"It was a vicious system that cut squarely across Christian truth. Warnings against it are reflected in John's writing...the movement beginning in the first century that degraded the deity, person, and work of Jesus Christ. No apostle felt more strongly about the false claims of the Gnostic's than did John. It is interesting that Freemasonry talks about the Holy Saints John when John the Baptist was pointing to Jesus as the one who would come to take away the sins of the world. He was pointing to Jesus. The Apostle John wrote to condemn Gnosticism which Freemasonry proudly adheres itself to, so that they lies of the Gnostic's about Jesus would be overcome.
Is that a problem? Gnostic's believe that there is the one true archetype of God and that all other gods, including Jesus, were simply a Demiurge (second level god who operates in the physical realm making things etc.)while the one true God is unknowable. However, we know that Jesus is presented in John chapter one as the Word one with the Father as eternal God. Colossians 1:15-20 says of Jesus:
16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.
18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.
20 and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.
New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995, S. Col 1:15-20
For the Gnostic, they choose to believe that Jesus as the image of the invisible God is a secondary god. Krishna is a secondary god. So, as Masons, the ones that have been told what is going on; have attained to the knowledge. These enlightened Masons believe that they have stepped past the secondary gods of all of the world religions, and through their esoteric (only for a special few) knowledge, are praying "through" all of these secondary gods to the Great Architect of the Universe who is the one true unknowable God. They are knowing him through the geometry of the universe and the contents of the universe that reveal him through order. You see Hobbs says that this Gnosticism reduces the work of Jesus from the truth that no one will go to the into the after life to any location but hell, unless they go through Jesus. It reduces the work of Jesus to the same level of any other secondary god. So when we as Christians say that everything that exists, exists by the word of His mouth, and that all other gods are false (including their philosophical concept of a grand architect of the universe), we are told that we are too sophomoric to understand. So if you are a Gnostic you believe that out there in the universe (and beyond) is a Great Architect of the Universe that is the true unknowable God that Jesus was simply trying to point us toward. He is not that God revealing Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When Jesus says, If you have seen the Father, you have seen me", He did not prove His deity, He reduced the Father to a secondary god as well. The triune God, to the Gnostic's is secondary to the unknowable Great Architect of the Universe.
I hate to tell you this, but you need a shot at getting this right. There is a reason that Jesus does not appear in your Texas monitor. You will find Jehovah, and you will find other designations. You can look in other writings and find "Christ", or "the Lion of the Tribe of Judah", but you will not find Jesus presented as the only way of salvation and the only way to God. Those Masonic articles that Larry Kunk referred to at the Grand Lodge websites are prepared to explain away those familiar titles. "Christ" as a title would be Jesus for the Christian, a Christ or messiah that has not shown up yet for the Jews, the Mahdi for the Muslim, or Krishna for the Hindu. The Lion of the Tribe of Judah is Solomon or David for the Jew, and can be any other kind of messianic character for other world religions. If you are going to make it to heaven based on the merits of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, that means you are going based on the "good example" of these various saviors.
Freemasonry is willing to let you stretch to get there in your own assumptions, but the special "esoteric" knowledge that they have is just old philosophy from the time of Plato and Aristotle that has been turned into a "religion" for those who are on the "inside" in Freemasonry. Still within the introductory pages of the Texas Monitor on page xi in full paragraph two in their own words, the material in the monitor is used in conjunction with esoteric work (shared from mouth to ear- later in the book) to get the the work of the Lodge done, as it were.
I know that there are all kinds of Christian images in Freemasonry, but as Gnostic's by declaration, these images are from a secondary Demiurge god. As a Freemason, either they believe this, or they believe that Jesus is just another name for the one true God like Allah, and Krisha, etc. If you don't believe any of that, then join Herschel Hobbs and leave gnosticism behind; especially those of you that are just finding out what is going on. If you stay, you will be leaving Freemasons all over the world with the impression that if they faithfully hold to the masonic teachings they will make it to the Great Architect of the Universe and his lodge. You know that is not true. The monitor says over and over that the Lodge is holding to the Holy Scriptures, and the bible (lower case) etc... Keep in mind that the book that is on the so called altar can be the holy book of any religion on the planet.
Freemasonry is simply a way to integrate all world religions into one. The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of all Mankind break down because of sin. We died as a result of sin, and the Bible (upper case) says that Jesus had to pay the penalty for our sin so that we could be adopted. Christians are not just more of the brotherhood of man. Because of sin, the Bible now identifies two groups on the planet: the children of God who have received Jesus in John 1:12 and everyone else that are identified as the children of the devil. Jesus says in John 3 that those who have not believed in Him are condemned already. Esoteric, gnostic philosophy with stole Christian terminology can not do for anyone what Jesus has done. Stop trying to get people into the lodge for the glory of the lodge. Come out of the lodge because of the warning of Jesus (it is His word) about world wide religion in Revelation 18. The Harlot of Babylon is all of the religions of the world pulled together until anti Christ gets through with her and destroys her so he can declare himself to be God, (also instead of Jesus). This is what the passage says about that kind of religion,
"I heard another voice from heaven, saying, 'Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.
Anyone that has read Herschel Hobbs knows that he believes in the exclusivity of the Triune God and the completed work of Jesus to save those who will be saved. Without Jesus, not a Christ or a Lion of a Tribe, without Jesus- no one will make it to Heaven.
No comments:
Post a Comment