Korah’s Rebellion, Luther’s Protest
Why Protestantism is not Christian
Ἰωάννης Ἀποκάλυψις
(John Apocalypse)
© 2010 St. John The Forerunner Publishing
Preface
In this supplementary book you will find an in
depth view of Korah’s rebellion and how
protestantism is a type of this, the apostasy, as
well as how protestantism is not Christian. This
book is meant to explain, in greater detail, the
argument made in The End of Man: A Defense of
the Orthodox Church Against Protestantism. The
argument focused on Korah’s rebellion and how
God had dealt with it, and how that parallels the
protestant reformation. The similarities between
Korah’s rebellion and Luther’s protest are
staggeringly similar. This supplementary will
only serve to better inform the reader by
graphically showing why protestantism is not
Christian.
I have not set out to demonize anyone, I
am criticizing the belief not the person. By doing
this I hope to open the eyes of those who are
blinded by protestantism, to inform those who
consider the protestants Christian, that they are
indeed wrong. This booklet also serves to
elaborate on the warning given in The End of
Man: A Defense of the Orthodox Church Against
Protestantism. The warning of the apostasy,
which is happening before our very eyes. The
apostasy that started in 1054 A.D. Which then
gave birth to the protestant reformation in the
early 16th century. All denominations are not the
same and protestantism is not Christian, this will
be explained in this supplementary.
I have been criticized for not specifying
which protestant denomination I am speaking of
and accused of making blanket statements. This
is partially true. To me all protestantism shares
responsibility for this apostasy because if it were
not for early protestantism we would not have
the abundance of nonsense that we have today. If
a doctrine such as the rapture is brought up
should I only attribute it to the specific
denominations that accept it? I do not believe so,
because of Luther and the early reformers this
doctrine came about, therefore they are just as
responsible as the fool who invented it.
Therefore when the word protestantism is used it
is intended to encompass every single
denomination that is a direct result of the
reformation, this includes early protestant and
modern protestant. For those who think I might
be a bit too harsh you must know that it pains me
to say some of these things. My mother and
father are both protestant and it is difficult for
me to say many of these things. Yet these things
are true and must be said, and nobody should
refrain from speaking truth because it might
offend someone.
Korah’s Rebellion, Luther’s Protest
A deeper look into the book of Numbers
chapter 16 reveals some astonishing similarities
to our current situation. Korah, a levite, rebelled
with 250 others against Moses and Aaron. In
16:3 Korah states: “Let it be understood by you
that all the congregation are holy ones, and the
Lord is in them. Why then do you exalt
yourselves above the congregation of the Lord?”
Korah accuses Moses and Aaron of self
exaltation, the very sin they themselves are
guilty of. The first parallel however is when
Korah states that: “All the congregation are holy
ones.” Equating all the people to Moses, a
prophet of God and Aaron a priest chosen by
God. Martin Luther makes an eerily similar
statement in the 16th century citing that: “We are
all consecrated priests through baptism.” Later
the term “priesthood of all believers” was
coined. Korah proclaimed that there is no
distinction between clergy and laity and that
essentially all people were the same as Moses
and Aaron. Likewise Martin Luther creates a
belief that is not similar to the statement of
Korah, but exactly the same only worded
differently.
To further prove the insanity in Luther’s
protest we only need to look to his works. In his
work On the Babylonian Captivity of the
Church, Luther admonishes the Latin church by
saying they have no authority over them, the
protestants. Continuing in his tirade, Luther
attempts to explain why it is that all are priests in
the congregation of the Lord. What Luther
forgets is that for his theology to work, then he
must believe the scripture is inaccurate, which
would conflict with his other invented belief,
sola scriptura. But Luther is wrong, and for this
reason, Mt. 16:18 states: “Upon this rock I will
found My church, that even the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it.” If the church was
overcome then why is this verse in scripture?
The true church will not be overcome by
anything, and this according to what Christ says
in the verse above. The true church has been
here since the time of Moses, why would it need
to be changed all the sudden? Luther is indeed
correct in many of his criticisms against the
Latin church, but why did he go his own route
and not back to Orthodoxy?
Luther most certainly knew of Orthodoxy, he was a Latin
monk and most likely had access to this kind of
information. It was only less than 40 years after
the council of Florence (1438-1445) that Martin
Luther was born. This was a council between the
Latin church and Eastern Orthodoxy. This is why
I believe it was Luther’s intent to recreate the
Latin church based on his personal belief, or to
create a whole new church of his own. This
behavior is also seen in Korah. He was a levite
and fully understood the laws and church
structure, and even seen the miracles done by
Moses. Yet Korah persisted in his ignorance.
This leads to the next parallel, self
exaltation. Moses was appointed by God as a
prophet and Aaron appointed as a priest,
therefore Korah exalted himself up to their status
by acting on his own authority and not on Gods.
He then accused Moses and Aaron of self
exaltation, when it was Korah and his followers
who exalted themselves to a God given rank.
How does this parallel to protestantism? Luther,
and other protestants of his time and ours,
invented doctrines foreign to Christendom at any
period in Christian history. Luther created his
own church based on his own interpretation of
scripture, throwing out 1,500 years of teaching
for his own personal interpretation and radical
theology.
One of these doctrines that Luther created
was the belief that scripture is sole authority. If
this doctrine is true, then who has the authority
to interpret scripture? In protestantism everyone
is a priest, which means that everyone has
authority to interpret the scriptures. Luther
believed that this authority was given at baptism,
yet isn’t baptism a mere symbol for protestants?
This is just another, amongst many, protestant
teachings that conflicts with other protestant
teaching. And again this doctrine shows just how
self absorbed the protestants are in believing that
not only is everyone a priest but anyone can
interpret scripture. The protestants raise
themselves up to a rank that only God can call a
person to, and only God has the authority to do
so, therefore it is self exaltation. Another form of
self exaltation is salvation in a moment, and to
proclaim yourself to be saved when judgement
has not come is arrogant and unwise. Arrogant
because the person is assuming that they have
nothing to worry about and brazenly proclaim
that they are saved. Unwise for these reasons:
“The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips, and the
tongue that speaks proud things.” Ps. 12:3 “The
Lord will destroy the house of the proud.” Prov.
15:25 “He hath scattered the proud in the
imagination of their hearts.” Lk 1:51 “Whoever
exalts themselves will be humbled, and he who
humbles himself will be exalted.” Mt. 23:12, Lk
14:11 and 18:14.
Self appointed authority, as in
Korah’s case, is unacceptable, and judging by
the verses above, God does not approve of this
mindset. In Num. 16:31 God responds to Korah
by opening up the earth and swallowing him,
and fire consumes the others, showing us that no
one can worship God on their own terms or how
they choose to. In the Apocalypse 12:15-16: “And the
serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood
after the woman, that he might cause her to be
carried away of the flood. And the earth helped
the woman; the earth opened her mouth and
swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast
out of his mouth.”
This verse not only refers to
the current apostasy, but also of Korah’s. This
dragon spews forth water which is interpreted as
many heresies. The serpent let the floodgates of
his mouth open in the 16th century, after
misleading the Latins 500 years before. The
serpent let the floodgates of his mouth open by
deceiving Korah into rebelling against Moses
and Aaron. (Notice that all the things the devil
speaks are lies, hence the name father of lies, so
this flood from his mouth is a multitude of lies
meant to deceive. Therefore while protestantism
may seem Christian they are heresies meant to
lead the church into apostasy.) Korah was
swallowed up by the earth when it opened, just
as the flood that came after the woman, who is
the church. Just as the flood is meant to
overcome the church so too is this apostasy of
hundreds of thousands of denominations with
hundreds of thousands of beliefs. These serve no
other purpose than to deceive people and then
make them complacent once they have been
deceived. If all of these denominations are true
and are not heresy or apostasy, then why should
we be Orthodox if the alternative is much easier?
If we can attain salvation in any of these
denominations, that are much easier, why
struggle the Orthodox spiritual life? This what
any sane individual would logically conclude,
but quite frankly all of these denominations are
apostates and heretical.
Also in the time of Christ existed many
sects of Judaism. Among these were the
Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Essenes,
Galileans, Genistae and Meristae, and the
Hellenians and Hellenists. Not exactly one
cohesive religious system. These sects are a
result of years of apostasy and judging by the
Jewish history it is not surprising that this
happened. Each of these sects had beliefs that
differed from one another. But the common
theme that bound each sect was their perversion
of the prophecies of Christ and the whole of
scripture in general. Instead of understanding
scripture properly they had opted to interpret it
for what they wanted it to mean instead of what
it truly meant. For instance the Jews wanted a
worldly king, like David, who would free them
from Roman rule, instead of a poor carpenter
who admonished them instead of praised them.
This is why the Jews could not imagine
Jesus being their messiah. They would not
accept Him because He was not what they
wanted Him to be. Comparing this to
protestantism, in our modern day there exist
hundreds of thousands of denominations and
each one have a different interpretation of
scripture. Not surprisingly there are many
heresies surrounding the second coming just as
there were about Christ when He first came.
What is satan’s purpose for this? The Jews were
deceived by satan so that they would kill Christ.
Unknown to satan at the time was that Christ is
God and that this was all planned. Likewise
satan has setup a similar scenario today, the Jews
will be tricked into thinking that the antichrist is
God, because they are waiting on the coming of
their messiah. He will perform worldly miracles
and capture the minds and heart of many with
flattering speeches.
The protestants are waiting on Christ to return and
take them up into the clouds in what they call the rapture,
and is based on a perverted interpretation of 1 Thess. 4:17
“Then we who are alive and remain shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air.” This verse is speaking
about the day of judgement, as the preceding
verse clearly states: “And the dead in Christ shall
rise first.” Which happens on judgement day.
The rapture was dreamed up by a terrified soul
who wanted to believe that no Christian would
suffer in the end. According to Mt. 24:24 and
Mk. 13:22, clearly Christians (the elect) are here
in the time of the antichrist and could possibly
even be deceived.
This is exactly what rebellion does, cause
more problems. It is just a way of saying: “I can
do better.” There is no doubt in my mind that
both Korah and Luther believed this, judging by
their words and actions. Even many of today’s
protestants believe that they do not need
anything except the Bible, even though Christ
never says this. In fact Christ says the opposite:
“You search the scriptures, for in them you think
you have eternal life.” (Jn. 5:39) This is one of
the few times Christ mentions scripture, and it is
clearly not in support of relying on scripture as
the sole authority. Is it correct to draw
comparisons between the rebellion of Korah and
protestantism?
I believe it is correct because I believe
scripture is warning us about protestantism. In
Num. 16:30 Moses tells the people: “Then you
shall know that these men have provoked the
Lord.” This was stated after Moses told the
people that the earth would swallow up Korah.
This shows that God was not fond of these
people who not only rebelled against Moses and
Aaron but against that which God established,
hence they rebelled against God Himself! Why
would God despise this action only to change
His mind in the 16th century when Martin
Luther did, and said, the same thing? Clearly
God did not immediately open up the earth and
swallow all of the protestants, simply because
they are somewhat ignorant, while Korah, a
levite, should have known better. Is this rebellion
apostasy? “For that day will not come unless the
falling away (apostasy) comes first, and the man
of sin is revealed.” 2 Thess. 2:3 This falling
away does not happen only in the time of the
antichrist but has been happening since Christ
established the new covenant. As St. Paul tells
us: “For the mystery of iniquity is already at
work: Only He who now restrains will do so
until He is taken out of the way.” 2 Thess. 2:7
This should be obvious to anyone, the mystery
of iniquity is the apostasy. Iniquity in the
original Greek means lawlessness. To rebel or
protest brings lawlessness and chaos.
Considering protestantism an equal to
Orthodoxy is madness. Did Moses embrace
Korah and tell him that he is right and that we all
are equal? How can we accept protestantism
without making Orthodoxy relative and
obsolete? As stated earlier, if we can attain
salvation while doing less, why not take the path
of least resistance? It is complete insanity on the
part of some of the leaders in our church to
accept protestantism as Christian. If we accept
them as Christian then we are validating their
erroneous beliefs, doctrines, dogmas and
everything else negative that they bring. We
would be telling our own people that
protestantism is true and that this mass confusion
of 38,000 denominations, is indeed the same as
Orthodoxy. How stupid and foolish! Also there
are many Orthodox that believe the apostasy to
be specific to the time of the antichrist, and
therefore protestantism cannot be the apostasy
St. Paul spoke of. This makes no sense
whatsoever. St. Paul makes it very clear that
even in his time the mystery of iniquity
(lawlessness) was at work, therefore satan has
been working at flooding the church with heresy
since the time of St. Paul. Our early history
demonstrates that satan had been vigorously
attacking the church, chipping away small
portions of this rock called Orthodox
Christianity and eventually he separated a large
portion from the whole. In the early part of the
church were heresies like arianism, nestorianism,
chilliasm or millenialism, montanism, etc. In the
present day we have thousands upon thousands
of varieties of protestantism to choose from. This
flood, which is now mostly composed of
protestant denominations masking themselves as
Christian, most likely started with arianism, but
could even be traced back to Korah. The
example of Korah teaches us that you cannot act
upon your own authority and the protestants,
who act upon their own self appointed authority,
are no better than Korah. To accept them as
Christians is to reject God, just as Korah did, and
would make us as the 250 that followed Korah.
If defining a Christian is as one who believes
Christ, then nearly everyone is a Christian just
for merely believing in Christ. It would mean
that Adolf Hitler was Christian because he
believed in Christ’s existence. It is not Christian
to consider protestants Christians.
Sources
Martin Luther, Weimar Ausgabe, Vol. 6 p. 407
Timothy Wengert, The Priesthood of all Believers and other
Pious Myths, p.12
Norman Nasel, Luther and the Priesthood of all Believers,
Concordia Theological Quarterly 61
Alister Mcgrath, Christianitys Dangerous Idea, Ch.2
Marcel Simon, Jewish Sects at the Time of Jesus, p. ix
World Christian Encyclopedia 2001, Number of Christian
Denominations
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