What is Heresy?

According to Webster's Twentieth Century Dictionary (Unabridged) Second Edition heresy is defined as such:

her'e-sy, n.;  1. a doctrine, opinion, or set of opinions or principles at variance with established or generally received views or doctrines, as in politics, morality, philosophy, etc.  2. in theology, a doctrine or belief that is contrary to the fundamental doctrine or creed of a particular church; especially, such a belief specifically denounced by the church and regarded as likely to cause schism.        3. the holding to such a belief  or opinion.

Would it upset you if I told you that the early communities of believers in the Jewish Messiah would look upon the vast majority of Christian communities today as heretics? That is not an easy statement for many Christians to swallow. It shakes at the core of everything they believe. However, when you compare the things Yeshua and His apostles spoke, and wrote, there is very little semblance between what they taught, and what is taught in congregations today. We have received a mushy, diluted, watered down gospel that is actually not the Gospel taught by Yeshua, or His apostles at all.

If one is willing to be honest with themselves, one would only have to do the slightest amount of prayerful research and it would become apparent that most of what Christians believe isn't supported by Scripture in its proper context. Do a careful study of Matthew 15 and Mark 7 and see what Yeshua was accusing the scribes and Pharisees of doing. He was coming down hard on them because they were judging people, and condemning them, for violating the traditions of men while at the same time totally ignoring the instructions given by Almighty God in Torah. Notice Matthew 15:3 where it says:

And He answered and said to them, “Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?  (NASB)

Then in verses 7-9 Yeshua continues with these words:

⁷ You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: ⁸ ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me. ⁹ ‘But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’”  (NASB)

Before we continue, one needs to get this simple fact embedded into their spirit. Satan hates the words of Almighty God. He directs this hatred towards God's people who were created in His image. From the Garden of Eden forward Satan has intentionally twisted the words of the Almighty with the intention of destroying God's people. I can't express this fact strongly enough. If you miss that fact, you will miss everything. He has done this throughout all time. His working in this area was especially evident even while the apostles were still walking this earth. After they had passed from this life Satan went to work with a vengeance trying to destroy all evidence of truth about Messiah and His love for His covenant people the Hebrews.

Satan's first attack was the same tactic he used back there in the Garden with the same results in mind. He attacked the Word of God with the intention of destroying God's people (the Hebrews), and the Gentiles who had now been grafted into Israel and would follow His instructions. His favorite tool has never changed. He mixes confusion with the Word of God. It has always worked well for him. Add a word here, subtract a word there, or cloud the intended meaning by substituting a word with a vague, or completely different meaning. He works especially well in this area through translating from one language into another. Particularly from Hebrew and Aramaic into Greek and then again into English. His work is easy for an unsuspecting people lacking spiritual discernment and real knowledge of God's word. That is the reason for the pouring out of the Spirit in the last days. God is still in charge and He will defend and reveal the truth found in His word.

One of Satan's tricks was to flood the early church age with many counterfeit copies of the accounts of Yeshua. Several counterfeit gospels and epistles were circulated around the known world at that time. Many poorly written copies and forgeries of the actual Gospels and epistles of the apostles were also circulated. Then the idea was to attack the Jews and discredit them. People like Marcion even attacked the Scriptures themselves. He went as far as to formulate the false idea that there were two Gods. The cruel and rigid God of the Hebrew Scriptures, and the loving and merciful God of the Apostolic Scriptures. He coined the terms Old Testament and New Testament to support this doctrine. Many today still buy into his heresies unknowingly. There is one, and only one, God. Not two.

It was the Jewish people who carried the Good News to the world in those days. However, as time went on, Gentiles began to outnumber the Jews in the Messianic communities and anti-Semitism grew. The ancient Hebraic understanding of the Apostolic Writings, which was fully built upon and supported by the Hebrew Scriptures, was soon replaced with Western modern Greek philosophical reasoning. These new Christians were former pagans who began to mix paganism with the Hellenistic mindset and the Gospel. Heresies began cropping up everywhere and instead of the church resisting these heresies, they adopted them. Jews were looked upon as the murders of Messiah. They were hated, persecuted, and often slaughtered. The instructions which God had delivered to the Hebrews  at Mount Sinai was rejected. God's appointed times were rejected and replaced with pagan festivals. The pagan festivals were now given Christian names mixing the profane with the holy. The pagan icons were now given Christian names, and all things considered Jewish were rejected and in most cases outlawed. The church had departed from the established doctrines of Yeshua and the apostles.

The so-called church fathers in the second through the fourth centuries had established a doctrine or belief that is contrary to the fundamental doctrine delivered by Yeshua and the apostles. They had in fact a created a doctrine, opinion, or set of opinions or principles at variance with established or generally received views or doctrines of the apostles. From the time the apostles had all died out the church was now committing heresy. They had rejected the apostles doctrines in favor of the anti-Semitic doctrines of the so-called "church fathers." These heresies still continue in most of the churches to this day. Yet, many accept it them as the doctrines of Yeshua and the apostles. They are not!

The first thing that had to go was the so called Jewish commandments. They were now called "the Law." People do not like laws as they are a way of restricting one's freedom. So we now call the instructions given by God at Sinai, "Laws." The belief was introduced that these "Jewish" commandments were now changed by Yeshua even though He Himself said in Matthew 5:17-19:

¹⁷ “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. ¹⁸ For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. ¹⁹ Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (NASB)

Notice that Yeshua says, "but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Does that sound to you like Yeshua was talking about doing away with Torah? I would be curious to know how you would come to that conclusion.

Some attempt to focus upon the word "fulfill" as though Yeshua now made the instructions of God obsolete, but that is not what is being said here. What we have here is one of those examples of a weak translation using the word from the Greek and translating it into the English as fulfill. Ask yourself a question. But first, let's substitute the word "fulfill" with the word they would really like for you to be thinking. Let's substitute the word fulfill with destroy. Do you really think Yeshua was saying that He came to destroy the instructions He just said, He came not to destroy? The word for fulfill from the Greek used here means to "complete" or better yet, to "fully preach" or to "reveal the true meaning." When you have the proper interpretation the true meaning becomes clear. What Yeshua is saying here is that He came not to destroy the Torah, but to "reveal its true meaning. The question to ask yourself is this. Have heaven and earth passed away? I didn't think so. I look out my window and still see stars, the moon and the sun. I also see grass and trees. Heaven and earth are obviously still here. Therefore the Torah has not passed away either.

Here is something else to contemplate. If Yeshua had changed any part of God's Torah, He would have been a false prophet according to Deuteronomy 13. If Yeshua had changed any part of Torah He would be guilty of rebellion against YHVH (the LORD) by seducing you away from the way God had commanded us to walk. Deuteronomy 13:5 clearly says:


⁵ But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has counseled rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, to seduce you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from among you.

If Yeshua had done away with any part of Torah, He could not possibly have been the Messiah, because the Messiah could not possibly be a false prophet according to Torah. It's long past time that we start reading our Bibles for ourselves. Yeshua has promised us that when He returned to the Father in heaven, He would send us the Comforter. He would lead us into all truth. It is imperative that we begin to get on our knees and fall upon our faces before Almighty God and ask Him for His Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth. It is His promise to reveal Himself to those who will diligently seek Him. We need to awaken to the shocking fact that we have been sitting in apostate churches since the fourth century. We have been listening to heresies passed down to us for centuries from heretics.

 It's time to get uncomfortable in the churches and start asking questions which most pastors will not be able to answer. They will not answer, either because they don't know, or because their paycheck may be in jeopardy if too many people start asking the hard questions. Remember this, there is a time, coming soon, when God will hide His people from the vicious and merciless onslaught of Satan and his people against the true believers in Messiah Yeshua. God will protect those who are truly His. However there are some requirements to receive His protection. He will not protect those who insist on remaining in the confusion of Babylon and her heresies. What are those requirements? They are found in Revelation 12:13-17. Pay very close attention to the last verse. There are the two requirements.

¹³ Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. ¹⁴ But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. ¹⁵ So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. ¹⁶ But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. ¹⁷ And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.


Shalom,
Barry W. Gaugler