Have you ever noticed that the God of the Bible sometimes seems like two completely different beings?
In one passage, He sends Jonah
to save Nineveh -- Israel's bitter enemy. In another, He supposedly commands
the permanent exclusion of entire ethnicities based on their birth.
In one passage, He welcomes
Ruth the Moabitess into the genealogy of Χριστός (Christos). In another, He
supposedly says Moabites can never enter His assembly "unto the eon."
In one passage, He strikes
Miriam with leprosy for criticizing Moses's foreign wife. In another, He
supposedly commands mass divorce of foreign wives and expulsion of children.
These cannot be the same being.
The Authentic Θεός
The authentic Θεός (Theos --
God) revealed in Scripture is consistent:
He welcomed the "great
intermixed company" (ἐπίμικτος πολύς) who left Egypt with Israel (Exodus
12:38). He established "one law" for native and convert alike (Exodus
12:49). He declared through Isaiah, "My house shall be called a house of
prayer for all the nations" (Isaiah 56:7).
Through Paul, He revealed:
"There is not Jew nor Greek... for all you are one in Χριστός Ἰησοῦς"
(Galatians 3:28).
He is "not far from each
one of us" (Acts 17:27) -- not "each ethnically approved
person." He sees each human heart. He cares about every single one.
The Counterfeit "god"
But scattered through the
post-exilic literature is a different deity entirely -- one who:
• Permanently excludes entire
ethnicities based on birth (Deuteronomy 23:3-6)
• Claims Jews are "holy
seed" (σπέρμα τὸ ἅγιον) by bloodline (Ezra 9:2)
• Commands mass divorce and
child expulsion (Ezra 10)
• Creates the very division
Χριστός came to abolish
This is not Θεός. This is a
counterfeit -- a satanic insertion designed to make the Creator of all peoples
look like a tribal racist.
The "Holy Seed" Blasphemy
The heart of this counterfeit
is the phrase "σπέρμα τὸ ἅγιον" (sperma to hagion -- "holy
seed") in Ezra 9:2. This treats Jewish ethnicity as inherently holy and
other ethnicities as inherently defiling.
This is blasphemy. Here is why:
The true "seed" is
Χριστός alone. Paul makes this explicit: "And to Abraham were spoken
the promises, and to his seed. He does not say, 'And to the seeds,' as unto
many; but as unto one, 'And to your seed' -- which is Χριστός"
(Galatians 3:16).
Only Ἰησοῦς is called
"holy" from birth. The angel told Mary: "The one being born
of you holy (ἅγιον), shall be called Son of Θεός" (Luke 1:35). He
alone was conceived by the Holy Spirit, not by human descent from Adam.
All humans are born in sin.
David -- a Jew, of the tribe of Judah, in the messianic line -- declared:
"In lawless deeds I was conceived, and in sins my mother craved strange
food for me" (Psalm 51:5). If David's seed was not inherently holy, whose
is?
Paul explicitly addresses
whether Jews have an advantage: "Do we have an advantage? Assuredly not
(οὐ πάντως). For we showed before, both Jews and Greeks, all to be under
sin" (Romans 3:9).
There is no "holy
seed" among humans. There is only THE holy seed -- Χριστός. To
claim any human bloodline is inherently holy is to attribute to sinful humanity
what belongs only to the sinless Son of Θεός.
The Serpent's Strategy
Genesis 3:15 promised that the
"seed of the woman" would crush the serpent's head. This is the true
seed -- Χριστός.
The serpent cannot stop that
promise. But he can corrupt the understanding of it.
So he takes "the
seed" (Χριστός, singular) and perverts it into "holy seed" (an
ethnic bloodline). He takes what belongs to Χριστός alone and attributes it to
sinful humans. He takes the promise that was always about faith and turns it
into ethnic pride.
The result:
• Pride instead of humility
• Division instead of unity
• Exclusion instead of welcome
• Walls instead of the
broken-down barrier
Paul warned: "And no
wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light" (2
Corinthians 11:14). The insertions disguise themselves as righteousness -- as
zeal for Θεός, as protecting the covenant, as maintaining purity. But they produce
the opposite of what the true Θεός desires.
The God of This Eon
Paul wrote: "In whom the
god of this eon (ὁ θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου) blinded the minds of the
unbelieving, for the illumination of the good news of the glory of Χριστός not
to shine forth" (2 Corinthians 4:4).
The "god of this eon"
blinds minds. What better way to blind than to insert his own character into
the text that is supposed to reveal the true Θεός?
Then people read Scripture and
see a tribal, racist deity who excludes based on birth -- and either reject
Θεός, or become tribal and racist themselves thinking they are serving
Him.
Ἰησοῦς said to those who
claimed Abraham as father but rejected Him: "You are of your father the
devil (ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ διαβόλου), and the desires of your father you want to
do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth,
because there is no truth in him. When he speaks the lie, he speaks from his
own, for he is a liar and the father of it" (John 8:44).
The ethnic exclusivist
insertions are lies. They claim to be from κύριος but they are not. They bear
the character of the liar, not the character of the One who is "the way,
the truth, and the life."
What This Means
The Bible we have contains both
authentic λόγος (logos -- word) and satanic corruption mixed together. This is
why Paul called them "Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn away
from the truth" (Titus 1:14). This is why Ἰησοῦς said the Pharisees made
"void the word of Θεός by your tradition" (Mark 7:13).
The traditions got written
down. The fables got inserted. And now people read them as if they were the
word of Θεός.
But Ἰησοῦς gave us the key:
"You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal
life; and it is they that bear witness about me" (John 5:39). The
Scriptures bear witness about HIM. Anything that contradicts His character --
anything that makes Θεός look like a tribal racist who excludes people before
they are even born -- is not from the Father.
The true Θεός "shows no
partiality" (Acts 10:34). His house is "a house of prayer for ALL
nations" (Isaiah 56:7). "Whoever calls on the name of κύριος shall be
saved" (Romans 10:13).
Whoever. Not
"whoever except certain ethnicities."
Θεός does not change (Malachi
3:6). He has always loved all peoples. He has always welcomed those who choose
Him. He is not far from each one of us.
The "holy seed"
ideology is the serpent's counterfeit. And it has no place in authentic γραφή
(graphē -- Scripture).
---
Πᾶσα
δόξα (Pasa doxa -- All glory) τῷ Θεῷ (to Theos -- to God)
διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ
(dia Iēsou Christou -- through Jesus Christ)
who
broke down the dividing wall of hostility (Ephesians 2:14)
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