The Truth Which Sets Free - Chapter 3. The House Of God?

An exposure of the false teaching of Christianity concerning the reason for evil and suffering. This is one of the most challenging and deepest areas in the Word of God.

The following four booklets are now also included in the Addendum of The Truth Which Sets Free.

Raising the Dead

Spirit of the Living God

Amazing Grace

Harlot Babylon

Acknowledgements and Sources

Chapter 3. The House of God?

William Tyndale (1494-1536AD) was the first person to translate the Bible into English from the original Greek and Hebrew. He commanded eight languages at a time when Hebrew was virtually unknown in England. A brilliant Oxford and Cambridge scholar, he tried first to seek church backing for his accurate translation of the scriptures into English. Rebuffed, he quickly realized that the church did not want the people to be able to read the Bible for themselves, that the church was in fact the enemy. Like Christ, Tyndale was criticized for frequenting public houses where he held open discourse with other elect notables and "commoners." Church leaders declared that any translation by Tyndale would be regarded as illegal, "unauthorized" by both church and state. To the bishops his message was unmistakable, "I will cause the boy that pushes the plow to know more of the Word then you do." And he alluded directly to the inherent blindness of the church: "The kingdom of God, which is the Scripture and Word of God, may be so locked up that he which reads and hears it cannot understand it." (Introduction to Tyndale’s New Testament, Yale Press)

Tyndale had given notice that the church was no better than the Pharisees of old, capable of reciting the texts in utter ignorance. In his other writings there is a distinct theme, the joyous discovery that the Bible tells of "an individual faith without the paraphernalia and repression of the Church." (Introduction to Tyndale’s New Testament) The battle lines were drawn and Tyndale’s days were numbered. As the heat on him intensified, he fled his native England for the Netherlands. Shipwrecked on the way, his manuscripts were lost. Undaunted and financed by supportive London merchants, Tyndale began again and finally produced his first edition of the New Testament. Copies can be seen in the British Museum and Library with accompanying notes describing the incorrect words that were at last expelled from the text because of his meticulous translation.

The Church was quick to respond. Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), so deviously portrayed as a godly man in the Roman Catholic propaganda film, "A Man For All Seasons," called Tyndale "a beast, hell-hound, deceiver, hypocrite." More published his longest book, "The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer," in two volumes (1532-33) to refute Tyndale and define "what the church is." Yet all he could actually criticize in Tyndale’s work was that he had translated Greek words for elder and congregation as just that, and had discarded the incorrect words such as "priest" and "church" which existed in Rome’s Latin version. Tyndale did in fact use the word "church" in his version, but only where it correctly belonged, meaning pagan temple. (e.g. Acts 19:37; the Greek root word here is hieron) More was incensed; he knew the implications of this exposure, being an intensely religious man who flagellated himself, wore the hair shirt of penance, an ardent champion of apostolic succession and totally in love with churchdom. Educated and yet unforgivingly brutal, he flogged people who would not renounce what Luther taught or Tyndale had translated. His own cellar contained a rack to further persuade "heretics" of their error. He organized raids on the homes of people thought to be supporting Luther or Tyndale, leaving many to die in prison and sending six to be burned at the stake. One of these, James Bainham, said in his last words, "I die for having said that it is lawful for every man and woman to have God’s book, that the true key to heaven is not that of the bishop of Rome." Still, Tyndale’s version was selling like hot cakes to the common folk. For the church to survive, he had to be stopped. The hunt for Tyndale intensified. His location in Europe was finally betrayed. The church did not risk bringing him back to England for trial. He was strangled and burned at the stake. Think about this for a moment. They killed this man for the "crime" of desiring accuracy and truth in the Word of God. They would do it again and again to some of the brightest minds as they came into the Light, one by one, Ridley, Latimer, Wishart and a host of others, burned at the stake by pious archbishops like James Beaton. The church had again revealed its true nature. In a black twist of destiny, More was also beheaded, by Henry VIII, the self appointed head of the newly created daughter of Rome, the Church of England, for his clinging to the Pope as his ultimate authority. The murderer, More, went bravely to his own death, albeit deceived and deluded. Like many a persecuting churchman, he firmly believed he was going to the right place. He still is a great favorite of the Christians, the quintessential incarnation of intolerant church and suppressive state combined (he was also Lord Chancellor). The fascist benefactor, Pope Pius XI (whom both Mussolini and Hitler credited in their rise to power), proclaimed him a "saint" in 1935, and in 2000, Pope John Paul II very appropriately made him the "patron saint of politicians." And Protestants think Rome has changed!

Worse was to come for Tyndale’s translation, which was so excellent, so true to the text and yet so exquisite in the use of English, that none could better it. He was said to have "given the English their language." But it was a complete exposure of the Church, including the Anglican, which had broken away from Rome under Henry VIII. This was supposedly a kind of English Reformation. It was nothing of the sort. Henry broke away because the Pope (and hence More) would not condone his divorcing the first of his many wives and also because it allowed him to seize vast properties and monasteries from Rome. Ironically, he kept a title given to him by the Pope, "Defender of the Faith." That title is still carried by English monarchs and they do defend the Anglo-Catholic faith and priesthood most fervently (their extra-marital antics have not improved since Henry VIII either). The names changed but the threat of Tyndale’s editions remained. So, under the State and Church, a panel of translators was assembled to prepare and publish an "Authorized" Bible, also known as the King James Version. "Astonishment is still voiced that the dignitaries who prepared the King James so often spoke with one voice, apparently miraculously. Of course they did: the voice, never acknowledged by them, was Tyndale’s." (Introduction to Tyndale’s New Testament) Their version was more than nine tenths Tyndale.

This is quite amazing. Tyndale had suffered his writings being secretly altered and re-issued in his own time. He likened such deceivers to "foxes peeing on another’s territory" to claim it as their own. (200 years later John Wesley, the father of American Revivalist preaching, used the same tactic with books that exposed his theology.) But it is unlikely that Tyndale foresaw as great and pitiful a scam as the King James Version. The translators reintroduced the word church or churches over one hundred times in the New Testament, where the word should have read "elect" or "assembly" or "gathering." The entire sense was changed, maintaining the base for such notions as "going to church", "church building", "church planting", "church membership", "church denomination" and endless indistinct, overlapping and confused double meanings. This act was absolutely deliberate. With this altered Bible issued to households across the realm, the Church was back in business and its ministers and clergy were back on the payroll. For those who desire a true translation, Tyndale’s version is still available, published by Yale University Press. At the very least we should go though our own Bibles and cross out the word "church," and replace it with the correct word (gathering, assembly, called, elect, meeting). Like the anti-Christ who stands in "stead" of Christ, so too this deceiving word, which stands in lieu of the truth, must be eradicated. We wait for Jesus to slay the "man of sin", but there is no reason to wait for "church" to be erased from all the locations in scripture where it does not belong. To insert the correct words in your Bible version, see the next chapter in this book.

Tyndale was under no illusion about the church of his day. Like the other leading lights he knew that the Babylon of Revelation was the Church, or Christendom, that the anti-Christ was "the child of perdition, the wicked bishop of Rome." (Introduction to Tyndale’s NT) Only two people in scripture are given that name, the anti-Christ and Judas. In using this term, the link was made between Judas and the Pope, indicating that the Vicar ("substitute") of Christ was indeed a successor of an apostle, but not Peter. Tyndale went much further than his counterparts because in his painstaking and meticulous translation (contemporaries noted that he was fanatical and fearful of God in this matter, that he should be accurate), he realized that the problem was inherently the church. It was not just a church with a bad leader, or a church that was once good and had gone rotten, but the very church itself that was bogus. Christianity itself was the problem. Unthinkable? Consider for a moment its history and its witness to the world. Has it ever remotely been a reflection of the early disciples, anything like Christ talked about? Never. Luther thought the church could be reformed. But to reform means to somehow restore back to a better original, and this original is false from the start. Reformation does not work. It just creates more churches, and they end up no better off than the mother back in Rome. What God has not created cannot be restored to please him. How much the church consists of the world or the flesh or the devil (or whatever combination) is really not of consequence to the elect. All that God requires is that his elect avoid it, get out and away. (Romans 16:17; 2 Corinthians 6:17,18; Ephesians 5:7; 2 Thessalonians 3:6; 2 Timothy 3:5 Revelation 18:4,5).

Yes, get out. And not dolefully, as though it is the called that have a problem, as though they were leaving something to be cherished. The disease is back there in the church, which has every reason to be glum, even to despair, to label the departing elect as "judgmental" or whatever excuses their minds can conjure. But the elect are released! "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free…if the Son makes you free you are free indeed." (John 8:32,36) We are no longer slaves like the clergy to whom Jesus was talking, but free! (Galatians 5:1,13; 2 Corinthians 3:17) Make no mistake about this. Jesus Christ sets people free from everything except their complete allegiance to him, free from self, free from the world, free from the state, and free from the church. He sets them free from all the elemental spirits of religion and churchdom (Colossians 2:8,20,21; Galatians 4:8-10). If the elect are not rejoicing at this fact then they are still, like the escaping Israelites, craving after the "things back there" in Egypt. Forget them. You have passed from death to life, from darkness into light. (John 5:24; 1 Pet 2:9) Do you think the church is happy about this? By no means. It has always reviled the elect because they are set free, and will attempt to bring them back into spiritual bondage. (Galatians 2:4) The church will appear to follow Christ but only for the free ride and the easy bread. (John 6:26) Even tasting the sign of physical healing will not help them. When Jesus cured ten lepers it only saved one of them. Nine still "went to church" without awakening. (Luke 17:11-19) How this truth enrages them! When Jesus went into synagogues and revealed the facts about God’s sovereign choice in salvation (election) the churchmen hated it so much they tried to kill him before it was his appointed time. (Luke 4:25-40) If they crucified Christ will they be more tolerant of his disciples? If they so treated the Master, shall the servant receive a better deal? Not likely. So why be distressed with this disfigured thing called the church? Like the Jerusalem temple its days are numbered, but unlike the Jerusalem temple it is not from God in the first place, neither will its destruction be by the hand of man but by God personally. Just as the head of the deceiving church, the Anti of Christ, will be slain by the breath of Jesus’ coming (2 Thessalonians 2:8), so also God reserves the destruction of the entire Church for himself. Every one of those cathedrals, every temple and monastery, every sanctuary and retreat, every spire, every so-called "house of god," will be leveled. They are not of his making or pleasure. This is an astonishing thing, and the world will stand agog when it happens.

4. Right Word, Right Place