Shabbat shalom kol beit Yisra'el and Mishpachah and welcome back to the House of Yahweh which I hope will also be a House of Rest for everyone today. We're going to take another break from our Book of Revelation Course following last week's correction of an error and an unexpected close examination of the Court of the Gentiles. The reason we're taking a break is two-fold: firstly, I have had a bad week health-wise and, secondly, because Yahweh laid a topic heavily on my heart that I knew he wanted addressing. In fact, what we're going to do today is another one of our 'back to basics' studies by looking at the very first Christian/Messianic Creed of all...and, no, it's not the Apostles' Creed but within the Bible itself. I want to ensure that everyone - present and future - coming to this work knows what the core teaching of the Gospel is, and why we must always emphasise it above everything else. I hope you'll enjoy today's excursion!

One of the great ironies - and for that matter, inconsistencies - of Christendom as represented by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and (in particular) the Protestant traditions, is that they require you to profess and confess what are termed the 'historic' creeds in order for you to be considered a bona fide or legitimate 'Christian'. The first six of these, most of you will be familar with:

• 1. The Didache or Teachings of the Twelve Apostles (AD 150?);
• 2. The Apostles' Creed (A 250-350?);
• 3. The Baptismal Creed of Jerusalem (AD 350);
• 4. The Chalcedonian Creed (AD 451);
• 5. The Nicene Creed (AD 325-589); and
• 6. The Athanasian Creed (Catholic) (5th century).

The best known and more important Protestant Confessions of Faith include.

• 7. The Augsburg Confession of Faith (Lutheran) (1530);
• 8. The Westminister Confession of Faith (Anglican)(1646);
• 9. The Canons of Dort (Reformed/Calvinist) (1618-19);
• 10. The London Baptist Confession of Faith (Baptist) (1689);
• 11. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (Evangelical) (1978); and
• 12. The Nashville Statement on Sexuality (Evangelical) (2017)

Here's the problem with the 'orthodox Christian world', as we see it: If you reject any of the first six creeds - or any part thereof - you are reckoned to be a 'heretic' and not, therefore, a true believer by orthodox Christian standards of faith, because for them these are non-negociable. Our problem, mostly, is that they have virtually assumed a scriptural status which they do not deserve. All of these creeds are, without exception, post-apostolic, meaning they were created after all the books of the Bible had been penned, often centuries later with only the first two falling within the first generation after the apostles, with the first two being hard to date precisely as they underwent modifications over time to incorporate new understandings thrashed out in debates by leading clerics. Unsurprisingly, there wasn't 100 per cent unanimity.

John wrote the last book of the Bible, his Third Epistle, at some time in the late 90's, so by then, all the books of the New Testament were around even if the New Testament canon itself was not finally decided upon for another two centuries, in AD 300. The important thing is that they were being used because they were considered authentic and authoritative even though no council of senior believers had 'pronounced' them to be 'official'. The original faith in sacred writing was more organic than legislative, the 'being agreed upon' was informal, rather than formal.

Now I said that 'in particular' the Protestants took this position because, unlike the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox who do not hold to this teaching, one of the Articles of Faith of Protestantism is the semi-magical Latin pair of words, Sola Scriptura or 'Scripture Alone' or 'nothing else but the Scriptures', to which are annexed other Latin phrases like Sola Fide or 'Faith Alone' which we don't have time to examine today. This Sola Scriptura stance distinguishes Protestants from Catholics/Eastern Orthodox who, whilst they absolutely also believe in the authority of Scripture (even though their collections are slightly different), also believe in the generationally received traditions and consider these as important to deciding what the true Christian faith is. They have solid reasons for believing this.

Essentially their position is that the apostles (and indeded Yah'shua/Jesus Himself) publically and privately taught a lot more than what was eventually written down and circulated that would eventually be collected together to form the New Testament. These unwritten teachings, they claim, would have been circulated too, but by word of mouth (orally) and remembered by those of the next generation who knew the apostles personally and had heard them preach in addition to reading their written gospels and letters which remained in circulation. Not everyone had 'Bibles' as we have them today, both because they didn't exist and were extremely expensive to produce, so more often than not they would hear these documents read out to them in their assemblies. People had better and longer attention spans in those days and were skilled at memorisation. The recollections and testimonies of these witnesses are therefore to be regarded as just as - or nearly just as - important as the written materials themselves - the oral teachings of those who have since become known as the 'church fathers'. Hence the claim that Scripture and tradition are important in determining what is, and isn't, the orthodox Christian faith.

In this matter the Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are quite right. But the problem, as always, with such a belief system is knowing how to sort out what was accurately remembered and what was not, because memories fade over time and inevitably distortions creep in. The original sayings become embellished over the centuries, the more so over the longer the period of time. Worse, there would be false brethren, seeking power and influence, who would falsify oral tradition and even later write false gospels and letters, and these would begin to circulate, causing great confusion. At the beginning of our Book of Revelation course, you may remember, we had to deal with this problem in the letters of the second century 'church father' Ignatius whose writings are very important to both Catholics and Eastern Orthodox in wooing Protestants over to their denominations. The problem, you'll remember, is that there are at least three versions of some of his writings which get longer and longer. Worse, it isn't at all clear that the very first of these is the original but itself has been tampered with. And we're here talking about written material, not oral which we have no recourse to.

It is because of issues like this that matters got worse and worse with each new generation, leading to lots of spurious, as well as fanciful and frankly unbelieverable, writings. These would mislead a lot of poorly educated and often very superstitious believers. Unfortunately, many of these writings have found their way into the Bibles of both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. And so the Protestants of the 16th century would rightly come to insist that only the earliest written accounts were 100 per cent reliable and should be placed in a category all of their own way above tradition and to the exclusion of all post-apostolic writings claiming to be authoritative, irrespective of whether they were or weren't genuine.

They have a very good point - not only are memories not always the most reliable but over time the teachings of men tend to creep in under cover, often in the name of a dead apostle (like Peter or Thomas) or ancient writer (like Enoch) in order to court legitimacy. Long after the first century many false gospels and letters attributed to the apostles were forged. You can easily find copies of them in print in various apocryphal and pseudepigraphical collections which I spent years wading through in my own spiritual journey. So whilst they are not entirely correct, the Protestant position is undoubtedly the safest one to ensure purity of teaching until Yah'shua (Jesus) returns and can sort everything out.

But there's a problem even if you have authentic writings: Scripture can only be properly and fully interpreted supernaturally by the Gift of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) and that in itself gives the Enemy a whole new area to mess with and corrupt because now we have to move into the realm of the subjective. If you want to know what I mean, just go and watch a couple of dozen videos made by people who have had Near Death Experiences (NDEs) and make detailed notes on what they agree on and what they don't. So many of them contradict each other.

That's why the majority of the 33,000+ denominations are Protestant because they keep on disagreeing with one another. Absolutely, Scripture is key, but unless you have authentic tradition and authentic prophecy, how are you going to be able to sort through all of this disagreement and controversy? Well, it can be done and there are good examples of this like the Chicago and Nashville Statements which are very thorough and well written even if there are one or two errors.

One of the reasons there has been so little fragmentation in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches has been the way tradition is used to settle disputes of interpretation. Remember also that Eastern Orthodoxy had no equivalent of the Protestant Reformation to disturb its monopoly in the largely Slavic nations. The other reason is undoubtedly (in the case of Catholicism) its peculiar authoritarianism - when there is disagreement, the Pope settles the issues because they believe the dogma that the Pope is infallible when it comes to theological pronouncements (which clearly he isn't if you know anything about the history of the popes), a page that Mussolini borrowed to justify the fascistic political slogan, 'The Duce (Leader) is always right' and which Mormonism copied too (the LDS prophet is always right even though the LDS prophets contradict one another). Do you see the difficulties?

Well, we have to resolve them and I believe we have gone a long way in doing that. In the broad sense, Protestantism has sorted out most of the Catholic and Orthodox errors, but by no means all. The Messianic revolution has partly sorted out another area though they themselves different on how to interpret Torah, a reason we need prophets and modern revelation (and, I know, both these have been abused in the past, and still are in charismatic and other circles) and that is why we have, amongst other things, the Olive Branch whose value I hope you will come to appreciate as we get more into it. It's very different from anything else that has ever been produced.

Messianic Evangelicals aren't Protestants or Catholic/Eastern Orthodox as far as Scripture is concerned, but we certainly lean the closest to Protestants rather than to Catholics and Eastern Orthodox who have had a lot more time (a millennium at least) to gradually introduce more and more heresies. Who knows how Protestantism would have turned out given another thousand years! We must learn from Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, to be sure (which I personally have), but we must be very careful not to uncritically accept their teachings which are based on a vast cluster of assumptions about the past that have to be critically tested if you're going to take the scholastic route. The other route - the prophetic - has to be tested by a wholly different set of criteria. We need both, but it's very unusual to find anyone who pursues both as we do - it's usually one or the other.

Before we plunge into our main task today, it's only fair that I state the Messianic Evangelical position both for those of our people who may have forgotten and for those who are investigating this work because, you see, we take this two-pronged approach of the scholastic and the prophetic very seriously. Those groups that tend to follow the prophetic - like the Mormons, charismatics, and pentecostals - rarely (with the exception of a few scholars here and there) tend to take the scholastic route needed to accurately interpret Scripture. There are, of course, exceptions here and there, for I am familiar with one or two Pentecostal scholars. As we're slowly getting back into the Olive Branch, our current collection of written contemporary prophetic material, which will likely expand one day, I thought I would share an extract from a particular revelation dating back to 1990, more than 30 years ago, which explains our approach in a succinct way.

Before I do that, let me just give you a quick explanation of terminology which will be unfamiliar to new people and to those who have little read the Olive Branch owing to our having de-emphasised it for so many decades up until now, so as to enable a full and proper immersion in the Bible first.

The New Covenant Melchizedek Priesthood, of which Christ is the sole Cohen Gadol or High Priest, consists, broadly speaking, of Elders and Deacons, a common designation in practically all Christian and Messianic denominations from the Catholics to the very latest groups. These belong, in our parlance (which I don't have time to explain here today), to the 'Enochian' and 'Zadokian', named after important characters in the Tanakh (Old Testament), with their parallel women's 'Marthaic' and 'Miriamic' Orders. With that in mind, lets read from Section 247, beginning at the 6th verse:

"Unto those feeding at the breasts of the Zadokian Order (Deaconate) I give unto you the written davar (word) and the devarim (words) of the nevi'im (prophets). But when the nevi'im (prophets) speak ye despise them, seeking as your only authority the written davar (word). Ye burden the nevi'im (prophets), expecting them to write every davar (word) of Elohim (God), because ye worship the written davar (word) instead of the ahavah (love) and knowledge behind it. Know ye not that the spirit of prophecy and the written davar (word) are echad (one)? Do ye suppose that a navi (prophet) can deliver the intelligence and ahavah (love) of Elohim (God) in written devarim (words) unless he is himself of the intelligence and ahavah (love) of Elohim (God)? For behold, what a man thinketh, or feeleth, or writeth, so is he" (Olive Branch 247:6-11; also see p.xxviii).

Basically what we're being told here is that there is a division of the priesthood into two levels, the one for the maturing (Deaconate) and the one for the mature (Eldership). That does not imply that the Deaconate is inferior to the Eldership, for as we also teach, 'once a deacon (servant), always a deacon (servant)'. Rather, what is involved here is a spiritual 'growing-up' process. Just as all Priesthood-bearers are perpetually servants or deacons (shammashim in Hebrew), so we as human beings, whilst becoming adults, still have our original 'child' within us which is very essential because we need both to be 'harmless as doves' (that childlike innocence) as well as 'cunning as serpents' (the adult vision of reality and how to live within a fallen world)... amongst other things (Mt.10:16). We could spend a whole sermon talking about human psychology but as ever we must press on.

Basically this revelation tells us that a complete talmid or disciple is one who is nourished both, but first, by the written word and, second, by the inner prophetic, revelatory, or inspirational Ruach (Spirit), each providing a check and balance against the other - inner (spiritual) and outer (physical) in harmony. Notice we are never told to abandon the outer, written form, as liberal Christians and cultists tend to do (in whole or in part when the written contradicts our existentialist, experiential or subjective beliefs), any more than we are to abandon our minds of intelligence in the pursuit of love. This really ought to be common sense but you'd be surprised how believers tend to exaggerate one at the expense of the other and then wonder why the Messianic Community (church) is so divided.

You see, it's a lot easier for Satan to hijack either an 'intelligence-' or 'academic-only' mindset or a 'feeling-only' mindset (or perhaps we should invent a new term and call it a 'heartset') than it is to deal with someone who has the two in careful balance. There's a lot more in these few verses of the Olive Branch that at first meets the eye because we're being shown, also, how an authentic navi (prophet) operates - he isn't in a mindless trance but is intelligently interacting with, and therefore processing, the revelation as he receives it. And that is why all the nevi'im (prophets) leave a unique character-stamp on their writings, something that's pretty much acknowledged by seasoned students of Scripture. John, who was a navi (prophet), revelator and seer, is clearly distinguishable in the way he writes from his apostolic peers, or from Luke who was a plain old physician and chronicler. Just read his (John's) Gospel and tell me it isn't in a completely different style to the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark and Luke).

The Olive Branch is full of prophetic insights like this, with this one being particularly important in coming to an understanding of how Christendom evolved and diverged leaving us with the denominational mess that Yahweh has got to sort out, and is in the process of sorting out. There's a lot of housecleaning to be done by the Body of Christ. And that which does have a proper shaking and cleaning out will, as I have said, either be destroyed or absorbed into the One World Religion of the Antichrist. If that interests you, then I strongly recommend you read the David Minor Prophecy on the Wind in the Olive Branch (OB 7) which in the online version contains a new commentary. (David Minor was a Pentecostal, by the way).

My purpose today is not to discuss the orthodox (with a small 'o') creeds as I have dealt with these elsewhere, the most famous ones being the Athanasean and Nicean Creeds which, in their sophisticated Trinitarian formulations of the Godhead are heavily influenced by Greek pagan philosophy, and in particular by Platonism. This became the 'new way' of viewing Scripture in the first centuries and is referred to by scholars as 'Neoplatonism' or 'new Platonism' which millions of Christians accept uncritically, possibly because of the fear of exclusion if they questiion it. The fact, then, that Protestants require the mandatory acceptance of post-apostolic, Greek-slanted creeds for a person to be considered a 'true Christian', is a contradiction in terms - you cannot believe in 'Scripture Alone' and at the same time expect extra creeds to be considered of equal importance to the Scriptures (Bible) too. For there you have a connundrum - if you believe and articulate in writing that 'Scripture Alone' and this new 16th century 'Rule of Faith' then become binding on all believers, then you have ipso facto created more Scripture and have therefore contradicted your original premise! But we'll lay that matter aside for now.

How did the early Christians/Messianics - and I mean, principally, first century (and early second century) believers - deal with this question of creeds? The answer is - they didn't - because they didn't feel the need to. They were still on-fire with the First Messianic Shavu'ot ('Pentecost') Anointing. They had, as I said, no formal canon or authorised body of Scripture outside the Tanakh (Old Testament) until the 4th century. Rather, it was generally known what were, and what weren't, the authentic writings of the four evangelists and the twelve apostles who were either still alive or who had been known personally by those who succeeded them and who had often been taught personally by them.

Many alive in the second half of the second century still remembered, and had personally been discipled by, the apostle John who died at a very great age in Ephesus at the end of the first century, the only apostle not to be martyred because of his special witness as a navi (prophet) too. Thus they could bear witness that 'the beloved talmid (disciple) taught me this or that', corroborating each another (2 Cor.13:1; cp. Dt.17:6; Heb.10:28; Dt.19:5; Mt.18:16; 1 Tim.5:19), providing thereby a wonderful supplement to his five written texts. Such testimony is important even if it isn't Scripture because it is accurate historial material giving further credance to the written Davar Elohim (Word of God).

Not to be forgotten is the fact that the prophetic was very much alive still in the Body before it got swallowed up in the Roman iteration of the Gospel and was suffocated by the Roman organisational mindset with its emphasis on what's legally true. By the by, the revelatory and prophetic got squeezed out by the suffocating Roman mentality. And as Roman Christianity embraced more and more paganism and occultism over the centuries to woo pagans into their ranks, so the authentic prophetic came to be replaced by occult mysticism surrounding (for example) the Virgin Mary and an incomprehensible Hellenised Godhead doctrine, and believers were held in check by the sword and other forms of threat. The gentle Gospel became a violent counterfeit devoid of inspiration. Even the early Protestants tortured their opponents and burned their own 'heretics' (real or imagined) at the stake showing at once whose children they really were. And it's why many (not all) are, in our day, going back 'home' to 'Mother Rome' in droves, from old-style Lutherans to charismatics!

So before the advent of the first New Testament canon, the writings of the evangelists were circulated, duplicated, and used as 'separate volumes' - a loosely circulating library of authentic scrolls and (latterly) codices and then books that formed an unofficial 'bible' with a small 'b'. Not all of them have, alas, survived. We know, for instance, that Paul wrote more than two letters to the Corinthians because he mentions them in the two that have survived and which we call 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. And who knows? The 'lost' ones may one day turn up again, buried away in some collection like the gigantic Vatican Library, purposely hidden away because they contradict the teachings of the denomination in possession of them. Or they may have been destroyed by the Roman or other religious authorities when believers were being persecuted to death and attempts were being made to stamp the new religion out. Or they may simply not have been popular enough because they duplicated earlier material written by the apostles and so weren't reproduced, which in those days was an arduous and expensive business as I've mentioned. We may never know. All we can say (and I admit it's an assumption, though, I think, a well gounded one) is that Yahweh has providentially preserved what we do have and so we must be content with that even if it does not preclude these lost writings being one day restored and included in the existing New Testament canon.

Mart de Haan, a very well known and influential Evangelical (Baptist) minister and writer, and early author and co-founder of the quarterly devotionals, Our Daily Bread, with whom I was in correspondence many years ago, certainly agreed with me. We have used his devotionals in our family for decades. I am hopeful, personally, that some of these lost scriptures will be found and that they will be instrumental in culling a great number of the preposterous number of denominations that currently exist though I believe trial and tribulation will most likely do that particular job all on its own. Time will tell. Certainly I think it most unlikely the New Testament canon could, or should, change until Yah'shua (Jesus) comes back, but who knows what a mightly outpouring of the Ruach (Spirit) might achieve.

So I think we are now in a good position to answer one of the recurring questions I have been asked over the years which is this: 'What are the essentials of the faith?' and 'What is the minimum I need to believe and practice in order to be a bona fide Christian or Messianic?' In other words, what basic truths do I need to acknowledge and profess as a Christian/Messianic as essential to possessing a saving faith that will ensure a place in heaven for me should I learn nothing else? What is the bedrock truth of the Besorah (Gospel, Good News)? And, perhaps just as importantly, what did the first believers - as opposed to the heretics - actually confess before the world before these later man-made creeds, however well-intentioned, came into existence?

In my estimation, one of the best and most comprehensive credal statements to be found in the Messianic Scriptures (New Testament) is the one Paul received by revelation and shared with the Corinthian qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones), one of the most problematic and immature congregations of all that is mentioned in Scripture. Paul was laying the groundwork for their confession of faith which I consider to be very important and an excellent place for the new believer or investigator to start. This is where I start in my search for the earliest 'Statement of Faith'. It consists of four doctrinal declarations which are an absolute 'must' for anyone to be considered an orthodox (with a small 'o') believer. Those who disput any one of these fundamental points cannot be considered a true Christian or Messianic. Let's read it - I shall use the NIV:

"For what I (Paul) received I passed on to you as of first importance:

• 1. That Christ died [on the cross] for our sins according to the Scriptures;
• 2. That He was buried [in a tomb];
• 3. That He was raised [resurrected from the dead] on the third day according to the Scriptures; and
• 4. That He appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve [Apostles]"
(1 Cor.15:3-5, NIV)

And we read further that the resurrected Master also appeared to "more than 500 brothers at one time", most of whom, Paul said, were still alive when he penned this epistle...so members of that congregation (and others with whom this letter was ciculated) could travel and visit these people to ascertain the truth of the resurrection for themselves...as well as appearing to James (the brother of Yah'shua/Jesus), and finally to Paul (1 Cor.15:6-8). So that's a lot of witnesses! This letter was written in about AD 55, a mere 20 years after the events he describes, so inevitably a few of the witnesses who were elderly when they witnessed the resurrection had since died.

Now, I quote this creed for the reasons I have already given but mostly because Paul is making it abundantly clear that that this is a creed. Other creeds in the New Testament may not be so easy to spot for non-scholars who can identify them because of the syntax, linguistics and other hints in the text which we layfolk might otherwise miss. In the Hebrew parlance of the day phrases like 'delivered to you' and 'having delivered' were ancient slang for, 'Look, chaps, I'm about to tell you something I didn't think up on my own. I got it from someone else who got it from someone else' [1]. You see, this was a common way for teachers to pass traditions down to their students, just as Paul did with the passage I've just read to you.

Notice the apostle's stress - this statement is "of first importance" - everything else is secondary. In other words, he's saying that 'there's nothing more important for your faith than what I'm about to tell you'. This is where our religion begins or we don't have any. And it's this which makes Christianity utterly unique. It's what galvanised and empowered the very first apostles, community members and witnesses. It's what empowers and galvanises me personaly and hundreds of thousands of other believers today. Take this away and you have a counterfeit Christianity...in reality, no Christianity at all...which is why Satan attacks these truth statements the most vigorously through liberal scholars and others of their ilk. Even sceptical New Testament scholar and agnostic Bart Ehrman states that this creed "encapsulated the Christian faith, putting it all in a nutshell" [2].

I agree. It's perfect which is why it should be the pre-eminent creed of the Messianic Community (Church). These four truths should be the first things all new converts are taught - thoroughly and in depth. No one should be baptised and received into fellowship who does not truly accept them. Without them, everything else is meaningless. Therefore it behooves us to look at them closely which we'll quickly do now.

First of all, within the first three years after Yah'shua's (Jesus') death, Christians/Messianics were everywhere affirming the doctrine of the Atonement. The very core doctrine of their faith was that Yah'shua (Jesus) had died to save them from their sins and that He did so in their place...as a substitute. He wasn't simply lynched by an angry mob for speaking truth to power, even if speaking truth to power is a natural consequence of preaching the atonement. Are we speaking truth to power first or are we just virtue-signalling to power by cuddling up to it so as to be accepted and not hurt by it? Well, it's good that we speak prophetically to power but that's purely incidental to preaching the atonement rather than to consciously or deliberately challenging power as revolutionaries do which we don't! That's not our business - we are not revolutionaries in the secular sense. We're not like communists, Jihadists or other extremists. We seek to live in peace with all men. But the atonement tends to disturb those in power, as we know from history when Christians refused to call Caesar 'lord', or offer sacrifices of incense to him as a self-professed god, in New Testament times and in the years afterwards.

The Atonement is, therefore, the foundational belief of Christians and Messianics on a number of different levels, way before we start witnessing of, and teaching, the truths of Torah. (Why do you think the Torah is mentioned so little in the New Testasment? It wasn't because the first believers weren't living it but because it wasn't their primary message). In fact, it affects all levels of existence. So when we confess our faith in Christ, as spiritually regenerated, born-again believers do, compelled by divine love, we must think about what we really mean and not just repeat a phrase blindly or religiously. This is a testimony - a conviction - based on a combination of adequate evidence and trust that has to come from the innermost man or woman. It must be alive, animated and (once we're supernaturally moved in our hearts) prophetic too, "for the testimony of Yah'shua (Jesus) is the spirit of prophecy" (Rev.19:10, NIV). Every regenerated believer is an anointed navi (prophet) on this, the level of witness.

We cannot witness in power without it. We becomes testators to the Atonement first of all. It's not just an intellectual proposition derived from some mental study of Scripture though that is part of it, but it must likewise be a conviction of the heart. That's not to say this testimony won't deepen over time through more evidence and greater experience of Elohim (God), for it definitely will if we pursue a life of discipleship and holiness. It may start as a little seed and grow over time, through faith, into a mighty tree. Moreover, what we testify of must be backed up by the very Scriptures which we too want to introduce to potential converts as one of the twin poles of their spiritual life.

The second item of this earliest creed was this: they believed that Yah'shua (Jesus) had been buried as a dead man in a tomb and had physically risen from the dead, not as one who had merely been revived, but as an immortal being. This is what we mean by the resurrection. Without the resurrection of Yah'shua (Jesus) there is no Christianity. Paul says it plainly later on in the same chapter when he links the Atonement to the Resurrection, saying:

"...if Christ has not been raised, your emunah (faith) is futile; you are still in your sins" (1 Cor.15:17, NIV).

In other words, if the resurrection isn't an actual physical event in time-and-space, i.e. in human history - if Yah'shua (Jesus) is still in His tomb - then it doesn't matter whether He died for your sin. Then Christianity is false. Then those liberal Christians and New Age Christians who deny the physical resurrection aren't Christians at all - they're liars. They're something else (liberal or New Age). And if that is the case - if no physical raising from the dead to immortality happened (as the Jehovah's Witnesses wrongly believe), then you might as well throw your Bible into the trash can or waste-paper bin and call it a day. Then His teachings become mere social philosophy with a myth falsely created to deceive, instead of a living truth in a living Being who saves those who come to Him. And since Yah'shua (Jesus) predicted His resurrection, it would make Him a liar too and not the sinless Messiah Christians and Messianics have long believed Him to be.

I have devoted a lot of time and energy to researching the evidence for the resurrection and have written much on the subject, because it's so key. I have read the analyses of initially sceptical forensic scientists and crime detectives (like J. Warner Wallace, Person of Interest: Why Jesus Still Matters in a World That reject the Bible and Gary Habermas, The Investigator: Finding the Truth is All That Matters), famous lawyers and judges (like Sir Norman Anderson, Jesus Christ: The Witness of History), and sceptical journalists on the trail of a sensational story (like Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ & The Case for Faith), and many others skilled in examining evidence, and they are in no doubt that the accounts presented in the Gospels are authentic and not made-up. I highly recommend their books. There are even some non-Christian scholars, even ex-Christians, who believe the evidence points clearly to Yah'shua (Jesus) coming back to life again, even though they can't explain that. And at the very least, even if they don't believe He came back to life, they acknoweldge that the first Christians were totally convinced of the physical resurrection. So based on the historical records, secular and religious...we may be confident that this wasn't just a conspiracy concocted after the event to create a new religion. It actually happened.

The third item of the earliest known Christian Creed was the belief that the Hebrew Scriptures - the Tanakh or Old Testament - were the literal Davar Elohim or Word of God. Now as you may well know, it is popular in some liberal circles to say that the Christians didn't have a Bible of any kind, and this simply isn't true. They most certainly had what is now generally known as the Old Testament which was a well and truly established canon of Scripture [3].

They may not have owned personal copies of it but each congregation at least had one copy that it read out aloud in assemblies just as the non-messianic Judeans did in their synagogues. The important point is that the core beliefs and doctrines of those first believers were supported and affirmed in the books of the Old Testament. They clearly understood that the old sacrificial system pointed to "Christ" as their "Pesach or Passover Lamb" (1 Cor.5:7) who took our sin upon Himself. They clearly understood such passages as Genesis 3:15, Psalm 22:14-18 and Isaiah 53 as speaking of Yah'shua (Jesus).

They also had "the apostles' teaching" (Ac.2:42) which provided the very insights that would eventually be written down in our New Testament. Notice that this early Creed says, twice, "according to (in accordance with) the Scriptures" - once in support of Yah'shua's (Jesus') atoning death and once more in support of His resurrection. So the Scriptures were key. We neglect them at our spiritual peril.

The fourth item in the earliest Creed, which is a slap in the face to those who claim Christianity is simply 'blind faith', is that they believed their core belief could be verified by concrete evidence. They were able to refer sceptics to hundreds of eye-witnesses. This wasn't some 'What does Jesus mean to you?' kind of mushy faith. It wasn't based on a guru sitting under a tree, receiving some cosmic revelation, and then convincing a group of people to buy into it. It wasn't based on a claimed, but unverfiable, angel appearance such that Mohammed and Joseph Smith claimed when they started their religions of Islam and Mormonism, respectively. The testimony of the first believers was centred on history and the evidence of eyewitnesses to an actual event - the Resurrection. And as I have already pointed out, Paul refers to hundreds more witnesses in addition to the 12 Apostles (1 Cor.15:6-8), many of whom were still alive when Paul was preaching and witnessing. If the first believers had made it all up, those claimed witnesses could have contradicted them and the Gospel's enemies would have pounced on it and we would know all about it in the secular histories. But they didn't. They were real and saw Yah'shua (Jesus) alive again and ascend into Heaven. There is no record of any of the 500+ witnesses ever challenging that testimony. And then, right at the end, Paul adds his own name to the list of those who had seen the resurrected Messiah (Ac.9:3-7).

No one witnessed Mohammed allegedly conversing with the angel Gabriel. They only had his word. Indeed, the evidence is now mounting up that early Islamic 'history' was all made-up [4]. No one actually saw the alleged angel 'Moroni' ('Nephi' in the earlier accounts) and no one physically handled the alleged 'gold plates' of Joseph Smith's 'Book of Mormon' as claimed in the introduction of that bogus scripture - indeed, as the historical research has demonstrated, some of the 'witnesses' later testified they were in a 'trance' or 'vision' when they 'saw' and 'handled' the plates. Joseph Smith or his accomplices later forged another supposedly 'ancient scripture', the little-known 'Kinderhook Plates', in order to give himself some historical credibility. And the only time some of his accompliced actually 'saw' any angels was when they were drunk in their Kirtland Temple. So in the case of the Resurrection of Messiah, we're not dealing with forgeries or myths here but actual historical happenings. The early witnesses saw what they saw just as Peter, James and John physically saw the transfigured Yah'shua (Jesus) with Moses and Elijah (Mt.17:2; Mk.9:2). And they were sober. For a scientist like myself trained to be sceptical, this evidence was very important to my own spiritual journey. For me, it required more faith to believe in the contrarians or nay-sayers than in the apostles. So I consider my faith to be a highly informed one. I have always been a realist and have no time for fables or fantasies. Life is just too short for that.

Now there are lots other credal statements in the New Testament affirming the deity of Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) - Romans 1:3-4; 10:8-9; 1 Corinthians 8:6 and Philippians 2:6-11 to name but three of the more important ones. If you want to research this more thoroughly then I recommend you read historian and philosopher Gary Habermas' book, The Uniqueness of Christ Among the Major World Religions (2016) and Oscar Cullman's work, The Earliest Christian Confessions (2018) which are recent studies. We need to know, and the people we witness to need to know, that those who saw Yah'shua (Jesus) walked this earth, heard Him speak, and followed Him on those dusty Roman roads in Israel, also thought it was essential to confess that He was Elohim (God). Other ancient non-Christrian historical sources confirm this, the apostles' belief, too. Some of you may know of an influential magistrate and lawyer named Pliny the Younger who lived at the turn of the first century who wrote that Christians sang hymns to Christ "as to a god" [6]. And as those of you versed in your New Testaments also know, Yah'shua (Jesus) boldly claimed to be Elohim (God) Himself more than once, according to the Gospel accounts.

If I were to pick out one of these to share with those investigating the Gospel, it would be John, chapter 8, verse 53. After accusing Him of being demon possessed, His detractors brashly asked:

"Who do you think you are?" (Jn.8:53, NLT).

"Before Abraham was, I AM" (Jn.8:53, NKJV).

Now that might not mean a whole lot to modern ears but back then there was no mistaking His meaning, because they knew full well that "I AM" was what Yahweh called Himself to Moses from the burning bush (Ex.3:14). In the early part of the first century, making that claim would have ranked as the worst kind of heresy possible. You see, what Yah'shua (Jesus) was succinctly saying, was 'Do you remember Moses? Well, that was Me in that bush'. They knew He was claiming to be Elohim (God), which in the Torah was blasphemy for a mere mortal man to say, and was a capital offense...but He was no mere 'mortal man' but the incarnate Son of Elohim (God). And those Judeans picked up stones to kill Him.

Yah'shua (Jesus) claimed to be Elohim (God) incarnate - that is to say, Elohim (God) in a human body from the moment of His conception in the Virgin Mary. The apostles taught it, the first Christians testified of it and said that His Resurrection proved it, as indeed it did because no human being has ever come back to life immortal as He did. Yes, they have, on occasion, come back to life from the dead but still as mortal beings to subsequently die as mortals the normal way. But Yah'shua (Jesus) did not 'die again' after being raised as one Hindu legend claims, saying His tomb is in Kashmir. No it isn't. You can go and see His tomb in Jerusalem and there's no body there.

This, then, is our central and most vital witness - everything else comes second. So let me, in conclusion, read that earliest Creed once more in William Barclay's translation adding a little more text this time:

"As a first essential, I handed on to you the account of the facts that I had myself received. That account told that Christ died for our sins, as the Scriptures said He must; that He was buried, that He was raised to life again on the third day, as the Scriptures said He would be; that He appeared to Cephas (Kefa, Peter) and then to the Twelve; that He appeared to more than 500 Christian brothers at one and the same time, of whom the majority survive to the present day, though some of them have died. Next, He appeared to James (the brother of Yah'shua/Jesus), then to all the apostles. Last of all, He appeared to me (Paul) too, and my birth into the family of Christ was as violent and unexpected as an abortion. For I am the least of the apostles. I am not fit to be called an apostle at all, because I persecuted Elohim's (God's) family (church). It is by the grace of Elohim (God) that I am what I am. Nor did that grace come to me of no effect. So far from that, I have toiled harder than all the rest of them put together, although it was not I who did the work but the grace of Elohim (God) which is my constant companion. So then, whether I or they were the preachers, this is the substance of our preaching, and this is the faith which you accepted" (1 Cor.15:3-11, Barclay).

It's the faith which I accepted. And with that testimony I consider that I have laid before you the essentials of the faith - that which is of primary importance, that which we are to preach and teach first of all, before anything else. For those of you who would like to dig deeper into the earliest creeds, I recommend you take a look at the article by Dr.J.W.Hanson, The Earliest Creeds, which you'll find on our website. Until tomorrow, then, may Yahweh bless you and multiply your shalom (peace) this sabbath as you meditate on Paul's Corinthian Creed. Amen.

Endnotes

[1] Bart Ehrman, The Core of Paul's Gospel (2 June 2016)
[2] Ibid.
[3] See Origin of the Canon: The Tanakh (Old Testament)
[4] See the printed works of Robert Spencer, Günther Lüling and the websites of Dr. Jay Smith and others listed on our Islam website
[5] Pliny the Younger, Book #10, Letter #96

Acknowledgements

[1] Alisa Childers, Another Gospel? A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity (Tyndale Momentum, Carroll Stream, Illinois: 2020)

Further Reading

[1] Dr.J.W.Hanson, The Earliest Creeds
[2] NCAY's Bible & Creed website