All the contents of Scripture are broadly divided into what we are commanded to keep, do, and practice, and what we are commanded not to do. Therefore, every word of Scripture has no use or value unless it is grounded in the faith that follows the love of the Cross. Today, there are more believers who knowingly fail to keep the Word than those who simply do not know it. The tendency of many to put their religion and church first stems from a faith that seeks to justify their failure to live according to the Word, and thus, instead of believing in the content of the Word and Christ Himself, they have turned to believe in religion, church, and altar. In this sense, the greatest heresy is not faraway cults, but believing in religions, churches, and altars that claim to act in the name of God. There are hardly any believers who do not know that salvation is never attained through religion, church, altar, or sermons, but only through the love of Christ that follows the love of the Cross. In reality, what is believed in is not the content of the Word but merely the superficial forms of religion, church, and altar. In other words, religion and churches have become idolized under the pretense of the Word. If Christianity, church, and altar could bring salvation, then all the commands of practice in Scripture would be unnecessary, and the sacrifices of God’s apostles, Christ, and all His disciples would not have been required.
Today, Christianity and Catholicism claim to teach God-centeredness or Word-centeredness, but in truth, they only use God and the Word as tools to make people believe in their religion, church, and altar. They promote worship services—vain traditions, customs, ceremonies, and rituals designed to steal tithes and offerings. Driven by desires and greed, people depend on their own self-made standards of pride, conviction, and determination, regarding them as the faith of a true Christian, while in reality, true faith in Christ according to the Word is almost absent. As a result, countless ideologies and doctrines have been formed in every shape and voice, giving rise to heresy upon heresy.
The reason Christianity and Catholicism today stand in opposition to God, enmity with the love of the Cross, and contradiction to the Word, is because they refuse to abandon their worldly lives and fleshly values. Yet only by forsaking all worldly lives, fleshly values, and desires can one gain the life, values, and fruit of a true Christian. Because they cling to worldly and fleshly perspectives, their way of life is the very opposite of a true Christian’s, and the fruits and evidences of Scripture cannot be manifested. Instead, they elevate their religion and altar, teaching doctrines and ideologies of men under the guise of faith, presenting these as if they were God’s will and true faith. Moreover, religious leaders and churches use this system to exploit believers, manipulating them into serving religion, church, and altar as a means to fill their selfish ambitions and insatiable desires.
Thus, instead of practicing the love of the Cross—feeding, giving, caring, and embodying the divine nature of God—they continually produce excuses not to live this way, creating sermons of mere words and theories, exaggerated interpretations, forced explanations, and false justifications.
The heart of Scripture is this: we are commanded to keep, do, and practice so that we may become God’s true children by attaining the divine nature of God through the love of the Cross, which is the source of love. In other words, like the greatest law and the highest command, if you also bear the love, sacrifice, and suffering of the Cross for your brothers as Christ did, you will come to salvation. This is the center and standard of every word of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. The love of the Cross is the divine nature, because God is the source of love, and thus the Lord declared, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
What ideology beyond the love of the Cross could be more necessary for salvation? What reason, what theory is needed? Do we fail to act because we do not know, or do we know and yet fail to act? The conscience of each one will testify. That is why it was said, “All the law and the prophets were until John”—because once the love of the Cross came to earth, the Lord declared that the law was no longer needed. But what then is the Trinity, what is the Apostle’s Creed? Are these written in the Scriptures? Were they made by God’s Word, or are they man-made commandments? It must now be clearly distinguished. The teaching and evidence of the Cross of Christ is this: only those who follow the sacrificial love and suffering of the Cross, as Christ Himself demonstrated, can attain salvation. In other words, whoever does not take up their own cross and follow after His sacrificial love and suffering can never reach salvation. Although this is clearly recorded in the Word, most believers treat such commands lightly, ignore, or dismiss them. Instead, they mistake ordinary human morality, ethics, philanthropy, and acts of service—which even unbelievers do—as if they were the love of the Cross. But this is why Christian charity and service have become objects of ridicule to unbelievers, for it is devoid of the sacrificial example of the Cross, where Christ laid down His very life.
Thus, many believe in God merely to satisfy their desires to live comfortably and securely, hoping to be saved at the end. They interpret Scripture according to their taste, with interpretations swayed by self-interest. They regard their own determination, pride, and zeal as faith, when in fact it is only fleshly ambition. Their hypocritical charity and service, nothing more than self-advertisement for their religion and church, has not borne witness to the love of the Cross but has shamed it before the world. Sermons and writings saturated with worldly lessons of “success” and “happiness” are not the Word of God but corruptions of it, encouraging only sin and greed.
Because most pastors and believers attempt to serve God while clinging to the world and material wealth, their faith is rationalized as a “calling” or “talent,” but it is in fact only an expression of their desires. Their faith is not measured against the fullness of the Word, but by selective and biased portions. Thus, most churches, pastors, believers, and faith today are devoid of the love of the Cross, which is the very way of practice and action. Instead, they have turned theories, thoughts, and judgments—rationalized according to their own tastes and filled with diverse claims and arguments—into what they call God, Christ, faith, mission, talent, and religion. Out of the countless words of Scripture, they cling to only a few dozen verses—mere husks without substance—and elevate their forced interpretations and explanations as if these were faith. Their religion is nothing more than a pretext for church and altar, where only words and theories are emphasized. The essence of their faith is their own ambition, conviction, determination, and pride, which are trained by worldly things that can only accumulate sin and greed.
The pastors who lead believers to serve church and altar in place of the Word show that they themselves are serving God together with the world and with material things. And the believers who serve church and altar instead of the Word prove by their own actions that their faith is vain—pursuing desires and greed, living worldly lives, and inevitably piling up sin.
In order to justify the theft of tithes and offerings, and to avoid practicing the love of the Cross—feeding, giving, and caring so that believers may love, cherish, and serve one another—they have elevated doctrines, ideologies, commandments, and traditions of men, and the customs and rituals of worship, which are but words and theories. For this reason, their religion has developed into layer upon layer of corruption, falsehood upon falsehood, and decay upon decay. To rationalize the worship of theft, which stands opposed to the Word, they have created their own traditions, worship practices, and ideologies, which they have absolutized, deified, and take pride in teaching.
They have a form of justification but no fruit, holiness on their lips but no deeds in their lives. Their charity and service, therefore, amount only to the same kind of love and kindness that anyone in the world can do. By presenting this as if it were the love of God, they have disgraced the sacrificial love of the Cross—where Christ gave His very life—and turned it into a mockery before the people of the world. Such is the true result of their so-called service and charity. The true reality of those who serve church and altar is this: they have made it a pretext to justify themselves, for they cannot practice the love of the Cross—loving and serving their poor and needy brothers and neighbors as their own selves according to the Word—and instead pursue their own worldly success, desires, and ambitions, which inevitably place them in opposition to the Word.