the truth.

Because of these facts I can honestly say that, even if the conclusion I’ve come to is incorrect (and if all the scriptural interpretations I now hold to are mistaken), my conclusion that nearly everything I learned at church was wrong is 100% based on a deep analysis of — and respect for — the Word of God rather than on me simply trying to find reasons to reject what I’d been taught (because not only was I really not looking for any reason to reject what I’d been taught, I even fought hard against changing my mind on certain things, at least until I ran out of arguments to support the doctrines I grew up with). This is why, when Christians accuse me of trying to cherry-pick Scripture, or of deciding to make up my own doctrines and then reading them back into Scripture, I can say with 100% sincerity that their accusations hold absolutely zero water. (And also that I’m not the one who is actually guilty of doing the cherry-picking or eisegesis, since the theological perspective I now hold to is far more coherent and internally consistent with Scripture as a whole than anything I’d previously been taught to believe by my religious leaders ever was — there’s a good reason that what I’ve now come to believe is often referred to as “Concordant” theology.)

Which brings me to my challenge to any Christians who are reading this. You presumably want me to change my mind and go back to believing most (if not all) of the doctrines I’ve since rejected as unscriptural. And if the interpretations of Scripture I now hold to are incorrect, I’d very much want to know that as well. But, in order to convince me to change my mind and reject the interpretations of Scripture that I now believe are true, based on the fact that I came to believe every doctrine I hold to now through serious study of the Scriptures, you’re going to have to show me exactly where it is you believe I went wrong in my exegesis of those Scriptures. Now, I’ve made this very easy for you (even if it might be a little time consuming). You see, I’ve published a free book-length Bible study which goes into immense detail on the reasons I interpret Scripture the way I now do. And so, if you ever want to convince me that I’ve misinterpreted Scripture, all you have to do (and this is something you will  have to do if you do want to convince me I’m wrong) is read that study and spell out exactly where I did go wrong when it comes to each scriptural interpretation and argument I make in it.

That might seem like a lot, but considering the fact that I’ve spent many years studying these matters in depth so far, and recording the reasons I’ve come to believe what I now do in that study, it should be obvious that it’s going to take some serious study on your part, as well as some extremely strong arguments, to convince me of why you think I’m wrong. If you believe just quoting various Bible verses to me which you think contradict what I now believe — as if I’m not already familiar with them and don’t already agree with them (just with a different, and, at least to the best of my understanding, more accurate, interpretation of them than the interpretations of them that you hold to), not to mention as if I haven’t spent far more time studying each of those passages than you likely have, in order to confirm whether the doctrines I now believe are correct or not (and that’s not me bragging; that’s just a statement of fact) — or simply telling me I’m wrong without explaining exactly how I’ve erred, is something that will convince me, well, you’re going to need to rethink a few things about how it is you’ve concluded that one is supposed to convince someone else to change their mind about something they believe.

Of course, if you don’t actually care about saving me from the error of my ways, that’s between you and God. But since I am firmly convinced that what I now believe is what Scripture actually teaches, you will have to actually take the time to do the work if you’re ever going to convince me to return to believing doctrines that I’m now 100% certain are entirely unscriptural. But, at the end of the day, you get to decide how you proceed (from a relative perspective, anyway; from an absolute perspective, of course, God will decide).

That said, I already know what’s likely to happen when it comes to the Christians who read this challenge. As far as most of them are concerned, the study is just far too long (and yes, it is admittedly very long and detailed), and most Christians won’t want to take the time to go through it all, or more likely just don’t actually care enough about making sure I see the error of my ways to bother.

For another group of Christians who may have the time, they might actually accept the challenge (perhaps even publicly, as some have done in the past) and start reading some of it, but shortly thereafter they’ll either claim that the Holy Spirit told them not to continue and they’ll cease reading anything I wrote, or they’ll just silently stop without ever saying another word to me (both of these scenarios have occurred multiple times now; apparently the Holy Spirit really doesn’t want people to read my writings, even if they’ve promised to do so, if some Christians are to be believed). These are the Christians who realize too late (sometimes even after publicly promising that they’ll refute my interpretations) that they can’t actually argue against what I’ve written, but they really want to continue believing what they’ve been taught by their religious leaders, so they’re forced to stop reading rather than risk coming to believe these heresies themselves.

There’s also a third group of Christians who will take the time to skim through a few pages of the study (or perhaps a few articles on this website). However, partly because they don’t take the time to actually do anything more than give my writings a cursory glance, although even more so because of spiritual blindness (“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”), they remain unconvinced that I could possibly be right, and they simply continue to tell me I’m wrong (although few ever attempt to show me where I went wrong, of course, because they haven’t studied enough to be able to fully learn what it is I actually believe, much less why I believe it; and the few who do try to correct me simply end up tearing down straw men rather than my actual arguments, because they still aren’t familiar with enough of my theology to be able to do so, due to only giving a few of my explanations a quick once-over).

These three groups of Christians are why I say I can’t take most Christians seriously, by the way. Because there are Christians out there who will study all sorts of doctrines they consider to be false, and dig deep into the beliefs of all sorts of groups they consider to be heretical or even cults (some that are much smaller in numbers we are), and a few will even take the time to write long articles or books (or even create videos) about the errors of those groups, but none of them will ever take the time to read my study which explains the “core doctrines” of those of us known as “Concordant” believers in order to learn why we believe what we do and to refute our actual scriptural interpretations and arguments for those doctrines (rather than simply trying to knock down a few straw men arguments that they don’t even realize are straw men arguments since they don’t know what we actually believe and why).

I should say, however, that there’s also a fourth group of Christians who sometimes take up my challenge to consider my arguments, and they’re the ones who do later report back to me that they couldn’t find anything wrong with most of what I’ve written (I say “most of” because there are cases where they might have disagreed on certain details, and sometimes even convinced me to change my mind on certain things, leading me to have to update some of the things I’ve written), and that they’ve ended up believing Paul’s Gospel and getting saved, and have now joined the body of Christ. And if that’s you, welcome to the family (and I invite you to go visit the many resources I share throughout this website).

And so, if you are a Christian who disagrees with my theology and has made it to the end of this article, which of those four categories are you going to fall into? Because, at least based on what’s happened thus far, it will be one of those four (nobody has demonstrated any other options, anyway, but perhaps you’ll be the first). If it turns out you’re one of the Christians in the first three groups, though, don’t worry. You’ll still experience salvation yourselves one day, even if not as soon as the Christians in the fourth group (and the rest of us in the body of Christ) will. But if you are able to find the time and will to “study to shew thyself approved,” you might just find yourself in the (actual) body of Christ someday as well (which includes additional wonderful benefits on top of salvation). And I pray that you do.

Regardless of which group you fall into, however, if you do refuse to read the study to learn what I now believe and why, don’t ever pretend to care about my soul, as so many who seem to think that my current beliefs have damned me claim to. Because, as I said, the only reason I could possibly ever have for changing my mind and believing what you do is if you show me where it is you believe I went wrong in my scriptural interpretations and arguments, and if you aren’t willing to read the study in order to show me where I supposedly went wrong, there’s no way I could ever change my mind (since there would be no good reason for me to do so other than the fact that you want me to, as already discussed), which means you don’t actually care at all (no matter how much you protest and claim that you do) if you won’t take the time to do so.

Me: I’d like to quote some passages the apostle Paul wrote that I’ve memorized. Would you be willing to listen to them and let me know if I’m remembering them correctly?

Him (a street preacher): Sure. Go for it.

Me: Okay, cool. Thanks. Well, first, “We trust in the living God, Who is the potential Saviour of all men, but exclusively of those that believe.”

Him: Oh, no, that’s not what Paul wrote. He wrote, “We trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.”

Me: Oh. Did he? Huh. Well, let me try another one. “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have some men be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for just a few, to be testified in due time.”

Him: You need to try a little harder when it comes to memorizing, it seems. Paul actually wrote, “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.”

Me: Interesting. I wonder how I got that so wrong. Well, let me try a few more. “For as in Adam all die, even so shall all in Christ be made alive.”

Him: Close, but it’s actually, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Paul didn’t write that it’s only those who happen to be in Christ who will be made alive — or made immortal, as that term means — but rather that “in Christ,” or “through Christ,” everyone will be quickened.

Me: Ah, I see what I got wrong there. Thank you. What about this one? “For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile a few things unto himself; by him, I say, including a few of the things in earth, but none of the things in heaven.”

Him: That’s pretty bad. It’s actually, “For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.”

Me: Hmm… Okay, last one. “Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so it is through multiple gifts by and for a few men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of a few — only those few who choose to believe — shall a few be made righteous.”

Him: Wow. That’s not even close. It’s actually, “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.”

Me: Interesting. I guess I need to brush up on what Paul wrote. But that said, do you believe what those verses actually say, or do you believe they mean what I misquoted them to say?

Him: Oh, they definitely can’t mean what they say. If someone interprets them literally as they’re written, they’ll come to believe that everyone will experience salvation because of what Christ did, which we know can’t be what they mean because our religious leaders have told us that isn’t true, so we have to interpret them to mean what you misquoted them as saying. But we should still always quote them the way Paul wrote them, of course, even if Paul didn’t mean what he wrote.

Me: Of course. It’s too bad Paul couldn’t have just written what he meant, though, eh? I wonder why God inspired him to write these passages in such a way as to literally mean the exact opposite of how He intended people to understand them.

Him: Good question. Perhaps God inspired Paul to write them to seem to mean the opposite of what they actually mean to test people, to see who would believe the Bible as its written and thus believe heresy, and to see who would ignore the plain meaning and simply accept what their religious leaders tell them the Bible means and thus prove themselves to be orthodox Christians who get to be among the few who will get saved.

Me: That must be it. It definitely couldn’t be the case that God meant what He said through Paul in those passages, because then we’d make God out to be more loving than He actually is. I mean, John told us that God is love, and Paul basically told us that love never fails. But that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t fail in saving everyone He loves and wills to be saved, even though the definition of “sin” is “to miss the mark,” or “to fail,” and even though this would technically make God out to be a sinner, since we can’t believe God succeeds because that would mean interpreting these passages as the opposite of what they’re literally saying would be incorrect, and our religious leaders have told us how to interpret those passages, and we can’t ever consider the possibility that our leaders could be wrong, could we?

Him: Exactly. If failing to save everyone He sent His Son to die for, and everyone whom He wills to be saved, means God is a sinner, so be it. Just as long as we don’t reject the doctrines we learned from our religious leaders, and especially as long as we don’t allow those sinners who weren’t wise enough to choose to be saved like I chose to do actually get saved without having to be as wise as I was. That would just be unthinkable.

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Now obviously I don’t believe anything the hypothetical Christian street preacher said in the above dialogue. But even though they’d deny it, that is what all Infernalist and Annihilationist Christians actually do believe. (But if you’re an Infernalist or Annihilationist who thinks you don’t believe as such, please show me what I got wrong about your beliefs.)

Of course, any Infernalist or Annihilationist reading this is almost certainly thinking of the many passages that tell us not everyone will get saved, and those passages are true. The problem is, few Christians seem to be aware of the fact that there are different types of salvation taught about in Scripture. So if you are wondering what to make of those passages if Paul’s writings are meant to be interpreted literally, please read this: Not everyone will be saved, and yet everyone will be saved

And if you’re new to the idea of Universal Reconciliation and are interested in learning more about what Scripture teaches about the subject, please check out these articles on the topic:

• How Paul used parallelisms to teach the salvation of all
• “…all men, especially…”
• To be “in Christ,” or not to be “in Christ”? Is that the question?
• The actual choice when it comes to believing the Gospel
• Myths and misunderstandings about Universal Reconciliation

To hear most Christians talk about it, you’d think that sins are something we should actively avoid committing. When the street preachers here in Toronto give their sermons, the focus is always on sin and how our sinful actions will send us to an afterlife realm called hell to suffer in without end if we don’t get our sin dealt with by “getting saved” in the manner the preachers believe one needs to do so in (completely missing the fact that Christ’s death for our sins in the Gospel is a proclamation, not a proposition, and that sin has already been taken care of for everyone whether they believe it or not). And if you talk to them one-on-one you’ll discover they believe that, even after we ”get saved,” we still need to do our best to avoid certain actions the preachers consider to be sinful (as well as do certain things they consider to be commanded of us). Following rules is basically the foundation of their entire religion, and so when they attempt to interpret passages such as the following ones, they’ll tell you Paul was explaining how we need to try to do good, spiritual acts while trying to avoid fleshly, sinful acts:

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. – Romans 8:1-10

This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. – Galatians 5:16-25

While Paul is indeed telling his readers they shouldn’t be walking after the flesh — and what the consequences of doing so might be — in those verses, that he isn’t telling people to try to actively avoid sinning should be very obvious to anyone who considers the context of the passages. Unfortunately, most Christians are so obsessed with religious rules that they’ve actually made sin their lord, which keeps them from being able to grasp what Paul actually taught about the topic of sin at all.

So what was Paul talking about in those passages? Well, if you ask any Christian who has studied Paul’s epistles to the Romans and to the Galatians, they should be able to tell you that a large part of both books is about how we’re not under the law, and how we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be placed under it at all. The problem is, when they get to passages that talk about ”the flesh,” most Christians immediately forget this fact and proceed to completely ignore the context of the passages, reading their love of religious rules into the passages instead. Following religious rules isn’t even close to what Paul was talking about when he wrote warnings about walking after the flesh, however. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Even though the context of those passages should make it obvious, it can help to read an entirely different passage written by Paul, one which can serve as the key to understanding the other times he writes about the flesh. In Philippians 3:1-11, Paul is warning his readers against having confidence in their flesh — by which he means trying to be righteous by following rules — telling them they should instead be trusting in the faith of Christ for their righteousness rather than in their own actions.

This, along with the context of not being under the law (and the fact that Paul compares walking after the spirit with not following the law), should make it clear that Paul was actually telling people to stop trying to follow (and enforce) any religious rules at all, because trying to follow religious rules is what it actually means to walk after the flesh. (This includes the 10 Commandments, by the way, which are indeed a part of the Mosaic law, as Paul made clear by referencing the 10th commandment when he wrote Romans 7:7-9 as a part of his teaching that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be placed under any parts of the law.) So if you are actively trying to avoid (or even do) specific actions in order to please God, you’re actually walking after the flesh. He then contrasts the concept of walking after the flesh with the concept of walking after the spirit. But what does it mean to walk after the spirit? Well, if walking after the flesh means trying to follow religious rules, walking after the spirit must necessarily mean we aren’t trying to follow religious rules. Those who are walking after the spirit are instead trusting that Christ will live the life He wants us to live through us, and will end up doing the things God wants us to do and avoiding the things God wants us to avoid Himself through us. It’s only when we start walking after the flesh, meaning we start worrying about religion and trying to follow rules and prohibitions, that we begin doing the very things that God doesn’t want us to do, because trying to follow religious rules (be it the Mosaic law, or any other form of religious rules) only leads to more sin.

At this point most Christians will protest and say that, while we aren’t under the Mosaic law itself, there are still other rules in the Bible we need to follow, but in making such claims they’re ignoring everything Paul taught throughout his epistles. You see, the reason we don’t follow the Mosaic law isn’t because there’s anything wrong with the specific rules in the law themselves. The commandment which says “thou shalt not kill” is not a bad rule. Which means that it isn’t simply the specific rules in the Mosaic law we aren’t supposed to follow, but rather it’s trying to follow religious rules in general that we aren’t supposed to do.

Which brings us to the next protestation most Christians will make. “What about the long list of sins Paul mentioned in the passage in Galatians? Wasn’t he telling his readers to do their best to avoid those specific actions?” The answer to this will shock most people, but no, he most certainly wasn’t. If walking after the flesh means trying to follow religious rules, how could Paul possibly then turn around and say, ”but make sure you don’t break these specific religious rules, okay?” Instead, if you look at the context, it becomes clear that he’s warning his readers what will happen if they try to avoid sinning. Instead of becoming the holy, righteous people they hope that avoiding those specific actions will make them, those actions are instead exactly what they’ll end up doing. Just as positive attributes like love, joy, and peace are the fruit of walking after the spirit, the various negative actions Paul listed there are the fruit of walking after the flesh, meaning those actions are the fruit that will come forth from trying to follow religious rules.

And so, Paul’s condemnation in Romans 10:2-3 can equally be applied to Christians today: “For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.”

There’s a ton more that can be told about this topic than I have the time to tell today (I’ve scarcely scratched the surface of the subject), but my friend Martin Zender has written some excellent material in his series of articles on Romans that says it even better than I ever could, so rather than try to reinvent the wheel, I’m going to instead direct you to a few of the articles (and you can find even more by searching for “Romans” in the ZWTF Archives) where he goes into some great details on the topic of sin, the old humanity, and walking according to spirit rather than according to flesh (although, before you read these articles, I should warn you that, while the writer is a respected member of the true body of Christ, he tends to not view the King James Bible quite as favourably as I do; still, I’m providing these links anyway, because they contain very important information):

Vol. 4, Issue 27: Romans Part 61, Chapter 8:3-9: “FLESH” in Romans 8

Vol. 4, Issue 6: Romans Part 51, Chapter 6:1-7: Death of the Old Humanity, Part 1

Vol. 4, Issue 8: Romans Part 52, Chapter 6:8-11: Death of the Old Humanity, Part 2

Vol. 4, Issue 13: Romans Part 53, Chapter 6:12-14: Death of the Old Humanity, Part 3

Vol. 4, Issue 14: Romans Part 54, Chapter 6:15-16: Death of the Old Humanity, Part 4

Vol. 4, Issue 15: Romans Part 55, Chapter 6:17-19: Death of the Old Humanity, Part 5

Vol. 4, Issue 16: Romans Part 56, Chapter 6:20-23: Death of the Old Humanity, Part 6

Vol. 4, Issue 26: Romans Part 60, Chapter 8:1-2: Walking According to Spirit

One of the many mistakes I see the Toronto street preachers I’ve written about frequently make in their various sermons is just how often they preach from the book commonly known as “the Gospel according to John,” and how they assume the verses they read from that book apply to the people hearing the sound of their voice. If they’d studied Scripture carefully, however, they’d realize that none of what they’re asserting to the crowds walking by them makes any sense at all. But because they’re so enthralled by the so-called “gospel” they’ve been taught by their religious leaders, they have no idea what the words they’re reading really mean.

One of the worst cases of this mistake is when they read from John chapter 3. They’ll read things like, ”He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” Or, ”He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” They read these passages and assume Jesus was teaching that those who believe in Him (whatever that might mean to the particular “evangelist” who happens to be preaching at the time) will get to live in heaven with Him forever after they die, and that those who don’t believe in Him will suffer never-ending punishment in a place called the lake of fire (in a conscious state at that, according to most of these preachers).

Now, if they were actually paying attention, they’d know that literally none of the above is what Jesus was actually getting at in those passages. Unfortunately, because they were never made aware of quite a few scriptural facts, they just aren’t able to understand what Jesus actually meant, and so they end up reading their doctrinal presuppositions into the text rather than trying to find out what Jesus was actually talking about.

The first fact they’re generally unaware of is that words such as “everlasting” and “for ever” have to be interpreted figuratively rather than read literally.)

Of course, those of us in the body of Christ know these warnings just mean that those to whom Jesus came who don’t believe the truth about Him before He returns will miss out on the figurative “everlasting life.” But thanks to Paul we also know that, by the time the age end, everyone who is dead (even those who died a second time in the lake of fire) will be resurrected, and this time to immortality and sinlessness (which is what salvation is ultimately all about). And we also know that those who will be living at that time (even during the final age on the new earth) but who don’t have “everlasting life” will also be made immortal and sinless at that time (“everlasting life” isn’t simply about being alive during the time the kingdom of God exists on the earth; it’s about getting to enjoy life inside the kingdom rather than having to live in “the outer darkness” of the rest of the world, which is sometimes also referred to metaphorically as ”a furnace of fire,” or as “everlasting fire”).

Another reason they miss these facts is because they aren’t aware that “the Gospel according to John” was written to a very specific audience, and that audience did not include Gentiles, for the most part (aside, perhaps, from a few who might have decided to proselytize into the Israel of God). The same applies to “the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke,” I should add. Jesus was very clear that He came only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and nearly everything He taught was solely to and about Israelites, with only a few rare exceptions.

One of those possible rare exceptions is in Matthew 25, when Jesus spoke about the judgement of the sheep and the goats. In this prophecy, presuming He wasn’t referring to Israelites living in nations other than Israel at the time, Jesus might have been talking about how certain Gentiles could gain “everlasting life” (without even realizing they were earning it as they did). In that passage, Jesus explained how certain people living among the nations that aren’t Israel who take care of His brethren (referring to believing Jews) during the Great Tribulation will get to enjoy “everlasting life” during the Millennium.

Now if this sounds like salvation by works, that’s because it kind of is, but before you freak out, this is actually okay because this isn’t the salvation apart from works that Paul taught about. This is simply a form of salvation which refers to getting to live in Israel during the Millennium and the final age on the new earth and nothing more. The salvation Paul taught the body of Christ about, which is about immortality and sinlessness, is entirely by grace with no works involved on our part. But because almost no Christian is aware of the fact that the words “salvation” and ”saved” mean different things in different parts of Scripture, they read their presuppositions about salvation into each mention of the words and assume they’re all talking about the same thing.

But this seems to bring up a potential problem for those who like to preach from the book of John, because Jesus never said that any of the “sheep” in Matthew 25 believed in Him, and to claim that they did believe in Him is to once again read a presupposition into the text. This isn’t actually a problem, however, when you realize that Jesus was talking about two different groups of people in these two different passages. Many people will get to enjoy “everlasting life” thanks to how they treat persecuted Jews during the Tribulation, but the Jews they take care of have to believe something specific about Jesus in order to enjoy it themselves. As for what that something they have to believe about Him is, John clarified this towards the end of his book, and it’s simply that Jesus is the Christ (aka the Messiah), and that He’s the Son of God.

You’ll notice that John also didn’t include belief in Christ’s death for our sins, or in His subsequent burial and resurrection on the third day — as Paul said those who hold to his particular Gospel will come to believe when they get saved (from a relative perspective, of course; everyone will eventually experience salvation from an absolute perspective because of what his Gospel means) — in his summary of what his Jewish readers need to believe about Jesus in order to experience “everlasting life” under their Gospel program (which is referred to by Paul as the Gospel of the Circumcision, which he contrasts with his own Gospel, also known as the Gospel of the Uncircumcision), and this is yet another point that proves “the Gospel according to John” is not about Gentiles at all. This also means that most references to “the world” in John’s Gospel have to be referring specifically to the Jewish world, I should add, rather than to the whole planet, or to everyone who lives on it. Basically, if you want to understand the Gospel that applies to you, it’s imperative you understand that almost nothing John wrote about applies to Gentiles, particularly not to those Gentiles in the body of Christ, and neither does any book of the Bible not signed by Paul (outside of the passages that are explicitly said to be about Gentiles, of course). This isn’t to say that we can’t learn anything from John or the other Circumcision writings, however, or that we should just ignore these books. Because while it’s true that not all Scripture inspired by God was written to or about all of us, it is all for each of us still. And so, while only the Uncircumcision writings (meaning Paul’s 13 epistles) are the marching orders of the body of Christ, there are still a lot of theological concepts, not to mention context for some of the teachings in Paul’s epistles, that we can learn from the rest of the Bible.

Oh, one last thing, for those reading this who are already members of the body of Christ, and as such who understand the truth of Universal Reconciliation: A lot of us try to use passages from John’s various writings that seem to support the idea to try to prove that Universal Reconciliation is true. However, the above applies to this topic too, and only Paul actually ever revealed the salvation of all in Scripture, which means it’s important that we stop trying to use John’s writings to defend the idea.

“A man content to go to heaven alone will never go to heaven.” — Boethius

Because most Christians have been taught by their religious leaders that Infernalism is scriptural (Infernalism being the soteriological doctrine that not everyone will experience salvation, but that some people will instead suffer forever in some manner in a place called the lake of fire), the vast majority of them have very little hope, at least when it comes to the topic of salvation.

Now it is true that, if they’re selfish, they might have a little hope for themselves, in the sense that they themselves will hopefully experience salvation in the end. But if they have loved ones, they know deep down that they’re eventually going to lose many, if not most, of the people they care about forever. And this is all before we even take the rest of the humans they don’t know personally into consideration, the vast majority of whom will suffer forever if the Infernalist “gospel” is correct.

And what is that Infernalist ”gospel”? Well, it’s basically the ”good news” that those people who are lucky enough to manage to do the right thing(s) will get to experience salvation and avoid suffering everlasting torment. But for those Infernalists who are reading this, are you sure you’ve managed to do the thing(s) necessary in order to get saved from this outcome? Remember, as an Infernalist, you don’t believe that Christ saved you through His death for our sins, His burial, and His resurrection on the third day, as those of us in the body of Christ believe. Because if you believed that He did, you’d already be saved without having to do anything at all, which would mean that everyone gets saved. So what you really believe is that there’s still something we have to do on top of what Christ did in order to get saved. And if you’re lucky, you’ve managed to do the right thing(s).

But are you sure you’re so lucky as to have managed to actually do the right thing(s)? There are many denominations within the Christian religion, and many of them have conflicting views on what it is someone has to do in order to get saved. Some Christians believe you have to pray a specific prayer, sometimes referred to as ”The Sinner’s Prayer,” in order to get saved. And maybe you’ve said some variation of a prayer, asking God to save you, but are you absolutely certain you said the exact right words that are required to get saved? Others believe you only have to “accept Christ’s sacrifice” in order to get saved. But are you absolutely certain you’ve believed exactly the right thing about Christ’s sacrifice in order to properly accept it? And for those who say that you just have to choose to have faith in order to get saved, are you sure you’re having faith in exactly the right thing? Meanwhile, others believe that you also have to have the right kind of repentance on top of all that in order to get saved, while there are also a lot of Christians who believe that water baptism is required for that salvation to take place (with the right kind of ”formula” being spoken at your baptism also being necessary). And if the Calvinists are right, none of that matters if you aren’t among “the elect,” because only they can get saved anyway, and are you certain that you’re actually among “the elect”? (Statistically speaking, odds are high that you probably aren’t, if the Calvinists are correct.)

But all that aside, while you yourself might have been lucky enough to have stumbled into doing the right thing(s) in order to get saved (or might be lucky enough to be among “the elect,” if the Calvinists are correct), the vast majority of humanity wasn’t as smart, or as wise, or as humble, or as righteous, or as lucky as you might be (whichever it is that happens to be the reason you chose to get saved while they didn’t), and they definitely aren’t all among ”the elect” if the Calvinists are right. So either way, for those of you who happen to have loved ones, there’s a good chance you’re going to lose most of them forever when all is said and done.

Of course, if you only really care about yourself, then maybe you’ll be okay with that outcome. But God gave the vast majority of us the ability to care about what happens to other people, not to mention the ability to miss them when they’re gone, and so the reward for salvation for most of you will be quite sad and lonely without them (or worse, when you consider the fact that your loved ones will be suffering a horrible fate that they won’t ever be able to escape) if the Infernalists are right.

Oh, and before Christians who happen to be Annihilationists who might be reading this start feeling too smug, it should be noted that the same hopelessness applies to Christians who believe in Annihilationism as well (Annihilationism being the soteriological doctrine that some people will cease to exist forever rather than experience salvation). While it’s less horrific than Infernalism, this doctrine isn’t really much more hopeful than atheism is, since the only hope here is that you yourself might be lucky enough to manage to do the right thing(s) in order to get saved. But everyone else is going to burn up in the lake of fire, never to be heard from again, which means your reward is going to be just as sad and lonely as the reward the Infernalist hopes for would be if they’re right. So, enjoy… I guess?

Of course, it really doesn’t matter how hopeless the end result of Infernalism (or Annihilationism) might be, because the only thing that really matters is what’s taught in Scripture. We might have negative feelings about all this, but as the saying goes, ”facts don’t care about your feelings.” Thankfully, however, the so-called ”gospel” taught by both of these groups isn’t the Gospel taught by Paul in Scripture at all. While few Infernalists and Annihilationists reading this will actually dig into what I’m about to say, because most are afraid to go against what their religious leaders have taught them is true, Paul was very clear that everyone will eventually experience salvation because of what Christ accomplished, which means that the Gospel Paul taught is a Gospel with hope for everyone, not just for a lucky few who managed to do the right thing(s).

As for the scriptural basis for this claim, here are a few articles I wrote that explain exactly what Paul taught about the salvation of all, so if you’re at all willing to admit that you might have been taught falsehoods, I recommend checking them out:

• How Paul used parallelisms to teach the salvation of all
• “…all men, especially…”
• To be “in Christ,” or not to be “in Christ”? Is that the question?

And I’m sure that some of you are now thinking, “But didn’t Jesus say that not everyone will get saved?” Well, that’s true, He did, but that’s because the word “salvation” has multiple different meanings in Scripture, and the salvation He talked about while He walked the earth was a different sort of salvation entirely from the one that most people are thinking of. I actually wrote about this fact in another article, so please go check it out as well if you aren’t familiar with the different types of salvation mentioned in Scripture: Not everyone will be saved, and yet everyone will be saved

Those of us in the true body of Christ are not Trinitarians (we aren’t Modalists either, for many of the same reasons we don’t believe in the Trinity). I’m not going to get into the reasons for why we’re not Trinitarians here, however, but instead I’m going to provide a list of links to a number of studies on this topic by various members of the true body of Christ, as well as to some websites by Christians who aren’t necessarily in the body of Christ, but who at least also understand the truth about the doctrine of the Trinity.

For anyone who is looking for the list of links to the articles on the pre-existence debate that were once included on this page, I’ve now moved them onto their own separate page, which you can find here: Concordant Christology: Arianism vs Socinianism

Before you read these articles, though, I should warn you that the majority of the members of the true body of Christ tend to not view the King James Bible quite as favourably as I do, and as such, they’re not written by King James Bible Believers. Still, these are the best resources on the topic I could find, so I’d still urge you to read them anyway.

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• The Trinity
• One God and Father of all: How the scriptural revelation of the one true God contradicts the doctrine of the Trinity (Part One)
• One God and Father of all: How the scriptural revelation of the one true God contradicts the doctrine of the Trinity (Part Two)
• One God and Father of all: How the scriptural revelation of the one true God contradicts the doctrine of the Trinity (Part Three)
• One God and Father of all: How the scriptural revelation of the one true God contradicts the doctrine of the Trinity (Part Four)
• One God and Father of all: How the scriptural revelation of the one true God contradicts the doctrine of the Trinity (Part Five)
• “The Trinity” — deadly doctrine on steroids
• Paul’s Gospel and the Death-Denying Doctrines that Contradict It
• He was buried
• The God Who is Love
• The Unbiblical Doctrine of the Trinity
• The Deity of God — Part 1 — The Only True God
• The Deity of God — Part 2 — God’s Will and Counsel
• The Deity of God — Part 3 — Faith in the Deity of God
• The Deity of God — Part 4 — God and Satan
• 46 Reasons Why Our Heavenly Father Has NO Equals or Co-Equal
• Jesus Christ the Son of God
• Refuting an Argument for “the Deity of Jesus Christ” (Part One)
• Refuting an Argument for “the Deity of Jesus Christ” (Part Two)
• 34 Reasons Why “the Holy Spirit” Is Not a “Person” Separate from the Only True God, the Father
• The Bible does not identify Jesus as Yahweh (part one)
• The Bible does not identify Jesus as Yahweh (part two)

The following articles and websites are either run by believers who don’t necessarily understand — or at least believe in — Right Dividing, or by otherwise traditional Christians who might not even be members of the true body of Christ at all, but they do contain some excellent arguments against the doctrine of the Trinity, so I’m linking to them here as well.

• Is God a Closed TRINITY or an Open FAMILY?
• Is the God of Christianity the God of the Bible?
• Specific objections to “Is the God of Christianity the God of the Bible?”
• Some further notes on the unitarian debate
• Understanding the concept of agency
• The Messiah: a human Davidic king or the divine God?
• A Unitarian View of the Holy Spirit (part 1)
• A Unitarian View of the Holy Spirit (part 2)
• Is Jesus God? Answering Answers in Genesis (part 1)
• Is Jesus God? Answering Answers in Genesis (part 2)
• The Deity of David
• Refuting all trinitarian proof-texts (part 1)
• Refuting all trinitarian proof-texts: the Old Testament (part 2)
• Refuting all trinitarian proof-texts: the Synoptic Gospels (part 3)
• Refuting all trinitarian proof-texts: the Gospel of John (part 4)
• Refuting all trinitarian proof-texts: Acts of the Apostles (part 5)
• Refuting all trinitarian proof-texts: Paul’s epistles (part 6)
• Refuting all trinitarian proof-texts: Hebrews and the general epistles (part 7)
• Refuting all trinitarian proof-texts: Revelation (part 8)
• Trinity theories versus Scripture
• Adamic Christology and the human Messiah
• Mosaic Christology and the human Messiah
• Elijah, Elisha, and the human Messiah
• Davidic Christology and the human Messiah (part 1)
• Davidic Christology and the human Messiah (part 2)
• Jesus and the HANDS of God
• Reasons to Believe’s Argument for the Trinity
• When was the Trinity discovered?
• The Incoherent Metaphysics of the Trinity
• The Incoherence of the Incarnation
• Past interpretations of John’s prologue (part 1 of 3)
• Past interpretations of John’s prologue (part 2 of 3)
• Past interpretations of John’s prologue (part 3 of 3)
• The Trinity Delusion (website)
• Biblical Unitarian (website)
• Trinities.org (website)
• Let the Truth Come Out (website)

[Please note that I’m including my scriptural references in the links, and that they also link to articles with extended exegesis that I couldn’t fit into this post, so please be sure to click all the supporting links in order to get the full picture, as well as all the Scripture references. Please also keep in mind, however, that I don’t necessarily agree with everything that all of the writers of the articles I link to believe and/or teach. Some of them just happen to have some good supporting material on the specific point I’m making in this article.]

In my last post, I explained that one of the main reasons so many members of the Christian religion assume they aren’t allowed to believe there’s more than one Gospel recorded in Scripture, even after being shown the proof that there definitely is more than one, is because of a misunderstanding of a warning Paul wrote to the Galatians (and I’d suggest reading that article first, before proceeding with this one). That’s not the only reason so many of them feel like they have to reject all the evidence for multiple Gospels in Scripture, however, and in this post I’m going to discuss a couple more misunderstandings that are responsible for so many Christians insisting there can only be one Gospel in Scripture.

The first misunderstanding comes from the fact that Paul tells us there is neither Jew nor Gentile in the body of Christ, and many Christians who read that then go on to make a major assumption: that every Jew who believes in Christ is brought into the body of Christ (and that every first-century Jew who believed in Christ became a member of His body prior to Paul’s revealing of the body to the world). If that were the case, however, this would mean they would all lose the standing above the Gentile nations that Israel was promised to be given by God one day (they don’t have it now, but they certainly will in the future, despite what some who don’t understand the difference between future events and already fulfilled prophecies seem to believe), and that they’re not under either the Old or the New Covenant, both of which were only ever given to Israel (this is also a result of confusing the new birth, which Paul never wrote about, with the new creature or creation, which only Paul ever wrote about — the idea that these two concepts are just synonyms for one another is a major, and entirely unfounded, assumption that is actually never stated in Scripture, which means there’s no reason to automatically just assume they are the same, outside of preexisting doctrinal bias).

This assumption reveals first and foremost that they don’t understand God’s purpose for creating “the church which is His body” any more than they understand God’s prophetic purpose for Israel. It also shows that they don’t understand the difference between the “mysteries (or “secrets”) of the dispensation (or administration) of Grace, and of the prophecies that don’t apply to this dispensation at all. And finally, it tells us they aren’t aware of the fact that being a part of the body of Christ was never meant for every believer in Christ throughout history to begin with.

You see, the body of Christ has a future job to do in the heavens, and our true citizenship is in those heavens rather than here on earth. That can’t be said about Israel however, at least not the faithful Israel known as the Israel of God. Unlike the body of Christ, who will be out there working in the heavens (the heavens, or “heaven,” just refers to everything “above” the earth, which is where the body of Christ will be fulfilling their purpose in the ages to come), the Israel of God will remain here on earth and maintain their earthly (Jewish) identity and citizenship throughout the Millennium, and will rule over the Gentile nations throughout the 1,000 years (and beyond).

Since only Jews who “are saved” (those known as “the Israel of God”) are among this group, if “being saved” means that they’re no longer identified as Jewish and that they are going to rule far off in the heavens (which would be the case if they were brought into the body of Christ), how are they going to also be Jews (which they apparently no longer are since there is neither Jew nor Gentile in the body) reigning on earth? This confusion is easily cleared up as soon as one comes to realize the difference between the body of Christ and the Israel of God, and how each of these two groups are saved (and what each of their salvations entail).

Of course, it also helps to realize that Paul was the first to be saved under his Gospel and join the body of Christ (not to mention the first to preach his Gospel), so no Jewish believer prior to him could have been a member of Christ’s body yet anyway. Yes, it’s true that there is only “one body” for us (as another passage which is very misunderstood by most Christians — and which is the second passage that leads so many Christians to believe there’s only one Gospel — tells us), but this is because the body of Christ is supposed to be without schism, not because other “bodies” that aren’t the body of Christ don’t exist. As an equivalent explanation, while all the provinces and territories of Canada make up one country, there’s still more than one country in the world (unless one believes the 50 states that make up the United States of America, along with all the other parts of the world, are a part of Canada too), and that same passage also says that there is only “one baptism,” yet there are many different types of baptisms mentioned throughout Scripture, so this verse isn’t saying that there’s only one body (or only one baptism) in existence in the world, but rather that those in the body of Christ should not be divided into different denominations, just as they should not participate in any baptisms other than the one they’ve already experienced (which is immersion by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ, along with all that Christ experienced in His physical body, such as His death, burial, and resurrection).

And so, even as Paul wrote these truths, another group of men lived for whom the truth “neither Jew nor Gentile” did not apply, and those men were the 12 apostles (or at least those of the 12 who were still alive by this point). Paul had forfeited his Israelite identity, but the rest of Jesus’ disciples never did — and neither were they supposed to. Jesus told His disciples that they would sit on 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel, a promise that did not apply to the apostle Paul (who, along with the rest of the body of Christ, would instead judge angels and the rest of the world — and hopefully the pattern of the difference between the terrestrial and celestial destinies of these two different groups of believers is becoming clear by now). So, while the body of Christ is indeed one body, it can be said that the Israel of God, too, is one body. But they definitely are not a part of the same body as us, as should be clear to anyone who isn’t blinded by the doctrinal presuppositions taught to them by their religious leaders.

And while I’m sure these points won’t convince everyone who reads this that there are two Gospels in Scripture, if you’ve now read all the way through both the last article and this one, and have taken the time to click the various links throughout them and read the articles they direct you to, you should at least now be aware of why the arguments that convince most Christians to deny the existence of two Gospels are not actually valid arguments at all. So I hope you’ll take the time to consider the arguments made for the existence of multiple Gospels in Scripture, because rightly dividing the Gospels from one another is so central to understanding what the Bible is saying that one can’t properly interpret much of Scripture at all without beginning from this perspective.

[Please note that I’m including my scriptural references in the links, and that they also link to articles with extended exegesis that I couldn’t fit into this post, so please be sure to click all the supporting links in order to get the full picture, as well as all the Scripture references. Please also keep in mind, however, that I don’t necessarily agree with everything that all of the writers of the articles I link to believe and/or teach (aside from the ones I myself wrote, of course). Some of them just happen to have some good supporting material on the specific point I’m making in this article.]

While those of us in the body of Christ discover pretty quickly that there are at least two Gospels taught in Scripture, the vast majority of the members of the Christian religion have somehow missed this fact, and many are extremely insistent that there’s only one Gospel taught in the Bible. In fact, even after one shows them just how clear it is that there is more than one Gospel, many of them still feel like they aren’t allowed to accept the possibility that this could be true.

Now, there are a number of reasons they feel they have to deny the existence of two Gospels in Scripture, but one of the major reasons is due a misunderstanding of the warning Paul gave in his epistle to the Galatians about preaching any other Gospel to the body of Christ than the one they’d already received. Unfortunately, most Christians read more into this passage than it’s actually saying, leading them to believe a whole doctrine that wasn’t what Paul was getting at there at all.

You see, Paul wasn’t saying there is only one true Gospel there, or that nobody could ever preach a Gospel to someone other than the one he taught the body of Christ. Most people who base their assumption on this passage don’t realize what Paul meant when he wrote “another gospel which is not another” in the verses before his warning. Unfortunately, the people who use this argument not only read more into this passage than it’s actually saying, they also don’t pay close attention to the specific wording of the passage either, leading them to believe a whole doctrine that wasn’t what Paul was getting at there at all. You see, Paul wasn’t saying there is only one true Gospel there, or that nobody could ever preach a Gospel to someone other than the one he taught the body of Christ (if that were the case, nobody could ever share good news of any sort with anyone if it wasn’t about Christ’s death for our sins, His burial, and His resurrection, including good news/gospels/glad tidings about births or job promotions or any other sort of positive information). Most people who base their assumptions about there being only one Gospel on this passage have likely only read translations of Scripture which render verses 6 and 7 in the way the KJV does when it says “another gospel: which is not another” in the verses before his warning. The problem is, if one doesn’t understand that this is a very poetic sort of translation, they can easily end up very confused. Is it another Gospel or is it not another Gospel? It can’t literally be both another Gospel and not another Gospel at the same time, which tells us that this particular translation isn’t meant to be read literally.

What most people aren’t aware of is that Paul actually used two distinct Greek words rather than one in the original text (and that Paul literally just meant: “a different gospel which is not another”) in order to differentiate between any legitimate Gospels that weren’t his but were still perfectly okay to be taught to certain people to follow for salvation (as long as it wasn’t members of the body of Christ being taught that) and any illegitimate “gospels” that shouldn’t be taught by anyone at all, speaking of both a different (ἕτερος/“het’-er-os”) so-called “gospel” which isn’t actually a real Gospel at all, and another(ἄλλος/“al’-los”) actual Gospel. The word ἕτερος basically means “other of a differing sort,” while ἄλλος means “other of the same sort,” so the wording of this passage allows for the existence of another/ἄλλος true Gospel (or even true Gospels, plural) in addition to Paul’s Gospel. For those who haven’t figured it out yet, this is one of the many examples of the translators of the KJV translating two different words (which meant something quite different from one another in their original language) using the same English word in the KJV, and if one isn’t being careful in their Bible study, they can end up completely misinterpreting the passage as saying the exact opposite of what it actually means because they aren’t aware of this fact.

Simply put, Paul wasn’t saying that people who taught there are other Gospels are under a curse, since he did so himself in the very next chapter of this epistle. All he was telling his readers is that anyone who tried to get those in the body of Christ to follow the requirements of any Gospels for their salvation other than the one they had already received from him would be accursed. But Peter and the rest of the circumcision believers could preach the requirements of their particular Gospel as something to be followed to anyone that they wanted to without fear, as long as it wasn’t to existing members of the body of Christ, based on the words “unto you” in verses 8 and 9, since Paul was writing to those who had already believed his Gospel (meaning those who had already become members of the body of Christ), not to those who hadn’t. In fact, the different/ἕτερος “gospel” that Paul was warning about there was actually an adulterated mix of both Gospels, which means it was an attempt to blend the two Gospels into one (those whom Paul was condemning were trying to mix the law elements associated with the Gospel that Peter preached in with the pure grace of Paul’s Gospel, resulting in a bastardized false “gospel” that can’t help anyone). Unfortunately, this means that the evangelists and teachers of the Christian religion today who are also trying to force the contents of each of these two actual Gospels into one (by insisting that there is only one Gospel) are guilty of preaching that very same different/ἕτερος “gospel” that isn’t even another/ἄλλος (completely legitimate) Gospel at all like the Gospel that Peter preached was, bringing the curse that Paul warned about upon themselves.

And on the off chance that anyone ever tries to claim that “different” and “another” (or ἕτερος and ἄλλος) literally mean the same thing, here are some sentences to consider: 1) “the word ‘different’ is different from the word ‘another,’” 2) “the word ‘another’ is another from the word ‘different,’” 3) “the word ‘another’ is different from the word ‘another,’” 4) “the word ‘different’ is another from the word ‘different,’” 5) “the word ‘another’ is another from the word ‘another,’” and 6) “the word ‘different’ is different from the word ‘different.’” Read those, then ask yourself if those sentences all mean the same thing, or if the last five even make any sense at all. And to really drive the point home, if the two words truly did mean the same thing, the verse could also be translated as “a different Gospel which is not different,” similar to sentence number 6 above, but that would be an extremely nonsensical translation. And if the words “different” and “another” don’t mean the same thing, as those examples I just gave prove, there’s literally no way to interpret the passage as meaning Paul is saying there’s only one legitimate Gospel, because he’s clearly allowing for at least three separate messages called gospels in this passage, 1) his own Gospel, 2) another Gospel, and 3) a different “gospel,” which means the only way he could have been talking about only two messages called gospels — 1) his own Gospel, and 2) a different “gospel” — with only one being legitimate, is if “another” and “different” actually did mean the same thing. (This isn’t to say that ἕτερος and ἄλλος can’t ever be used as synonyms of one another in a more figurative manner in other places, since we already know that the same word can be used in different ways in different passages, but it should be clear by this point that Paul wasn’t using ἕτερος as another word with literally the same meaning as ἄλλος in this passage — since then he’d have been contradicting himself by saying it both was and wasn’t another Gospel at the same time — but that he was instead using the two words with different definitions intended, contrasting them with one another, in this case; and yes, I used the words “different” and “another” repeatedly in this sentence on purpose, to really drive my point home.) And even if we only look at the way the KJV renders the verse, ignoring the original Greek words, that translation is obviously still saying the same thing, just very poetically (since a literal interpretation on its own would be contradictory, as I just mentioned), so it has to be interpreted as meaning: “another” [so-called] gospel which is not [actually] another [legitimate Gospel] (with the first “another” there being in quotation marks in order to demonstrate that it still just means “different” [from any actual Gospels], when it comes to this particular translation).

Besides, anyone who has studied the Bible already believes that there were other glad tidings (again, meaning Gospels) preached in Scripture, such as the angel Gabriel’s proclamation of glad tidings regarding the impending birth of John the Baptist to Zacharias, with “glad tidings” being translated from a verb form of the same Greek word εὐαγγέλιον/“yoo-ang-ghel’-ee-on” that “Gospel” is translated from in the KJV (and that the English word “evangelism” is transliterated from), literally meaning to “preach this good news” in that passage. This means that there’s no way Paul could have been saying there’s only one message allowed to be labelled as words of good news/a Gospel/glad tidings/εὐαγγέλιον in existence or else we’d have to remove those verses discussing the other “glad tidings” from the Bible altogether, and Gabriel would have been accursed for telling Zacharias about his wife’s pregnancy, unless those various other words of good news/glad tidings are all a part of a larger, all-encompassing, progressively-revealed “Gospel” we have to believe in so we can be saved. But then John the Baptist’s birth would also have to be a part of what the body of Christ has to have faith in for their salvation (and someone who hadn’t heard of John the Baptist yet couldn’t get saved until they do if this were the case), so this obviously makes no sense, especially in light of what Paul said the Gospel he preached actually was, which means that right off the bat we already have multiple proclamations of good news/Gospels/glad tidings/εὐαγγέλιον in the Bible even before we get to any of the Gospels that one can believe when they get saved. All that being said, even if somebody somehow still hasn’t recognized that there’s more than one Gospel in the Bible after everything I’ve already covered, they should at least now recognize that the passage in Galatians we just looked at about a different gospel which is not another can’t be used to refute the idea, since its wording does at least allow for another/ἄλλος legitimate Gospel to exist, even if they somehow still don’t believe there definitely is another.

A misunderstanding of this warning isn’t the only reason that most Christians assume there’s only one Gospel taught in Scripture, however. There are a number of other passages they also misinterpret, one of the most important ones being the statement about there how there is “neither Jew nor Gentile,” and if this is something that also has caused you to assume there can only be one Gospel, I urge you to read my next article now, where I explain why that statement doesn’t mean what most Christians assume it does any more than what Paul wrote about the different ”gospel” he condemned does.