The Great Offense of Paul: Rejecting the Divinity of Christ
Leave a comment Posted by Anna Diehl on September 2, 2015

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In our material, we often speak quite acridly about the apostle Paul. In the Church, you’re taught to view this man as a hero of the faith, a brilliant theologian, and a flawless mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit. Few Christians realize what an enormous influence Paul has had on their theology. It is because of Paul that you think that the Bible is inerrant, that there’s great power in lifting others up in prayer, and that this is the devil’s world. Paul is the one who taught you that there’s power in repetitive prayer, power in emotional prayer, power in continuous intercession, and power in spiritual armor. We get the notion of “prayer warriors” from Paul. We call Christ our High Priest and refer to our bodies as temples because of Paul. We obsess over spiritual gifts because of Paul. We think Christ is a man-God hybrid because of Paul. We are uncomfortable with female preachers and teachers because of Paul. We view the Bible as a supernatural entity which has a binding effect on both demons and God because of Paul. We think that God can’t lie or contradict Himself because of Paul. We think that non-Jews owe ethnic Jews some kind of spiritual debt because of Paul. We view the Old Covenant as a negative, insufficient, and inferior Covenant because of Paul. We get into arguments about how long women’s hair should be because of Paul. We think the Psalms are filled with references to Christ because of Paul. We totally misunderstand the meaning of many Old Testament Scriptures because of Paul. The man has had an enormous impact on you. Even though he has been dead for nearly 2,000 years, he has shaped the way you think, the way you view your Creators, how you handle your human relationships, and what you’re hoping for in eternity. He has had an enormous impact on what your spiritual priorities are. Without realizing it, most Christians are striving to be just like Paul. They pray like him. They constantly quote him. They fiercely defend his theology and insist that he cannot be wrong about anything. But what if he is?

What if Paul isn’t just wrong about minor things—what if he’s wrong about major things? What if he’s totally rejecting essential truths about who our Gods are and how They operate? This is in fact what Paul does. This is why we don’t like Paul. Paul doesn’t talk like a Christian should talk. Christians aren’t supposed to bash on Christ by rejecting His equality with Yahweh and teaching that He is less than God. You see, when we’re talking about a God with a capital G, we’re talking about a Being who is all-knowing, all-powerful, and omnipresent. We’re talking about a Being who has always existed. No one creates Gods with capital Gs—that’s what makes them Gods. They’re uncreated. They’re sovereign. They’re awesome. They’re unequaled. To date, we only know of three such Beings: Yahweh, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. How many Gods does Paul know about? None.

You see, even though Paul constantly uses the term “God” in his epistles, the God he describes isn’t God at all. First off, Paul totally rejects the notion of three equal Gods. Right now some of you are thinking, “That’s right, because the idea of three Gods is blasphemous—the real God is Triune—He’s three in one.” Well, all you Trinity fans need to open your eyes and read the text a little closer, because Paul doesn’t teach that God is three in one. Paul teaches that there is only one supreme God: the mighty Yahweh. Jesus is merely Yahweh’s temporary human assistant, not His equal. The Holy Spirit is—well, Paul dances all over the place regarding the identity of the Holy Spirit, but one thing he makes very clear: no one is equal to Yahweh. Yahweh is the only true God.

Why is Paul so offensive? Because the man bashes on our Creators. True Christians follow Christ, and Christ said that when we are casual and non-committal about honoring our Makers, it makes Him want to vomit. We take that to mean that it isn’t okay to treat Yahweh like some less than sovereign bigot who has been keeping non-Jews at arm’s length for thousands of years. That’s how Paul presents Yahweh because even though Paul functioned in his culture as a prestigious teacher of the Old Testament (a Pharisee), he actually rejects much of what the Old Testament says. Christ proved that He was Yahweh’s equal by raising Himself from the dead. Paul rejects Christ’s proof and says that actually it was Yahweh who raised Christ because Yahweh is the only God with that kind of power. How long are we going to keep exalting a man who so grossly insults our Gods? How long are we going to keep calling lies truth?

Now breaking out of the Paul fan club is a very big step to take. If you dare to criticize the awesome apostle, you’re going to get a lot of Christians super ticked at you. But then again, you claim to be a Christian, and Christians are supposed to follow Christ. Christ said we need to pick a side. He said if we weren’t for Him, we were against Him. How “for Christ” are you acting when you sit around applauding a man who insists that Christ is not even God?

As Christians, we should only be worshiping one kind of God: the capital G kind. We don’t worship demons, we don’t worship angels, dead people, fictitious saints, or gods who human beings have invented. The Christ that Paul describes isn’t the real Christ—He’s some warped version of the real Christ that Paul has come up with to accommodate Paul’s personal discomfort with the idea of there being multiple Gods. You see, Paul is totally against the notion that there could be two other Beings out there who are equal to the magnificent Yahweh. When Paul doesn’t like something, Paul feels free to reject it and lead whole churches astray with his theological rot. At some point, you need to face up to the truth of just how blasphemous this brazen apostle was.

Now the identity of your Creators is a big deal. You need to make sure your faith is anchored in truth and not a bunch of delusions. There’s only one way to get there. If you want to know who your Creators are, you need to ask Them. You can’t just coast along with what some dead apostle says, nor should you just accept what we say. You need to think for yourself and you need to ask the Holy Spirit to show you if you’re currently clinging to some wrong ideas about who your Makers are. Do you know where you get the concept of the Trinity from? From a bunch of Roman bishops who lived and died a very long time ago. The term Trinity isn’t in the Bible, nor is there any support for this notion of a single God with three different personalities. None of the New Testament writers presented God this way: they all taught that Yahweh was the supreme God and that Jesus and the Holy Spirit were His very high ranking assistants.

When an Old Covenant Jew refers to “God”, he means Yahweh. To an Old Covenant Jew, it was utter blasphemy to suggest that anyone was equal to Yahweh, so when you see “God” in the New Testament and in your brain you’re thinking of any one of the three Divine Personalities of the Trinity, you’re not hearing what the original author is saying. There’s only one supreme God to the Jews, and Yahweh is it. Christ can have access to some supernatural power, but He still isn’t as great as Yahweh. This is what they teach, and this is totally wrong. If you go through life viewing Christ as some almost-but-not-quite God, you’re going to end up on the wrong side of eternity.

Since you’re used to reading the Bible through a mental filter of “Paul is perfect,” you honestly don’t notice how many potshots the man is taking at your Creators. The point of this post is to help you start seeing how offensive many of Paul’s statements are. We want to give you hard evidence to talk about with the Holy Spirit. We want you to make an informed decision about Paul, not just be basing your judgments on assumptions and generalities. We’re going to point out many things that Paul says which you can only agree with if you first make certain wrong assumptions about who your Gods are. Think about this stuff. See what the Holy Spirit has to say. Honoring your Gods needs to be your top priority in life. If that means you have to take Paul off of the pedestal of greatness, then so be it.

Q: Who resurrected Christ?

The Jews believed that only the supreme God had the power to bring the dead back to life. That supreme God was Yahweh, of course. In order to prove His equality with Yahweh as a second all-powerful God, Jesus announced that He would bring Himself back to life. He said:

“No one can take my life from Me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again.” (John 10:18)

Because Paul rejects the idea that Christ is Yahweh’s equal, Paul rejects the idea that Christ could have raised Himself. So Paul says that it was really Yahweh who raised the less-than-awesome Christ. Paul says:

And if the Spirit of Yahweh who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, Yahweh who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit who lives in you. (Rom. 8:11)

Paul agrees that the resurrection of Christ is a big deal, and he agrees that Christ is playing some critical role in Yahweh’s New Covenant. But Christ raising Himself back to life? No, that’s impossible. And as Paul blatantly lies about who raised Christ, he makes this ironic statement in his letter to the Corinthians:

And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. And we apostles would all be lying about Yahweh—for we have said that Yahweh raised Christ from the grave. (1 Cor. 15:14-15)

Ironically, the apostles are all lying about Yahweh, because Yahweh did not raise Christ, Christ raised Himself. So while Paul insists that it’s critical to acknowledge that Christ was resurrected, he clearly feels it’s okay to lie about who actually raised Him. Christ used His resurrection to prove His equality with Yahweh; Paul uses it to prove Yahweh’s supremacy over Christ.

Q: How long will Christ reign?

If Christ is really a second God, then clearly His reign is eternal. True Gods have always existed, and They reign supreme over all things. But Paul doesn’t accept Christ as a true God—he sees Christ as Someone who is only functioning as Yahweh’s temporary Assistant. Paul says that one day in the future, Christ will step down from His current ruling position and stop even His Assistant Ruler duties so that the one true God—Yahweh—will no longer be crowded. Paul says:

After that the end will come, when Christ will turn the Kingdom over to Yahweh the Father, having destroyed every ruler and authority and power. For Christ must reign until He humbles all His enemies beneath His feet. And the last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Cor. 15:24-26)

According to Paul, Christ’s reign is not only temporary, it’s partial. Christ is not a supreme ruler, but rather One who is still in the process of conquering His enemies. Well no, this isn’t the definition of a true God. In the Old Testament, Yahweh teaches that a real God is One who is sovereign over all things. Yahweh utterly scoffed at the idea of His own creations threatening Him in any way. Jesus claimed to be God, and then He proved that He was Yahweh’s equal by raising Himself from the grave. But since Paul rejects Jesus’ proof, he feels free to reduce Jesus as some bumbling non-Deity who can’t quite figure out how to dominate the creatures which His own hands have made. How do you think Christ feels about being portrayed in such a demeaning way?

Paul is so threatened by the idea of Yahweh having a Peer, that he needs to see Christ bowing down in submission to the only God Paul is willing to acknowledge. Ripping a line out of Psalm 8, Paul says:

For Christ must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For Yahweh “has put everything under his feet” [Ps. 8:6]. Now when it says that “everything” has been put under Him, it is clear that this does not include Yahweh Himself, who put everything under Christ. And when everything is subject to Christ, then Christ Himself will be made subject to the One who put everything under Him, so that Yahweh may be all in all. (1 Cor. 15:25-28)

Not only does Psalm 8 have nothing to do with Christ, the “he” in Psalm 8:6 is a reference to human beings. In Psalm 8, David is marveling at what a privilege it is to be human. In Psalm 8:4, he says those famous words:

What is man that You remember him, the son of man that You look after him? You made him a little lower than God and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him lord over the works of Your hands; You put everything under his feet. (Ps. 8:4-6)

David is overdoing it here, because we humans are more than just “a little lower than God.” But his heart is in the right place: he’s saying “Wow, Yahweh, You’re so generous and amazing to treat us so well!” Paul rips off David’s reference to Yahweh setting up humans as the highest ranking creatures in this physical world, and Paul makes the absurd claim that this is a reference to Yahweh putting everything under Christ. Really?? So Christ is just another human being? So Christ only rules over this planet? There’s no way to end up in a less than blasphemous place once Paul throws Psalm 8 into the mix, because Psalm 8 isn’t about Christ, nor is it describing anything close to sovereign reign. But this is how Paul operates: he lies his face off about what Old Testament passages mean and shamelessly ignores context. It’s thanks to our foolishness in blindly believing Paul and the other New Testament writers that many of the entries we include on our lists of Messianic prophecies have nothing to do with the Messiah. You can’t just believe a human’s application of a verse—you have to look for yourself. Paul slices and dices verses all over the place and then holds them up as “proof” that he is justified in bashing on our Gods.

So then, according to Paul, Yahweh has put everything under Christ’s feet—everything except Yahweh Himself, of course. Paul is quick to emphasize that Yahweh bows down to know one, because Yahweh is God. But Christ, He’s not God. He’s just some human who got lucky. He’s just Yahweh’s temporary helper. Christ is struggling to overcome His enemies right now—especially that formidable entity known as “death.” But before Christ lets His power to go His head, He’s going to have to hand His power back over to the awesome Yahweh and step down. As far as Paul is concerned, there can only ever be one God, and Christ isn’t going to be Him. This is why Paul says:

And when everything is subject to Christ, then Christ Himself will be made subject to the One who put everything under Him, so that Yahweh may be all in all. (1 Cor. 15:28)

Yahweh makes it clear in the Old Testament that real Gods aren’t “subject” to anyone or anything. So by saying that Christ will be subject to Yahweh, Paul is once again blatantly rejecting Christ’s identity as a true God.

Q: When did Christ become the Son of God?

The title “Son of God” was used to help the Jews grasp the fact that Jesus had a unique relationship with Yahweh. Christ’s public ministry in Israel lasted about 3 years and kicked off with His baptism by John the Baptist. It was at that moment that Yahweh called down from Heaven and said:

“This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” (Matt. 3:17)

This was a big deal. While Yahweh had a long history of referring to His people as His metaphorical children, His reference to Jesus as His Son was intended to emphasize that Jesus and Yahweh shared a special kind of intimacy. All the Jews understood that when Jesus claimed to be the Son of Yahweh, He was claiming to have some kind of Divine rank—that’s why they became increasingly offended by this title. Paul also feels threatened by it, because he doesn’t want to accept Christ as Yahweh’s equal. So though Christ has no beginning or end, and though He is an eternal, uncreated God who has always co-ruled with the glorious Yahweh, Paul teaches that Christ was essentially just an above average human who was chosen out by Yahweh for a super special calling. Paul says Christ didn’t become officially appointed as “the Son of God” until He was resurrected. Here’s Paul:

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of Yahweh—the gospel Yahweh promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding His Son, who as to His earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by His resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom. 1:1-4)

Here Paul associates the title “Son of God” to mean Christ’s status as Yahweh’s less-than-awesome, and only temporary Assistant. Paul says Christ didn’t get this promotion until He was raised from the dead. So Christ used to be lesser, now He’s really great, but someday soon He’ll be lesser again. Does this sound right to you?

Q: Did Christ come to unite or divide people?

Why did Christ come to the earth? What was the point of Him dying on a cross? It’s simple: our Gods decided to change the way They interact with us. Under the Old Covenant, Yahweh made salvation very accessible to His followers, but He intentionally deceived people about how many Gods there are (see Why did Yahweh lie about being the only God in existence?). The Old Covenant included a lot of ancient traditions that were very popular in many cultures throughout Bible times: priestly intercession, animal sacrifices, a physical Temple, and the idea of setting apart physical objects for sacred use. Under the New Covenant, Yahweh scrapped all of these ancient ways and drafted a New Covenant that took away the distraction of religious rituals. The New Covenant also included the shocking revelation that we don’t have just one Creator, but three.

The purpose in Christ showing up in visible form and preaching to the Jews for three years was to explain how the New Covenant was going to work and help all of humanity understand what the new requirements for salvation are. Monotheism (the belief in one God) is out, polytheism (the belief in multiple Gods) is in. Temporary acceptance is out, eternal acceptance is in. The way that we’re being judged hasn’t changed: we’ve always been judged by our soul’s response to our Makers, not by our works. The concept of eternal life versus eternal damnation hasn’t changed, but it’s now possible to know that you have been eternally accepted by your Gods long before your actual death—that kind of assurance wasn’t available under the Old Covenant.

No one could “get saved” under the Old Covenant, they could only be in a current good standing with Yahweh. But unrepentant, prolonged rebellion caused people to lose their good standing, and if a man died while in a state of rebellion, Yahweh said he would be eternally punished. The New Covenant expands the bounds of grace, yet it does not remove the consequences for believers rebelling against God. Instead of fearing eternal rejection because of our bad choices after salvation, Jesus taught that we would experience different treatment by our Gods in Heaven depending on how faithful we stayed to Them on earth. It’s always been about soul attitude.

So then, Jesus’ purpose in revealing Himself the way that He did was to help Old Covenant believers transition to the New Covenant. If there’s one thing Jesus didn’t come to do, it was to promote world peace. Most humans choose to hate their Creators and whenever our Gods make demands of us, we respond with violent division. Jesus said:

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’” (Matt. 10:34-36)

Well, Paul ignores what Christ said. As an ancient Jew, Paul was taught from the cradle that bigotry was fabulous. The ancient Jews considered themselves to be ethnically superior to all other ethnicities. They referred to Gentiles as “dogs” and other derogatory names. They made up laws that made it a crime to hang out with “dogs” in public or go to their homes.

Well, the ancient Jews might have been bigots, but our Gods are not. Under the Old Covenant, Yahweh called all people to come to Him. Under the New Covenant, Christ also emphasized that all are welcome. Jews like Peter and Paul found this concept of viewing other ethnicities as equal in God’s eyes to be quite radical and hard to grasp. Because accepting Gentiles is such a huge issue to Paul personally, he foolishly assumes it’s a huge issue to God. He then goes on to preach that Christ’s main purpose in coming to earth was to create unity between the superior Jews and those other inferior ethnicities.

For Christ Himself is our peace, who has made the two groups of Gentiles and Jews one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in His flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in Himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to Yahweh through the cross, by which He put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. (Eph. 2:14-18)

Really? Christ came to make peace? But Christ said He came to cause division. Christ never said it was His goal to unify all races into one happy family. It’s more like the Jews have been intentionally ignoring what Yahweh said in the Torah which they claimed to stand on.

Q: Is Yahweh a bigot?

Way back in Moses’ day, Yahweh said:

The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. (Lev. 19:34)

Is Yahweh teaching the Jews that it’s okay to treat non-Jews like scum? No, He’s telling them to do just the opposite: to treat foreigners like they are Jews themselves. Yahweh has always taught that the Jews should warmly receive any non-Jew who was sincerely seeking Yahweh. Even though you’ll find many laws in which Yahweh instructs the Jews to treat foreigners differently than themselves, keep reading and you’ll find Him emphasizing that Jews should treat foreigners as their equals. What’s with this apparent doubletalk? The answer lies in understanding how Yahweh defines “My people”. To Him, this term doesn’t mean “ethnic Jews”—it meant “those who have received spiritual illumination about who I am and what I want.” Once a Philistine man learned who Yahweh was, he became accountable to Yahweh for what he knew. That Philistine man could get circumcised, move to Israel, and become a citizen there in order to be closer to Yahweh’s Temple. In such a case, Yahweh ordered that Philistine be treated the same as a descendant of Abraham because the Philistine was sincerely seeking Yahweh. Yahweh said:

When a foreigner resides with you or someone else is among you and wants to prepare a fire offering as a pleasing aroma to Yahweh, he is to do exactly as you do throughout your generations. (Num. 15:14)

The Philistine would never qualify to be a priest, because priests had to be blood relatives of Aaron. But the Philistine got to do all the other things that non-Levite Jews could do: he could go to the Temple and bring sacrifices and get just as close to the Holy Place as other non-priests. Yahweh was adamant that bloodlines should never be viewed as a reason to exclude someone from being accepted into the spiritual community of sincere Yahweh followers. Yahweh said:

The assembly is to have the same law for both you and the foreign resident as a permanent statute throughout your generations. You and the foreigner will be alike before Yahweh. (Num. 15:15)

Yahweh was very clear that when Jewish priests made atonement offerings to ask Yahweh to forgive all of Israel for some accidental sin, foreigners who had joined themselves to Israel would also be forgiven, the same as the Jews.

Then the priest shall make atonement for all the congregation of the sons of Israel, and they will be forgiven; for it was an error, and they have brought their offering, an offering by fire to Yahweh, and their sin offering before Yahweh, for their error. So all the congregation of the sons of Israel will be forgiven, with the alien who sojourns among them, for it happened to all the people through error. (Num. 15:25-26)

Yahweh has always welcomed all people. He’s always taught that there should be no ethnic exclusion among those who sincerely sought Him. Even members of nations who Yahweh declared to be cursed and off limits to the Jews—nations like Moab and Ammon—still, if any individual from those nations wanted to seek Yahweh, they were to be warmly welcomed and treated as equals to the Jews (see God & Ethnicity: Understanding Cultural Bans in the Bible). This was what Yahweh taught when He initially explained His Covenant laws through Moses. So when Paul then goes on to say that Christ came to create some amazing unity between the Jews and those icky non-Jews, Paul is actually insulting Yahweh. Yahweh has never viewed Jews and non-Jews in two separate camps. That was Paul’s hang up, and Paul was taught this inappropriate mindset by his culture. Instead of owning that he and his fellow Jews have been offending Yahweh with their bigotry all this time, Paul makes it out like Jews and non-Jews actually needed Christ to make them one in Yahweh’s eyes. Paul says:

For Christ Himself is our peace, who has made the two groups of Gentiles and Jews one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in His flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in Himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to Yahweh through the cross, by which He put to death their hostility. (Eph. 2:14-16)

By saying that Christ unified Jews and Gentiles by setting aside Yahweh’s Laws, he is saying that Yahweh’s Laws taught that Jews and Gentiles be treated as unequal in His sight. Paul lies his face off about what Yahweh actually says and tells Gentiles that they have never been welcomed by Yahweh. In fact, to hear Paul tell it, Gentiles have been eternally damned for thousands of years simply because they had the wrong genetics.

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the Covenants of the promise, without hope and without Yahweh in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (Eph. 2:11-13)

Paul is talking to the Gentiles of his day—people who Yahweh was always welcoming to come to Him before Christ showed up in Israel. If Gentiles were being excluded from citizenship in Israel, it was only because the Jews were dishonoring Yahweh by teaching foreigners that God wanted nothing to do with them. It was the Jews who turned Yahweh’s original Covenant into an exclusive “Jews only” club. For Paul to say that Gentiles were “without hope and without Yahweh” until Christ came is a gross misrepresentation of what was really going on. Yahweh has always been near to all of us, calling to all of us, and offering great hope if we will submit to Him.

Q: Was Christ cursed by Yahweh?

Even though Yahweh has always invited Gentiles to come to Him, Paul argues that it is only now under the New Covenant that the Gentiles are being extended an opportunity to come to God.

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written: ‘Everyone who is hung on a tree is cursed.’ The purpose was that the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles by Christ Jesus, so that we could receive the promised Spirit through faith. (Gal. 3:13-14)

Notice how Paul says that Christ became a curse. Well, no, He didn’t. Christ has always been God Almighty. He never morphed into a curse. In Deuteronomy, Yahweh says:

If anyone is found guilty of an offense deserving the death penalty and is executed, and you hang his body on a tree, you are not to leave his corpse on the tree overnight but are to bury him that day, for anyone hung on a tree is under Yahweh’s curse. You must not defile the land Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance. (Deut. 21:22-23)

Is this passage applicable to Christ? Of course not. Yahweh is telling the Jews not to make some sick circus out of their dead criminals by leaving their rotting corpses displayed in public. Christ was not guilty of an offense deserving death, He was unfairly butchered by Jewish leaders because He was threatening their power. Paul is talking like an idiot to apply this passage to Christ and suggest that Yahweh ever considered His own Peer to be cursed. Yet do we ever question? Do we ever look up the original context of these quotes Paul throws out and test the man’s words? No, we just blindly accept whatever he says because he’s Paul.

Q: Are we saved by Abraham or by God?

So according to Paul, why did Christ die for our sins?

The purpose was that the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles by Christ Jesus, so that we could receive the promised Spirit through faith. (Gal. 3:14)

According to Paul, the Jews were fine, but the inferior Gentiles were out in the cold until Christ came along. According to Paul, Christ died so that the blessing of Abraham could be extended to others. Say what? Since when is Abraham the one man who the entire universe revolves around? This is what you get when you listen to a man who is convinced that his people are God’s gift to the world.

What exactly is this blessing of Abraham that we’re all supposed to be getting a share in? Where is it written that Yahweh announced to Abraham that he had been granted eternal salvation? Where is it written that Abraham received the Holy Spirit? Nowhere. Yahweh promised Abraham a son, He promised to lead Abraham’s descendants to a particular patch of land, and He threw out a vague line about making Abraham a blessing to many nations. But was any of this some specific reference to Christ? No. Christ isn’t a human, Christ is God Almighty. But since Paul rejects Christ’s Divinity, he naturally puts a lot more import on Christ’s genetic bloodlines. Everyone thought Christ was a biological descendant of David because Joseph was a descendant of David. Well, Joseph wasn’t Christ’s biological father, so that whole theory about Christ being a genetic descendant of David is actually just an illusion and the Gospel writers even acknowledge this. Before launching into a proof of how Joseph descended from David, Luke says:

Jesus was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat…” (Luke 3:23)

If you view Christ as a mere human and the literal descendant of Abraham, then as an ancestry obsessed Jew, you would say, “Look, Abraham blessed the world by giving us Christ.” But this is really an idiotic argument, because Abraham didn’t have any say over who his descendants were. Abraham didn’t choose the Messiah, Abraham didn’t draft a second Covenant, Abraham hasn’t done bumpkus to assist you in getting right with your Gods. So no, Christ did not die on the cross to impart some blessing of Abraham onto the heads of non-Jews. Abraham has nothing to do with our receiving the Holy Spirit so Paul is being ludicrous to try and associate these things.

The purpose was that the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles by Christ Jesus, so that we could receive the promised Spirit through faith. (Gal. 3:14)

We receive the Holy Spirit by aligning with Yahweh’s New Covenant conditions. Abraham knew nothing about the current Covenant, and he has nothing to do with your personal relationship with your Gods.

Q: Has Yahweh ever blown off people’s sins?

Under the New Covenant, there is no salvation without submission to all three of our Gods. We must recognize and respect the great sacrifice that Christ made on our behalf by dying for our sins on the cross. But that’s today. Before Christ came, Yahweh handled the sin issue differently. Just because there was no Christ did not mean that there was no punishment for sins, and yet this is what Paul teaches. Once he finally gets around to acknowledging that Yahweh has changed Covenants, Paul decides that Yahweh’s current Covenant is superior to His previous one—Yahweh never said this. Paul then goes on to make ridiculous leaps in logic which include no one having access to Heaven and no one being able to resurrect until now. You see, according to Paul, everyone who lived and died before Christ has been stuck in some kind of limbo. According to Paul, no one could be fully accepted by Yahweh until Christ provided the retro atonement that they were lacking. This is why Paul says:

Yahweh presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of His blood—to be received by faith. Yahweh did this to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. (Rom. 3:25)

Where does Paul get off declaring that before Christ Yahweh didn’t punish sins? The Old Testament is loaded with examples of Yahweh forgiving and punishing sins. If Yahweh has been fluffing off everyone’s sins until Christ, how does Paul explain Yahweh cracking open the earth and pitching people into it? How does Paul explain Yahweh mowing down scores of Israelites with plagues, snakes, fire, and diseases? According to Yahweh, He did a whole lot of punishing before Christ came. In fact, Yahweh says over and over again that it was because of His people’s refusal to repent of their sins that He destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel, Jerusalem, and the Temple that Solomon built. Yahweh said it was because of sin that the priest Eli and his sons were eternally damned. He said it was because of sin that Moses was banned from entering the Promised Land. He said it was because of sin that Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden, that Cain was cursed, that the world was flooded, that Israel was divided, that empires were dismantled and that the Jews were exiled to foreign lands. Yahweh not punishing sins? What is Paul smoking?

Q: Is death a deity?

Death is not a conscious entity. Death doesn’t think, death doesn’t have power, and death certainly doesn’t reign. But Paul loves to personify death and act like it’s some formidable force which even Christ won’t be able to conquer until the very end. This is why he says:

For Christ must reign until He humbles all His enemies beneath His feet. And the last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Cor. 15:26)

And after turning death into some kind of powerful entity, he does the same with sin. Sin isn’t just a decision we make to rebel against God—suddenly it’s this strange power that came in and messed up Yahweh’s good plans.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned. (Rom. 5:12)

Actually, what happened is Adam and Eve lipped off to Yahweh one time too many and Yahweh finally responded by cursing them (see Eden: Disturbing Revelations). If you think that famous fruit sampling was the first time Adam and Eve sinned, you need to think again. Yahweh is gracious and patient and He doesn’t flip out over one mistake. Read the text more closely and you’ll discover that it never says the fruit sampling was the first sin ever committed, nor does it say that “don’t eat from the tree of knowledge” was the only rule Yahweh ever gave His first two humans. We read these extra details into the text because we listen to Paul too much.

To be sure, sin was in the world before the Law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no Law. (Rom. 5:13)

Oh, baloney. By “the Law”, Paul means the Old Covenant. Hello, the Flood happened before the Law was ever given. The Flood was an act of Divine punishment in response to people’s sins. So was sin “charged against anyone’s account” before the Law? Yes, all the time.

Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come. (Rom. 5:14)

Really? Death reigned until Moses? No, because death isn’t a king, death is an event. While Paul rejects the Divinity of Christ and constantly insults Yahweh, he feels free to invent these other deities of Sin and Death, who are obviously overriding Yahweh’s will by messing up His good plans. It’s all a bunch of guff.

Notice how Paul says death even reigned over those who never sinned by breaking a command. Really? So now there were sinless people in the world? Since when are written commands the only commands that count? What happened to God convicting people’s souls directly? That’s what He’s been doing since the beginning. There’s never been a person who didn’t break a command of God. When you tell God to stuff it in your soul and you ignore His convictions, you’re breaking His commands. And even though we have no record of Yahweh ordering Adam and Eve to present animal sacrifices to Him, obviously He gave them instruction at some point because we read about Abel and Cain doing it and we find Yahweh accusing twerpy Cain of knowing that he was presenting God with an unacceptable offering.

For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did Yahweh’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! (Rom. 5:15)

Are we dying because of Adam’s sin? No, we’re dying because our Gods have decided that humans will only spend a temporary amount of time on this earth. They aren’t going to kill you because Yahweh’s still working through some grudge over Adam sampling the forbidden fruit. They’re going to kill you when They’ve decided that Their purposes in having you here have been fulfilled.

Q: Are we rulers or servants?

It is so annoying to hear Paul refer to Christ as a “man” once you realize how literally he means this term. And to suggest that Christ is the first time Yahweh’s grace ever flowed onto people is beyond insulting to Yahweh. What is the Old Testament if not a mind-blowing testimony of Yahweh heaping oceans of grace onto the heads of undeserving human beings? Christ is hardly the first time Yahweh has ever acted graciously, and it’s these nasty insinuations that make Paul’s letters so offensive.

For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! (Rom. 5:17)

Do we really reign in life? No, we do not. We are servants, not rulers. Death doesn’t reign and we don’t reign. But Paul has a real lust for power and glory which really comes through in his writings. It’s not good enough for him to serve his Makers—he has to get be able to reign over something.

Q: When did eternal life become available?

So that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom. 5:21)

Be clear on this point: eternal life has always been around. Moses and Elijah showed up with Jesus during the Transfiguration. How does Paul explain that one if there’s no resurrection of the dead, no eternal life, and no forgiveness of sins until after Christ resurrects? Since the beginning, when people die, they have gone on to eternity. There’s none of this lying around for ages in the dirt business that the Jews were so into.

Q: Did death used to rule over Christ?

Not only does Paul turn Death into a ruling power, he then says it used to be a greater ruling power than Christ Himself.

For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him. (Rom. 6:9)

You can’t “no longer” have mastery unless you used to have it. So according to Paul, Christ is not only some human bumpkin who only graduated on to being the Son of God after His resurrection, Christ is so pathetically powerless that death used to be His master. Nice.

Q: Are we Christ’s equals?

Once Christ is reduced to just another human being, obviously we can be His equals. Watch how Paul sets up the ranks in this statement:

Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of Yahweh and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in Christ’s sufferings in order that we may also share in Christ’s glory. (Rom. 8:17)

This statement is so outrageously offensive to Christ. Notice how Paul says we are heirs of Yahweh—meaning we are lower than Him. A human son is an heir of his father. But then Paul says we’re co-heirs with Christ. In other words, Christ is our sibling. A human man would be a co-heir with his brother. Paul is saying we’re equal to Christ. We’re on His same level. The only thing that really sets Christ apart from us is this temporary ruling thing He’s doing in which He’s straining to overcome His enemies (especially His ex-master Death). But soon Christ will have to turn in His crown and bow down in the dirt at Yahweh’s feet, because, hey, it’s not like He’s on Yahweh’s level. How do you think Yahweh feels about us demeaning His Peer like this?

Q: How secure is our position with Yahweh?

Has Yahweh accepted us or not? According to Paul, we’re all on shaky ground with the one and only God. That’s why we need Christ to intercede for us. You see, even though Yahweh is God Almighty—even though He and Christ both say that we are eternally accepted by Them once we properly submit to all three of our Gods, Paul says it’s not so simple.

Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of Yahweh and is also interceding for us. (Rom. 8:34)

Paul blows off all of the assurances Yahweh gives us and says that Christ is the only One keeping the peace between us and the brooding Yahweh through continuous intercession. Why on earth do we need intercession? Our Gods work as one. Christ isn’t our protective older brother who is constantly trying to talk our violent daddy out of whipping on us. Ever struggle with feeling insecure about God the Father? Does some part of you think that Jesus is nicer than Yahweh? You have Paul to thank for this rot.

For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind: the man Christ Jesus who gave Himself as a ransom for all people. (1 Tim. 2:6)

See? There’s one God and one human mediator, who is Christ. You can throw your Trinity theory out the window—you won’t find teaching that Christ is the alter ego of Yahweh. Paul says Christ is just a man.

Q: Was Christ’s resurrection just a power grab?

Paul offers several motivations for why Christ volunteered to go through the whole death and resurrection experience. One was to unify Jews and non-Jews so we could all live in sweet harmony. A second motivation he throws out is that Christ was just going for a power grab. You see, before He died, Christ was a nobody who was being oppressed by that nasty tyrant named Death. But somehow Christ figured out that He could become some kind of ruler if He went through the ordeal. So really, Christ was just going for power.

For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that He might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. (Rom. 14:9)

Notice the clear implication that before He died, Christ was not the Lord of anything. He had to become the Lord by doing something. He had to earn His right to rule. At this point, we can’t help but wonder: was Paul even saved??

Q: Did Christ serve the Jews?

Even though Christ spent His public ministry years ripping all over Jewish authorities, Paul chooses to rewrite history and depict Christ as some kind of servant.

For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of Yahweh’s truth, so that the promises made to the patriarchs might be confirmed. (Rom. 15:8)

When did Christ ever serve the Jews? If anything, Christ said that He was serving Yahweh. He said this because one of His main purposes in showing up as He did was to demonstrate for all of us how we are to serve all three of our Gods. Even though Christ is Yahweh’s equal and not His subordinate, Christ play acted the role of a servant to provide a model for us—but the only One He ever served was a God, not some mere human.

Q: Who does Paul credit for his blasphemous teaching?

Paul serves as an excellent example of a dangerous teacher. He’s confident, he’s got a well-established rep, and like so many liars in the Church today, he claims to be speaking the very words of God.

I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. (Gal. 1:11-12)

Fascinating! So we’re supposed to believe that Christ is the One who is instructing Paul to portray Him as less than God Almighty? Nope, that’s not going to happen. If Paul really thought this rot was coming from Christ—which he probably did—it just demonstrates how spiritually out of touch the man was. There’s no way that Christ is ever going to tell us to promote Him as some limited dingdong who spent years getting pushed around by nasty old Death until Yahweh gave Him some temporary power boost.

Q: Is it good enough to just have faith in the Son of God?

“We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.” (Gal. 2:15-16)

You can put your faith in Jesus all day long, but that isn’t going to get you saved unless you are accepting the truth about who Jesus said He is. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons both put their faith in Jesus—but, like Paul, they reject the idea that Jesus is God. Guess what? If you reject the Divinity of Christ, you’re going to end up in Hell. Jesus isn’t just some human who got lucky. Paul’s faith in Christ means NOTHING as long as he is viewing Christ as just another human who Yahweh resurrected.

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” (Gal. 2:20-21)

These are famous words, but are they even correct? No, they’re not. Righteousness has never been granted through the law or through Christ, but on the basis of your soul’s response to your Creators. David was praised by Yahweh as being perfect in God’s sight—not because David never sinned, but because David sincerely submitted to Yahweh and he responded well to the spiritual illumination he was given. That illumination didn’t include information about Christ. David lived during the Old Covenant Law, yet he obtained righteousness by having the right soul response to God. So when Paul tries to link the concept of how righteousness is obtained with the purpose of Christ dying on the cross—well, these things are really unrelated concepts. Christ’s death on a cross didn’t change the basis on which we are saved—it’s still all about our soul’s response. Because Christ died, and because our Gods now demand submission to Yahweh, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, we have to respond well to Christ’s death on a cross or we’ll be rejected. Christ said He died for our sins and rose again to prove He was God Almighty. If we reject this, we’re failing to submit. It’s our soul’s defiance that lands us in Hell, not whether or not Christ died. Christ didn’t need to die for us to get saved. But Christ has presented us with a whole host of new information which we now have to accept.

As long as Paul rejects the Divinity of Christ, his gratitude over Christ’s death is meaningless. If some human leapt in front of you and took a bullet on your behalf, you’d feel intense gratitude towards that person. You’d credit them with saving your life. But is this going to get you saved? No. Being grateful for the sacrifices other humans make on our behalf doesn’t do bumpkus to get us right with our Gods. It’s no good wowing over Christ’s death on a cross as long as you’re just seeing a human being hanging there. You have to be submitting to Christ as God in order to get saved.

Q: Is the Old Testament a god?

All references that you find to Scriptures in the New Testament are only referring to the Old Testament. No one who contributed to the New Testament had ever heard of it, so it’s more than a little stupid for us to say that Paul was referring to our modern day two testament bibles when he said “All Scripture is God-breathed.”

Today in the Church, the Bible has become deified and treated not only as a god, but as a higher authority than the real Gods. This is why we say asinine things like “God can’t ever go against His own Word.” What we mean is that God is somehow bound and restricted by this book we carry with us to church. Utterly absurd. The Bible is not alive, it is not an entity, and it certainly doesn’t limit the real Gods in any way. We get these idiotic notions from Paul, who viewed the Old Testament similarly to how we view our Bibles today.

For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. But Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. (Gal. 3:21-22)

Righteousness has never been a matter of perfectly obeying all of Yahweh’s Laws. This is no duh obvious, so why is Paul making such an epic issue out of righteousness not coming through the Law? It doesn’t matter that righteousness never came through the Law because we’ve always been able to gain the acceptance of our Creators through submission, and submission is a soul choice which we don’t need a book to help us make. So what’s with this guff about Scripture locking everything up under the control of sin? Notice how Paul just keeps cranking out these minor deities: Death, Sin, and now Scripture. And every time Paul invents a new god, he ascribes all kinds of power to it. The Old Testament has locked up everything under the control of sin. That sounds impressive. Death has Christ pinned to the ground. Wow. Too bad Paul has to be such a tightwad when it comes to ascribing the real God some power. But when it comes to Christ, Paul emphasizes limitations instead of greatness.

Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. (Gal. 3:23-25)

What happened to Yahweh? Apparently He’s gone off to another part of the universe and left us in the clutches of the Old Testament, Death, Sin, and now the Law. According to Paul, the Old Testament had the whole world locked up in sin before Christ. Really? So lust fests like the Song of Songs have the power to control the world? Wasn’t that just idiot Solomon droning on about how he couldn’t wait to jump in the sack with the next one in the lineup of his 1,000 recorded lovers? Apparently not. According to Paul, the Old Testament is quite a formidable power which actually alters the status of the world. And then there’s that Law—notice it’s not Yahweh who has the power, just His written Laws. Between the Old Testament and the Law, the world didn’t stand a chance. It was clearly trapped. Good thing this “faith” came along and busted us loose from our oppressive guardians. But wait—faith in what? Faith that Christ is some human bimbo who can’t figure out how to conquer death? That faith really isn’t going to get us very far.

Q: What should our spiritual priorities be?

What is the soul attitude that saves us? Submission, of course. Submission to our three glorious Gods (see Emotionless Submission: Why You Don’t Need Tears to Get Saved). But Paul doesn’t have any use for submission, which is why you’ll find he doesn’t talk about it. Paul is all about the exaltation of Paul, which is why he likes to imply that God can’t possibly manage to reveal His truths to anyone without Paul’s help.

But how can people call on God unless they believe in Him? And how can they believe without hearing about Him? And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who announce the gospel of good news! (Rom. 10:14-15)

Paul is a preacher. How humble of him to call his own feet beautiful. But the real pip comes in 1 Corinthians when Paul takes the credit for saving the Christians there and talks like he alone imparted saving wisdom to them.

For even if you had ten thousand others to teach you about Christ, you have only one spiritual father. For I became your father in Christ Jesus when I preached the Good News to you. So I urge you to imitate me. (1 Cor. 4:15-16)

You gotta love teachers who tell people to imitate them instead of God. And then there’s poor Timothy, who Paul turns into his personal promoter. According to Paul, Timothy goes around telling everyone how awesome Paul is.

That’s why I have sent Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord. He will remind you of how I follow Christ Jesus, just as I teach in all the churches wherever I go. (1 Cor. 4:17)

So Paul goes around teaching everyone about how great he is at following Christ? Well, why not? The man’s ego is out of control. It would have to be for him to make a statement like:

Imitate me, as I also imitate Christ. (1 Cor. 11:1)

Do you know what Yahweh says He hates over and over again in the Old Testament? Arrogance. Self-exaltation. Paul has buckets of these things and he doesn’t mind filling his letters with them. No one can get saved without preachers like Paul. Everyone should imitate Paul. And by the way, Paul works harder than every other apostle (1 Cor. 15:9). Oh, and he’s the worst of all sinners.

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. (1 Tim. 1:15)

Whether it’s serving or sinning, Paul insists that he’s number one. So while Yahweh says it is humility that pleases Him, Paul tells us to imitate him while he flaunts his endless arrogance. Nice. But this isn’t the only area in which Paul promotes a reversal of God’s priorities.

What is the first and greatest command? To love our Gods. They are first, people are second. But we can always count on Paul to reverse what our Creators say. Paul says it’s loving people that really counts.

The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (Gal. 5:6)

As far as Paul is concerned, faith is only valid if it’s expressing itself through love. The disciple John really gets on the love trip as well. John takes it to such ridiculous extremes that he condemns you as a child of Satan the minute you stop loving every human around you. John says:

Whoever claims to love Yahweh yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love Yahweh, Whom they have not seen. (1 John 4:20)

See how it works? Our Gods have always taught that loving Them is what is supremely important, and that the primary way we express that love is through soul submission. But John and Paul flip this around and say it’s your love of other humans that is supremely important. As Paul says in his famous “Love is…” poem:

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor. 13:13)

Read through 1 Corinthians 13 and you won’t find a single mention of God. Paul isn’t talking about a love for God here, he’s talking about a love of human beings. He says your love for people is more important than your faith in God. Then John comes along saying that if you don’t love other people, clearly your faith in God is invalid. Isn’t that nice? But don’t worry–according to John, we’re all going to Hell anyway because we sin, and no real Christian sins. You might claim to be a child of God, but do you sin? Yes, you do, so obviously you’re really a child of the devil—at least according to John.

Everyone who has been born of God does not sin, because His seed remains in him; that person is not able to sin, because he has been born of God. This is how God’s children—and the Devil’s children—are made evident. Whoever does not do what is right is not of God, especially the one who does not love his brother. (1 Jn. 3:9-10)

It turns out that Yahweh and Jesus are a whole lot easier to succeed with than the New Testament apostles.

Q: Does Yahweh approve of the worship of non-Gods?

Therefore Yahweh exalted Christ to the highest place and gave Christ the Name that is above every Name, that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of Yahweh the Father. (Philip. 2:9-11)

Once you understand that Paul thinks Christ is just a man, this passage gets a real sour note to it. What Paul is really describing is Yahweh exalting a mere created being and demanding that we all bow down to him. Wow. No, absolutely not. Yahweh says His Name is Jealous. He utterly despises His creatures worshiping anyone other than their Creators, so there’s no way Yahweh is going to stand around glorifying some mere mortal who got a lucky promotion. Notice how Paul says it will glorify Yahweh if we all bow to a lesser being and declare that being to be our “Lord”. Well, no, this doesn’t glorify Yahweh at all, it majorly irks Him. See what a mess you get into once you reject the Divinity of Christ?

Q: Is a God the same as a Lord?

You have to understand something about ancient Jewish culture. To them, the term “lord” was like the English title of “Sir.” It showed respect, it didn’t suggest Divinity. Sarah called Abraham her lord. The Jews called Jesus Lord—not because they thought He was God, but because they were impressed with His miracles. Jews called Baal their lord as well. The term lord gets tossed around all over the place, but it doesn’t mean anything. A lord is not a God in the ancient Jewish mind. The same Hebrew word of adonai was used for both men and Yahweh, but you didn’t call mere mortals your el or elohim, for those terms specifically referred to deities.

Look through Paul’s writings and you’ll notice that he never refers to Jesus as anything higher than a mere “lord”. We capitalize this title in English out of respect for Jesus and because in English, all titles are capitalized. But for Paul, calling Jesus “Lord” simply conveyed great respect, not the acceptance of Divinity. Calling Jesus “Christ” was the same as saying Jesus was Yahweh’s Messiah—again, this is meaningless. The Jews fully expected the long foretold Messiah to be a mere human being. That’s how Paul views Jesus. Jesus is just a super Elijah—He’s a human who Yahweh chose to perform extra great miracles through and then heap all kinds of rewards on in Heaven. Jesus did a special mission for Yahweh on earth, so now He gets to temporarily reign. Well, whoopee. If this is all Christ is, we should hardly be worshiping Him, for Yahweh tells us not to worship anyone other than a real God, and a real God wouldn’t have the temporary, limited powers that Paul says Christ has.

So if Paul was so delusional, why did he strive so hard to please Christ? Doesn’t the apostle’s great sacrifice prove that he was on the right track theologically? Certainly not. There are plenty of Muslims, Buddhists, and Mormons in the world today who are willing to die for their beliefs. Self-sacrifice means nothing. Today people put their lives at risk to save whales, monkeys and trees. They work themselves into the ground trying to build up businesses which sell products of no eternal value. Just because a man is willing to be tortured and imprisoned for his beliefs doesn’t mean those beliefs are correct. Paul rejects the Divinity of Christ. There’s just no way we can treat this as a minor issue.

FURTHER READING:
Learning from the Prayers of Paul
How the NT Epistles Define Christ: Not God, Just Another Flawed Human

https://924jeremiah.wordpress.com/2015/09/02/the-great-offense-of-paul-rejecting-the-divinity-of-christ/