Jacob Prasch response to David Nathan – Sept 5th 2018
Blessings from Vietnam While the response by David Nathan to Moriel separating from him for serious doctrinal reasons will be responded to with point by point a rebuttal shortly, we just wanted to clarify the issues by allowing you to watch and listen for yourself to some of what we objected to the point where we had no option to distance Moriel & ourselves from David as his material (which we can only regard as flatly of a heretical nature) was in the public domain and many people were accosting Moriel as sharing and promoting this heterodox error.
Please watch it carefully and draw your own conclusions.
As you will be able to determine for yourself, this issue is not about the Millennium or differences of opinion on secondary issues, the primary issue is rather the Truth.
Allow me first on behalf of Moriel to please preface any comment by pointing out that we did not violate Titus 3:10 by failing to issue the “once, then twice” warning commanded in that verse. In fact, as he admits we warned David Nathan of this face to face in Los Angeles in May of this year pointing out our belief that the Millennial sacrifices are memorials of The Lord’s death etc. to teach the Gospel to those born during that time who will not have a developed concept of sin in a restored earth as it was prior to Adam’s sin (this was in addition to a brief chat on the Marriage Supper of The Lamb). Our view is the long-established doctrinal position of conservative Evangelical Pre-Millennialism.
On another video we have, David Nathan of course asserted that those not accepting his view cannot do so because they are Gentiles, when in fact Messianic Jewish scholars from Alfred Edersheim, David Baron, Dr. Louis Goldberg, Professor Dr. Michael Rydelnik, Dr. David Hocking, and Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum and a litany of others we could name hold the same precise doctrinal position in this regard as we do.
In any event, in Los Angeles David Nathan agreed to a retraction that was to be made available for the next edition of the Moriel periodical so we could lay the matter to rest.
We waited three months for what he said he would provide and he was back in South Africa for a portion of that time, but unfortunately it was never forthcoming. A second effort to remind him by email (of which we have a copy), but the deadline was missed and after 3 further months of very concerned and troubled believers contacting us from May to August we were forced to do as we did. Titus 3:10 was followed to the letter.
In the meantime, David’s ‘Foundation Principles’ series also in the public domain which we were additionally accosted concerning came to light containing an index of what we can only consider to be errors, some of them egregious. We had no earlier notion that David held these views when he came into Moriel and we began promoting; something him for which we must accept partial responsibility, mandating a responsibility for us to correct it. At least three South African pastors have since contacted us informing us that they knew David Nathan taught serious error, (but there are others in addition). Three months is a long time and he was contacted a second time during this period. A charge of Titus 3:10 being violated is untrue.
Because we like David Nathan personally, this has been a very difficult episode. There are churches Moriel planted and others where I (Jacob Prasch) am a trustee and I have responsibilities before The Lord to these congregations to keep the Lord’s Sheep away from dangerously false dogma, as do pastors who will one day give account for the welfare of His sheep to the Chief Shepherd (1 Peter 5:1-4).
A more comprehensive treatment of David Nathan’s response will again appear in the rebuttal, suffice to say it is permeated with multiple demonstrable errors as shall be addressed.
This will be forwarded to David Nathan by Moriel.
* While this is only one of the videos we have of David Nathan, it is self-explanatory. Note please that before what he presents as ‘theory’, David Nathan teaches at the 20 second mark that Redemption”, “Salvation by Faith”, being filled with The Holy Spirit and being ‘Born Again’ will be “Finished”. People born in the Millennium will be descendent from the survivors of the final 7 years of history (Daniel’s 70th Week) and there is nothing in scripture to say these people won’t need salvation or redemption and believers in the Millennium will most certainly be Spirit Filled (Just as the Apostles were after John Chapter 20 before Jesus ascended).
* David then goes on to teach that they will, instead of by redemption by Christ, obtain atonement by the blood of animals so that they can participate in “religious” rituals. This is of course impossible according to Hebrews 10:4 as the blood of these animals in Levitical sacrifice are in Greek are ‘ADUNAMON” (devoid of any power; it is symbolic only). David also mis-defines the term “Atonement” (as invented by Wm. Tyndale) to be the translation of the Hebrew “Corban” instead of “Kapporah”. As shall be noted in the rebuttal, in the verses in Ezekiel 44 & 45 David highlights is the infinitive “L’CAPER”, not “L’HACRIV”. I know David attended yeshiva in his youth and surely, he can read this for himself, so I am at a loss to explain his confusion. To sacrifice for sin and to cover sin (not cover up, but cover) because if the provision for the sin by another are two different terms entirely in Hebrew with two different meanings and no common ‘shoresh’ (root) linking them etymologically. What David so assertively teaches makes absolutely no linguistic sense whatsoever. Lay people may swallow it out of ignorance, but not anyone versed in the original languages.
* At the 14:55 mark David teaches, (by his own admission-speculatively) that heaven will not only be for those who are Born Again. Positively nothing in scripture however anywhere negates or reverses John 3:3.
* David’s reasoning for the missing Holy Days in the Millennium is utterly mistaken. On the basis of The Book of Ezekiel, we can only be certain of Passover & Hag Matzot because The New Testament shows that Passover will have its Millennial culmination in the ‘Marriage Supper of The Lamb’ and of Hag Sukkot of which the Millennium is the fulfillment (Zech. 14). The others will have had their total fulfillment.
* David’s “theory” that we as believers will not have access to eat of the Tree of Life in heaven is nearly as implausible as his reason for believing it. He conflates and confuses the Fruit (representing the Divine Nature in Christ; e.g. ‘The Fruit of The Spirit’) with the Leaves (good works). As we see in Jesus cursing the Fig Tree (in Judaism, both ancient & modern, the Fig Tree represents the Atz Hayim or Tree of Life). Jesus said that we most assuredly will eat of the Tree of Life in Heaven Revelation 22:14. Those who do not are the dogs, sorcerers, murderers, and idolaters outside of the city.
* David’s teaching on this video that “no one will be Born Again after the rapture” is directly contradictory to Revelation 14:6. The Gospel being preached via angelic agency from midheaven at that time of God’s wrath being released concurrent with the rapture is defined in that text as a Gospel that is ‘Eternal’ (eugalion aonion eugalesai). The Gospel of repentance, faith, and salvation will be preached and it is an ‘eternal’ message of salvation. Eternity is an all-encompassing term in both Greek and English and includes the Millennium. David Nathan’s forceful assertions in this regard and the teaching of the plain meaning of text are mutually exclusive. The circumstances in which it is preached in a post grace environment will be very different, but the message itself will not be. David Nathan appears confused as to dispensations and their meaning. Not until the death & resurrection of Jesus and Pentecost did the season of Grace formally arrive. The Law was still in effect concurrent with the ministry of Jesus, yet He preached the Gospel announcing a coming age of grace before the age arrived (Matthew 4:23). The Law and its wrath moreover was concurrent with the preaching of the Gospel until climaxing in 70 AD/ CE. Isaiah 61: 1-2 (partially cited by Jesus in Luke 4 & Matt. 4) moreover, makes it clear that the proclaiming of the Gospel (‘Besora’ in Hebrew; ‘Evangelion’ in Septuagint & New Testament) encompasses both the Grace period and the time of divine vengeance. David’s teaching that the Gospel message entailing Second Birth can only exist in an era of Grace is a not only a concept alien to scripture, but at odds with it.
David’s teaching on this video that no one will be Born Again after the rapture is directly and mutually exclusively at odds that the Gospel preached by angelic agency from the air at that point will be “eternal’; there will be Salvation by faith etc.- howbeit in circumstances of unprecedented duress very different from the present time.
Neither I or Moriel, derives any pleasure from any of this, however we cannot allow the public impression that we agree with such horrible false teaching or allow believers in churches where we bear responsibility to be fed this brand of poison.
WATCH and HEAR DAVID NATHAN TEACH THESE THINGS BY CLICKING HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwjqvkLWfpM
