That Flattened the Gospel
Jesus. Christ. Lord. Church. What each word replaced, what the replacement cost,
and what is recovered when the original is restored.
Part 1 of 5
There is a conversation happening beneath the surface of every English Bible ever printed. It is the conversation between what the words on the page say and what the words they replaced were declaring. Most readers of the English Bible have never heard this conversation because the translations that produced the English text were so thorough, so consistent, and so early in the history of the tradition that the replaced words have become invisible. The familiar words took the place of the original declarations so completely that the original declarations are no longer missed, because almost no one knows they were there.
This series of five documents is about four of those replacements. Not four obscure technical terms buried in the fine print of a scholarly apparatus. Four of the most central, most frequently used, most foundational words in the entire Christian vocabulary. Words that appear on the lips of every believer, in the title of every church, in the name of the one the gospel proclaims. Four words so familiar that questioning them feels almost disrespectful, and yet four words that, when examined against what they replaced, turn out to be covering declarations so profound, so covenantally specific, and so directly connected to the testimony YHWH wrote into the first word of the Torah before anything was made, that their familiarity is itself the problem.
The four words are Jesus, Christ, Lord, and church. Each one is addressed in its own document in this series. This first document introduces what each word replaced and why it matters, so that the reader approaching the four individual documents has the full picture in view from the beginning.
Four words so familiar that questioning them feels disrespectful. And yet four words covering declarations so profound that their familiarity is itself the problem.
Before we examine the four words, one principle must be established clearly because it governs everything that follows. The removal of these declarations was not, in most cases, an act of malice. The translators who produced the Latin Vulgate, the Greek Septuagint translations, and the English versions were largely sincere people working within the tradition they had inherited. The scribes who substituted Adonai for YHWH believed they were honoring the holiness of the divine name. The Greek translators who rendered Yeshua as Iesous were working within the phonetic constraints of their language. The councils that shaped Christian doctrine were attempting to preserve what they understood to be true.
But sincerity does not prevent consequence. And the consequence of these four translation choices, accumulated across sixteen hundred years of the Christian tradition, is that the gospel as it is commonly proclaimed in the English-speaking world is a significantly diminished version of what the covenant text was declaring. Not false in every particular. But flattened. The depth is gone. The covenantal connections are severed. The name of YHWH is absent from the name of the one who bears it. The body constituted for all flesh has been walled into forty-six thousand different institutions each leaving someone out. The declaration that was written in the first word of the Torah before anything was made has been covered by four familiar words that say something true but far less than the truth that was always there.
One consequence deserves particular attention because it underlies all the others. The name Jesus confined him to a lifetime. The conception was real. The birth was real. The thirty-three years, the crucifixion, the resurrection, all of it true, all of it powerful. But the meaning of each of those events is stripped when the one who accomplished them is known only through a name that cannot reach further back than his own birth. The full meaning of the cross requires the one on it to be the one who was present before the creation, who declared himself in the first word of the Torah before the light was called, who held both sides of the covenant alone before Avraham was born. A name that begins at a birth cannot carry that one. It can carry the events. It cannot carry the eternal one in whom the events are grounded. And without the eternal one, the Torah, the Psalms, and the Prophets are reduced from living testimony to historical prediction, useful for confirming the biography, unable to speak as the living voice of the one who is present in them before the biography began.
What follows in this document is a brief introduction to each of the four. The individual documents that follow go deep. This document gives you the map before the journey begins.
Jesus — replaced Yeshua
Yeshua means YHWH saves, the divine name embedded in the name of the Son, present before the foundation of the world. Jesus means nothing in any language it passed through. The translation removed YHWH from the Son’s name and confined him to a thirty-three year biography. A name that begins at a birth cannot carry the one who was present in-beginning before the creation began. Through Jesus the Torah confirms events. Through Yeshua the Torah testifies about the eternal one who is present in it.
Examined in: Document 2 of 5
Christ — replaced Mashiach
Mashiach means the anointed one of the covenant, the king, priest, and prophet commissioned by YHWH, the completion of the Torah, the Psalms, and the Prophets. Christ became a surname. A surname points to a person. A covenantal title points to the entire covenant story.
Examined in: Document 3 of 5
Lord — replaced YHWH
YHWH in Paleo-Hebrew declares behold the hand, behold the nail, the identity of the divine name pointing to the cross since Moshe first wrote it. Lord declares authority and rank. Six thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight removals in the Old Testament. Continued into the New Testament, covering Thomas’s recognition of the nail marks as the confirmation of the name.
Examined in: Document 4 of 5
Church — replaced Ekklesia
Ekklesia means the called-out assembly, all flesh called out by the cross, constituted without walls, without exclusion mechanisms, without a statement of faith that qualifies or disqualifies. Church is a building with walls. Forty-six thousand denominations, each leaving someone out. The body of Mashiach leaves no one out.
Examined in: Document 5 of 5
Reading these four documents requires something that most theological reading does not ask for, a willingness to sit with discomfort when the familiar becomes unfamiliar. The words Jesus, Christ, Lord, and church are not wrong in every sense. They point, however imperfectly, toward the one and the reality they were meant to designate. But pointing imperfectly is not the same as declaring precisely. And the covenant text was written to declare precisely, in the first word, in the name, in the nail at the center, in the Aleph-Tav standing silent in the first sentence, long before the translations that produced these four familiar words existed.
What is recovered when the originals are restored is not a new religion or a new theology. It is the oldest declaration in the covenant text, speaking again in the voice it always had. Yeshua, YHWH saves. HaMashiach, the anointed one of the covenant. YHWH, behold the hand, behold the nail. The ekklesia, all flesh called out, constituted by the cross, the body without walls that contains every one of the forty-six thousand denominations and everyone they have each excluded.
The four documents that follow are not arguments for changing what you call him. They are invitations to hear what his name, his title, his Father’s name, and his body have always been saying, before the translations covered them, before the tradition managed them, before the familiar words made the original declarations invisible. Read them the way the young Yeshua read in the temple, listening, asking questions, refusing to accept the authorized explanation as the final word on what was written. The text says what it says. And what it says is more than what the four familiar words have been carrying.
Yeshua HaMashiach YHWH, in the ekklesia of all flesh. That is what was written. That is what was covered. That is what is now restored.
Jesus covered Yeshua — YHWH saves.
Christ covered Mashiach — the anointed one of the covenant.
Lord covered YHWH — behold the hand, behold the nail.
Church covered Ekklesia — all flesh, no walls, no one left out.
Four documents follow. Each one removes a covering.
The Gospel Revolution • Mike Williams Ministries
William Ethan Massengill • Michael Lilborn Williams • Daniel Thomas Rouse
Published by Audrey Williams