Torah Times Messianic Ministry

The Importance of the Answer:

The question can also be framed as, "What did Messiah hope to accomplish by his death?" I state it this way because what it does accomplish depends on the effect of Messiah's actions upon the hearts of each person confronted with him. His death accomplishes nothing for those who do not repent and pledge faithfulness to him. On the other hand, what it does accomplish for the faithful, is dependent upon the faithful response. So it is because of this contingiency that I ask what Messiah hoped his death would accomplish.  The hope is fulfilled for the faithful, but not for the unfaithful.

An orthodox answer to this question must be the biblical answer in the face of the fact that adopting it will place one in the minority position. The proper answer to this question must be given its proper position in relation to the good news and all the things the faithful are supposed to hold fast to. The correct answer to this question is so important that a wrong answer will make any institution heterodox at best. And more critically, the wrong answer is the crowning achievement of Satan within Christianity. The usual answer repeated by Christians and their institutions is that "Christ paid the penalty for sin," which is put more briefly, "Christ died for our sin." The former sense is read into the latter expression even if the latter expression, strictly speaking, could be interpreted in other ways. The Christian religious idiolect fixes the meaning of technical phrases by the theological teaching associated with the phrases. Anyone brought up in this religious language framework has great difficulty seeing any other option outside of it. But I shall state here that the typical answer to this all-important question makes all the institutions and denominations that cling to it cults in the eyes of the orthodox view taught in Scripture.

Aside from the various denominations of Christianity that teach the penal substitution doctrine and, by doing so, merit classification as an unbiblical cult, what I say here is not a commentary on whether or not individuals trapped in these cults receive forgiveness of sins. All I will say is that the institutions that insist on the doctrine are cults or heterodox at best. What we expect of the true faithful who began their spiritual lives under one wing or another of denominations that teach this is that they will come out of the institutional authority of these denominations. This is because everyone who is faithful to the Most High will eventually be shown traditional errors and then have to depart from those institutions.

Since this issue is at the apex of a system of false teaching, I will here briefly outline the context and related issues that contribute to the deadly misunderstanding of Messiah's death, which if fully embraced will logically cause one to miss the point of the good news entirely. And this was and is Satan's aim in propagating this teaching in the Church. Generally, I will say that penal substitution teaching has replaced the proclamation of forgiveness of sins upon repentance or is so taught alongside the latter that the latter is clouded and confused. The situation is only made worse when and where denominations reject the Torah, the Sabbath, and feasts and adopt the institutional teachings used to support a negative view of the Torah. I refer here to the believe only teaching, also accusing anyone of keeping the Law of legalism, where we will find that penal substitution is legalism of the worst sort, and the teaching of hell as eternal torment, along with the false doctrine of predestination with respect to heaven and hell. The false theology of imputed righteousness and eternal security also plays a role in reinforcing the cult system.

History of the Matter

There is a historical development to the evolution of the Church away from biblical teaching on this matter into the false doctrines that make it a cult with respect to Scriptural orthodoxy. But this is not the place to go into this matter because the denominational gatekeepers lack integrity in their version of this history. Therefore, I will stick with Scripture and the use of logic and reason to expose the false system. It will then follow as a matter of course that the corrupting influence of this doctrine causes the churches that adhere to it to display a lack of integrity when their false position is challenged. It is thus best not to argue with them over it. It is sufficient to understand the biblical truth for ourselves in the context of the Torah-observant faithful and to explain it to our own. The reason I say this is that there will be no saving the mainstream Church from this error. The error is in fact a core doctrine of the false church, Mystery Babylon.

Introduction and Summary

Before tearing apart the false teaching and explaining the correct answer, and I will take up these matters in that order, I will summarize for those who desire the conclusion of the matter before the details are explained. The death of Messiah is best described the way he did, as a ransom, wherein the cost of suffering he endured was out of his loving desire to make a direct divine appeal in the flesh to humankind that they should repent and become faithful to him. In order to prove himself able to deliver, he demonstrated victory over death. Thus, his death was necessary to show his power over it in the resurrection. Also in the flesh, he proved that he experienced the situation of a sinful culture from a human point of view, and he did not run away from it when it threatened him, as it threatens us. Through the suffering of Messiah in the flesh, the Almighty is giving us insight into the cost he suffered to deliver us from evil. This cost is demanded of the Most High in both Spirit and in the flesh by evil. Evil charges the price. His love compels him to endure the cost he suffers while seeking to explain himself to us as best may be. The divine cost is not just limited to Messiah's suffering in the flesh. Messiah's suffering in the flesh is just part of the total divine cost. So clearly, the cost is paid, but it is not a cost paid to the Most High. It is all a cost paid by the Most High due to the circumstances of evil and the need to rescue those he is enduring it for. This is why it is called a ransom.

Beyond this basic answer, I should say that Messiah's suffering in the flesh has a spiritual explanation. Firstly, his blood is the blood of the covenant, the blood that makes new the covenant of old. The blood of a covenant is shed to make clear the binding promises of the participants in the covenant. By using his own blood, Messiah gives us a covenant framework of assurance about his commitment to us. Furthermore, the blood of sacrifice is connected to ritual cleansing. Messiah's blood signifies his divine life in the Spirit, by which he cleanses us, and will cleanse us completely from sin when we receive our immortal bodies. Finally, a guilt offering is an offering that is made to illustrate the deadly cost of sin when it is brought by a repentant person. The blood of the offering makes the declaration of divine cleansing by way of illustrating its cost and renewing the divine commitment to ultimately cleanse the sinner of every aspect of the sin, if not possible right away, then when we receive our immortal bodies. The point of the offering is to make a declaration about the matter. This is what "atonement," so misnamed, means: "to declare to be wiped away." The offering is the official notice of the matter in ritualized form. So, now in the case of Messiah, it was men who unjustly put Messiah to death, but the Most High makes use of their error in justice to designate his Son a guilt offering for us, to give us official notice of pardon and cleansing.

The greatest error ascribed to sacrifices concerning sin is the teaching that the sacrifice is satisfying a demand for divine wrath. This is the idea that the sacrifice is paying a demand for divine justice, which is first seen as a punitive demand. "Atonement" is defined in the theological world as appeasement of the deity. But if divine justice is being satisfied by a punitive requirement being paid for, then God would not actually be forgiving the sin.

Truly, the good news is about repentance unto forgiveness of sins. Repentance begins with genuine sorrow over sin and then turning away from it. Repentance is not a one-time deal but an attitude or approach of faithfulness to Messiah. The main objection of the cult churches to this simple explanation is that it requires good works to seek everlasting life. But as we shall see, Scripture speaks of good works on the one hand and, on the other hand, of customary works supposed to pay the Most High to forgive. It is the latter that are opposed by sound biblical theology. We call them penances or indulgences. And clearly, the idea of paying for forgiveness has corrupted the understanding of Messiah's death. So the penal substition view is legalistic in that it claims the debt incurred by sin, or the dishonoring of God, is compensated for by the death of Messiah. The lightest view of this is the satisfaction theory, which is the idea that the Father was sufficiently satisfied in terms of justice by the death of his son to forgive and reconcile with sinners. In the view of Anselm, the punishment of the Son repairs the damage done to the honor of God by our sins.

The problem with this notion is that it is based on an Amorite understanding of justice. If one reads the Code of Hammurabi, one will discover that the punishment meted out for various crimes varied according to the rank and nobility of the offender. And if one happened to be a commoner, it was the worst for them. The Amorite Kingdoms stretched from Gilead to Babylon in the period before Israel entered the land, and it was Og and Sihon that Israel defeated. In the Amorite code, nobility received a lesser punishment than commoners. And this injustice is outlawed by the Torah by the precept that punishments should not exceed the crime, and that there be no respect for persons, whether rich or poor, and that the innocent be acquitted and the guilty be found guilty. Further, it is specified that the innocent should not be made to suffer for the guilty. Indeed, sons should not suffer for the sins of their fathers, and fathers should not suffer for the sins of their sons.

Therefore, it is understood that legal justice cannot satisfy the damage to the divine honor done by sin by causing the innocent to suffer on behalf of the guilty. I conclude then that Anselm's theory, that Messiah's death satisfies the loss to the divine honor caused by sin, is illegal. And in fact, it is a doctrine of Satan, a demonic doctrine, that was in ancient times practiced by the Amorites who occupied Babylon. And furthermore, it is this ancient doctrine that represents Mystery Babylon in the Church.

Now, the solution to this matter for all guilty of sin is not that punitive justice or honor-repairing justice be satisfied. The assumption that it must be satisfied is an error in itself. It is an errant and idolatrous view of God. But final punishment is reserved for the unrepentant or for the totally deceived and corrupted among men. But if anyone is willing to repent and pledge faithfulness to Messiah, then he, in his divine capacity, is perfectly willing to forgive the sin without seeking such compensation for it as punitive justice will not allow.

I should explain why punitive justice does not pay for sin. It pays a cost, to be sure, but it does not compensate for the sin. The penalties assigned for various crimes in Scripture are enacted for the purpose of deterring sin. The death penalty for murder dissuades anyone else who may be tempted to commit murder. But the penalty does not restore life to those murdered. So the damage from the crime remains. The death penalty also causes the loss of God's creation, the murderer, whom he would rather repent and be restored. But he cannot wait for that in the general case, and therefore, to protect society, he commanded that the murderer be put to death. So the purpose of punishment is not to right the wrong through retribution and wrath, but to deter additional sin.

God punishes sin out of a moral responsibility to protect his creation. Man commits sin against man and also against God. Every sin is against God and his creation. If the death penalty is demanded based on a principle beyond deterrence, such as divine satisfaction, then the rights of God in exacting punitive justice will be rightly perceived as greater than the rights of the victims of the crime or the possible victims of the punishment. And this would make God a respector of persons, namely himself, above his creation. Surely those who are murdered would like to be restored to life, and this would be what compensatory justice would require. When we forgive others their sins against us, we are not entitled to any retributive satisfaction, nor can we obtain an undo of the wrong committed against us.  Since we cannot get these things, then neither can God, because his Law says there should be no respect for persons before the Law.

Consider the parable of the unforgiving servant. His master forgave him an enormous debt. Did a third party pay the master what he lost in forgiving that debt? Not at all. But the master bore the loss. But then the servant went out and refused to forgive someone whose offense was a small debt against him. He required him to pay and tossed him in prison to suffer until he paid. So the penal substition theory is founded on the idea that someone must legally be punished, and then all will be forgiven. But this sort of forgiveness is not mercy.

Messiah describes his own suffering and death, the cup he drank, as a ransom. A ransom is paid by a party seeking the deliverance of someone held captive by an enemy. The very idea of paying a ransom implies that it is not legally justified by justice. That is, the need for a ransom is not predicated on the assumption that a legal and just payment is being rendered to gain the release of the captive. A noble may demand a ransom to spare the life of a slave who has offended him. Legal justice will not allow this. But the circumstance of the noble's power over the slave will cause the ransom to be paid by the slave's family.

The ransom concept may be extended to the spiritual realm, in which deception occurs and deliverance from deception is necessary. Sin has deceived the world into thinking that death is the end and that death will have the final say. This hopelessness is the result of deception. And the price paid by Messiah is the price to undeceive men concerning the power of death. In order to show that he is the deliverer and can deliver man from the power of sin, he let sin kill him, and then he rose from the dead. By being so lifted up, he is able to convince men to come to him and pledge their faithfulness. So Messiah's suffering and death are the necessary cost toward rescuing mankind from their false belief system about the finality of death.

The suffering cost Messiah submitted to was not something that was required by legal justice. It was rather motivated by his love. It was love that prophesied the death of Messiah as a ransom to deliver men. It was motivated by God's righteousness and not by any demands for legal punishment. The ransomer is not taking the legal place of the delivered to suffer a legal or fair justice that the delivered does not. Whatever the ransomer must suffer is due to the circumstances of sin and lawlessness. Lawlessness wishes to make the innocent suffer. Lawlessness seeks to make a profit out of an illegal act. Satan deceived man concerning death, teaching them that they were fated to die forever and that therefore they should follow their fleshly desires and live them up in the here and now. Because tomorrow we die. It was this lying teaching that enslaved men to do ever greater acts of evil to their fellow men. And so, if the Most High were to deliver them, he would have to show the devil's lie was false and that he had the power not just to kill but also to restore men to life. So, it is the devil's lie that compels the love of God to ransom men from this false notion.

When two disciples sought to be seated on Messiah's right and left hands in glory, Yeshua asked them if they were able to drink the cup he would drink and then declared that they would drink it. By this, he meant the cup of suffering he was about to suffer. Now the false Church says that this cup is the cup of God's wrath. Then did God pour out his wrath on those two disciples? And if he did this, would it not make complete nonsense of the idea that the wrath of God was poured out on Messiah instead of on the faithful? So it is clear that the suffering is not the wrath of God. It is, in fact, the wrath of sin and sinful men motivated by the serpent from Eden.

The prophecy does not say that the Most High would wound the promised seed. The prophecy says that the serpent would wound the promised seed, and then the seed would crush the head of the serpent. The seed therefore came into the world to ransom men from the serpent and the power of the serpent to deceive them. What the seed suffers is due to the system of false religion that the devil plants in Israel. The Messiah suffers because he came to destroy evil.

Survey of Texts

There is no text in Scripture that, by necessity, supports penal substitution aside from the way it is interpreted. Further, every text proffered to do so will be shown to have a sensible interpretation without the need to invoke the idea of substitutionary atonement to explain it. A very few texts appear to come very close to the idea, but this is because the translator of those texts invariably believed in this false doctrine and chose words, usually an English preposition, that would lend themselves to supporting the idea.

The texts that most frequently enter into this argument are 1 Cor. 15:3 and texts from Isaiah 53. As I stated earlier, I will first indicate the heretical usage of the text and then explain the proper usage of the text.

The most widespread phrase in the Christian religio-idiolect in English is, "Christ died for our sins." This is picked up from popular translations of 1 Cor. 15:3. The idea understood and implied by the word "for" is that there was an exchange of one thing for another based on the idea that "the penalty of sin is death" and that atonement means to substitute an innocent victim "for" the guilty and to let the guilty go free. But this is not the only heretical idea or set of ideas associated with the text. One could also interpret this "died for sin" to mean died for the sake of sin or to sin's advantage. So we see that some context is necessary even for the penal substition believers to interpret it their way and not another gnostic way.

I would like to take the 1 Cor. 15:3 passage together with the Isaiah 53 passages, and in fact, Paul says that what he teaches in 1 Cor. 15:3 is "according to the Scriptures." At that time, the Scriptures were regarded as the Torah and the Prophets. Paul's writings were not yet regarded as Scripture. Those who regarded Paul's writings all understood that his method of presentation and proof depended on citing and explaining earlier Scripture. Possibly he meant some of the explanations in the books of Matthew, Mark, or Luke, but it is unlikely that he did. He was making his appeal to an audience that largely knew the Torah and Prophets as Scripture. And indeed, this view was reinforced in just about every place. Certainly, he means this when speaking to Timothy, because the Evangelists had not yet published when Timothy's mother was reading Scripture. So we must suppose that Paul is pointing to Isaiah 53 and other such texts. And in the case of specifically looking for a text to explain the words in 1 Cor. 15:3, Isaiah 53 is the place to go.

I turn now to Isaiah 53:5, "but he was wounded for our transgressions." This is as identical to 1 Cor. 15:3 as it may be. All we have to do is put Christ for "he," and "died" for "wounded," and "sins" for "transgressions." All these substitutions are merely synonyms for the same thing. As I said, it is this passage and a few other associated texts that echo the "died for sins" sense, which lends itself to the penal substitionary interpretation. But, and this is a very big "but," this interpretation would never have spread so widely in western Christianity if the translators had not first mistranslated the Hebrew. The Hebrew Isaiah 53:5 text does not say "FOR our transgressions." It says, "FROM our transgressions". The text cites our transgressions as the cause of his death. The Hebrew preposition is MIN attached to the word for transgressions. There is a complete translation and commentary in the Good News of Messiah on Isaiah 53. I included it because it is so important. The translation and note on v. 5 are as follows:

To reinforce the correction, not even the Old Greek (LXX, Septuagint) incorrectly translates the noted Hebrew: αὐτὸς δὲ ἐτραυματίσθη διὰ τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν, καὶ μεμαλάκισται διὰ τὰς ἀνομίας ἡμῶν· "Yet he was wounded through our sins, and he was made infirm through our lawlessness." The Greek word διά means "through," "because of," or "on account of." It does not mean "for," and there is no need to project the doctrine of penal substitution onto the text.

Our sin is what attacked Messiah in the heel. And Satan, the serpent, is the ally of our sin. So it is because of this that Messiah died when he became man while he was making a personal appeal to mankind that he could cleanse our sin and wash us through his word. Satan and our sin did not want us to hear that message. We were enjoying our sin, and Satan wanted us to die forever. That is his grudge against mankind. So Satan increased the ransom cost to the death of Messiah. And by this Messiah Yeshua proved that he is the author of life through his resurrection from the dead and can deliver us to the utmost.

So now, it is a deliberate mistranslation or a translation ignorantly guided by prior belief in the penal substitution heresy that corrupted the text with the English preposition FOR. Messiah did not die because the justice of the Father needed to be paid off on our behalf. This is to divide the love of the Son from the severity of the Father. The nature of the Most High is not divided like this. But the Almighty is love. It was the love of God that compelled him to suffer as a ransom to best communicate to us that he will forgive us and cleanse us if only we will repent and pledge faithfulness to him. Satan killed Messiah for the short-term success of cutting off the message and his followers for a short time. So Satan's action and the Jewish leadership's action that went along with him served for a time to quash the preaching of the word and also served to make Messiah an offense to the Jewish people. For now, they regard him as smitten by God. And the plan of Satan was to BLAME SHIFT his evil action and the evil action of his human accomplices onto the Most High and claim that it was the MOST HIGH that struck Messiah, when in fact the Most High did no more than predict that Satan would do this and then make plans to make the best of things when his prediction came true. Because it is the love of God that seeks to turn every matter into as much good as circumstances will allow. Even evil. But we must not regard Messiah as smitten by God. In fact, the prophet says that Israel would think this, but the prophet presents it as a mistaken idea when it is pointed out that Messiah Yeshua was innocent.

So now, let me return to 1 Cor. 15:3 with this understanding under our belt. The mistranslations in Isaiah 53 are coordinated with mistranslation in 1 Cor. 15:3. I cited the popular versions, "Christ died for our sins." The translation of prepositions, words like in, at, for, by, to, etc. is one of the trickiest things in translating Hebrew and Greek to English. The reason is that prepositions govern ideas in each language that do not have one-to-one correspondence in the other language. It so happens that the word in Greek that Paul used in 1 Cor. 15:3 is υπερ.  Pronounce it "Huper." Our English word "hyper" is derived from this word. In Greek, it means "over." In German, it would be "uber." So a literal translation of the matter is "died over our sins," which is congruent to what we discovered in Isaiah 53, "from our transgressions." The translation "over" cites the cause of Messiah's suffering. Now, equivalent ways of expressing the same idea are the use of the words "on account of" or "because of."

By using the word υπερ, Paul is uniting the matter into one word, something that does not work well in Hebrew. He is saying Yeshua died over sin, over our sins, and over us. Often scholars will explain that the word means "on behalf of," and from there they slide into the translation "for." But it will be clearly seen that this is a chain of interpretation. He did die on our behalf. But it is too easy to read into died on behalf of our sins the penal substitition idea. It is also possible, as I noted before, to read the idea into the text of "to the advantage of our sins," but this contradicts Isaiah 53, where it says "from our transgressions," fixing the blame and not teaching an exchange. Believe me, it is libertine gnostics that would come up with "on behalf of our sins" with an interpretation of "for the advantage of sin." In the sense of "died over our sin," I would not just include sin as the cause but also the idea of over the need to cleanse us from our sins. In other words, his life suffers from the cleansing process. He is giving up his rights to be left in peace and happiness for the unhappiness of dealing with our sins to cleanse us from them. This is what Scripture means by being cleansed by the blood of the Messiah. His life is consumed to benefit us.

So every time a Christian or Messianic believer says, "Christ died for our sins," one should say that Messiah died "over our sins," and it should be pointed out that this or an equivalent sense is true to the literal sense and what Isaiah 53 says. Remember that the Church is a cult because they teach the penal substitution heresy. And like any cult, they have inserted their heresy into their translations, and have corrupted the thinking and speech of Christians with it. And as many former cultists will tell you, it is indeed very hard to escape from the thinking patterns drilled into the mind by a cult. It is very hard to think straight when the heresy of the cult is a popular catchphrase with a technical meaning. Christians all over the world utter this phrase, and take it for granted, and believe that Christ "died [to pay] for our sins."

A False View of Atonement

A false view of atonement is also involved in this heresy. This is the idea that the meaning of sacrifice is to pay a penalty for a sinner so that the sinner can avoid the penalty by having the penalty fall upon the sacrifice. Underlying this view is the belief that one person can justly suffer for another and that it is righteous punitive justice when one person suffers for another. This is also false and contrary to the Torah. But the sinner will die in his own sin, and the innocent will live. And the judges shall impute the guilt of the guilty to the guilty and the innocence of the innocent to the innocent.

The Scripture declares the standard of innocence and guilt, and never is one to be transferred to the other. But one may have noticed that Scripture never states that every soul who sins must die. In other words, one may be found guilty, but there is the possibility of mercy or clemency. There is the possibility of pardon and forgiveness. When Adam was told that he would die if he broke the commandment, it was not that all men were told that they must die, but it is clear that Hanoch did not die because he was taken to heaven, and it is also clear that Elijah did not die because he also was taken to heaven.

Also, I should point out that the first murder by Cain was not punished with death. But then later, the Most High ordered that murderers be put to death. The aim of this commandment was not to make the point that murderers were to be put to death "because justice required them to die because they deserved to die," but because the Most High wanted to discourage the murder of people made in his image. Murderers were to be put to death upon the valid testimony of two or three witnesses if charges were brought. A man is not required to testify against himself, and the Most High also may not testify. Only those called to testify must do so. So we see how God was able to have mercy on David. He said David would not die. And therefore, no one testified against him except the prophet who confronted him, representing God's testimony. In the same manner, the woman caught in adultery was let off and not punished. Even though the story does not belong in the book of John, not everything was recorded, and it may be true enough in any case. See GNM. So the purpose of capital punishment is to discourage murder. In the cases where the guilty were forgiven in Scripture by the Most High, it was evident that their repentance would keep them from repeating their sin.

Sin is a spiritually corrupting disease that kills the sinner even before the sinner physically dies. Physical death and the shortening of man's lifespan are measures taken by the Most High to limit and control the infection rate of sin so that those who turn and wish to be cleansed from it may have a chance. And this death-dealing effect of sin is apart from any judicial penalty of deserving death. Without a judicial penalty, sin leads to death anyway. Sin causes the death of the image of God in man over time. It kills the mind of righteousness and replaces it with a corrupt mind.

Therefore, the judicial penalties ordered by the Most High are for special cases, and their chief purpose is to deter the spread of sin. The Most High has shown that he will intervene in history if there are no human judges to carry out the destruction of wickedness where it has grown so great that it contaminates everything around it. For this reason, he destroyed the cities of the Jordan Valley. For this reason, he allowed Assyria and Babylon to destroy the wicked and carry the remnant of Israel and Judah into exile. We must understand, therefore, that when a person is infected by sin and commits a sin worthy of death and then repents, it is no longer the Most High's will (or justice) that the person should die. This point is made perfectly clear in Ezekiel 18. A person who turns from the sins of their fathers shall live. I say this because the assumption of the penal substitionary heresy is that everyone deserves to die in heaven's eyes, no matter when they did it and no matter if they repented afterward. But who really deserves to die (and this by way of deterring a repeat of sin) is finally determined at the last judgment. Those judged to be infected with sin beyond repentance will find that they cannot truly repent even if given the opportunity. And indeed, even now, many are given the opportunity to repent but are either unable to do so or will not do so. Direct rebellion against God is a sin that few can overcome.

So, I am making this point because there is no irrevocable a priori judicial sentence of eternal death hanging over mankind. Nor is there such a sentence hanging over all mankind with respect to simple physical death. But death entered the world through Adam, and death reigns over all men by way of its consequences and its infectivity. Physical death and decline in vigor just prune back the growth of the corruption.

The penal substitution heresy requires one to believe that an unforgivable (or completely irrevocable) judicial or heavenly court-ordered sentence of death hangs over every person. There is no such statement in Scripture. When scripture declares that the soul who sins shall die, it is speaking of the sinner in willful rebellion who has not or cannot repent. In most cases, they cannot repent because they would have to be removed from their corrupt environment first, and the act of doing so would either kill them or those related to them. But with those who repent, the case is that they are forgiven. The Scripture says that their former offenses will not be remembered against them. "None of the transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness he has done, he shall live" (Ezek. 18:22). Now, what does this text not say? It does not say that the person's transgressions will have been forgotten because they are all transferred to Christ to be punished in Christ. It says they will not be remembered because of (or through) the righteousness that that person is now doing! And this agrees with how Messiah answered the question, "What must I do to have everlasting life?"

An often quoted text is, "The wages of sin is death." This is clearly a metaphor. Some sins pay real wages, such as theft, but this is not what the text means. And sin pays pleasure, and this is not what the text means either. Whatever the wages are, though, it is sin that pays them, not God. The wages of sin is the spiritual corruption, which breaks and degrades the image of God in man. Sin causes, by way of consequence, a negative return to the sinner. Romans 6:23, therefore, is not a declaration of universal divine judicial punishment for the sinner. It is but a declaration of the natural and logical consequences of sin.

So then there is no need for an innocent person, namely the divine person Messiah, to die to pay a penalty that has never been judicially declared irrevocable. An irrevocable, everlasting death sentence has never been passed on mankind in any general way. But an irrevocable, everlasting death sentence does hang over Satan and those spiritual beings that followed him in rebellion. Messiah suffered and died, and also the Spirit suffers, and also the Father suffers. And this suffering is the divine ransom—the divine cost to rescue and cleanse us from our sin. And we, like him, must choose to suffer to ransom others from sin's corruption. If anyone will repent and become faithful to Messiah, then he will forgive their sin and cleanse them from all unrighteousness. and if one stands in forgiveness, then no judicial sentence will be passed. The meaning of forgiveness is that the death passed on to mankind through Adam is revoked for the repeatant, who will join Messiah at the resurrection of the dead. The divine decision was made to subject all of mankind to mortality caused by Adam's sin, but this is a revocable aspect of the divine will for all the individuals who will follow the Most High. The decision to turn from sin back to the Almighty through the Messiah is what causes him to forgive his general sentence. Forgiveness revokes a final condemnation.

It is not a substitutionary death of Christ that satisfies an irrevocable judicial sentence, because in this case no distinction would be made between those truly deserving of an undoable sentence and those trapped into sin by circumstances. We should say that if substitutionary atonement is true, then the penalty for unrepentance has also been paid, because there are many who were unrepentant at some time or another, while they were given time to repent, and who repented. If unrepentance is paid for, then why are the unrepentant judged? But if unrepentant sin is not paid for, the substitutionary atonement is inadequate.

If every sin is an infinite offense against the honor of God requiring an infinite payment, then why is the infinite sin of unrepentance not paid for? Well, yes, they will say that only the sins of the repentant are paid for, including when they were unrepentant. But since the wicked are not afforded this option, God becomes a respector of persons with respect to the type of justice they face. The nobility faces reduced justice (penal substitition), while the unrighteous, unwashed peons face a stricter justice. And now we are back to the Amorite code again. Why not just admit that the theory is false and say that God forgives any final penalty because he is merciful?

If it is pointed out that the punishment should agree with the crime, an eye for an eye, then it must be pointed out that these measures put a limit on punitive measures, which must be understood in light of the contemporary code of Hammurabi, in which punitive justice was a respector of persons. This is because utilitarian means were used to measure the value of men, not the image of God in every man. Even as I speak, our culture is implementing an Amorite code of justice based on punishing the innocent in the present based on the perceived sins of their fathers.

How then can Anselm escape the censure due to him from the Torah? It was he who argued that the honor of the Most High was wounded by our sin and that the death of Christ was to provide satisfaction for it. Shall we then say that his death provided satisfaction to the victims of the many murders in the world? Would all of these dead be satisfied with justice that restored the honor of God but left them dead in the grave? But it is quite obvious that the Messiah's death does not undo the dishonor and suffering suffered by all the victims of sin, nor does it undo those who were infected by sin so much that they could not repent. To claim that this substitionary procedure satisfies the dishonor done to God while surely it would not satisfy the dishonor done to men is to make God a repector of persons, namely himself and his son, above the rest of mankind. To further this point, The Son suffers a temporary death and a temporary amount of suffering. Yet this pays for an unthinkable degree of sin on a much larger scale, with an unthinkable amount of suffering and death. Does this not involve God in unequal balances? And finally, if retribution and vengeance are allowed to God in getting justice but not allowed to men, then has God not become a respector of persons concerning who may be allowed to exact vengeance? One will cite the scripture where he says vengeance is mine. Vengeance is God's because only he knows where it is really deserved. But truly, men are entitled to vengeance if God is. God does take vengeance for men in that case, since he knows the degree to execute it. But if he decides that vengeance is not to be taken, then he is forgiving.

Forgiveness is the cancellation of punishment. No one can argue that substitutionary atonement is equitable to infinite vengeance. Yet they try to do this too, claiming that because the Messiah was divine, a temporary amount of suffering is multiplied by his divinity into infinite vengeance. Is not this making God a respector of the person of the Messiah over all other men in matters of justice? Again, the Amorite code And then, it is no wonder that Christians generally teach the eternal torment of the wicked. This is because they believe that only an infinite amount of vengeance satisfies divine justice. But this is just another form of idolatry, a warping of the image of God in the mind of man.

Returning now to what I was writing about. A false view of atonement. I have just described why it does not add up in the justice described in the Torah. What then does atonement really mean? I have written elsewhere that this word should be banned. It is part of the religious idiolect of Christianity. It has become part of the cult language and fits in perfectly with the mistaken notion it communicates. It is naturally taken to mean an appeasement of divine wrath by sacrifice. Another word for this is "propitiation." The idea is to make God favorable to the sinner by placating him with a sacrifice. But this very idea is one and the same with a volcano god of wrath who is placated by innocent virgins.

The word mistranslated "atonement" in Scripture is the Piel of the Hebrew verb KAPHAR. It means to wipe away or cleanse, and it is used closely in connection with the idea of cleansing and the Hebrew word meaning cleansing. Another synonym is the word purge. In the PIEL conjugation, which it mostly occurs in, it means "make to be wiped away" or "declare to be wiped away." Like the Hebrew verb for clean, it can have a declarative sense "to declare clean" referring to something that previously occured, but of which an official declaration is being made. The priest pronounces someone clean when he has found them to be clean. But what cleansed them happened before the official pronouncement.

It is likewise with the sin offerings. The sinner first confesses and acknowledges their sin, and then they repent and their heart is cleansed of the sin. It is wiped away. It is pardoned. It is forgiven. So any judicial penalty is wiped by forgiveness. What does the offering do then? The effect of the ritual is the official declaration of the wiping/cleansing of the sin, sealed in covenant blood. The death of the animal represents the cost of sin and the cost of the spiritual cleansing the person has received in the form of a symbolic ritual. But the ritual is not just symbolic. The loss of the animal is to make a deep impression on the repentant sinner of the cost and consequence of his sin. Sin destroys. It takes life, and it costs the Most High to purify the spirit of the sinner. The ritual provides additional assurance in a tangible and unforgettable way that the sin is forgiven and purged. And clearly, it is best that sinners who have repented of a significant sin have the offering before their eyes to remind them not to repeat it.

In no way are the sin offerings meant to be a payment of a substitionary nature for the sinner. But the offering represents the cost of ransoming the sinner from the malignancy of his sin. This is the spiritual point that the offering is making in a most concrete way.

This raises an important point. If Messiah's death is regarded as penal substitution then it follows as a matter of logic that the sacrificial offerings for sin brought in former times must also be regarded as penal substitution. Isaiah 53 classifies Messiah's offering as a guilt offering. So it follows that if it is a guilt offering, then the guilt offering must be a penal substitution if Messiah's offering is a penal substition. Strangely enough, however, Christians who hold to penal substition deny any penal substitionary satisfaction for the sin offerings. Instead they argue that those offerings only "covered" sin, giving a false sense of KAPHAR. But the truth is that the sin offerings do not need to be demoted in this way.

The above Meme passed before my eyes on FaceBook on Shavuot. I was persuaded not to to pursue it on that day, because it would have been disruptive to the peace of the day. But it epitomizes the error taught in Christendom in these modern times. The first question comes to mind is "Who is this bill supposed to be paid to?" Well the obvious answer is "the Father." I begin with the last item. Did Messiah suffer "Spiritual Death?"

No, Messiah did not suffer Spiritual Death. When he uttered the first line of Psalm 22, he was expressing how he felt. He felt forsaken, but the Psalmist makes it clear that in reality he, and Messiah, whom it typifies, was not forsaken. So the Father did not turn his back on Messiah. In fact, he opened the Temple curtain to see what the evil of men had done to his only kindred Son! Spiritual death is to become unrighteous. As I stated before when men commit sins the image of God they were created with becomes more and more corrupt as they corrupt themselves with sin and the consequences of sin further corrupt them. This is what spiritual death is. In fact, many who appear to be physically living have already achieved a fair degree of spiritual death. So Messiah did not become sin and suffer spiritual death. The GNM discusses the relevant verse. Spiritual death is a logical consequence of sin, like the wages of sin, and not a judicial penalty of sin. The sinner separates from God faster than God separates from him.

How does one pay slavery to sin? It would appear that slavery to sin is a consequence of sin. Slavery to sin is the WAGES of SIN, and not a charge put on the bill by God. Messiah was never a slave to sin. So he did not suffer slavery to sin.

Of course Messiah suffered rejection and loneliness, but this was unjustly so, and he was not abandoned by the Father. In John 16:32 he says, "and yet I am not alone because the Father is with me." So he did not suffer the sort of lonliness that a sinner who God turns his back on suffers. Now obviously, the writer of this meme considers "separation from God" the penalty of sin, and probably believes this is the condition of an eternal hell. But when Messiah died, he did not suffer separation from god in such a sense that wickedness merits. But Messiah told them that all of them would forsake him in his sufferings EXCEPT the Father! So Messiah did not pay the penalty of being cut off from the Father that the wicked will pay for their sin. And it is high time that we should declare any notion that he did heresy.

Did Messiah pay for the past mistakes of the believer? Well actually no. If he did pay a cost for their mistakes it wasn't a legal one, and the Father suffered the same loss. So the Father and Spirit paid for your past mistakes also. Therefore, one would have to say the author of the meme meant judicial penalties over and above the consequences that must be paid for by all the innocent parties. But as I stated already, and the scripture says, the Son cannot suffer for the sins of the fathers.

So lets see who the Son is the son of. He is the son of Adam, the son of Enoch, the son of Noah, the Son of Abraham, the Son of Isaac, the Son of Jacob, and so on down to the son of Joseph the husband of Mary. So then the Almighty Son, the Son of the Most High cannot suffer for his father or be made to suffer what they may legally deserve. So then this alone proves that the Son of Man cannot pay the judicial bill for the the fathers.

The Torah that the sons shall not be put to death for the sins of the fathers is not to be narrowly interpreted. But the principle is that no innocent person should be required to suffer for the sins of another. But as the scripture declares no one should die for any sin except their own.

Therefore, Messiah's death is a ransom, voluntarily given through his love to draw men to the extent of self sacrifice he would go through to reach out to them. And the need for this is a condition created by lawlessness and sinful man.

Part II, Continuation

More Texts

Isaiah 53:10 is mistranslated in almost all versions to indicate that the Most High was pleased "to crush" Messiah. But this note in the Good News of Messiah exposes the error. The note is from a translation of Isaiah 53 included with the NT translation:

The image of the Father communicated by the mistranslation, "was pleased to crush him" is of a God who takes delight in inflicting wrath in the service of the corrupt theory of atonement. This is because a guilt offering is next mentioned. So now I will post the following note:

These excerpts from the Good News of Messiah have been reformated for this article, so be aware that the notes will appear further down on the page in the printed version or even on the next page.

Please keep in mind that the notes I am posting from the Good News of Messiah are scattered in various passages. The purpose of this article is to discuss them together under the theme of the meaning of Messiah's death and resurrection.

So we have now seen two critical and deadly mistranslations in Isaiah 53. This of course is not all the mistranslations. The whole passage is presented in the GNM with a complete commentary. But these two are sufficient to show that the cult we call the Church has its translators busy corrupting the texts to promote a corrupt view of Messiah's death. There is one more note on this passage:

This also is presented in the Good News of Messiah. These examples expose the evil that the deep mystery of inquity has done in the Church. The once clean and righteous assembly has evolved into a Satan honoring cult over the centuries, and the Church scribes have colluded to insert Satan's new narrative on the meaning of Messiah's death into their corrupted versions of Scripture.

The institution is now far beyond rescue, having long ago driven out all the voices that would have put a check on the spread of this heresy. But it is not that the Most High is finished with his Assembly. It is his aim to pull the scattered remnants back together, and to restore a sound theology and doctrine to Israel. It is his aim to raise up the spiritual dry bones of the house of Israel, and bring them to life again.

We also should not despair and consider these times of exile as a total loss. Many have come to Messiah in this time of divine patience while we wait for the Kingdom of God. Many have embraced the forgiveness of sins and seek to live righteous lives. And even though the word has been corrupted by evil men, the truth has not been completely extinguished. It still shines through here and there, and it still does its work in the hearts of men.

When this exile is over, righteousness will be restored to Israel, and also sound doctrine. Messiah will raise up shepherds after this own heart who will teach sound doctrine and truth. But beware that the restoration of truth will bring with it the judgement of those who have not been heeding it. Judgment will come from the Most High upon those following the lies of Satan.

One of the cardinal rules of the corrupt Church is Thou shall not question of overall validity of their translations nor their core system of doctrine! Time and again I have presented Christians with the facts that their translations are wrong, and these incorrect translations are causing them to hold to heretical doctrines, and causing them to get deceived into rejecting the Torah. But their response to me presenting the translational correction is to constantly ignore it and try to continue the narrative on the basis of their traditions. Even the Messianic faithful have inherited this propensity. But they must remember where they started out from. And if they truly examine the doctrines in the Church fighting against their new found Torah observance, they will realize that correcting these false doctrines are equally important alongside outward Torah observance. They will realize that they came out of a cult, and they will realize that it is the false doctrines that were invented by Satan to destroy the faithful who follow the divine Law.

There are many who wish to continue the false doctrines of the Church while at the same time as observing Torah. And some of you believe in the false doctrines more than Torah. The Most High will deal with you later when he takes the weeds out of the Assembly. But it is my purpose to expose the error and explain the truth so that Israel can be free of the heresies that destroy lives and make the faithful unfruitful.

Because I am a pioneer in what I do, and am led by the Spirit to examine things long lost, and to restore a true teaching to Israel, and it is my testimony that this is so, though I do not discount the possibility of someone else filling the same type of calling. But my long time friends will confirm the same. I have learned to tolerate no disrespect, and also that I cannot judge myself as to do so is subjective, and this is exactly what the enemies wish to happen when they pass their false judgments. They want me to second guess and to react to them on an emotional level. They wish me to suffer from their opposition.

The Church is afflicted with appearances, with the outward image of things. The Church is distracted by leaders with fine clothes and money, and large followings. The Church is deceived by popularity and trends. And the clicks, the in crowds in every place ,who think that they are special because they are accepted by the in crowd, also afflict many assemblies. Group cooperation in a matter is a joyful experience up to the point that leaders use it to promote error and persecute the prophets among them who point out the error.

So it may seem that I am harsh, unpolished, poor, and lack tact and diplomacy. But I am going to point out the institutional errors while I try my best to condemn no person trapped in the errors. And I apologize in advance if anyone may feel that I am a cause of unjust judgment. But beware that there are many people who do take offense at me and cannot refrain from doing me harm because Satan delights in using them as an avenue to attack me. I let it be known, and my closest friends know the evils that we have suffered. Some of my opponents apostacized to Judaism. But I will tell you that so far the Most High has been merciful and we have improved and come through every attack stronger than before.

When all is said and done, many will realize that my rhetorical militancy against the instititions and fixing the guilt on their traditions and those who invented them is proper and just so that we may be free of them.

I should point out that their are many voices from many points of view taking a stand against penal substitition. Some of them are Eastern Orthodox, some Anabaptist, some Evangelical Free. Some even affirm that unbiblical lifestyles of the most extreme sort should not be judged. And many are New Testament Christians only, and refuse to affirm Torah. And, of course, there is now a significant minority of the Messianic faithful who know that Penal substitution in a great error. And I thank most of these sources for having some sound arguments, which I have to often carefully separate from their own traditional heresies.

Who is paying the price?
Who is charging the price?

There are a whole lot of texts. Next up is Revelation 5:9. Here is the text from the GNM and the commentary with it:

So to repeat a bit, the purchase is from the nations who are holding Israel in slavery. It is not a purchase of alternative justice from the Father! The ransom is exacted by the nations because it is the nations in this context that have enslaved Israel, and it is the nations that represent evil and sin under the control of Satan and the sons of God who rebelled against the Most High. A ransom is paid to evil forces that illegally hold their captives. A ransom, by its very definition, is not something that is paid out of a legal obligation, or to make something legal that is already illegal. A ransom is a cost demanded by lawlessness to release what is illegally held, and the ransom is paid out of love for the victims of evil, and not out of legal obligation to those who demand it.

And further, Messiah's self sacrificing purchase is "for the Almighty," or "to the Almighty." Obviously when a purchase is being made by the Son for the Father, the payment is not being made to the Father to obtain something from him. What is being obtained is being paid by way of ransom to obtain it for the Father. It is not obtained from the Father.

But in the penal substitution view, the payment is being rendered to the Father to satisfy his justice. Upon complete satisfaction of final justice, then the Father forgives. It is this kind of payment for forgiveness that is opposed by Paul as a false gospel. For when Paul speaks of the the works of the law in a negative sense, he is speaking of works that a man might do to compensate God for forgiveness, that is to earn it. So we see that the Church has evolved a doctrine of the transfer of righteousness based on the payment of Christ to the Father. By any other name, such a pay for play procedure is legalism.

Fallen Christianity is beyond help at this point at the institional level. Only individuals getting led out of it by the Spirit can be helped and instructed in the way of truth. The messianic faithful have to stand outside of its dogmas and doctrinal system. We have to understand among ourselves, the remnant that has come out, what true biblical theology and observance is.

The next idea that I am going to deal with is the notion that Messiah was accursed of God when he died. The relevant text is in Galatians 3. Here it is:

The relevant commenatary is on page 613. And before citing this here, I will simply make the relevant points. The first is that Paul never states that Messiah was accursed of God. What Paul means is that he was regarded as a accursed by the Jewish leadership, and the people in general who did not understand that Messiah was innocent. In Isaiah 53 it says:

The words are carefully chosen by the prophet to indicate that this mistaken notion about Messiah was something that we have considered. It is predicted, "we will have considered him being smitten, being struck by the Almighty, and being made to be afflicted. This means that we have thought it was so, but it does not say that it is so. So penal substitution is predicted in Isaiah 53, but in such a way that it is predicted this will be the opinion of the people, and not the actual reality. And it has been the opinion of the Jewish people. It was a major stumbling block for Paul before his conversion. Also, non-Jewish Christians, the lost and rebellious house of Israel have adopted the opinion that Messiah was smitten by God.

After saying we thought he was smitten by God, the prophet hastens to say that he was "wounded FROM our transgressions" and "bruised FROM our iniquities." The Most High caused him to meet up with our iniquity. And Messiah did meet with our iniquity rebuking it and correcting it. But men loved the darkness rather than the light shining on it and exposing it, so iniquity lashed out and attacked Messiah. The final conclusion is that he was taken away from justice. and murdered. In vs. 8 the prophet again says FROM the transgressions of my people is a plague for him.

So now going back to the Galatians passage:

We see first that Paul regards the death of Messiah at the hands of evil men the price of a ransom. Then he says Messiah became a accursed, but he only means in the eyes of the people who misunderstood, because he was hanged. So now lets look at the note on page 613:

So the note continues:

The enemy was demanding Messiah's blood because it hated the truth that men could repent and the Most High would forgive them. Satan and the sons of God were jealous because there was no such offer on the table for them. By allowing them to kill him, Messiah was able to destroy the lies of the devil about the power of God over the hearts of men. He said if he be lifted up then he would draw all men to himself. And so by being personally involved in suffering from sin and then defeating it through his resurrection from the dead, Messiah proved that even if when repenting the devil should kill us, he would deliver us from the grave and raise up against those who abandoned the devils lies and pledged faithfulness to Messiah Yeshua. The only kindred son proves the Almighy's love for us by being personally involved in our deliverance and making a most persuasive argument by his life, his suffering, and his death and resurrection.

Here is the next part of the note:

The next part of the notes I have converted here back to web page type. Here it is:

But the Most High made use of the injustice he knew Messiah would suffer and appointed it an offense offering to show the cost he was suffering, a cost collected by sin and death, as he made every effort to bring us to repentance and forgiveness. So this cost taken by sin and death on our behalf from Messiah is the divine ransom cost exacted by sin and death upon the only kindred Almighty in the flesh. Because it says, “Yăhweԩ will have been pleased to make (or declare) his crushing the disease when he appoints his soul an offense offering” (Isa. 53:10, וְיַהֲוֶה חָפֵץ דַּכְּאוֹ הָחֳלִי אִם־תָּשִׂים אָשָׁם נַפְשׁוֹ). Messiah’s crushing is the culmination of evil’s attack on the divine seed (Gen. 3:15). This is the climax of the ransom cost exacted upon the one who had been coming into the world to deliver us. The disease (חֳלִי) is sin and death. Cf. Hos. 13:14, “From the hand of She’ol I will ransom them; from death I shall redeem them. I will be your plagues death. I will be your destruction She’ol. Compassion will be hidden from my eyes.” Messiah’s suffering was the ransom cost, but rising from the dead he has vengeance in mind for sin and death. Also it says, “But he was wounded from our transgressions” (Isa. 53:5). Thus, it was sin that took the ransom. The only kindred Son became cursed by sin and death to ransom us from sin and death. The judicial penalty for sin is declared wiped out (כִּּפֶּר) when the innocent victim demonstrates by example the unrecoverable ransom cost of sin which is getting forgiven. See Albert Barnes notes (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21γ). The ransom blood declares the wiping of the debt, because the Most High only ransoms from sin and death those who repent and pledge loyalty to him, whom he has forgiven. The penalty transfer teachers (aka penal substitution Calvinists) claim that strict justice, the curse, was legally transferred to Messiah, and suffered by him to satisfy an unalterable divine demand for strict justice, so that Messiah received divine wrath. But this is illegal according to Torah, “Keep far from a false matter, and the innocent and righteous slay not, because I will not declare the wicked one righteous.” (Exodus 23:7). So it is illegal to slay an innocent person to justify a wicked person. It is an abomination to the Most High. Yet this is what the deep mystery of iniquity has brought into the Church. But it is legal to pardon and forgive a guilty person. Such is not acquittal or clearing of wrongdoing. The Most High did not say he would never leave the guilty unpunished. He said he would not clear or acquit the guilty of wrongdoing (Exodus 34:7). Penalty transfer teachers are guilty of making a mockery of divine justice, just as it is a mockery for the son to die for the sin of the father. This is not to be narrowly interpreted. It is a mockery for anyone to be put to death for another sinner, the guiltless for the guilty. Messiah’s sacrifice is therefore a ransom demanded by sin and death to secure our release from sin and death, not a judicial payment demanded by his Father. Penalty payment is not forgiveness. He ‘ransomed us from the curse, the customary norm.’ The slaveholders, the foreign powers, wish to execute strict justice (the curse) after the prisoners repent and are forgiven because Satan is forever an Accuser, but Messiah ransoms us from this fate by allowing them to vent their illegal justice on him and we will go free into everlasting life on the last day, because he himself escaped from the grave.

So here is another meme showcasing the heresy.

What Messiah Paid was the illegal demand of a ransom price by sin and death, demanded by our transgressions and iniquities. He paid the ransom to pry us away from our slavery to sin to convince us that there was hope in returning to him. This is why he suffered. By no means is Messiah's death a demand of the Father for a judicial punitive payment to satisfy his wrath. And whosoever would say that the wrath of God was poured out on his Son is teaching Satan's lie. If Jesus pays for something and gives it away, then it is a gift, but what about the one whom he paid it to? If he paid for it to the Father, then the Father is not giving it as a gift. And therefore, the nature of God himself is divided. It is the love of the son against the an unforgiving strict justice of the Father.

Part III: The Wrath of God

In this next section I will turn to Matthew to see if Messiah viewed his own coming death as a subjection to the wrath of God.

The point to be observed here is that Messiah says he will drink a cup, which turns out to be suffering and death at the hands of men, and then he asks James and John if they are able to drink the same cup. They say that they can, and so Messiah answers that they (collectively) will.

Yaaqov (aka James) suffered martyrdom (Acts 12:2), and Yohannan (aka John) was lashed (Acts 5:40), and then later he was banished by Domitian to Patmos. There are traditions of other sufferings of Yohannan.

It is on this basis that Paul says he is filling up the sufferings of Messiah so as to complete them. And the implication is that all who suffer for the kingdom are filling up the sufferings of Messiah.

So now, the question is, Are these sufferings, and is the cup the cup of the wrath of God? If the penal substitionary theory is correct, then it must be the wrath of God, but then this implies that the Yeshua's followers also were visited with the same cup, the wrath of God. And if that is the case, then what is the value of being spared the wrath of God by a substitute. None apparently, as in fact they were not spared.

As a man Messiah suffered a limited suffering, but the claim is made that since he was divine, this suffering was infinitely multiplied to pay the infinite judicial punishment of sin. We have to remember that the Church teaches an eternal Hell as the wrath of God. So to follow this theory to its logical conclusion, it either means the divinity of Messiah was separated from his humanity, which is heresy, or that it was not. But clearly if the two sons suffered the same cup, it was only humanly suffered, and not in an infinite degree, and so they did not drink the same cup as the divinity of Messiah, and the words of Messiah would prove false. But on the other hand if they drank the cup of wrath as Messiah drank it united as God and Man, then clearly the proposition is absurd. Therefore, we arrive at the conclusion that the cup Messiah drank was not the wrath of God, but that it was the wrath of Satan through the instruments of evil men, just as if plainly obvious in what really happened.

The popular catch phrase is that Christ satisfied the wrath of God. And this phrase occurs in that song, "Christ Alone." Somehow, Christians are able to believe in a double standard of justice between the Most High and men. Where men are concerned, it is one way, that which is commanded in Torah, that the sons shall not suffer for the sins of the fathers, and that everyone who dies will die for their own sin, but then when it comes to the Son of Man, another standard of justice that is not found in Torah is applied! Where does this standard of justice come from? Like I said before it comes straight from the teachings of the fallen sons of God, and as I mentioned before exemplified in the wicked laws of the Amorite kingdoms, who were respectors of persons based on rank and nobility. And what does this make the Most High. It makes him a respector of persons, because the same standard of justice is not being applied to his son as to other men. The very idea of letting someone off a just judicial penalty for their crime because someone innocent suffered is a double standard, making God a respector of persons. In means he loved other men more than his only kindred son, which is unnatural and hardly believable.

Yet, it is the case that all of this absurdity is the result of a long chain of human rationalizations in justifying themselves for not repenting and for rejecting the Torah, so that they can continue in sin, so that they can have the catharsis of assurance that it is all paid for. And then this human reasoning is exploited and augmented by Satan and the sons of God so that it becomes the official doctrine of the Church.

For this reason, when Messiah speaks of his death as a ransom we should listen:

Notice in this passage that Messiah makes a direct compirson between the work of service he expects from his chosen emissaries and his own work of service. He uses the connecting words "just as" (ESV) (ωσπερ) which implies equivalency between Messiah's service and the service he expected of them. To whom more is given more is demanded. So if there is a difference, it is one of degree, but not of quality.

To preach the truth to evil men comes at the cost of sufferings and privations. It comes with the risk of counterattack if they should turn away from the message. And if some listen, then others attack and harm. This is the ransom cost of service in the good news of forgiveness of sins for all who repent and turn to follow Messiah, pledging their loyalty to him. Notice that Messiah equivocates this suffering service with his giving of life as a ransom for many. There is no double standard here. He is modeling the love of the Most High for his disciples, so that they may follow the same example, to serve with the risk of harm. But if harm occurs, then Messiah raises the dead.

Whoever shall be first, must serve just as Messiah served and gave his life as a ransom. And so also Moses served and endured self sacrifice fasting and praying, and indeed was willing to suffer that Israel might be forgiven. The cost is a ransom. The counterparties are all the various forms of evil that have come into the world that take the cost from those spreading the truth that men should repent and benefit from doing what is right.

Keep praying for me brothers and sisters. It is working, and this time to write has become really precious to me. And the beauty of what comes off my fingers on the keyboard is not just from me. But sadly, it has taken the Spirit a long time to get me to this point, and I can only hope that you all can grow up faster because great evil is coming on the world. And it is a world where Christians cannot hear the message of forgiveness and the message of the coming kingdom of God.

Let us now go to the notes that I have written in the Good News of Messiah on this Matthew passage. And it will take several screen shots of the book as obviously I have to format it to fit here.

And additional remark here occurs to me, and I should jot it down. When Paul spoke of what lacks in the sufferings of Messiah, he clearly means that as a man Messiah was limited in time and space. There are indeed a lack of righteous men willing to suffer, to suffer the ransom cost for the deliverance of those who will be lost from evil. Messiah has the greatest draw to himself, but the faithful must continue his work. The struggle and sacrifice to be a success in this world if viewed as a struggle to provide shelter for the faithful is also ransoming work also. And so the Kingdom of God will be set up when the inheritance of Israel is restored, so that Israel will be a shining light on a hill.

Why then did America stumble and fall so far? Because after serving the Most High and using wealth to redeem the world from evil, America turned to serving wealth instead. And I am quite positive that the Penal Substitution teaching played a large role in the apapthy of America toward true repentance and service to Messiah.

And the service of money created corporations, and corporations captured the government of America, and so America fell to fascism, and for the sake of money every other form of evil was tolerated and promoted. Think about it. Penal Substitution is a commerical theory where there is no real forgiveness. But it has to be paid for. One thing leads to another. Evil theology leads to the WOKE rebellion, and the woke religion. Neither the nation or an individual can be saved without repentence, and it may be that only a remnant will be rescued.

Without national repentance, even if it only be for a generation, judgment will come upon America by the hand of her enemies. And this is aside from what or if to any extent the enemies are justified. America has many enemies, some just, some unjust. But as Assyria and Babylon were allowed to destroy Israel and Judah and to enslave Judah and Israel so also America's enemies will be allowed to prosper because America through her wealth has committed the same idolatry as the cities of the plain, and through it seeks to corrupt the whole world. About that one thing Vladimir Putin is absolutely correct. He has analyzied the disease the afflicts America and has issued the correct rebuke, at least in negative terms. And here I have the only message this is going to heal the situation. America trusts in the potentcy of its arms instead of the Most High.

Therefore, destruction is coming on this nation. We see the sins of this nation all around us. And don't think for a minute that the Most High will not see it fit or just to ransom the rest of the world from the contagion and epidemic of woke immorality in this nation by drowing it in a radioactive tidal wave or incinerating it in a nuclear blast. I'm not saying this will happen, but the Most High has been known to sacrifice whole nations to ransom nations that can be ransomed. And he is no respector of nations. Every nation will find judgment. Even Israel did, God's own chosen people. Even they were not spared. Perhaps it will not be nuclear war. Perhaps the next time a plague happens it will be the real thing and not the psyop the last one was.

Sin is the terminal disease and plague upon mankind. There is no stopping it until the Most High acts and wipes it all out. And until then his judgments and interventions are limited to prune the worst of evil men. If evil men will not be ransomed by Messiah, then the Most High will ransom other nations by sacrificing evil men.

And the next note is:

So we see in this last note the point I made about sacrificing nations to ransom Israel. But God is no respector of persons as he himself paid the ransom cost at that point in history where it was the best course of action.

Part IV - Cleansing Sin

A significant aspect of Messiah's death is his bearing sin to dispose of it, to cleanse it. The symbolism of confessing the sin over the offering and the laying of hands on it is so that the offering can bear, or carry the sin so that the blood will purge or cleanse the sin. As the life is in the blood, so the divine life of Messiah was in his blood. It is this divine spirit life that bears with our sin and carries it away to purge it. The ransoming cost is the price of bearing this sin away, because it is malignant. But the Almighty Son was able to bear the malignancy and leave it behind in the grave. This symbolic action is to make an impression on us of the divine cost associated with meeting up with our sin to dispose of it.

The knife that slays the innocent offering reprents the lawless or malignant effect of sin, but the innocent blood represents the purging value of the offering. In the binding of Isaac is a prediction of Messiah's death. The reason that Isaac was not slain was that in making a point it is not allowed to be lawless. A human sacrifice is only allowed if it be yielded up by the necessity of a ransom. Therefore the ram caught by the horns is given to make the point, because it is not legal to entrap lawlessness into committing a sin it would otherwise not commit. The death of Messiah in the manner to fulfill prophecy was brought about by the Most High arranging what was certain to happen by the will of lawlessness into a manner and time and place that the Most High could maximize it for good, namely to teach us the ransoming cost of our sin in the spirit realm.

The knife that slays the offering represents lawlessness in the external physical symbolic prodecure. It represents what sin destroys in the spiritual realm. So of a necessity the legal ritual of sacrifice only involves a proxy for evil. The sentiment or notion that is supposed to come to the one in need of his sin to be purged is "that my sin caused this." The human soul naturally revolts at a display of sacrificial death. But part of the ransoming effect is that the bringer of the offering realize that it is a symbol of what his sin does in the spiritual and physical realm. It causes destruction, loss, or cost. This is the instruction of our peace that is upon us. The Most High forgives us our sin, but he also requires us to understand its costly and destructive nature.

The sin offering in the Torah is a legal proxy for making a point that is only properly understood in destruction caused by lawlessness. And this is why I discussed and corrected the mistranslations in Isaiah 53. It is Satan, representing lawlessness in general, that strikes Messiah in the heel. And for the one time offering of Messiah, the Most High arranged matters so that Satan would be compelled to deploy his emnity against mankind in a format to teach mankind the ransom cost that is laid out by the bearing of the Father and the bearing of the Spirit. The Most High brought the cost of sin to the cross, and there put it on display in the physical realm in the incarnated form of the Almighty, his only kindred Son, where he is displaying us but PART of the entire ransom cost. This is because a greater part of the cost is hidden in the spiritual realm in the mystery of the Most High.

This therefore is the meaning of drinking Messiah's blood and consuming his flesh. It is the spirit of the matter that matters, because the physical instruction is symbolic of the reality. The blood of Messiah cleanses us from all sin when we confess them and cooperate with him in turning away from them. The cleansing is his act of grace or loving-kindness, and with it we must cooperate through faithfulness to Him.

It is for this reason that viewing this as payment of a judicial penalty by proxy is heretical to the good news. It is opposed to God's gracious and free forgiveness, and it is also opposed to justice. Because the final penalty is forgiven for us who pledge faithfulness to Messiah, but the final penalty is executed upon those who have been overcome by the malignancy of sin, and so are faithless. The justice of God's response to us in forgiving vs. judging depends on our commitment to renew faithfulness to him and to hold faithful to him in loving obedience to his commandments, which are given so that we might not sin any more.

As I said before, the insitutional theology of the Church concerning the cross and the meaning of Messiah's death makes it a cult. Because like all cults they have redefined and perverted the terms of Scripture, and then have indoctrined all their initiates into a system of belief that is opposed to the love of the Most High and also opposed to the condition of repentance and cleansing from sin in order to be finally rescued from it, even everlasting death.

Now in order to break this system we need to review some more texts so that the Torah observant faithful can deprogram themselves from this errant theology. And I say Torah observant faithful, because I am convinced that unless a person be Spirit led, and respond to the Spirit concerning his need to repent to the Torah of the Most High, then there is no hope of convincing anyone. And the institution of Babylon cannot be rescued. Only those who conduct their lives and reform their thinking in defiance of it can be, or will be rescued. Ultimately here, I am not judging any person. I am only judging the institition itself. But those who identify with the institution, no doubt, will feel judged, and flip their script back onto an attack against the messenger, and those who view themselves as the gatekeepers and defenders of the cult will doubtless also attack out of their misguided zeal, just as Saul attacked the faithful before Messiah knocked him down on the way to Damascus. Therefore my service here is for those who can be rescued.

I will now turn to Galatians 4:4:

There are a couple of notes here in The Good News of Messiah, but first I would like to explain "what is customary" using a passage in Romans. What is customary is the NOMOS of sin and death, or the NORM of sin and death. And Paul uses the word NOMOS in a distinctive Greek way that is not equivalent to Torah or Law. We are under the Torah in the English sense, but we are not to continue under the NOMOS of sin. The word means the custom or norm indicated by Paul:

This then is what Messiah came under on our behalf to free us from. He subjected himself to the destructive malignancy of sin and lawlessness to rescue us from lawlessness. So now I will cite notes on the Galatians passage:

And now the longer note from page 615:

So now, I hope you can see the reason that NOMOS cannot refer to the legally and justly applied Torah in all of its usage. Clearly one of Paul's usages is for the NORM of sin. Messiah was subjected to this, and came through it suffering death. And he came through it with his innocence and integrity as the only kindred Son of the Most High. He literally defeated sin, and he defeats it for us and in us when we cannot, if we hold faithful to him. If we hold faithful to Him, then he will hold faithful to us to forgive us our sins, and to purge and cleanse us from all unrighteousenss by the cleansing power of his Spirit.

Now I'd like to turn to another passage on this theme from Galatians 2:

What the Penal Substitutionist wishes for us to believe about this text is that we are co-identified with Christ in his death, and so receive the just penalty of sin by proxy through Christ. But this is only seems so from the regular translations before they have twisted it.

What the text really means is that we fasten our flesh, that is our sinfulness, our sinful self, on the tree with Messiah. This is the same as confessing our transgressions onto the offering. Now our transgressions are carried or borne by Messiah into the grave, in the symbolism, and then Messiah, having purged the sin from us, leaves it behind in the grave, to remain dead, while he himself is restored by his resurrection from the dead.

The sinful self no longer lives when it is carried away, but the life of the Anointed one transforms us by his spiritual purging.

There is an exchange here, the ransoming life of Messiah to purge our sin. It is the transfer of sin to the offering in the symbolism. But what this represents is the Most High dealing with our sin through his Spirit to purge it in cooperation with our faithfulness.

What Paul now lives in the flesh, and this time by the flesh he means in this dying and mortal body, he lives by faithfulness, through the faithfulness of the Son. The note explains why this is correct.

Faithfulness here goes two ways. It is convenant faithfulness. Firstly, there is Messiah's faithfulness in upholding and restoring the covenant of old, and secondly there is our faithful response to his ransoming work.

So we now live in a new-made covenant, which is the covenant of old made new for us.

Now we should be confessing our sins in our hearts to the Most High so that they can be cleansed from us by the power of Messiah's life in the Spirit. Now if our sins be forgiven, and then they be purged from us, then in the day of judgment our sin will not be found in us, and therefore we will not have to suffer the everlasting punishment when sin in the flesh is judged.

But if anyone shall say that they themselves have received the full and unmitigated wrath of God against their sin by proxy in Messiah, then they are at the same time laying a basis for living a life of sin while claiming it is all paid for already. They have misunderstood the good news. Messiah died to ransom us from sin and to purge it away from us, our faithfulness in cooperation with his faithfulness, so that we may not have to suffer the final judgement in that day.

Thankfully, not all who hold to the false doctrine live their life according to its implications, so these I do not judge, but the institution that teaches the false doctrine, I do judge, because every error it makes is destructive of the knowledge of the truth, and where truth is destroyed, so also many give up their faithfulness to Messiah Yeshua.