---------- FOLLOW-UP to a previous question about Christian doctrine----------
QUESTION: most christians claimed that the bible mentioned about the holy trinity and almost everyone believe in the doctrine, except the mormon church. why is that? has the bible been tampered with? so does this mean the mormon church is right about everythin?
My reply:
Hi Kate,
Your very important questions here would require a lot of explanation to fully answer and I'm not sure how much you want to read. If you want more by all means write back. This will be a basic summary.
Following is an excerpt from a piece I wrote on the redefining of Christianity, and the adoption of the Trinity doctrine in the 3rd and 4th centuries.
First however, the Mormons are only one of several Christian groups and heterodoxies that don't accept the Trinity Doctrine. Neither do the Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Armstrongism, Christadelphians, Swedenborgianism, the United Pentecostal Church of God -- aka Oneness Pentecostals -- (they believe Jesus was God but reject the Trinity Doctrine), Unification Church, Unity School of Christianity, etc. Indeed, since the very beginning of the Church this doctrine has been rejected by segments of the Christian community, sometimes by most, sometimes by a minority. Today, as you say, most Christians accept it. The rejection of this doctrine is known as Arianism
The Mormons have a very unbiblical belief concerning God's nature. Their teaching is, "As man now is God once was, as God now is man will become." By any stretch of biblical interpretation this is absolute heresy. The biblical teaching is that God is One, eternally the same and eternally King of kings and Lord of lords. None are or will ever be equal to nor independent from Him:
Deut 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD ["O Israel: HaShem our Elohim is echad - one- HaShem]:
5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
God (HaShem: The Name: the Tetragrammaton: YHVH) is indivisibly One. this is THE essential definition revealed to Abraham and Moses and taught by Y'shua:
John 14:28 Ye have heard how I [Y'shua] said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.
I believe, as taught by most Arians, that Y'shua ben Miriam (Jesus, son of Mary) was a human being like any other. What distinguishes him was his utter devotion to the God of Israel (HaShem) and to his religion (Judaism). Master Y'shua was a holy prophet and teacher like Moses, Elijah, etc. The Scriptures are clear that HaShem will not share His glory with another.
Isa 42:8 I am the LORD [HaShem: Tetragrammaton]: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another...
So what changed? Not HaShem!
Emperor Constantine decided to establish an official Roman religion that would unite all the diverse religions of his empire. He called this new religion Universalism (or "Catholicism"). During the third and fourth centuries the majority of Nazarenes [ie followers of Master Y'shua] were Noahides [ie Gentiles] but originally they were all Jewish. Their attempts to restore/preserve the Jewish-based teachings of Master Y'shua were condemned as "Judaizing" by the rising Roman Papacy. The true Nazarene Way was viewed as a threat to Catholic authority and dogma. Those who opposed the doctrine of the Trinity, the deity of Master Y'shua, the absence of eternal torment in a hellfire, conditional salvation, and so on were persecuted by the Church of Rome as heretics. Anti-Semitism became official Church doctrine and "Passion Plays" condemning Jews as "Christ killers" become popular forms of entertainment and indoctrination. Such portrayals are still popular as was seen recently in Mel Gibson's scripturally inaccurate anti-Semitic snuff film, the Passion of the Christ.
The term "Paganizer" is not one I have seen elsewhere, however when using the term "Judaizer" as I do here to refer to those who sought to return the Church to its Jewish roots, the term "Paganizer" seems appropriate to describe those who sought to do the opposite. This faction won most of these second to fourth century debates and established the essential doctrines still accepted by most branches of Christendom. This group brought countless Pagan holidays, beliefs and traditions into the Church. These include holidays such as Christmas [the Christ Mass] and Easter [sacred to Goddess Eostar], the dress worn by Catholic clergy persons [significant to the worshipers of Sol Invictus], the near deification of Catholic saints [popular with various Pagans] and Mary as the Theotokos [or Mother of God, popular with Goddess worshipers], hellfire and purgatory [powerful tools for controlling the masses and without scriptural support], heaven for humans [popular to various Pagan sects, especially those who worshiped solar deities], the common belief that some humans become angels upon death [popular with those who worshiped nature spirits], the deification of Master Y'shua [popular with many Pagan religions and strictly condemned by the Hebrew Scriptures], the Trinity doctrine [found in countless religions other than Judaism], the doctrine of original sin [established by Augustine to secure the authority of the Church of Rome], the rosary [popular in Hinduism, among the Dervish, and many other religions but without any biblical basis], the church mandated disregard of Shabbat (an observance clearly defined in the Ten Commandments and elsewhere), the embrace of Sunday as the holy day [ie the day of worship for Sol Invictus the Sun God, the God worshiped by Constantine until the day he died] and so much more.
During these debates many people of the Nazarene Way [those who sought to maintain the teachings or Way of Master Y'shua] sought to officially preserve the teachings of Master Y'shua. One of the fiercest battlegrounds concerned the nature of Master Y'shua. The Nazarenes believed that the Master, while truly a great tzaddik or holy man, was in all ways human. They held that only HaShem is God and that He is eternally one and absolute unique, as taught in the Shema:
Deuteronomy 6:4:
Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Elohaynu Adonai Echad:
"Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One."
This central Jewish, Noahide and Nazarene truth came to be known as Arianism in the Church, after Arius, one of its principle proponents during the Pagan usurpation of what became the Christian religion. Arius' admirable attempts to preserve portions of the Nazarene faith were not successful however, and the Paganizers managed to deify Master Y'shua after the matter of the Roman Sun God Sol Invictus. Emperor Constantine, who was mentioned above and who was largely responsible for the creation of modern Christianity, remained a loyal worshipper of Sol Invictus all of his life, despite claims that he had converted to the Nazarene Way via his new religion.
Sol Invictus was worshipped on the day of the sun god, unlike the Jews, Noahides and Noahide Nazarenes who honored Shabbat and maintained a lunar calendar as used in the Torah. Pagan Constantine however issued the following order replacing Shabbat with the day of his god, and for the most part Christians still worship on that day.
We learn the following from wikipedia.com:
"On the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed...."
Shabbat rejecting Christians can debate Paul's teachings that one day is as good as another, and so on, yet here is the origin of Sunday as the Lord's Day and the rejection of Shabbat.
As for Constantine's alleged conversion to Christianity:
"Before his baptism on his deathbed, Emperor Constantine portrayed Sol Invictus on his official coinage, with the legend SOLI INVICTO COMITI, thus claiming the Unconquered Sun as a companion to the Emperor. Constantine decreed (March 7, 321) dies Solis — day of the sun, from which "sunday" — as the Roman day of rest [CJ3.12.2]..."
"Christianity adopted some of the attributes of the Sol Invictus religion, as apparent in the first examples of Christian iconography, depicting Christ with solar attributes such as the radiated crown or, in a few instances, a solar chariot."
"Sol Invictus had been adopted by the Church of Rome as evidenced by Christ as Apollo-Helios in a mausoleum discovered under St. Peter's Basilica and dated to 250, and, from the beginning of the third century, "Sun of Justice" was used as a title of Christ."
"Arianism" refers to the teachings of the Catholic theologian Arius (c. 250-336 CE). Arius lived and taught in Alexandria, Egypt in the early 4th century and sought to maintain/defeat the original Jewish form of the Way as the Vatican was finalizing the establishment of their new religion and determining what would be accepted as cannon (official). One of the points he focused on was the then newly developing doctrine of the trinity.
As for the New Testament, the Bible we have today is that declared Canonical by the Roman Hierarchy. We know that countless writings were removed and added and edited during this process. The New Testament still is a holy book and important source of spiritual and historic information, however it no longer exists in its original form.
Compounding this destruction of New Testament doctrine and texts, most Christians today have, usually unknowingly being deceived by slick marketing and direct lies by Agnostic scholars, rejected the source materials upon which Christianity was established (ie the Textus Receptus: the source material translated as the Authorized King James Version), in favor of a mismash of contradictory source materials of questionable historic origins in the new paraphrases such as the New International Version (NIV) and other new books. These New Age books have deleted scores of verses and added much without any textual support that alters the meaning and doctrines held by Christians. The result is now becoming obvious. As Master Y'shua predicted through hs disciple John:
Rev. 3:14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans [the last of seven periods through which the Church would pass) write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
But the Church shows no signs of repenting.
Again, this is a summary. If you have further questions feel free to write back.
~John of AllFaith
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