The Bible Code Movement
We as pastors and parishioners simply cannot let our guard down for one moment these days. The watchmen on the gates of Zion cannot even allow themselves a quick nap. The watchdogs must be constantly barking. I for one am shocked about how silent and casual the watchmen and watchdogs of Zion are in modern Christianity. One would think that they are deaf and blind! God describes times and watchmen like these in Isaiah 56:10,
“His watchmen are blind, all of them know nothing. All of them are dumb dogs
unable to bark, dreamers lying down, who love to slumber.”
Never in my lifetime has there been so much to watch out for, guard against and bark at. By not doing so, church leadership is imperiling its people, and encouraging the intruders. These are the very days that the Bible prophesied would come. They are here! They have arrived in gale force winds of weird and wild doctrines that are carrying about church folks like Forrest Gump’s feather! We find this described in Ephesians 4:14,
“…carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by
craftiness in deceitful scheming.”
Where do we begin? The winds are coming from every direction. We must batten down the hatches in the midst of these violent blusters and assaults. Cracked churches that have no strong Biblical and doctrinal foundation will, I fear, get not only carried but blown away by tricky, crafty and deceitful teachings. God calls them schemes. Guess who is behind these schemes! Yes you are right, the ole schemer himself, Satan the trickster!
THE BIBLE CODE WIND
Along comes Michael Drosnin’s very windy book The Bible Code published by Simon and Schuster. Of course, knowing our anti-Christian and apostate church world, it should not surprise us that Drosnin’s book made its way up, mind you, into the non-fiction best seller list of the New York Times. Best seller! Non-Fiction! That is to say, the secular literary world and even some of the ecclesiastical world instantly called it “Fact!” They raised their sails, caught the deceptive wind, and went along with the “Bible Code Blow” for all they were worth. Wouldn’t you just know it?
As to the author, Michael Drosnin does not even believe in God. He is an atheist who is attempting to discredit and corrupt theism. With his book he is attempting to pollute “The Book.” He believes that space aliens wrote the Bible and encoded within the text of the Hebrew Scriptures events predicted thousands of years before they happened. (Who knows, maybe ET wrote some of it)
This is where this Bible Code winds began to blow. It has heathen origins. But as you shall see, it isn’t just another gale force blast at the Bible to discredit Historic Christianity and the Judeo-Christian Scriptures! This is potentially a hurricane that can and will do catastrophic damage to the Christian church and its witness to the world.
Bible coders and decorders have found such names as Bill Clinton, John Kennedy, and even Hitler the Nazi, as well as events such as moon landings, spaceships, and Apollo 11 in a crossword puzzle format in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament! Not only President John Kennedy but Dallas, Texas is also found in this Bible Scrabble format.
Drosnin believes that hidden in the Hebrew language of the O.T. there are futuristic revelations encoded by space aliens that criss-cross the text like some sort of intergalactic crossword puzzle. You know, like 6 across, 12 down and 14 diagonally. Bingo! (Not only that, but choosing your own code, such as choosing every fourth letter horizontally to make the text say something that you want it to say!)
More than that, the Hebrew crossword puzzle, which can only be deciphered by sophisticated computer programs, reveals mega-earthquakes coming to Los Angeles in 2010, as well as earthquakes, fires, and economic collapse in Japan. On and on it goes. Stay tuned to your Bible Code Intergalactic Network.
JUMPING ON THE BIBLE CODE BANDWAGON
Sure enough, in this latest modern-religious-fad environment that we are living in, the Bible Code ends up being promoted and preached on today’s religious TV networks such as TBN. Paul Crouch, founder and president of TBN, jumped on the “Bible Code” bandwagon, only this time from a faith perspective. Intergalactic networking on good old TBN which has spread the good news of Jesus for 30 plus years, as they are want to say! Taking something from a total unfaith philosophy married to science fiction, and running with it and incorporating it as a faith principle in the Christian church!
By the way, it is also known as Equidistant Letter Sequence, or ELS. Of course the equidistancing of the Hebrew letters can very from code to code, depending on which code is called for at the time to come up with that particular decoded name or event. A man by the name of Yacov Ramsel over the recent past has been Paul Crouch’s guest on TBN as the hottest Bible Code Decoder and Equidistancer going. It is all done in the name of Jesus, and presented as Bible fact and part of inspired Divine revelation.
Anton and Janet Hein-Hudson of Apologetics Index quote G. Richard Fisher who observes, “The book’s success (The Bible Code) has also afforded Drosnin guest appearances on popular television broadcasts such as Oprah. Other notables within Christian circles, including Paul Crouch, Hal Lindsey and Grant Jeffrey, have also jumped on the ELS bandwagon.”*
We no longer have just those who rightly divide the Word of Truth. (II Timothy 2:15 KJV) Now we have those who are rightly cracking the code of truth. We no longer have just Bible scholars and exegetes. Now we have Bible decoders. A whole new department could be opened up in seminaries across the land. To qualify as a Doctor of Codology, you must be very good with words, spelling, and foreign languages such as Hebrew and Greek. And you must get your Doctor of Divinity Degree in Scrabbleology and Crossword Puzzleology.
The Psalmist David points out one of the greatest and most powerful virtues of the Jewish Church in the Old Testament era when he writes in Psalm 122:3,
“Jerusalem, that is built as a city that is compact together.”
It could also be translated,
“Jerusalem, that is built as a city that is at unity with itself.”
Unity gives strength of course, and strength gives protection. Over the centuries the greatest ploy of Satan has been to disunite the Christian church, and leave its people divided, exposed, vulnerable and confused. It is happening again with prominent names being aligned with the Bible Code craze. The Apostle Paul passionately exhorted the Corinthian Church in I Corinthians 1:10,
“…that you all agree, and that there be no divisions among you.”
Where he says, “That you all agree,” it can also be translated,
“that you all speak the same thing.”
Easier said than done! He is not only talking about unity, but about uniformity! Unity without uniformity is life without living, essence without existence, words without substance! Now we are living in the day when religious folks are jumping on the bandwagon of every doctrinal dog-and-pony show that comes through town. In so doing, they are subdividing the Church of Jesus Christ as never before, when it is terribly divided and disunited already.
CODESHIP ENTERPRISE
Today’s ecclesiastical climate of modern religious cult-fiction groupies reminds me of modern science-fiction groupies. Remember the television series Startrek where you met all sorts of interplanetary freaks from formerly unheard of planets? Hey, Startrek groupies are still going strong today, with new Startrek spin-off movies being regularly produced.
But hang on now, you haven’t seen anything yet! Welcome to Codetrek! You think that Startrek’s intergalactic creatures were far out! Codetrek will, I promise you, make Startrek look like Sesame Street, and John’s Revelation look like Lassie. Mark my words! Each week Starship Enterprise flew its devoted Startrek Trekkies to distant planets where they encountered some of the strangest outer-space weirdos ever imagined. They were constantly caught in interplanetary warfare along the way. Given the propensity of man, even religious man, to be carried away in empty deception (Colossians 2:8), Codetrek will rival if not outdo Startrek in the bazaar.
Well then, welcome to Codeship Enterprise in which you can be flown Back To The Future where the New York Twin Towers, 9/11, and Manhattan have supposedly been encoded by the Holy Spirit, and decoded in the Hebrew text of Isaiah 30 by the modern decoders. Code Trekkies today are scheduling future flights and are all excited as to what awaits them on Codeship Enterprise flights. A film has already been produced based on Bible Codery called The Omega Code which was attended mostly by Bible Code Trekkies. The Roman Catholic Church has its Popery and now this latest brand of pseudo-Christianity has its Codery. My reaction is to cry out, “Beam us up Jesus!”
All of this sadly reminds me of the story about John Nash in the movie A Beautiful Mind. The film is a true story about a brilliant mathematician and economist who suffered from the metal illness called “ Paranoid Schizophrenia.” In John Nash’s case, this illness manifested itself in his detecting and deciphering secret codes in magazines, newspapers and comic books for government agents who worked for high level government agencies. All of this was as real to John Nash as he was to himself. But all of the codes, agents and agencies were in fact imagined and non-existent. John Nash discerned and decoded non-existent codes which in his case could save America. These codes were constantly unfolding wherever he looked.
Now we have decoders in the Bible Code Movement who in the name of Jesus are detecting and decoding secret Bible codes wherever they look in the Hebrew text of their Old Testament Bibles. Yes you are right, I am saying that the Bible Code frenzy is likewise religious paranoia and schizophrenic theology.
ANTIDOTES TO THE BIBLE CODE VIRUS
Here are some needed antidotes to this spreading heresy. I am sure that I have not thought of all of them, but I will try to give you a beginning arsenal against this latest corrupting of the Word of God.
FIRST, man has always had a huge propensity and an uncanny ability to make things say what he wants them to say for his own purposes. For instance, man has done exactly that with what has come to be known by other code fanatics as:
“THE DEVIL’S CODE”
In the Devil’s Code the alphabet is numbered backward from zero, i.e. Z=O, Y=1, X=2 etc., and then when multiplying each letter by six, the late fundamentalist leader Jerry Falwell’s last name is made to equal 666, which is the mark of the beast in the book of Revelation. Falwell’s liberal and anti-God opposition just loves the Devil’s Code. When the dear brother in the Lord, Ronald Wilson Reagan, was elected president, the Devil’s Code enthusiasts were quick to point out that each of his names had six letters – 666. **
Ours minds have the propensity to organize and formulate any imagined reality in anyway they wish. It is a well-known fact that you can toss a bag of marbles on the floor and by selectively ignoring certain marbles and keying on others find any pattern that you wish. You can also do that with cloud formations, take pictures of the imagined fluffy figures, and publish it all under the notion that God is sky-writing and sky-painting messages in “Cloud Codes.” Little children have been known to find words spelled in their alphabet soup at lunchtime as noodle letters float into position in the soup broth. Others read tea leaves and human palms. On and on it goes.
Of course, the problem with all of this is that you can find the same code carnival in other books that we know for sure were not encoded by space aliens or by the Holy Spirit. Writes G. Richard Fisher, quoting from Peter T. Chattaway, in his article The Bible Code – God’s Fingerprints?, “For one thing the Bible is not the only text in which computers may find coded prophecies. {Orthodox rabbi Shlomo Sternberg together with Australian mathematician Brendan Mckay, claims to have found the names of Indian Prime Minister Indira Ghandi and Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza in the text of Moby Dick, overlapping such phrases as ‘the bloody deed’ and ‘he was shot.’”*** Need we say more?
SECOND, 99 and 99/100% of the time in Scripture God does not reveal Himself or communicate in one-word verbal grunts and burps, or in more prolonged sneezes of two or three words. Yes, the Bible does record Jesus saying “I thirst” and “It is finished,” but always in the context of continuous and complete narratives and teachings which are the modus operandi of the Holy Spirit. The Bible Code so-called revelations are completely out of sync with the entire rhythm, style and flow of Holy Scripture. God does not paint by number, or reveal Himself in criss-crossword puzzles.
While historic, orthodox Christianity has always believed that every word of the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit, i.e. verbal inspiration, that same Holy Spirit never breathed into any Bible writer a mere spelling or word book of names, places, or things. God’s Holy Bible is not a word syllabus. The Holy Bible is Divinely inspired revelation that is according to II Timothy 3:16,
“…profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, for training in righteousness.”
It does not say that it is profitable for code breaking and crossword puzzling! The Bible is not “Wheel of Fortune” or “Jeopardy.“
And when the Holy Spirit tells us in II Timothy 3:16 that:
“All Scripture Is Inspired By God,”
the English word Scripture is taken from the Greek noun graphe which means writing. Writing is something you read, not something you decode. The English word inspired is taken from the Greek word theopneustos which means God-breathed. God the Holy Spirit in breathing His holy heart and mind upon and into the inspired Bible writers did not supernaturally infuse their minds and spirits with a thesaurus, but with Christian history and theology.
I would suppose that if we looked long enough in the Hebrew Old Testament text, we all could find our names across, vertically, horizontally or diagonally somewhere in the gazillions of Hebrew words! Harold! Stephan! Bradford! Even though they are totally non-Hebrew names, and would not be found in any Hebrew text in any shape, form or manner. Susan! Connie! Annabelle! I am sure if we hunted long enough, we could also find them somewhere crisscrossing in the Hebrew letters. What would that make these guys and gals? Hebrew celebrities! Jewish heroes of faith! Maybe even villains! Ridiculous!
But you see, when you really think about it, if the decorders found my name encoded in the Hebrew or Greek, Bible Code decoders would say nothing about it anyway. Why? It has no shock or market value. It wouldn’t grab anyone’s attention and certainly would not sell books. But Bill Clinton, George Bush, and the Twin Towers of Manhattan, those names all have huge impact. And that is the point! Oh Wow! John Kennedy! Ooooh! However, even though that name is sensational to many and very magnetic, by itself as a supposed part of Divinely encoded revelation it is a sensational nothing. There it stands naked all by itself totally and coincidentally meaningless.
The decoders might just as well shut down their computers. Why? Because neither the encoders nor the decoders better understand one bit more of the mind of God after their encoding or their decoding is complete. Nothing but incidental scraps of Hebrew, for that is all this Bible Code stuff really is. Insignificant chancy but high sounding disconnected, disassociated and discombobulated trifles.
Ooooh, did you notice, there is my name? Did you see it, discomBOBulated? It must be God! The code has been cracked again. Better yet, we can start a name code in Webster’s Dictionary. And because my name is found on the same page with the words Disco and Disfavor, it must be that Bob is involved in dirty dancing which will put him in disfavor with his church. I’ll bet that is what God is trying to tell us about Bob. Poor Bob, who would have ever thought that of him? Wait until I tell my wife? Hear me, neither Ruth or I can dance a lick. Have you had enough? I have! Let’s get out of here!
THIRD, to even suggest that God would secretly encode His prophecy or pedagogy in a Hebrew or Greek Scrabble Game or crossword puzzle is completely out of keeping with His relationship to and communication with His people. Do you recall when God planned to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, the Bible reveals something about God and Abraham that is both powerful and warming. The Scripture represents God as unable to conceal His plan of judgment from Abraham, the father of all believers. (James 2:21) Apparently, being God’s child of faith means that God also treats you as His friend, not only in terms of love but of intimacy. So much so that we read in Genesis 18:17,
“And the Lord said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?’”
As if God says to Himself, “I cannot hide from Abraham what I have planned. I just can’t treat him like that. I can’t do that to him.”
After all, Abraham wasn’t just anybody to God, but rather, a very special somebody. It all becomes very revealing as to Abraham’s very familiar relationship with God when we read in James 2:23,
“…and he was called the friend of God.”
Apparently being a friend of God means that God also treats you as His confidant. God not only loves His friends, He shares with them His plans too. That is also why we read about God and His friend Moses in Exodus 33:11,
“Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man
speaks to his friend….”
We serve the “Friendship God.” So when the friendly God revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, we read of those same incredibly privileged intimacies between Jesus and His disciples. We recall those most endearing words in John 15:15,
“No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing;
but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from
my Father I have made known to you.”
A friend is privy to what even the highest ranked servant would never be told. Even if you can or can’t fathom this, it is nigh unto impossible to keep a secret from your best friend. To try and do so is to blow a gasket.
Now then, against that background, if the Lord had hidden much of His revelation in Hebrew word games and secret codes, there is no doubt that He would have told His friends about it in His Word. He also would have shared it with His friends of centuries ago. It is inconsistent with friendship that part of His self-revelation would be easily accessible in a user-friendly form, and the other part in a user-unfriendly form. He would not break His friendship with His confidants in this way. The entire Bible Code is a complete breaking of friendship that the Lord would have no part of.
Finally, the primary intent of our Savior with His disciples was and always is to instruct, not to mystify. The purpose of teaching was to illumine, not to confound. We find no parable that Jesus spoke to His disciples but that He gave an explanation afterwards. It was not unusual for Him to close His pedagogy with a question such as that found in Matthew 13:51,
“Have you understood all these things?”
In other words, “Are you sure you get this?” Isaiah 9:6 calls Him “Counselor,” not a game show host. Following Jesus in their mobile classroom, the disciples were privileged to learn from Him Who not only taught them truth, He was the truth. Jesus taught them by example and precept, not by playing charades. And those who have Jesus as their friend can be sure about His counsel, and we must now let Him be assured that we will obey it. That’s the whole point of true friendship with God.
FOURTH, this entire Bible Code Movement is so heretical because it adds to the Scripture. It doesn’t seem that way, because it all appears to be taken from the Scripture. That is what is so deceitful and deceiving about it all. But in fact, it is another Bible brought about by perverting the Holy Bible, and thereby attempting to give the bogus bible Divine sanction. Ephesians 4:14 calls it trickery as we have seen. God does not speak in some secret code when in the plainest of words He condemns adding to or subtracting from the Word of God. God said to His people through Moses in Deuteronomy 4:2,
“You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it,
that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God
which I command you.”
We must understand in all of this the words “Sacred Canon.” Frankly, it is but another couplet for “Holy Bible.” The English word “Canon” comes from the Greek word “Kanon” which means “Rule.” In other words, the books of the inspired and inscripturated Bible are the only sacred and infallible rule for doctrine and conduct in the Christian life. However, the Bible Codists believe that the encoded Bible is also part of the sacred and infallible rule for doctrine and conduct. Historic Christianity believes that the Canon is closed. Code Trekkies believe that the Canon is open. Day and night difference! What fellowship has Historic Christianity with Bible Codism? None!
Writes G. Richard Fisher, “The idea of the Bible as a fixed understandable book of conduct to be lived out (taught throughout both Jewish and Christian history) is jettisoned by Drosnin when he says, ‘We have always thought of the Bible as a book. We now know that this was only its first incarnation…something that its original author actually designed to be interactive and every-changing.”****
Christianity believes in:
“COMPLETED REVELATION.”
Bible Codism believes in:
“CONTINUING REVELATION.”
In historic Christianity you always know where you stand. Rock solid! In the Bible Code Movement you never know where you stand. Shifting sand! “It is written” never changes. “It is encoded” is always changing.
Finally, we must be alerted to dangerous patterns in church history in all of this. We shall only mention one here that is as certain, obvious and undeniable as death and taxes. And that is, the vast numbers of sects and heresies that have grown out of control through the ages have done so because of lack of initial opposition to them and passive tolerance of them. Often included in this pattern is the attitude which concludes that they are only fads and that they will eventually fade away.
Of course the great trouble with this mindset is that in the meantime, proselytes begin to multiply and trumpet the cause. Where there is no clear Biblical correction and anathema being preached and pronounced, sects and heresies will always grow, and many will be swept away in the deception.
We must educate and warn our parishioners that they are not to buy, read or believe one word of the Bible Code Movement. They are not to have one thing to do with it, or have any part in it whatsoever. If we don’t preach and teach against it, then there is no reason that our parishioners should regard our words at all as coming from the Word of God. And what is worse, we are leaving them defenseless against Satan’s attacks on their minds and spirits. If we don’t come against it, then there is no way that God can promise them safe-passage to Heaven when we don’t guard them against the lies of Hell.
* Apologetics Index, Anton And Janet Hein-Hudson (The Bible Code: Prophetic Insight Or Fertile Imagination, G. Richard Fisher)
** Dynamic Preaching, “With Your Head In The Clouds” (Seven Worlds Corporation, Knoxville, TN, February, 1996, Volume XI, No. 2) Charles R. Swindol, “Come Before Winter And Share My Hope” (Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan Publishing Company, 1995)
*** Apologetics Index, Anton And Janet Hein-Hudson (The Bible Code: Prophetic Insight Or Fertile Imagination, G. Richard Fisler)
**** Ibid
