Who Is This Other Jesus?

I have another post today that I want to start with a question. What was the apostle Paul talking about in the following passage of scripture? “For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him” (II Cor. 11:4). Think about it, and while you’re thinking, consider that all of the congregations in Asia that Paul established in Christ, by the end of his life were turned away from the truth he taught them (II Tim. 1:15). Oh yeah, and consider also that it was men claiming to be apostles and ministers of the Gospel of Christ who turned them away (II Cor. 11:13-15). Okay, he said “another Jesus,” so these false ministers had to be preaching Jesus, just not the way Paul preached Jesus. And he did say “another Gospel,” so these false apostles did have to present what they were teaching as the Gospel of Christ. Otherwise it would not have fooled people who had already been baptized with the holy Ghost into the body of Christ (I Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:3). Not only so, but these false apostles and ministers had to be people who had believed on Jesus and received the Spirit, otherwise they certainly could carry no weight with people who HAD been that far in the faith. And let’s not forget the scriptural reality that these false ministers who troubled the congregations that Paul established were Jews, because their error was to try to subvert Gentile believers into believing that they had to keep the ceremonies of the old covenant (II Cor. 11:22,23; Acts 15:1).

So these men presented themselves as the absolute religious elite of their day, and they had all the scripture one could wish for to back up every single thing that they taught, or so it seemed. You see, there were no new testament writings, only the letters that Paul had written to these congregations. So it was their word against Paul’s, and the scriptures appeared to back up their word, and not Paul’s. Paul taught the Gentile believers that just being “in Christ,” and following hard after the holy Spirit of God that put them there, was all that believers needed in order to be complete (I Cor. 12:13; Rom. 8:14; Col. 2:10). Make no mistake, Paul taught everything that he taught FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT, just after a spiritual order rather than carnally. And that was the worship and service of God that Jesus said alone would be acceptable to God under the new covenant (Philip. 3:3; Jn. 4:23,24). Paul taught the Gentiles, who had never been under the law, that being one with Christ by means of his Spirit was the most you could attain to; and that the ceremonial law was fulfilled and done away by the coming of the Spirit, which Spirit IS the fulfillment of that law (I Cor. 6:17; Gal. 3:27; Rom. 8:4; Rom. 10:4). But these other ‘apostles’ taught the Gentiles that they were NOT complete in Christ without ALSO keeping the ceremonial laws of the old covenant that pertained to the flesh only (Act 15:1; Gal. 4:9-11,17-21; Col. 2:16,17). And as Paul told Timothy in his last letter, those false ministers did win out and subvert the spirits of most of the Gentile believers that he had originally preached to and taught in Christ (I Tim. 1:15).

Seeing that God moved away from the Jews after they rejected Jesus and the apostles, and moved toward the Gentiles, where do you think that this subversion led to? I assure you there has been no apostle Paul since he left here, to restore the Gospel to its first estate; and there is no other true Gospel other than the one he taught, which was in fact the holy Ghost fulfilling the law and believers being and staying filled with that same holy Ghost (I Cor. 6:11; I Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:14; II Cor. 3:17; Col. 2:6; Gal. 5:18). The point here is that the ‘Gospel’ that has been handed down through the ages has been heavily mixed with the “other Gospel” that Paul warned of, about the “other Jesus” that he mentioned, perpetrated by ministers who have kept the same lies alive that were first dictated by those who troubled Paul’s congregations. Think about it, there was nothing carnal or ceremonial in the Gospel that Paul taught, but the false apostles taught the Gentiles to KEEP ceremony ALONG WITH having the Spirit. There is only one faith my friend, and it is the one that produces the one experience that takes away sin, and gives true divine power to the believer to keep sin out of their lives and spirit (I Cor. 6:11; Acts 1:8). That experience of faith is the baptism of the holy Ghost, and providing it was the entire reason that Jesus left heaven and came to earth (Mk. 1:7,8; Acts 1:4,5). That experience my friend is TRULY all you need, and more of it (I Cor. 12:13; II Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15). That is it, and that is the Gospel that Paul preached. Everything else is just an element of the ‘Gospel’ that Paul mentioned to the Galatians, that being “another Gospel, which is not [really] another, but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ” (Gal. 1:6,7). Amen