Dear Fellow Believers,
Matthew 25:31-46 is one of the most twisted and tortured passages in the entire Scripture. Who's twisting it? Christians are. This passages is about Jesus Christ, at the time of His second coming, judging living nations that survive the Tribulation. Nations are placed in the Millennial earth in accordance with how they treated Israel. Christians, however, tie this passage to a
chair and beat it with a rubber hose until they make this passage to be the judgment of all humanity of all time, to determine whether Jesus sends individuals to either heaven or hell.
The TRUE setting of this passage? The earth. The objects of the judgment? The nations surviving to the end of this eon. The criteria of the judgment? How did a nation treat Israel. The object of the judgment? The placing of the nations in accord with how they treated Israel. The two possible sentences of the judgment? A nation is placed near Jerusalem, or in the outer parts of the earth
away from Jerusalem. That's the truth. Now here is the made-up Christian version:
The setting? Heaven. The objects of the judgment? Every human being ever born. The criteria of the judgment? "Did you believe in Jesus as your personal Savior?" The object of the judgment? The placing of individuals in accorded with whether or not they believed in Jesus as their personal Savior. The two possible sentences of the judgment? Heaven or hell.
Blame the King James and other common English version for translating the Greek adjective in verse 46, aionion ("having to do with an eon"; "describing a period of time"), as "eternal," making it easy for lazy students (who don't bother with concordances) to more easily pervert this passage to their personal liking.
I delivered this message in Newport News, Virginia in the fall of 1997 to the ecclesia of Pastor Robert Allen who, at that time, ran his operation out of an old dentists office at a strip mall. Not a bad place for a timeless revelation of one of the most epic events of human history.
Thanks again to Rodney Paris of Texas who has brought the original analog cassette tape to digital life, accompanying it with pretty video and helpful text frames. I commend this message to you, the body of Christ. Please send this video to those of your acquaintance whom you suspect might have a weakness for scholarship and logic. I think there may still be some of these people
around.
Yours from the edge of the bottom of the Floridan peninsula,
Martin
