A Letter to Pasugo and the Iglesia ni Cristo's response

As a cult, we all know that the the Iglesia ni Cristo® hates anything Catholic. In its Pasugo publication Vol. 62, Issue No. 1, January 2010, something is so odd to see.

The title of this year’s first publication was: Brother Eraño G. Manalo IN MEMORIAM. Highlighted words/phrase and added numbers in each paragraph are mine for an easier reference.

Take note of the following:

The date: January 2010 Anno Domini (A.D.--Year of the Lord) – our present Calendar is called the GREGORIAN CALENDAR, named after Pope Gregory XIII which is used as the International Standard Calendar to measure a month and a year.

The words “IN MEMORIAM” are LATIN words which literally means “In Memory of” in English. Latin is the ancient language of Rome and the Roman Empire but it's now considered a dead language. Only the Catholic Church uses it in all official pronouncements of the Church.

But that’s not what I am mostly interested. I am interested on how an Iglesia ni Cristo Minister answer a question by a certain reader from India (if it was true). Let me copy verbatim the question and how the editor answered.

THE LETTER:

Not in the New Testament

1. I’ve been reading Bible commentaries and other related literature since last year. I find it odd that what many Christians know about Jesus Christ mostly come from the New Testament, when in fact Christ himself said that things were written about Him in the Law of Moses and the Prophets (Luke 24:44). Does your church take account of the Old Testament passages about Christ? Are there such passages saying that Jesus is tasked to establish a church – your church for that matter?

Salman Singh
Maharashtra, India

Let me assume that Mr. Salman Singh is a real person from India. If that's the case, Mr. Singh (by his name) should be a decent from the state of Punjab where Singh is a not just a family name but it has some religious resemblance (Sikhism). I would like to believe that this Mr. Singh is not a Christian and so the response of the Iglesia ni Cristo should be particularly sensitive to who Mr. Singh is. Anyway, let's read the Editor's response:

Editor’s reply:

2. The books that have become what is now known as the New Testament were written by contemporaries of our Lord Jesus Christ or those who lived to witness His mission on earth and its continuance to the time of the apostles. Hence, while we do acknowledge that there are also things written about Christ “in the Law of Moses and the Prophets,” or in the Old Testament, this does not in any way preclude the importance of the New Testament, especially in so far as the chronicling of Christ’s life and ministry is concerned.

3. Quite surely, the things written about Christ in the Old Testament are never contradictory to what is recorded in the New Testament. In fact, the New Testament gives testimonies to the prophecies written about Christ in the Old Testament as having been fulfilled in Him—and these include pronouncements presaging Christ’s establishment of the Church He would build and will save.

4. For instance, in Deuteronomy 18: 18-19, Moses recorded God’s prophecy, thus:

5. “I will send them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will tell him what to say, and he will tell the people everything I command. He will speak in my name, and I will punish anyone who refuse to obey him.” (Deut. 18: 18-19, Today’s English Version)

6. This is pronouncement would later be interpreted in the New Testament as a prophecy concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, as given in Acts 3:20-23:

7. “And that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said to the fathers, ‘The LORD YOUR God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you. And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.” (NKJV)

8. Note that one of the messages spoken by Christ concerns His Church and its significance for man’s salvation. In Matthew 16:18, He pronounced that He would build His Church so that the power of death shall not prevail against it. In John 10:9, He specifies that anyone who wants to be saved must enter “into the fold through [Him]” (John 10:9 , Revised English Bible). The fold He refers to is the Church of Christ (Acts 20:28, Lamsa Translation). Clearly, these teachings of Christ as chronicled in the gospels affirm that He is the Prophet being referred to in Deuteronomy, whose teaching people should hear, lest they be utterly destroyed or unsaved on the day of Judgement (1 Cor. 5:12-13; Rev. 21:8).

9. A prophecy recorded in the book of the prophet Isaiah also foretold about the election of Christ and the members of His Church. In Isaiah 60:1, God declared:

10. “Also your people shall all be righteous They shall inherit the land forever, The branch of My planting, The work of My hands, That I may be glorified.” (NKJV)

11. Take note that God here prophesied about His “planting and the “branch of [His] planting” who would have the right and privilege to glorify Him and would be appointed to become His heirs. The New Testament informs us that Christ identified Himself as “God’s planting” by pronouncing, “I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer” (John 15:1, The Message). He further clarified that “His branches” are the people who belong to Him:

12. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.

13. “You did not choose Me,, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.” (John 15:5, 16, NKJV)

15. Christ being “the vine” and those who belong to Him being “the branches” were equated by Apostle Paul to Christ being “the head” and His Church being “the body”, thereby ascertaining that the people who belong to Christ—those mentioned in Isaiah 60:21 as “the branch of [God’s] planting”—are the members of the Church that Christ established:

16. “And He is the head of the body, the church…” (Col. 1:18, NKJV)

17. “For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.” (Rom 12:4-5, NKJV)

18. What we have presented here are just a few of the many things written about Christ in the Old Testament that are attested to by pronouncements recorded in the New Testament, particularly those concerning His establishing of His Church—the true Church of Christ.

There is a lot of confusion in the part of Mr. Richard J. Rodas' as its Editor-In-Chief. Paragraph 8, quoted Mt. 16:18 which he wrote "the power of death" shall not prevail.

New American Bible: ".. the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it"

Douay-Rheims Bible: "..and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

Jerusalem Bible: "...the gates of the underworld can never overpower it."

New King James Version: "...the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it."

New International Version: "... the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

In all five different versions of the Bible, they preclude that Christ's Church WILL not be overcome by the powers of death, hades, hell, netherworld. It is always in the future tense "WILL" because His Church would NEVER apostatized yesterday, today and forever for this is the promise of Christ to Simon Peter, the first Pope.

Now, let's compare paragraphs 7 to the rest of the paragraphs.

In Paragraph 7, the pronoun He refers to God who spoke to the prophets about Jesus Christ. Irrespective of its position in the sentence, the editor kept the pronoun He in big letter "H" and "e" in reference to God (not god).

Now, open your eyes and read the rest of the editor's response in the other paragraphs, the He (God) and He (Christ) has no distinction. God (He) and Jesus Christ (He) are given the same emphassis irrespective of its position in the sentence. And as a reader, I would interpret this according to Christian understanding of the Holy Trinity. And as a Catholic, those same emphasis given to He (for God) and He (for Christ) mean one and the same. That God and Jesus are One and that there is really ONE GOD-- in three divine person.

The confusion of PASUGO's Editor-In-Chief only highlights that of the truth in the Catholic Church that God and Jesus are ONE.

I hope Mr. Singh has opened his eyes and see the confusion of the Iglesia ni Cristo Minister as a guiding truth to his quest toward the right path to Jesus Christ, through His True One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church affirmed by the same PASUGO in its publication dated April l 1966, p. 46: "Ang Iglesia Katolika na sa pasimula ay siyang Iglesia ni Cristo. [The Catholic Church in the beginning was the true Church of Christ.]"

But wait. Have you notice something else? How many different versions of the Bible did they used Those highlighted in blue shows how they shifted from one translation to the other but never they quoted any Catholic version Bible.

Specifically, Iglesia ni Cristo loves the Lamsa Translation when they quote Acts 20:28.

Why?

It's because only in Lamsa Translation, Acts 20:28 was interpreted as "Church of Christ "instead of "Church of God" which originally written in Greek, "the church of God" (tan ekklasian tou Theou) not "the church of Christ" (tan ekklasian tou Christou)" [read more HERE and in YouTube]

Who is George Lamsa? Why the Iglesia ni Cristo loves his translation very much? Read LetUsReason. However, let's understand that George Lamsa belongs to the Nestorian church which his theological position on Christology was condemned by the Council of Chalsedon in 8 October to 1 November 451 A.D. Iglesia ni Cristo found an ally.

Thanks to Pasugo's Editor, it reveals the truth we all wanted. Praise God no one can hide the blinding light of truth in Jesus Christ and God.

To HIM, be the glory forever!