And Ye Shall Know The Truth, And The Truth Shall Make You Free – John 8:32.
It grieves the heart of God that people, who are called by His Name, are being destroyed spiritually, for lack of the knowledge of this Truth. Why? Because they have rejected knowledge of this truth, and so God also has rejected them. And the ministers, who speak “lies” to the people of God, have also been disowned by the Almighty God. The spiritual children (that is, the flock) of these ministers have also been forgotten, by God – Hosea 4:6. Majority of the people of God are in their ignorance deeply engrossed in the practice of Idolatry, which God, hates. And to express His hatred for anything idolatrous, He gave a specific commandment against any worship or any reverence given to idols, either graven or carved, wooden or metal – Exodus 20:1-5. And the judgment of God, on those who worship or serve or bow down to these idols, is clearly written in His
Word as a warning to all mankind because God sees idolaters as generations of those who Hate Him!
Idolatry is a big tree with so many branches, one of which is Iconolatry, which is the subject of this article. Iconolatry is the sentimental reverence given to graven or carved or printed images of loved ones whether dead or alive; or that sentimental reverence given to “relics” of dead saints or of dead people.
The Iconolatry that is being practiced in most religious set-ups to-day, even amongst so called Pentecostal churches, is this sentimental reverence given to the carved or graven image of the “cross”. Some religious set-ups, see the cross, or look unto it, in their ignorance of the truth, as a “charm”, or as a protection from danger and as refuge from all powers of darkness. It is being adored with all the respect, that is due only to the Most High God. Men put their faith in that cross, whether wooden or metal, for their protection. But the truth is that the cross is merely “The Accursed Tree”.- Galatians 3:13b… For it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree”. The cross is merely a gallows on which the Romans, even before Christ was born, hanged malefactors. It was merely made up of two pieces of timber, one placed transversely on the other. It was on this wooden gallows that the Romans nailed Jesus Christ and the other two condemned malefactors. – Luke 23:32-33. “And there were also two malefactors led with Him to be put to death. And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified Him and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.” “And when they had fulfilled all that was written of Him, they took Him down from the TREE, and laid it in a sepulcher. But God raised Him from the dead” Acts 13: 29-30.
Once again, the Spirit of Truth testifies to all churches that, sentimental reverence given to the “cross”, (graven and carved) is nothing but the practice of Iconolatry, a branch of Idolatry. This ignorance, must have probably been born out of the misinterpretation of the saying of Apostle Paul, when he said in Galatians 6:14, and I quote “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul was actually talking about the Doctrine Of Christ Crucified not the physical cross. It may be a startling revelation to some of us that the sign of the cross has been in use long before Christianity came into existence.
There is hardly a pagan tribe, where the sign of the cross is not found. The cross in different pagan nations, where it is being adored, have their different shapes. These pagan nations have the erroneous belief that the cross is a sign of life. Whereas Jesus alone, is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The image of the cross, therefore, whether carved on the altars, or graven on priestly dresses, or on the walls, or wherever they may be engraven, are not Christian symbols but pagan emblems. The “cross” came into existence, first, amongst the Chaldeans, who were basically magicians. It started with the letter ‘T’ known as TAU of the Chaldeans, and were applied for magical purposes. The ‘T’ was derived from the first initial of TAMMUZ, the Mystery son of Semiramis, who married her son, Nimrod, after the death of her husband, Cush, the grandson of Noah. From the letter ‘T’, the cross, began to take different shapes like the ones below. But to identify Tammuz, with the “sun-god”, the letter ‘T’, had a circle on top, or enclosed in a circle like figure 1c and 1e below.
The circle represents the sun. The cross became the symbol of the pagan Babylonian god, called Bacchus, represented with a head band bearing many crosses, on the head band. This is common amongst the Buddhist (see figure 3f). The “cross” Paul talked about in many verses of the scripture is not a physical cross that a man can handle or touch, but a spiritual thing. And only the spiritual can discern this spiritual thing that Paul was talking about. For example in Philippians 3:18-19 Paul talked about the enemies of the cross. He was not talking about wooden, metal or graven image. No! He was talking about those Christians who mind earthly things, whose god is their belly and who will not like to suffer persecution for the sake of Christ.
To be continued.
