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Church. He succeeded in turning
this majority into a growing false
and counterfeit church.
During the first few months of
the true Church of God, the oppo–
sition in Judea was Jewish. Most
Jews refused to believe that Jesus
was the promised Messiah- God in
human flesh. But the 12 apostles
were eyewitnesses to Jesus' mes–
siahship. They had been with him
three and a half years befare his
crucifixion, and 40 days after his
resurrection. Many, though only a
minority of the Jews, believed and
were baptized by God's Spirit into
the Church. The Church, during
its first few years, was mostly Jew–
ish.
Then God sent Peter (Acts
l 0-
11) to the gentile Cornelius to open
salvation to gentiles. God raised up
the apostle Paul to head a great
gentile ministry. Sorne Jewish con–
verts then tried to bring the rituals
of the law of Mases, and circumci–
sion, upon gentile converts. They
wanted "more LA
w."
Paul and the
apostles opposed this and cleared
the issue through the Holy Spirit
(Acts 15). Then gentile false mem–
bers brought in the issue of "NO
LA
w."
They claimed the law of
God was done away- Christ had
nailed it to the cross. They taught a
false Jesus whom they represented
to have done away with his Father's
commandments.
So it was, that befare A.D. 50
(the Church had been founded in
A. D.
31)
a fierce controversy arase
as to whether the gospel to be pro–
claimed was the gospel
OF
Christ,
or a gospel
ABOUT
Christ.
Soon the curtain was rung down
on historie records of the Church.
It
attested the fact that a vigorous
cooperative and systematic effort
was made to destroy hi storie
records of church happenings of
the next hundred years. It was the
"LOST CENTURY" in church his–
tory.
When the curtain of history is
raised about A.D. 150, it reveals a
church calling itself "Christian,"
but one totally different from the
Church Jesus founded through his
apostles in A.D.
31.
The Kingdom ls Not the Church
Jesus ' gospel was the "gospel of the
kingdom of God"-the government
36
of God in the hands of the born
FAMIL
Y
OF Goo. The Church Jesus
founded brought God the Father
into the very lives of believers.
The disciples, during Jesus ' min–
istry, were WITH him who literally
w AS God in human flesh. After
Pentecost, when the Church was
founded, those baptized into the
Church
BY
tbe Holy Spirit were
also in clase personal contact and
communion with God and with
Christ (see I John l
:3).
God, and
Christ, through the Holy Spirit,
were IN the very lives of converts.
But, as the vast majority of pro–
fessing Christians apostatized, they
held only to a gospel
ABOUT
Christ. They turned grace into
license to disobey God as Adam
had done. They taught being
aooo-but it was only carnal,
human good. Their human spirit
was not united with God's Holy
Spirit-their minds not united with
God's. They carne to worship
Christ. But Jesus had said in Mark
7:7-8
they worshiped him in vain,
rejecting the commandments of
God, holding to their human tradi–
tions. lndeed, by today, this reli–
gion has come to call itself "tradi–
tional Christianity."
They began to build buildings
they called "churches"-with a
steeple atop, and a cross on their
facades.
A cardinal point of distinction of
the.one true Church from the many
professing sects and denominations
is this: The deceived churches of
this world put the focus on Christ.
God becomes unreal-a mystic
unreality. They are not taught that
Jesus carne to reveal the Father–
that Jesus carne to reconcile us to
the Father-that it is the Father
from whom our sins have cut us
off- ihat Christ's shed blood does
not of itself "save us" - give
u~
sal–
vation and eternal life. Rather (see
Romans 5:10) the death of Christ
reconciles us to God and we are
saved (given eterna! life) by Jesus'
resurrection, making possible the
gift of eternal life from God the
Father through a resurrection from
the dead. Jesus' resurrection made
possible our resurrection, for he
was "the firstborn [by a resur–
rection] among many brethren"
(Rom. 8:29).
The true Church has Christ in
the right perspective-as mediator
between us and God the Father–
·as personal Savior-as our present
High Priest at the right hand of
God the Father in heaven- as
Head of the Church- as coming
King and ruler UNDER God the
Father.
Jesus, as the second Adam, carne
to call those drawn by God "out
from among them" of this world
and even its counterfeit "traditional
Christianity," and to start a whole
NEW WORLD- a NEW CIVILIZA–
TION.
So, Satan succeeded in counter–
feiting the Church of God, which
Christ, the second Adam, founded.
But the gates of the grave HAVE
NOT prevailed against it.
True, on this building founded
on a Rock, the winds blew, the
floods carne, the opposition beat
heavily against it. Even the true
Church, in the struggle to stay alive
through the centuries of persecu–
tion and opposition, lost consid–
erable original TRUTH. But it held
fast to the true name of God the
Father, whose Church it is.
Jt
held
fast to God's spiritual law, the Ten
Commandments. It held fast to the
things HOLY TO Goo- his holy
Sabbath, paying God's tithe. For
this it was persecuted. But it has
weathered the storm.
1Began to Find the Answer
1
have described my own back–
ground and conversion. In that
original six months' in-depth study
and research regarding God's law,
1
carne among a group of brethren of
that Church. They were mostly
vegetable farmers in fhe Willam–
ette Valley of Oregon, in the north–
western United States. They were
humble, God-fearing people willing
to make any sacrifice to obey their
great God.
But,
1
wondered, could they pos–
sibly be the one true Church of
God founded by Jesus Christ'?
They were small, of no advanced
formal higher education. Yet they
were the ONL
Y
church
1
could find
who held to the Word of God and
his commandments. They held
faithfully to the things that are
HOLY TO Goo-his Sabbath and
paying his tithe. They held to the
true biblical NAME, " the Church of
Goo." No other church on earth
The
PLAIN TRUTH