Covenant and Naturalization
I have an Evangelical Christian friend who believes the ordinances and covenants of the temple are an addition to the all-sufficient gospel of Jesus Christ. Although, Isaiah 2 says the Latter-day temple will bring the long-anticipated millennial peace on Earth, he interprets the temple to mean Christ alone. He believes all covenants and ordinances including baptism and the Lords Supper are unnecessary.
I know some atheists who believe similarly about covenants and ordinances. Many atheists believe anything religious is dangerous. However, I think this view may be due to a misunderstanding about what religion actually is. Pure religion, according to James 1:27, is about helping those in need, and living purified (in Christ). If our definition of religion involves anything else that these two things, it isn't religion.
I ask my Evangelical and atheist friends what they think about other covenants we make in our lives. Is reciting the Pledge of Allegiance silly? What about our politician oath of office or a new citicizens oath of naturalization? Are these purely pagan practices? What about a doctor's Hippocratic oath to 'do no harm'? And what about the marriage vows we make with our spouses. Atheists argue that religious people are dangerous. Maybe people that deny the foundation principles and covenants that make up the fabric of our society pose more of a danger.
Understanding the importance of covenant to society and our relationship with God, we should begin to understand why baptism for the dead is necesssry. If all people must be baptized by water and the spirit, then a just God would make heavenly citizenship available to both the living and the dead. Baptism for the dead are performed in temples, which are embassies of heaven. Those who serve in these heavenly embassies are its ambassadors- ambassadors of heaven.
Nicholas T. Wright, a preeminent New Testament scholar, wrote that modern Christianity misunderstands Paul's justification by grace thru faith and the gospel by interpreting Paul according to the 16th century protestant-catholic debate and not his first century jewish-christian context. Jews observed many commandments that did not involve right and wrong. When Paul taught that men were not saved by works of the Law, Paul was referring to the Law of Moses and not the moral Noahide Laws.
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Noahide Laws. ?????????????????????????
These are Talmudic Ranbbinic
On March 20, 1991 President Bush, Senior, signed into law a Congressional Joint Resolution entitled, "A Joint Resolution To Designate March 26, 1991, As Education Day, USA". The title seems so innocuous that no one would think twice about it if they happened to just see it; however, this law is very sinister in its implications. It is typical of the New World Order Planners to devise innocent sounding words, phrases, and titles to mask their true intentions.
Public Law 102-14 states emphatically that all civilization from the beginning has been based upon a set of laws entitled "The Seven Noahide Laws". I bet you did not know this, did you? You probably believed that the Jewish Bible was the basis upon which civilization was based. What are "The Seven Noahide Laws" and from whence did they come? These seven supposed universal laws, according to the Encyclopedia Americana, p. 737, state that they are:
"a Jewish Talmudic designation for seven biblical laws given to Adam and to Noah before the revelation to Moses on Mt. Sinai and consequently, binding upon all mankind."
Don Bell correctly reports that these laws originated from the mystic Babylonian Talmud, which no Christian has ever accepted as inspired sacred Scripture. In fact, the Talmud is that collection of man-made interpretations of the Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy) against which Jesus of Nazareth railed so intensely (Matthew 15:1-20; Matthew 23:1-39; John 8:43-47). The Talmud was taught as being equal with God's inspired Word, even though the practical effect of its teachings were so often the exact opposite of what God had intended.
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