Isaac Newton Was A Heretic!

Do you remember the story of Isaac Newton from elementary school? How he discovered the law of gravity while sitting under an apple tree and an apple fell on his head? To this day I don't know how much of that story is true and how much is tradition; however, I do know that Isaac Newton is considered by many, "the father of modern science." But did you know that he was also a devout Christian and theologian? And not only that, but he believed the doctrine of the Trinity was a 3rd/4th century corruption of the pure message taught by the apostles and revealed in Scripture. I guess that makes him a heretic, huh?! (-:

Now this may not be news to you, but I had never heard this about Isaac Newton until recently! So, for those of you who, like me, were not aware that Isaac Newton was not only a student of the Bible, but a Unitarian Christian, I invite you to read his "Twelve Articles on God and Christ."
You can find more writings and information about Isaac Newton at "The Newton Project". Enjoy!

ISAAC NEWTON’S TWELVE ARTICLES
ON GOD AND CHRIST
C. 1710S-1720S KEYNES MS 8, KING’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

Artic. 1. There is one God the Father ever-living, omnipresent, omniscient, almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, and one Mediator between God and Man the Man Christ Jesus.
Artic. 2. The father is the invisible God whom no eye hath seen or can see, all other beings are sometimes visible.
Artic. 3. The Father hath life in himself and hath given the son to have life in himself.
Artic. 4. The father is omniscient and hath all knowledge originally in his own breast, and communicates knowledge of future things to Jesus Christ and none in heaven or earth or under the earth is worthy to receive knowledge of future things immediately from the father except the Lamb. And therefore the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy and Jesus is the Word or Prophet of God.
Artic. 5. The father is immoveable no place being capable of becoming emptier or fuller of him then it is by the eternal necessity of nature: all other beings are moveable from place to place.
Artic. 6. All the worship (whether of prayer praise or thanksgiving) which was due to the father before the coming of Christ is still due to him. Christ came not to diminish the worship of his father.
Artic. 7. Prayers are most prevalent when directed to the father in the name of the son.
Artic. 8. We are to return thanks to the father alone for creating us and giving us food and raiment and other blessings of this life and whatsover we are to thank him for or desire that he would do for us we ask of him immediately in the name of Christ.
Artic. 9. We need not pray to Christ to intercede for us. If we pray the father aright he will intercede.
Artic. 10. It is not necessary to salvation to direct our prayers to any other than the father in the name of the Son.
Artic. 11. To give the name of God to Angels or Kings is not against the first commandment. To give the worship of the God of the Jews to Angels or Kings is against it. The meaning of the commandment is Thou shalt worship no other Gods but me.
Artic. 12. To us there is but one God the father of whom are all things and we of him, and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him. That is, we are to worship the father alone as God Almighty and Jesus alone as the Lord the Messiah the great King the Lamb of God who was slain and hath redeemed us with his blood and made us kings and Priests.

Scripture references on articles.
Article 1: 1 Timothy 2:5 (cf. 1 Corinthians 8:6), with influences from the opening line of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only begotten Son our Lord”.
Article 2: Colossians 1:15 (cf. 1Timothy 1:17); 1 Timothy 6:16.
Article 3: John 5:26.
Article 4: Matthew 24:36 (cf. Mark 13:32); John 5:19-20, Revelation 1:1; Revelation 5:3; Revelation 19:10; Revelation 19:13.
Article 8: 1 Timothy 6:8.
Article 10: Ephesians 5:20.
Article 11: Exodus 20:3.
Article 12: 1 Corinthians 8:6; Matthew 5:35; John 1:29, 36; Revelation 5:9-10.
© Stephen David Snobelen and King’s College, Cambridge The Newton Project Canada: www.isaacnewton.ca

It's good to know that those of us who see the problems with certain orthodox doctrines, such as the Trinity, are in good company in our dissent. We didn't make it up. Biblical Unitarianism is NOT a new idea. And Isaac Newton is only one example of many profound thinkers who have rejected the doctrine of the Trinity throughout the history of the Church. Praise God for this voice, and others, from the past! But the bottom line is that the voice of Scripture still speaks clearly to all who are willing to hear.

submitted by
Keith

The Hell of Fire - Part 2

The Hell of Fire
“23 Minutes in Hell”


Nothing has caused more confusion about the doctrine of final punishment than the erroneous idea that all men are born with immortal “souls” that live forever! Perhaps no lie of the Devil has been more widely accepted. I will deal with this in more detail in a separate article, but for now let us focus on the next most confusing issue, the word aionios, usually translated “eternal” or “everlasting”.

Eternal Fire - Eternal Punishment

In our western way of thinking, these words elicit thoughts of a timeless existence which is incomprehensible to the human mind. The same Greek word “aionios” is used for eternal, or everlasting life (zoe aionios). Have you ever tried to imagine FOREVER? It makes you dizzy doesn't it? Although the word aionios does carry with it the idea of perpetual, ongoing, the more proper understanding of it is “age” (as in time), particularly used for the future.

In this light then, eternal life is better understood as “life in the age to come”! It is not so much life without time, as life in a future time (age). Insomuch as the age to come has no revealed or foreseeable end in Hebrew thought, it is described as perpetual – never ending. But to say that “time is no more” is inaccurate for it is really only time outside of the present age.

The main point to understand about aionios is that it speaks of a future age. It is my understanding that scholars have argued this point for many years, but for some reason it hasn't been accepted or understood by the general bible-reading, church-going public. But if this is correct, then just as eternal life is to be thought of as life in the age to come, so should eternal fire and eternal punishment be understood as referring to the age to come.

Consider the following passage of Scripture in Jude...

“Don't forget what happened to those people that the Lord rescued from Egypt. Some of them did not have faith, and he later destroyed them. You also know about the angels who didn't do their work and left their proper places. God chained them with everlasting chains (note that everlasting here is a different word - not aionios) and is now keeping them in dark pits until the great day of judgment. We should also be warned by what happened to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and the nearby towns. Their people became immoral and did all sorts of sexual sins. Then God made an example of them and punished them with eternal fire.” -- Jude 1:5-7 (CEV)

NOTE: Some (very few) translations use the name Jesus in place of Lord here. ASV, NASB, KJV, WEY, RV and most others render verse 5 "the Lord" saved a people out of Egypt. Not Jesus. Lord is the correct translation of kurios which is the word used in the Greek text here. The NET correctly notes (24) "The reading ᾿Ιησοῦς (Ihsous, “Jesus”) is deemed too hard by several scholars, since it involves the notion of Jesus acting in the early history of the nation Israel." - (NET footnotes on verse 5). Yet they argue that "Jesus" is supported by many early witnesses, while noting that there were many scribal variants.

Here Jude reminds his readers that God “destroyed those who did not believe”; this was their punishment – total destruction! And he uses the punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah as an “example” of eternal fire! It is evident that Sodom and Gomorrah are not still burning. If you go to that place on the map today you will not find any human souls writhing in torment in the fire. No. Jude uses the destructive punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah as a symbol of the fire which is to come. In other words, just as God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah by raining down fire and brimstone from heaven, so He will do to the ungodly in the judgment of the coming age! To solidify this truth, consider what the apostle Peter said...

“if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly” -- 2 Peter 2:6 (ESV)

Can it be any clearer than that?

The Bible seems to be quite specific about the fate of the ungodly and unbelieving. They will suffer extinction! While there are some Scriptures that seem to suggest that souls suffer perpetual torment in a burning hell, closer examination reveals that God has other, more merciful and just, plans for them.

Consider also what Paul has to say about the subject...

“They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from (or destruction that comes from) the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.” -- 2 Thess 1:9-10 (ESV)

The usage of the phrase “eternal destruction” here is the same as that of “eternal fire” in Jude. It is symbolic of the punishment which is coming in the next age. If this were not the case, we would have Paul teaching that souls will be in a perpetual state of destruction, yet never actually being destroyed. Unfortunately, there are some who believe that exactly! But this really makes a muddle of the language and (in my opinion) does great injustice to the nature of God.

It is interesting that in all of the New Testament, there are but a few places that actually deal directly with final punishment. They are 1 Thessalonians, 2 Peter, Jude, and Revelation. The others are found in the gospels, where Jesus talks about “hell fire” and “everlasting fire”. The everlasting fire we have already dealt with as being fire representative of the age to come. The imagery of “hell fire, worms, and unquenchable fire” in the gospels, are all references to gehenna, the refuse dump of Jerusalem. Jesus used this place (that would be clear to any Jew) to illustrate the destruction of the wicked in the age to come, where the fire cannot be put out until it has completed it's job – total destruction. Complete information about gehenna can easily be found in any good Bible dictionary.

The doctrine of final punishment, as taught by Christian “orthodoxy”, is not “right thinking” at all (the meaning of orthodoxy is right thinking)! The evidence for final destruction, as opposed to eternal punishment, is overwhelming when one simply takes the time to study it. But for some reason, many orthodox believers are more eager to defend the traditions than to believe the truth. They find destruction to be too merciful a punishment for sin, and of course, extinction is impossible because of the supposed immorality of the human soul. And as we suggested at the first, this may well be the most devious lie that Satan has perpetrated on mankind!

Keith Dyer