Christianity, Cults and Culture

COGR – Jesus And The Improper Mixture

February 7, 2024

Good day! I am writing a series of short reviews of abbreviated COGR video clips. I am looking for input and comments. If it makes it easier, I will gladly supply a Word document so comments can be put in the document, and we can communicate directly. My email address is lattema@icloud.com. I hope you find these reviews helpful.

Transcript:

Whole video from COGR site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcsp3VKQ9Gw&t=91s 

Ray’s comment on getting it right: https://youtu.be/dpHKdUjAU1Q

Video of Transcript that is below: https://youtu.be/_KW-i7ulBg4

(00:37:21)“He saw golden candlesticks. And he got looking in the candlesticks, and in the midst of the candlesticks was He saw one like unto the Son of God. I ask you, who was talking to him? Who was talking to Jesus? All are awful stiff, if I lost you already, who was talking to him? What did He look like? Seven golden candlesticks? Do we got to start over? Come on. What He looked like, but it was Jesus, right? But what He looked like, seven golden candlesticks, but it was Alpha and Omega speaking to him….(00:38:43) Now there’s some things we need to remember because the things that we’re going to learn tonight are going to resound themselves throughout the Revelation. So don’t forget Him that was in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. You say, “I don’t like that Jesus. I want the Jesus of the manger.” I want to tell you that this Jesus is Jesus I have in my Bible, such as last seen, such as last seen. He’s not in the manger anymore. He’s not on the cross of Calvary anymore. He’s not walking the shores of Galilee anymore. The last time He was seen, He looked like this. …..(00:49:50) So again, it’s very important for all of you, and especially young people, to remember, it is very important that we understand the blending together of Jesus Christ and the seven golden candlesticks. What you’re going to find throughout the scriptures is going to be a revelation of Jesus Christ in the church, not the second person of the Trinity, not some wild government powers. It’s going to be Jesus Christ as he is in the seven golden candlesticks. You’ll see that. Any other questions? All right, we might come back to some of this. I want to go right on over to chapter two. I want you to see how the language is written because I believe if we can go through two and three, that we’ll have a better understanding of how the rest of the revelation is going to talk to us. That clear. All right. Start, Brother Yancy, chapter two, verse number one, ‘To the angel of the church of Ephesus.’ So we know that it’s one of these stars that belong to one of these candlesticks, right? So he’s writing, he’s talking now to one of these stars that’s in his hand. Yes, there again, we see. No, you know, there’s a big push now. Don’t listen to nobody, don’t listen to me, but just listen to Jesus. I say amen to that. As long as it’s this Jesus. As long as it’s this one right here, don’t listen to nobody. That’s no problem. And it just listened. That’s right? As long as it’s this one right here. But that one right here has stars in his hands, and he’s all mingled, inseparable from seven golden candlesticks.”

Commentary:

Before the discussion, I want to say a brief word about using ellipses. The quotes by Ray Tinsman are lengthy and separated by material that has no bearing on the topic. The extra material that was not included in the quote is indicated by an ellipse. (ellipses are a series of dots.…which indicate that a portion of the text was left out) Some authors, most famously The Watchtower, use those ellipses to hide any material that undercuts their arguments. My goal is the opposite. I wish to accurately represent the position of those I write about. Because this section has a couple of ellipses, I have provided a link to the original video on the COG YouTube site. You can download the entire video if you are curious about the context or want to hear the quotes. I have also provided a YouTube video that shows just the quoted sections.

There is also a brief video section of Ray saying that he always says, “You must start right to end right.” Unfortunately, he has failed to take his advice and has started with a wrong understanding of Scripture which morphs into even more error.

An old German saying is, “God is in the details,” which was later misquoted and which has moved into our vernacular as “The devil is in the details.” That quote seems apt for this discussion. As I have read and listened to this portion of the Revelation series, I believe this is one of the most pivotal sections in the entire series. In this section, Ray Tinsman manipulates a single small word to make a theological point not present in the Scriptures. Then using that small change corrupts our understanding of Jesus and the church.

Let’s see what has happened.

1.  Ray mistranslates ENGLISH to make a verse say something it was never intended to say. The underlying Greek text does not support his error.
2. Ray uses the mistranslation to teach about Jesus and the Trinity, developing a Biblically unrecognizable Jesus.
3. Ray claims Jesus is mingled with the Church, changing both the nature of Jesus and the church.
4. Ray assures his hearers that this is important and is important to help them understand the Bible.

Why is this a problem?

1. It creates “another” Jesus, something we are cautioned about in 2 Corinthians 11:4 (NIV), where the apostle Paul warns about accepting a different Jesus. He says, “For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.”
2. It disrupts an orthodox understanding of the Trinity, making it incomprehensible. We seem to have both a Jesus of the Trinity and a Jesus of the Church.
3. It minimizes Jesus, who the COGR often refers to as being too ethereal and too distant to help us. We are told we need the Jesus of Revelation, the Jesus of the Church to help us.

This restructuring occurs as the result of a translational error in Revelation 1:13. Ray insists that Jesus is in the midst of the lampstands and is mingled with them and is inseparable from them.

We will look at five English texts and one Greek text to see if Ray is supported in his understanding. Then we will consult a dictionary and a lexicon. Finally we will ask what John would have said but didn’t if Ray was correct.

NIV (New International Version): “12 I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest.”

NRSV (New Revised Standard Version): “12 Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest.”

NASB (New American Standard Bible): “12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands; 13 and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and wrapped around the chest with a golden sash.”

HCSB (Holman Christian Standard Bible): “12 I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me. When I turned I saw seven gold lampstands, 13 and among the lampstands was One like the Son of Man, dressed in a long robe and with a gold sash wrapped around His chest.”

KJV (King James Version): “12 And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; 13 And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.”

Greek USB (UBS5, United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament, 5th Edition): “12 καὶ ἐπέστρεψα βλέπειν τὴν φωνὴν ἥτις ἐλάλει μετ’ ἐμοῦ. καὶ ἐπιστραφεὶς εἶδον ἑπτὰ λυχνίας χρυσᾶς 13 καὶ ἐν μέσῳ τῶν λυχνιῶν ὅμοιον υἱὸν ἀνθρώπου, ἐν ἱματισμῷ ποδήρη καὶ περιεζωσμένον πρὸς τοῖς μαστοῖς ζώνην χρυσᾶν.”

Looking at the English Bibles, we have among being used twice, in the midst twice, and in the middle once.

Among: has the following meanings:

• In or through the midst of,
• Surrounded by,
• In company or association with
• In association or connection with,
• Surrounded by,
• In the presence of (a group of people)

Midst has the following meanings:

• The middle area or part of something
• The position of anything surrounded by other things or parts.
• The condition of being surrounded or beset.
• A period of time about the middle of a continuing act or condition
• The middle point, part, or stage.

“In the middle of it” is self-explanatory.

The lexical meaning of the Greek μέσῳ is “in the middle of” or among. It does not carry the sense of mingled in.

If the English Bible translators had desired to make a statement about the term indicating that the candlesticks and Jesus were essentially one, they could have used terms like mingled, merged, or mixed in. They did not.

Likewise for the Greek language. There is a Greek term that would describe mingling or merging if John intended to do so. The Greek term for “mingled in” or “mixed with” is typically expressed using the word “συγκεράννυμι” (syngerannymi) or “κεράννυμι” (kérannymi) in ancient Greek. These words convey the idea of things being mixed together or combined. If the intention is to convey the concept of mingling or mixing, these terms would be more appropriate than “μέσῳ,” which primarily means “in the middle of” or “among.”

According to Ray, John heard Jesus Christ, but not the Jesus of the Trinity. He tells us it’s a revelation of Jesus Christ, not the second person of the Trinity. Jesus is intertwined with the church and cannot be separated from it. He’s in the midst of the candlesticks and holds the Angels of the churches in his hand. Ray appears to believe that Jesus cannot be said to be the second person of the Trinity because he has become a hybrid of Jesus Christ and the church. The text does not support that.

Based on this misleading use of Scripture Ray goes on to state that some people don’t like this Jesus. He says they prefer to Jesus of the manger or the Jesus of Galilee. Ray tells us that we need to recognize that this candlestick/Jesus was the Jesus of the last sighting. If we want to know who Jesus is, he is the Jesus found in the church. Ray has proclaimed a different Jesus. It is a Jesus no longer on the cross. A Jesus not walking the shores of Galilee anymore. Instead, Jesus is in the midst of the golden candlesticks or is the golden candlesticks. Notice that no one believes that Jesus is still on the cross or is still walking on the shore of Galilee. This was a rhetorical trick to help you think, “Oh, Ray is right. He isn’t on the cross; I guess he must be somewhere else; perhaps he is merged with a candlestick.”

According to Scripture, Jesus fills the church and all of creation. He is part of the Trinity, and inseparable from the Trinity. He is the head of the church and spiritually guides and infills it. But Jesus never becomes the church, and he never indwells believers in the sense that the COGR says that he indwells the Apostles.

Ray has twisted one word and he has developed an entire theology of Jesus becoming the church. That theology diminishes Jesus in the mind of those who adopt it, and it elevates the church and especially its Apostles to near divinity. Ray has started out wrong and he has yet to turn around.