The cross of the Hollow Cross: Shopping for Eternal Insurance

“Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone” (Ja. 2:17).

“Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works” (Mt. 7:22)?

“But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions” (Mt. 19:22).

“And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day” (Mt. 11:23).

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James, in Luther's opinion, carries on where Jesus left off--a reckless and irresponsible use of language. For nothing has caused the Church so much trouble as the Sermon on the Mount, which the heathen, since Constantine turned the Church into "the king's chapel," sneer "has never been tried." They point to the rivers of blood during the Crusades and the forever wars of the Europeans as proof that since Augustine, Luther and Calvin, the Church would have crucified the Son of God afresh had He appeared calling on men to "take up the cross." That, they said, is optional, and "the cross" cannot be spoken of at "the Cross," for the unthinking masses ("this people is cursed who listen to fake news") will take the bit in their mouth and turn it into a New Law. For Luther and Calvin, Christianity was something to be added to life to make it better. It was not a New Life in the Kingdom of God. The notion that a young woman divorced by her husband should spend the rest of her life alone bordered on madness and unspeakable cruelty. This is why Protestants consider what Jesus said about remarried-adultery (if intended literally) as the most reckless and reprehensible statement in all of literature, as no other statement has created as much anguish and misery. Which is why all teachings of Jesus must be seen as idealistic and mystical parables even when He seems to teach "with authority." But who knows what He really meant? The Church would have been infinitely better off if He had left the explaining to Paul, instead of leaving the Church with 4 large Gospels which have "never been tried." The Last Judgment, when He points to the fruit of "cup bearers," even as He hurls the hollow Cross preachers into the Fire, will be a great eyeopener.

To compensate, they so tunneled and funneled their formulas into the Scripture, that the Christ of the Gospels is turned into a mystical code, comprehensible to no one, while truth about Him is to be found in Paul, whom they turned into a latter day Moses in order to sanction their bloodshed and adulteries. This was necessary to keep up appearances. For having put the Church under the protection and umbrellas of Caesar to keep from suffering the fate of Jacob Hutter, they now had to cast Cain-Caesar as the chief of "the nursing fathers," "the pious magistrates" of "their Lord's Judicial." In short, the price of protection (and fine living) was to once again install Herod's bedroom in the Temple--with Herodias in it. As Henry VIII crowed when preacher Cranmer showed him how to trick the Bible to allow divorce, "This fellow hath the sow by the right ear." The sow turned the Church into a pigsty. Marriage is now indistinguishable from whoredom, and the gender-mutilation of children is what's left of the 7th Commandment. The violence in the home is equal now to the violence of 500 years of non-stop wars. This could not have happened without the destruction of the Bible, or wresting it from the hands of simple "cup-bearers" and making it useful for "the king's chapel." In so doing, Luther and Calvin filled the world with violence, and the Church with adultery. Slavery, the Holocaust, and Apartheid could not have happened had they not destroyed the teachings of Christ.

The Reformers now had to preach in Herod's bedroom, and having made a pact with Caesar to be spared the Inquisition, they were now in no position to stir up the holy conviction of John the Baptist that incurred the wrath of Herodias. They were left with empty formulas, none of which would trouble Herod. Remarriage-adultery would now become a rite of passage, and they had to serve up their children as cannon fodder--all in Jesus name, as with Generals Lee and Jackson. These "Jesus preachers" (not Herod/Hefner/Hesse/Himmler/Heydrich/Hitler) are the main feature on Judgment Day, "for judgment must begin at the house of God." They were in a hurry to create the visible kingdom of God on earth, much like the EU of today. But the Church is God's patient kingdom ("the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ"). Formulas are little more than snake oil: "a form of godliness, while denying the power thereof." Empty chaff. Fruit takes time and patience. Which is why Christ is in no hurry to get the rich young ruler on the church rolls. The desperate publican will tarry until he finds rest for his soul. "Let patience have her perfect work," says James. "True religion, and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit the widows and fatherless in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." This, to Luther, is heretical blasphemy against the Cross, and grace. But Luther was in a hurry. And he had to deliver the masses en masse to present a united front against the Inquisition. The Kaiser agreed to the formula and so the Kaiser was a Christian, for Luther and Calvin would most certainly not sit at the table of wicked pagans. This is precisely what gave rise to the Inquisition a thousand years earlier. Augustine loved the trappings of power the Emperor bestowed upon him, and when the Donatists began to murmur about spiritual defilement, Augustine counseled him to proceed against them with fire and sword. You can imagine what went on in that palace under the noses of the bishops. "What," cried Augustine, "they will excommunicate the Emperor himself, the nursing father and protector of the church, the minister of God?" Luther and Calvin took up where Augustine left off. Cain-Caesar now became the standard of church membership. This created a bar so low it would not have caused the Great Whore of Babylon to stumble. The Holy Roman Empire was now the Church--with everything in it. With Cain-Caesar presiding. Bishop Cranmer became Henry VIII's secret police, Calvin tortured his enemies at the stake before murdering them, and Luther made himself the architect of the mass murder of the peasants. He counseled his followers to volunteer as "hangmen." They had all the formulas, and no fruit. They sneered at James' too close mixing of "the cross" and "the Cross," when he said "faith without works is dead." There, Christ says on Judgment day pointing the the "water bearers." There is proof of James' "pure religion." But what is going on here? What does "not being weary in well doing" "until the saints rest from their labors" have to do with salvation? These were great preachers of "the Cross," who created careers "in Thy Name." "The devils," James would have told Luther, "have all the right formulas," "and tremble." But their "Lord-Lordism" was no more than staged activism. Showboating, pulpiteering, sensationalism, etc. Off stage, "they passed by the other side." They had a thousand formulas and exceptions as to who "their neighbors was." The young ruler was rich because he had no neighbors beneath him. Graham and Dobson became millionaires trading on the widow's mite. Now they curse "the stranger in their midst." "America is full," they say. They hear the "whoosh" of their emptying bank accounts. Empty chaff--with Trump as "the nursing father," what goes these days for "their Lord's Political." These simple water fetchers didn't have to act. They simply acted according to their redeemed nature, and were surprised when Jesus welcomed them. A good tree would be surprised to be told that his fruit is good. Why would a tree bear bad fruit? Like Christ, James knows the ground he's on. He's not peddling empty formulas that the devils already have. A simple Christian knows precisely what James is saying. He cuts close to the bone, between "the joints and marrow." "This now," a born again believer says. "is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh" when reading James. Like Christ, he's in no hurry to "get them saved" for the Lake of Fire. Again, Jesus does not change course, when confronted with unbelief. The Kingdom of God does not need a "rich man" on the deacon board. There goes another one, "for few will be saved." But Cain-Caesar does not sit among the few, and Augustine, Luther and Calvin, were determined to sit with Caesar, and had to adjust the Bible accordingly.

Why were the “Jesus preachers” (in thy name) cast into the Lake of Fire? Because their hollow faith “was dead.” Because they were no more than fruitless and vain janglers like Cheegro-preacher Rev. Criswell, who spent his entire life being coddled by the millionaires in his church. He was considered the greatest preacher in America. His predecessor, Truett, was even more famous. Years later, when they examined the church register, they found that it contained most of the ranking members of the KKK in its heyday. But he wouldn’t let his two “darky” servants into his church. But, my, could he “preach the Cross.” One hundred Nazis in the front pew and in the choir, and his two faithful servants could not so much as darken the church door. He will spend eternity as he lived, among the KKK. “Workers of iniquity” translates the Greek word anomos (the word nomos means “law” and the “a” means “not” as in “apolitical”)–that is lawless. They were heathens with “eternal insurance”--or so they thought. “They “believed like the devils," but unlike the devils, they told themselves that “dead faith” was still “saving faith,” and did not “tremble.” They preached “the Cross of non-effect,” for “faith without works is dead.” They preached a formula and now found themselves “judged by their lack of fruit.” Fruits, since the Reformation, are the optional works of discipleship. But discipleship is not salvation. You can be a Christian without being a disciple, just as you can be saved and not have “good works,” and though the lack of fruit will cause you to suffer loss, they will not make you “unsaved.” This is what these smooth Broadgate preachers practiced and preached. All in Jesus name. “We preached in your name,” they protested. Like the Pharisees, they had nothing but hollow formulas. Generals Lee and Jackson enjoy saint-like veneration in the Evangelical church. They were brutal killers. They took an example from Calvin, who tortured his enemies before killing then, and made the shedding of blood into a religious duty. They were doing it to protect the Church. The architects of these killers were in the pulpit. Lee and Jackson could give you all the formulas. But they were brutal killers. Their preachers preached and practiced a hollow Cross: “smooth things.” Unlike the “water cup bearers (“in my name”) who were ushered into the Kingdom, these apostates assumed they had insurance through empty and hollow formulas: “smooth things.” They abound like the flies on the stink of Beelzebub today: once saved, always saved, by faith alone, assurance of salvation, have you been saved, etc. Trump, they say, is saved, just not a disciple. He will suffer loss in the End. He has the formula. You do not bring "the cross" to the Cross. That comes after you are saved. If not, you will but suffer loss, because, like the rich man, you decided to “enjoy good things” on earth. The young ruler was looking for confirmation that he had checked all his religious boxes. He had an impressive list. Undoubtedly, one of the first men in Jerusalem. Hell will be full of first men and their preachers. He found “the easy yoke of Christ” an unbearable burden. The publican found “the cross” an easy yoke, for it is underwritten by the overflowing grace of the Cross. For “underneath are the everlasting arms.” The maniac of Gadarene blazed through Decapolis light as a feather, for his chains were gone. The Cross gave him wings, and the cross was to him an instrument of righteousness, whereby, like Christ, "he learned obedience by the things that he suffered.” All Old Testament Jewish rubbish, Luther said. Christ suffered, so you don’t have to suffer. If you still suffer after the Cross, it means you are not free. The Calvins were more crafty. They simply said, like the Pharisees, Yes, but who is my neighbor? Or what really is sin. Let’s see if we cannot devise a formula whereby the Herods, the Hefners, and the Hesses, can bypass the 7th Commandment. And if you become a politician you have the right to behead even your king (Charles I). If you need to kill, make sure you first legislate a law that makes your act legal. The Confederate Rev. Dabney wanted to legalize hunting down and killing the adulterer who seduced his wife, without resorting to the law. Few Evangelicals think Ahmaud Arbery was murdered, or that his killing had anything to do with the 6th Commandment. Killing, like divorce, has become a rite of passage among them. Killing under the 2nd Amendment will be done under the auspices of a Crusade, as when Luther promised his princes that they would earn martyrdom if killed in their war against the peasants. Pharisee doctrine allowed you to gain possession of a widow’s house under any pretext, and starve your parents under the legal trickery of the law of Korban. This is how you fatwa the Bible to create “the Cross of none effect” (1 Cor. 1:17). The “Jesus preachers” were surprised when, on Judgment Day, Jesus exposes their hucksterism by pointing to the mundane fruit of simple cross-bearers. These had read the Bible simply, and acted accordingly. It means what it says. What you see on Judgment Day is no more than a simple reading of the Sermon on the Mount. Literally.

The rich young ruler was shopping for insurance. He was not seeking the Kingdom of God. He wanted to be free from the anxiety of life after death. He was not hungering and thirsting after righteousness. Note how Jesus draws him along, and even tries to throw him off balance: “why callest thou me good,” “keep the Commandments and you will be saved.” Jesus implies that He Himself was “not good,” and that the young man could be saved by keeping the Law. Obviously, this man thought Jesus was no more than a good man, and if Jesus was not God, He was but a man, of which none are “good.” Secondly, Jesus plays along and holds up the mirror of the Law so that it exactly mirrors how this young man saw himself. “I’ve always done that,” he said confidently. You see here “I thank God I’m not like other men, even as this publican,” who cried out, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” Imagine that, Jesus actually confirms this man’s low opinion of Himself, and tells him to seek salvation in the Law. Why? This was stony ground. A genuine seeker will not be deterred. This was not a genuine seeker. He was but looking to make a good life better. He was hoping for a quick fix, so that he could go back and live like the rich man with the assurance that in the end he would end up “in Abraham’s bosom.” Moody would have had him processed in five minutes by leading him to Christ. He was there with Christ–he didn’t want to continue with Christ. But that’s optional, Moody would say. First Salvation, then we can talk about good works, discipleship, and repentance. The cross after the Cross, lest they make the cross into a new Christian Law which would be ten times worse than the Law of Moses. The Rev. Smooth wants him to “see Jesus.” The Gadarenes saw enough of Jesus to want to be rid of Him. But it’s all “taking up the cross” with this rich ruler. “You need to strike while the iron’s hot,” Moody would have said. Get them saved while you can. Jesus was in no hurry, because the Luther-Calvin formulas are but political expedients. Salvation is but an add-on to make your existing life better. It is not a new life. The shallow depth of mere legality. The soul travail of the publican is in no hurry. He will tarry until he gains mercy. The young ruler didn’t think he needed mercy. Like Capernaum, the ground was too hard. He had come to bargain, and found the price of the cross too high, because he saw no need of the Cross. He was not looking for the pearl of great price, because he thought he already had it. The publican was bankrupt in his soul, sunk in the mire pit, like the maniac of Gadarene who went on to preach in Decapolis. But what would this Pangloss have to proclaim under a “smooth” formula? He couldn’t wait to get back to his comforts. “I’m rich and I have kept the Law perfectly from my youth, and so can you"–self help. Sodom, Jesus said, would exist today, if it had seen what Capernaum saw. What was the problem? Capernaum would not repent. This young ruler saw no need to repent. He would have been overjoyed by the Rev. Smooth’s formulas. Luther would have sent him on his way rejoicing, because repentance has nothing to do with salvation. Get them to the Cross and worry about the cross later. Jesus is engaging in “strawy” Book of James rubbish here. He confused this poor man. He could have laid the ax at the root of the tree and said “You must be born again.” Everything Jesus says here, Luther and Moody would say, is contrary to “the preaching of the Cross.” That is, salvation by faith alone. Because, all you can see here is repentance and “taking up the cross.” Now go back to the publican, or the maniac of Gadarene, and see if they would have been “sorrowful” at anything Jesus said to the rich young ruler. Or if they would have seen “the cross” as an unbearable burden. The maniac took up his cross and went up and down Decapolis preaching the Cross–at his own expense. The publican, first and foremost, wanted relief from himself–he stood afar off smiting his breast with his eyes cast to the ground. The young ruler didn’t need the Cross because he didn’t think he was hopeless, and merely wanted confirmation that he was already bearing the cross sufficiently with his smug observance of a few do’s and don’ts. He didn’t know what sin was, because he didn’t know who God was. Frankly, he had not done so bad. He just needed assurance. He was looking for a formula–one that did not have repentance or suffering in it. “If Jesus paid the price for sin,” Luther would say, “what’s the point of needless martyrdom?” For martyrdom adds nothing to salvation at the Cross. Yet Jesus says nothing about the Cross to this young ruler. Why? He knew the rebellion of self-inflicted stony ground when he saw it. Do you think He would have gotten rid of the publican this easily?

But here we are again face to face with the Calvin-Arminian heresy: God told Cain to repent and he would be accepted. But Cain was nurturing “sin at the door” of his heart and had no desire to change. He thought the world was perfect as it was. He even acted the smart-aleck, uttering the most famous line of all time: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Why did God bother to “strive” with man, when in the end He was left with just “8 souls?” Could Capernaum have repented? Would Sodom have repented if they had been exposed to more Revelation? Jesus said they would have. But this leaves too many loose ends for those who sit at Caesar’s table. For politics is the religion of expedience, and government does not have the leisure of soul searching. Saul needed fireworks “now” to keep his kingdom intact, and when he saw the people leaving he forced the hand of God, only to have the prophet appear the minute he transgressed. God thus revealing the nature of politics with the clock. You compensate for patience with activism. Luther and Calvin were little more than theocratic activists. All politics is but mere activism, a counterfeit for “the kingdom and patience of Christ.” Luther and Calvin needed to see progress “now,” and they were not about to be burned at the stake not having seen it. They were but mere political activists, determined not to suffer the fate of one of the last victims of the Augustinian Inquisition, Jacob Hutter.

Look how quickly Jesus gave relief to the maniac of Gadarene. He was immediately qualified to preach the Cross with absolute clarity. Now go back to the muddle that is the rich young ruler and the unbearable cross that sent him off “sorrowful.” As with the Gadarenes, nothing could be done "because of unbelief."

Was God sincere when He invited Cain to repent? Could he not have quickened Cain so that he would want to repent? Could Cain repent if he was non-elect. If not, was God toying with him? To what purpose? Because He could? If Sodom would have repented under better preaching, then why did God not stir up the spirit of both Abraham and Melchizedek to bring revival to Sodom, since “He is not willing that any should perish?” Have you ever studied Jonah’s non-sermon? The worst preaching in History with the worst intent, no miracles, and a fervant wish for the curse of damnation on the part of the preacher. More than 128,000 heathen repented. “He reaps where He doesn’t sow.” How many believers were in the Kingdom of God during the preaching of Elijah? 7000. This is not even a handful. Was the Holy Spirit striving with the non-elect before the Flood? The unprofitable servant was certain that he was unto God in all this and called Him "a hard man." God was toying with man for no discernable purpose. He had God down to a formula: “He reaps where He doesn’t sow, so why should I bother.” Let unthinking plebs take up the cross and earn extra "talents." I’m versed in all the decrees of election. All the rest is window dressing for the unthinking plebs, who wear themselves out, needlessly, when the outcome is already predetermined. It only gets more blasphemous from here: God did not “so love the world,” but only the “the world of the elect.” “God is not willing that any (of the elect) should perish,” because God actually hates sinners. Jesus died only for the Elect. Total depravity means that neither Cain, nor the rich young ruler, nor Capernaum could have repented, because they could 1) not respond unless God regenerated them, and 2) their damnation has already been determined by the eternal decrees of election. Did Jesus know the rich young ruler, or Capernaum, could not repent? Why would the Holy Spirit “strive” fruitlessly with the non-elect knowing that because of their non-election they cannot repent? To all the more emphatically justify their damnation? If Jesus did not know that Capernaum could not repent, then how did He know that Sodom would have? These questions are inescapable and paralyzing once you exchange the Bible for “the traditions (teachings) of the elders." But look what happens on the Day of Judgment where Jesus welcomes the cup bearer who simple followed the simple language of the Bible. “One jot or tittle shall in no wise pass, until all be fulfilled.” “I have too many questions when it comes to the Bible, the translations, the interpretations, etc.," someone told me recently. “If you want to know what good hay is,” I said, “put it in front of sheep. The Bible was written for simple sheep. If they seem to understand it, it means they do.” The final Judgment could not be plainer. The sheep took Jesus literally. It was so ridiculous simply that the Jesus preachers simply ignored it. He could have said, “Didn’t you see what I said about the jot and tittle? But here I spoke plainly, page after page, in language that even pagans admit sounds too good to be true, because they understand it perfectly.” The simple language of the cross, without which the Cross remains hollow.

The greatest problem in the Church since Constantine hijacked it and turned it into the King’s Chapel was how to reconcile “what was done to Jesus” (crucifixion) with what “Jesus did and said” (his teaching and example). The later is summed up in “taking up the cross," the former in “the preaching of the Cross.” Luther saw “the cross” as little more than a backdoor to former Jewish Law-keeping, work’s salvation: the “strawy” and confused rubbish that you find in the Book of James and Peter. Jesus, the sentiment is, should have “died on the Cross” and left the explaining to Paul, who got it right. Instead the Church was left with the unbearable burdens found in the Sermon on the Mount, which, if taken literally, are ten times more grievous than the Ten Commandments. The race was on, then, to salvage “the Cross’ from being overwhelmed and subverted by “the cross.” For Jesus plainly says that without taking up “the cross” you cannot be “my disciple." This they did by leapfrogging over the Sermon on the Mount and turning Paul into a new Moses, who allowed them to continue as in Genesis 6, “filling the earth with violence,” and swapping wives of “all they chose.”

1. See if you can explain the difference between "taking up the cross" in the teaching of Jesus and "preaching the Cross" in Paul.

2. Was "the cross" how people got saved before Jesus died on "the Cross?" What does it mean today. Can a person, today, be saved by the Cross without taking up the cross?

3. Is taking up the cross the same as "good works?" Can a person be saved and not bear "good fruit?" Could the rich young ruler be saved if, instead of "selling all," met Jesus half way? Could a person repent half way and be saved? Could a person have faith without repenting? Could he believe enough to be saved, leaving repentance to be decided afterwards?

4. Why were the "Jesus preachers" cast into Hell. What kind of faith did they have? If they preached in His name, they must have somehow believed in His name. But the formula was ineffective. Why did it not save them?

5. Does Jesus, in pointing to feeding the hungry, imply that they were not saved by the Cross? Or is he merely pointing to what is lacking in the Jesus preachers." Like the unprofitable servant, they saw no need to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).

Brisk wind. Sitting here out of the wind typing with faithful Bander. He’s worth a thousand men. On cool days sheep love to run up and down the field hunting choice morsels. Look at the photos and you’ll see what’s for dinner in the “gleaning corners.” Look closely and you’ll see individual beans on the floor, and handfuls of purpose, almost. The beans are 40 percent protein, and the leaves and vines make filling snacks. What’s not to like? I love watching them forage as if they’re unto some great secret–free food. There is also high grass along the fenceline and in both ditches leading up to the yard. They would sniff at it in the summer, but now with winter fast approaching, not to be sneezed at. And here I am, in the middle of nowhere, (affn Steppe–we got that from Ukraine in the exact location that is now being drenched once again in blood. If you know anything about fertile ground, it’s what you see in the mounds next to freshly dug graves in Ukraine. Black, dense, and not a rock in it. My great grandmother, my Mom says, used to always talk about the rich black soil they farmed. It was the breadbasket of the ancient Greeks, and the Trojan War, which became the blueprint of all future glory-hunters, was fought for control of the narrow channel in Istanbul which Ukrainian harvests had to traverse to reach their lucrative markets). Right at the end of the lake (with island) runs the track that you read about in The Long Hard Winter (Laura Ingalls). This place is like the Garden of Eden in the summer, and like Mars in the winter. If you visited in February you would understand that rocketman Musk has never been here, otherwise, he wouldn’t boast about growing vegetables on Mars. Had the first explorers arrived here in winter, this area would still be unsettled, because they would have concluded that no human could survive it. I remember watching a fat little baby lamb skip from sheep to sheep while they lay chewing their cud calmly in their noble barn with a 40 below blizzard howling outside. I was tired from lack of sleep and trying to get a weak lamb to suckle. Yet here was a baby lamb frolicking in a tightly packed barn on the backs of the older folk. “It thinks everything will be alright,” I said. And I was greatly cheered by that. Time to head them back to the barn. I’ll finish this when I lead them out toward evening.