SID: Hello Sid Roth here with Robert Heidler, Robert is a graduate from Dallas theological seminary, his specialty was what was the first church like? And it is unbelievable, I got a hold of this unpublished manuscript it is the most amazing things, it is all documented and it shows exactly, one of the things that disappointed you so much according to this when you were in seminary is when you started studying the writings of the church fathers. That sounds like an oxymoron, explain.
ROBERT: Well Sid you know God had chosen the Jewish people to be priest to the nation. And He spent 2000 years giving and understanding the things of God, so that they would be able to disciple the nations. What happened early in the second century, is the gospel began to move out into the gentile world, men began to rise up into leadership who did not have the understanding. And a lot of these men are called the church fathers, They were originally trained in Greek philosophy But they came to know Yeshua, but they didn’t understand the things of God, they didn’t understand what God was like. And so as they began to write, they would deliberately attempt to take what they learned from Greek philosophy and merge it into what they knew of Christianity one of first of these was Origin, who was well known early theologian. And his stated goal was to take stoicism and neoloplatisms, and merge that with Christian theology. Augustine did the same thing, Augustine was the father of theology for catholic and Protestants But his goal according to any encyclopedia, was to take the things of Christianity and merge them with Platonism, and neoplatonism, and make a Christianity that was acceptable to the Greek pagan mind.
SID: How did there writings compare with the Jewish church fathers the one’s that had the mixtures?
ROBERT: It was, when I started studying church history, I was so excited to get to read the church fathers because these were men that lived just a generation…
SID: So close.
ROBERT: The disciples would have wonderful insights and what I saw is they didn’t understand anything. They quoted the scriptures a lot but they didn’t understand it, and so much of what they said was almost laughable, One of the books, it talks about how to baptize people and what is important its main point is you really need to baptize people in cold running water, if it is not running water that is okay but make sure it is cold. And that was there insight for effective baptism. They did not understand the spiritual truth behind it, they did not know the nature of God. Phillip Shaft who is one of the most recognized church historians said go in for the writings of the Hebrew apostles to the Greek church fathers is like going from a beautiful well watered oasis, out into a dry desert wasteland.
SID: Was that your experience?
ROBERT: That was my experience it was a dramatic difference.
SID: Where was this, and you covered all of this brilliantly in your manuscript which we have made available even though it is an unpublished manuscript, but what I would like to know, is it is almost outrageous, the fact that some people came up with something theology called replacement theology where the church replaces Israel all of the promises of Israel go to the church, all the curses go to Israel I mean when you look at the fact, that it was Jewish people, all Jewish, A gentile had to convert to Judaism to become a follower in Jesus at the first church. The scriptures were the Jewish scriptures, the messiah is the Jewish messiah, He lived a Jewish life. How in the world did the church fathers come up with the concoction of God’s promises aren’t forever when He says forever.
ROBERT: Well that was Origin again. In order to merge Greek Philosophy with the Bible, he had to find a new way to interpret the Bible, he called it allegorism. And in that he took the text of the Bible but he didn’t pay attention to what it said, he just put his ideas over it, and one of the ideas that he came up with, was replacement theology. He said we don’t like all of this Jewish stuff, so we are going to say that God is finished with the Jews now, and all of the promises God gave the Jews he is now giving the church. So basically…
SID: But there is too much scripture that says the opposite. Certainly there had to be people that said no, you have gone too far.
ROBERT: Well there were a lot of people, but there were also others that were willing to follow because they were enamored with the Greek philosophy with the Greek mindset of the day. And it was a tragic thing, because basically they were saying God divorced his first wife, and married a second. And all of the promises God gave to Israel he just wiped away, and if we have a God who can wipe away promises like that, then we don’t have a God we can trust.
SID: What is your understanding of Paul, in Romans the 11th chapter? What is he saying to believers today? What is the relevance?
ROBERT: I think that is a very relevant passage for today. Because what he is saying is this, he is saying yes, many Jews have rejected the messiah, but he says that is only a temporary thing. And he says the time will come when all of Israel is saved. And he says when that begins to happen, when you start to see the Jews ] turning back to the Messiah, what that will mean is the gentile church will be plugged back into it’s roots. And he says that will be life from the dead from the gentile church.
SID: I have often wondered you know when it says life from the dead, what does that really mean? What does life from the dead, to the gentile church mean? What do you think Robert?
ROBERT: Well if you go anywhere in the world today the church is praying for one thing, it is praying for revival. Revival is when the life of God comes into his church. Revival is a dead church coming to life, and I believe Paul is saying that when the Jews begin to turn back to Messiah, that is when the long awaited end time revival is going to sweep the church. And Sid I believe we are just at the very beginning stages seeing that revival take place.
SID: Now when you gather all of this material, what emotions really and truly went on inside of you? I mean here you come from a gentile background and you have as fine of education as a man of God in this generation and then all of a sudden your world is turned upsidee down, Like for instance when you found out about Ices explain that quickly.
ROBERT: What happened when the pagan temples became churches, the law was passed you are not allowed to, pagan worship was outlawed. If you are a pagan you are now in the Christian empire, and you need to live as a Christian. And so what they would do, they would take their pagan God’s and just give the pagan God’s Christian names and just continue to worship the way they had before. And one of the most popular religions was the worship of Ices, she was an Egyptian goddess, and she was called the great virgin. She was called the mother of God.
SID: She was called the mother of God?
ROBERT: She was usually shown holding her son Horace, the god Horace, and that was a very popular religion.
SID: Did they worship her?
ROBERT: They would worship her. They would go and bow down to her, they would light candles; they would light incense. And so what happened, the worshippers of Ices were told it is now illegal to worship Ices. So what did they do? They just changed the names. That was part of the pagan mind-set; they could change the names of their gods. And they looked around in Christianity to find someone they could change the name to, and they chose Mary. And so the cult of Ices, in most of the details of its worship, just transferred over. And they would go to the church that used to be their temple, bow down to a statue that looked very much like the statue of Ices, only now they’re bowing down to worship Mary.
SID: You know Robert, that had to be such an abomination to traditional Judaism. No wonder there’s a wall of separation between Jews and Christians today. But it’s about ready to change. You see, Paul said in the book of Ephesians, the second chapter that the reason Jesus came was to break down that middle wall of separation between Jew and Gentile to form one new man. Now this one new man is the King of the Jews – Jesus. And so, you can see, I mean it’s so obvious, this replacement theology, these statues. I mean in Judaism we know one thing: according to the Torah, you don’t bow down to statues. I mean Christianity is the exact opposite of what we Jewish people were taught. And Judaism is the exact opposite of what Christians have been taught. But things are ready to change. I’m so grateful for this unpublished manuscript. You’re going to get a copy of it and you’re going to change. And guess what? God is going to show up in your home the same way He did in these glorious house meetings that the first church had. Oh? You don’t know Jesus? I’m glad you asked. Tell God you’re sorry for your sins, say “I believe Jesus died for my sins. I make Jesus my Lord. Live inside.” Read the Bible. That’s it.
