Christians are obsessed with grace and unconditional love. No doubt, it is the most celebrated concept in Christendom, but is the unconditional interpretation the correct one? Jesus Christ did reintroduce God’s grace and love into the world. He also introduced a gentler concept of God. He is a heavenly Father that is willing to forgive prodigal man. It is man who is lost and must return into the Father’s arms and be reinstated into the family of God or the kingdom of Christ that begins in the heart. Man must return to claim God’s grace and love. It is of the utmost importance for man to understand how grace and love can become his. Grace (hesed, xaris) in the Hebrew and Greek Bibles has many applications. It is used to express appreciation, gratitude, granting favors, being merciful, showing kindness and others that have to do with loving someone else as much as one loves him or herself. During the time of Jesus and Paul, our modern interpretation would raise more than an eyebrow.

The book of Revelation appears shrouded in mysteries that come alive in current events. It becomes a window into what causes shall affect human destiny. The following prediction slumbered seven hundred years after Christ before it became the most serious threat to Christianity. The Risen Christ handed to John this intriguing disclosure: “When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach. Then from his mouth the serpent spewed like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring – those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea” (Rev. 12:13-13:1). In the eyes of history, the above heavenly message

The Churches in North America are separate entities (denominations) comprising a religious kingdom within a secular Kingdom where they are being held hostage. Their bizarre arrangement with the secular political establishment was their own design. The separation of Church and State was no longer intended to free the individual but independent groups from the clutches of a political religious system that had charge over their destiny. Before Luther, man’s salvation was in the hands of those that defined the rules by which he could be saved. In the colonies that issue was settled. The new threat was an overpowering Anglican faith that sought to dominate the new nation. The reformers had reintroduced the individual’s right to believe; but they too forced their convictions on others and man was again trapped by someone else’s’ dogma. In the old world the State decided what reformer to follow. In the new world, necessity coerced the colonists to accept tolerance. The idea of separating the Churches from the State was the best solution the world had ever had. The Churches became a kingdom within a kingdom and prospered materially. For the next one hundred fifty years, the state had no reason to look for a loophole to step on separation. During this time, the religious individuals and groups kept their differences alive by proselyting among each other and converting the world. As the nation expanded its territory so did the denominations and their missions. What disrupted that harmonious coexistence?

The United States of America was not born over night nor was it planned. The need to become a separate nation was forced on the colonies by the English government that treated the colonists like slaves or a conquered people with no rights of their own. The King tried to impose Anglicanism with a Bishop on all the colonies. To pay for his costly war and lifestyle, his government imposed a number of taxes and enforced them with the army. The Colonists responded by dumping the heavily taxed tea into the harbor. The soldiers began to use force and the colonists that were aching to show their grievances fired back with their guns. The fight for freedom, justice and equal rights exploded into what is known as the War of Independence. It divided the colonists into two camps. Those loyal to Britain did not join in the fight for independence and were branded as traitors. They had no alternative but to move to Canada, back to England or somewhere else. Hereinafter conflict and conditions dictated and directed the outcome of the war. It can be compared to David and Goliath. The colonists had adapted to Indian guerilla fighting. Small bands attacked the British army details and depleted their men power and supplies. The British soldiers had to spend way too much time hunting these hit and run fighters and began to alienate even some loyalists. Meanwhile, General Washington could build up an army and force the English to surrender.

Protestantism, more correctly Lutheranism could never agree on being one like Roman Catholicism. It did not fall short of persecuting and suppressing those that were not pleased where the reformers were taking their followers. Luther had no place in his reform for Zwingli the founder of the Reformed and Presbyterian Churches, for Erasmus the humanist and leader of the common man, for Carlstadt, Hubmaier and Munzer that leaned on additional spirit led revelations. Zwingli denied the Anabaptists their right to practice believer’s baptism. He had three hundred put in bags and drowned. Calvin, a Zwingli disciple was just as intolerant with his dogma on predenation in Holland and Switzerland and so was Knox the founder of the Presbyterians in Scotland. In England King Henry VIII took over religion, after the Pope had refused his request for divorcing his queen. He remained intolerant towards all the Protestant infusions and added the Catholics to his list. The King appointed an Archbishop and allowed the clergy to marry. The King’s Anglicans too would experience reform but it would come back from the Americas. It will not come from the Pilgrims but from Moravians, Methodists and Quakers. After the Anglicans took over England and grudgingly let in the Presbyterians in Scotland, Europe had closed the door on anyone with a different conviction or conscience. Who were these people that were driven from their homes by Anglicans, Lutherans, Reformed Churches (Holland, Scotland and Switzerland) and Roman Catholics? And where did they move?

The Reformation was just as much secular as it was religious. Scholastics, Humanists, Lutherans, Zwinglians, Radicals and Pietists contributed to the Reformation. Johan Gutenberg (1398-1468), inventor of printing with moveable type spread their messages. The Pope and his dogma were in the way of economic, social and scientific progress. He did not endorse Columbus, Copernicus or Galileo. He denied a person’s individual right to grace and faith. He enhanced his coffers by selling offices and titles to the highest bidders and he granted lands and castles to his relatives and friends. The sale of indulgence kept the human soul in need of forgiveness and absolution in priest’s hands. The pope controlled the cradle, the bedroom, the job, purgatory and Paradise. The inquisition carried out his excommunication and persecution to the letter. To punish the Albigenses and Waldenses, Gregory IX made heresy a capital offense. The Waldenses were the forerunners of the Hussites and the Bohemian Brethren. When Boniface VIII put his curse on England and France for refusing to pay taxes to Rome, the French deposed the Pope and elected their own and kept him in Avignon for seventy years. At one time there were three and four popes and two were in Office for forty years at the same time. This was called the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1305-1376). The French also were testing Dan’s “De Monarchia,” the claim that God instituted the crown and not the church. The Church or religion had no control over the economic, social or political life of a nation. It was a trend to free the state from religion and even lift it above the status of the Church. This shifted the power from the Pope to a secular authority. Now the Pope had to gain the support of the monarchs to carry out his policies. The Saxon Prince had stumbled on a second jawbone of Peter and he did not hand over Luther to the Inquisition. He no longer trusted Rome.

Ishmael (Ismael) was the son of Abraham a Semite and Hagar Sarah’s maid an Egyptian. Sarah became envious when Hagar prided herself while pregnant and began to mistreat her. Hagar fled into the desert and a messenger from God sent her back to Sarah and told her to endure the abuse for the sake of her child; for God had great plans for the child’s descendants. The angel gave Hagar a glimpse of what her son would become. “You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand will be against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”

The emerging of an Apostolic Office was based on Jesus assigning the leadership to Simon Peter (Mt. 16:18-19, Lk. 22:32; Jn. 21:15-19). Peter envisioned a priesthood of all believers where every person had access to grace by faith (I Pe. 2:9). That idea appealed to spirited individuals that could get people to follow them. The common person needed someone to guide him. These spiritual leaders differed in their perceptions what direction Jesus intended to take them. The first troublesome issue was whether to admit Gentiles and James took the helm and laid down the guidelines for admission (Ac. 15:12-35). By the time of Cyprian of Carthage (195-258 A.D.) too many views had evolved and required a firm decision as to what a Church was and who was put in charge. He set forth nine legalistic rules that the Church was one and Catholic (universal). To be a Christian, one had to be a Catholic. The Catholic Church consisted of bishops. Bishops were the successors of the apostles and also chosen by Christ. The Catholic Church alone provided salvation. The bishops were a college, the episcopate. All bishops were equal in rank. Rebellion against a bishop was a sin against God. The clergy were best suited to administer salvation and the sacraments. Augustine declared that the authority rested in the office and not in the person that held the office. Original sin required infant baptism and the amount of water was incidental (395 A.D.).

Rome, under Pompey, had begun to spread its wings and became power hungry. Small states like Judah invited the Romans to protect them from their enemies, the Egyptians and the Syrians. The Romans did send Syria home and conquered Egypt. The Jews were granted their religious liberties and the High Priest had an ear with the Emperor. That is why the Governor had to satisfy the religious elite and crucify Jesus the Christ. When the political uprisings continued, Rome dissolved Judah and scattered the Jews all over her empire. The orthodox Jews kept their national identity and their Torah. Seventy years before Rome dissolved the Jewish hope of another Davidic monarchy, Jesus of Nazareth appeared proclaiming a new kind of “Kingdom.” It was Heavenly, Godly and in the Heart. Jesus, in person, was the way back to God, via the truth and a new life. To enter, one had to believe that God the Father had sent Jesus and one had to repent or make a one hundred eighty degree turn from a sinful life or an unfair system. Jesus predicted that individual transgressions and the traditions of the fathers had replaced God’s Law and would lead to the downfall of the Jewish state. Jesus had come to offer peace through preaching of the Word, but the Jewish leaders chose Caesar and the sword. Ironically, their High Priest predicted that one had to die for their nation so they would not die. This concept would become one of the main doctrines of the followers of Jesus; only, it would be applied to the human soul and not to the body.

The Northern Kingdom would be dissolved by Assyria, another Babylonian abstract. One hundred fifty years later, the Southern Kingdom ceased to exist for seventy years. During the captivity, the prophets Haggai, Zechariah and leaders accepted the verdict of Yahweh against them and they decided that they could remain Yahweh followers in captivity and not loose their identity. Only a remnant would return to Palestine and rebuild the nation of Judah or Israel. The leaders were mostly priests and scribes that held on to Yahweh and His laws. The remnant had seventy years to gain the trust of their captors before they were allowed to take an extended vacation. The men that proved themselves worthy were Daniel, Mordecai, Ezra, Nehemiah and Queen Ester. Of these, Ezra and Nehemiah were allowed to go on extended leaves from their services of the new kings of Medes and Persians, under Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes and Artaxerxes. The other Jews in captivity adjusted gradually to their masters and with their skills ended up managing their captor’s estates and money. Jewish farmers and shepherds became bankers, merchants and traders. Nebuchadnezzer did not take all the leading Jews to Babylon. A large group escaped to Egypt and many of them adapted to their new jobs and skills. Under Greek and Roman expansion, many Jews prospered and began controlling a considerable part of the world’s trade and banking. In Alexandria, Jews were Hellenized and they gave the world a Greek Bible, the Septuagenta.