By Richard Edmondson
Leftwing-Christian.net
Whether the July 22, 2011 terror attack in Norway was, or was not, a false flag operation—and whether Anders Breivik did, or did not, act alone—one thing is for certain. Insofar as children and teens were the principle and deliberate targets, the atrocity revealed a level of malevolence scarcely seen or imagined before. Perhaps the only thing that could compare to it would be the deliberate targeting of Palestinian children by Israeli soldiers during Operation Cast Lead.
An interesting poem entitled Verses of the Universe, was recently posted by Nahida the Exiled Palestinian. Postulating that laws of science, such as the second law of thermodynamics, apply not only to matter and energy but also to human behavior and society, the poem includes the following line:
The second law of thermodynamics states that energy/matter always disperses, spreads out and moves in one direction—with time—towards equilibrium, so should wealth in human civilization.
To carry the analogy a step further, one could also theorize that the biological properties of viruses—their propagation and spread—also have some obvious parallels in human behavior, with its occasional diseased convulsions. As the virus spreads, the convulsions become more frequent, until eventually we find ourselves with an epidemic on our hands. So far as I know, it was Eileen Fleming who first drew an analogy between Christian Zionism and the Antichrist, writing: “The cult of ‘Christian’ Zionism is what the concept of the Anti-Christ is all about. This heretical theology of Premellenial Dispensation worships a god of Armageddon and not the God of love, forgiveness and compassion that Jesus/AKA The Prince of Peace taught.” Christian Zionism has indeed become an “Antichrist virus” (for lack of a better metaphor) that has caught hold of Christianity and spread to near epidemic proportions. So acute is the problem, I suspect that what we are headed toward now is a rupturing of the faith similar to what took place in Judaism 2000 years ago with the rise of Christianity. In fact, one Catholic blogger has gone so far as to suggest that Christian Zionists are not Christians at all, but are in reality “Noahides”:
Christians are not supposed to support Zionism. Nor are Christians supposed to support Judaism, as the religion itself seeks to undermine Christianity by sponsoring a new religion for Gentiles called Noahidism. Make no mistake about it, the purpose of this religion is to replace Christianity in the distant future.
The blogger is correct. Noahidism, based upon the so-called Seven Laws of Noah (see video), is a Talmudic construct that has been heavily promoted by the Chabad Lubavitch movement. It does not encompass any belief in Christ, who in fact is vilified by the Talmud.
In the New Testament we find five occurrences of the word “antichrist,” all of them appearing in the letters of John and four of the five in John’s first letter. 1 John is an especially interesting text, for not only does it introduce us to the concept of the Antichrist, but the text also is the origin of the near universally-recognized adage that “God is love.” Is that not remarkable? That the same text that gives us the Antichrist doctrine, also propounds this universal, all-embracing message? We have the Antichrist and the antidote, if you will. Also noteworthy is that John speaks in terms not so much of a single Antichrist, but of many:
Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.
Who is referred to by the word “they”? Modern scholars by and large view it as a reference to early Gnostics, but I believe this interpretation is erroneous and a product of what has been referred to as “post-holocaust scholarship.” The vast majority of the gnostic texts discovered at Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945 evince a reverence for Jesus. A few of the texts do not mention Christ at all, but none, repeat none, denigrate or defame Jesus as does the Talmud. So no. John is not speaking of Gnostics. He is in reality referring to Jewish Christians who have left the faith and returned to the Pharisee fold. This is the only context in which 1 John really makes any sense.
But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist—he denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
Again—it wasn’t the Gnostics who were denying Christ. It was the Jews. We also have to keep in mind the date of the text. The letter most likely was written some 10 to 20 years after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. John, the youngest disciple of Christ, was now advanced in years. What was occurring at this time is the expulsion of Jewish Christians from their synagogues. So now that we know who the “they” are, let’s turn our attention to the “you.”
Who was John writing to? “But you,” he says, “have an anointing from the Holy One.” The aged disciple was probably addressing himself here to a group of Christians, possibly the Johannine Community itself, who had remained true to the faith. More than likely they were both Jew and Gentile, but by this time the latter may have numbered in the majority. As for John’s remark about it being the “last hour,” many modern scholars, often with derision, have construed it as an indication that the early Christians believed the world was about to end. But again, you have to view the text in its proper context. For Jews, in a way it was the last hour. The temple had been destroyed. The disastrous revolt led by Simon Bar Kokhba, who the Jews saw as their messiah, loomed on the horizon. What beckoned at the time John wrote this letter was, in a very real sense, a small window of opportunity. It was the last chance for Jews to break free of a virulent, racist ideology that would plague the Jewish people for the next 20 centuries; it was their last shot at coming to realize that God is love:
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
And again a few verses later:
God is love. Whoever lives in love, lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
It seems to me that John was speaking almost prophetically—and of course it’s not hard to see that a great deal of what lies behind modern-day Zionism is fear.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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