False “false apostle Paul” teaching

This is a transcript of information provided by YouTube user BookOfLife144 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=s0MxlwQf2Gg

  • Shockingly, many so-called “believers” are being seduced by the “false apostle Paul” teaching which claims that Paul is a “man of lawlessness” – an antichrist figure – who preached a message in direct opposition to the Lord Jesus Christ.
  • However, these “believers” fails to realize that the Lord and the apostle Paul preached to two different audiences and under two different covenants.
  • During His earthly ministry, the Lord spoke directly to Judah/Israel, who were still under the Old Covenant (and thus under the curse of the law) calling them to repentance while Paul spoke to both the believing remnant of Judah/Israel and the grafted-in Gentiles under the New Covenant (after the Lord’s perfect atoning sacrifice at Calvary, when all believers would be saved by grace through faith).
  • That is, “salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek [Gentile]” (Romans 1:16).
  • We see a picture of the former in Matthew 15:24, when the Lord tells the Canaanite woman asking for help that “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Note: In verse 28, the Lord would happily repay her faith.)
  • Under the Old Covenant, the Lord told His disciple in Matthew 5:17: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them”.
  • And this was because there was “none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10) who could keep the law of Moses except the Lord Jesus Christ.
  • Consequently, under the New Covenant, when a believer comes to Christ, they are baptized into Him and put on His righteousness (Galatians 3:27) and instantly go from law breaker to law keeper.
  • And Paul, who was personally given the meaning of the New Covenant by the Lord, was tasked with preaching that the curse of the law had now been lifted and that every believer would be justified by faith, not by works, just like Abraham was in Genesis 15:6.
  • Romans 8:2: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death”.
  • And Galatians 3:24: “So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith”.
  • But, Paul emphasized: “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid” (Romans 6:1-2) – for both the law and commandment was “holy and righteous and good” (Romans 7:12).
  • However, New Covenant believers now have the Holy Spirit to guid them and help them to live righteously and “walk in the Spirit, [so] you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16).
  • And verse 18: “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law”.
  • Yet, anti-Paul “believers”, who choose to remain under the law and thus make the cross of none effect, will conveniently omit this New Covenant revelation from their “lawless” – and heretical – ramblings.
  • We see more twisting of scripture by these “believers” in 1 Corinthians 5:5, when Paul says to “deliver this man [who was involved in immortality] to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord”.
  • Anti-Paul “believers” will posit that this passage shows that Paul is an undercover antichrist figure who hands believers over to the devil yet completely ignore the fact that this disciplinary action to remove this man from the church at Corinth for his own good so that he would repent, die to the flesh, and walk in the Spirit so that he might be saved (just like the scripture reads).
  • They also pontificate that the apostle Paul contradicted the words of the Lord and made himself as God in 1 Corinthians 4:15.
  • 1 Corinthians 4:15: “For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”
  • Anti-Paul “believers” will point to Matthew 23:9, when the Lord said to “call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in Heaven”.
  • But common sense tells us that Paul was simply highlighting his role as a spiritual mentor (or shepherd) to those at Corinth via the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ whereas the Lord was specifically talking about not elevating and revering the prideful Scribes and Pharisees who revelled in their place and positing.
  • Anti-Paul “believers” will also claim that Paul is a self-appointed apostle who has no right to the title.
  • However, just like the 12 apostles, Paul was personally chosen to be an apostle of the Lord (albeit via the Spirit).
  • Acts 9:15: “Go, said the Lord [to Ananias]. This man is My chosen instrument to carry My name before the Gentiles and their kings, and before the people of Israel”.
  • Paul – a former Pharisee and persecutor of Christians – was specially selected because of his vast and exemplary knowledge and understanding of the Torah.
  • This enabled him to competently connect the two covenants and show people how the Law and the Prophets were all pointing to one person, the coming Messiah* (the Lord Jesus Christ).
  • Paul was also personally given the “mystery of God” (Ephesians 3), a previously unknown and concealed truth that detailed the regathering and restoration of spiritual Isreal (the Body of Christ) in the first century; that is, that believing Gentiles would be grafted into the believing remnant of Judah/Israel and become fellow heirs of the promises given to Abraham.
  • Paul had also received acceptance by his fellow apostles (Acts 15:25-26), especially Peter, who called him “our beloved brother Paul [who] wrote you with the wisdom God gave him” (2 Peter 3:15).
  • Indeed, in the next two verses, Peter would place Paul’s epistles in the same league as the other scriptures and thus make them a part of the Word of God – and also warn believers not to waver from Paul’s teachings.
  • 2 Peter 3:16: “As also in all [Paul’s] epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the scriptures”.
  • And verse 17: “You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability”.
  • And by twisting Paul’s epistles – and denigrating his God-given ministry – this is exactly what the lawless, unstable anti-Paul “believers” have done.
  • We will need to stand strong in the Lord and ride out this little season.
  • Will you follow the word of man or the Word of God?

*work-in-progress summary of “More than A Carpenter” which provides evidence of the Messiah’s “address” is being published at https://twb.rocks/blank-00/living/spirit/scripture-and-the-address-of-the-messiah.