June 10, 2025

The Four Points of Heresy

1. Orthodoxy killed Jesus. The Priests, the Elders, The Scribes and Pharisees, the Sanhedrin were all the epitome of Orthodoxy. As to their faith they were without sin. So don’t hang your hat on orthodoxy. There is nothing, Biblically speaking, to commend it.
 

2. Jesus was crucified for heresy and blasphemy. And he told his disciples, and all would be disciples, “Come, follow me.” We aren’t following Jesus if we aren’t being accused on a regular basis of heresy and blasphemy—and being guilty as charged.


3. The Garden of Eden did not have latitude and longitude. It did not exist. Adam and Eve did not commit the unforgivable sin and their descendants were not cursed for all eternity for the sin of their parents, and no one is guilty of a fall from grace necessitating atonement and redemption.


4. Jesus came to correct the error of purity and perfection. He did not come to tell the children of Israel to try harder. He came to tell them to stop trying at all. “If you don’t receive the Kingdom of God as a child, you will never enter it,” he said. He came to do away with guilt and shame and to usher in the age of peace and goodwill when the Temple would become the House of Prayer for all Nations.
 
And toward that end he told the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Have you heard of that one? Why don’t we get it? It has slipped by the sentinels, the watchers, the guardians of orthodoxy all these years. 

The Prodigal never said he was sorry for all he had done. He said, “If I tell my father I am sorry for all I have done, he will be forgiving and give me a better life than I have here.” So he goes home, practicing his lines all the way. And when he arrives there, his father sees him coming from a half-mile away and runs to greet him with open arms with words of welcome, “O my son, You were lost and now are found, you were dead but now, you are alive, welcome home, my son, my son.” And the Prodigal stumbles to get his speech out but his father stops him with “Get out of here with that litany of forgiveness and pardon! (Or words to that effect), “This is no place for that! You were lost but now are found! You were dead but now. You are alive!” 



We talk about forgiveness, but it is mercy that we seek. Mercy that we need. That is what greeted the Prodigal.
 
Compare his greeting with the Orthodox portrayal of Saint Peter at the gate reading from the book of life in which is recorded all the sins of those seeking entrance to heaven, and the Orthodox image does not fare well. Mercy has it all over forgiveness! 

And Jesus knew what he was doing. Jesus was suggesting that God will welcome us all as the Prodigal’s father welcomed him. Jesus was saying, “Sin is not a problem with the Father!” And the Orthodox gate-keepers missed it! It got by! But we all have missed it! It continues to get by! 

And my question is “What would the Prodigal have to have done for his Father to tell him, “You go to hell! You are no son of mine!”? What would amount to the end of mercy? And the answer of course is “There is nothing he could have done. He would always be welcome home!” 

Mercy ALWAYS WINS! Amen! And so it is. Was he a heretic? He is welcome here! He is my son, my son!” This is the God Jesus came to announce. 

But the early church got its hand on the script and did its best to scrub out Jesus’ message, and put his words in red to emphasize what it wanted its members to read, so that the church had the power to determine who was saved and went to heaven and who was lost forever in the molten lava lakes of hell.



And it takes a heretic to turn the light around.