The Church of the Devil

By Robert Rosskopf

For an ancient Israelite or Jew, a synagogue was a place of learning - a school that teaches reading, writing, science, math and religion. Separation of church and state in the United States and other countries has led to a separation of religious studies from all other studies, but churches are still, first and foremost, a type of educational institute, school or university. When Jesus appeared to the Nephites, he settled a dispute concerning the naming of the church.

"8 And how be it my church save it be called in my name? For if a church be called in Moses’ name then it be Moses’ church; or if it be called in the name of a man then it be the church of a man; but if it be called in my name then it is my church, if it so be that they are built upon my gospel. " (3 Nephi 27)

The true church is the one that is called by his name and is built on his gospel.

Nephi saw an angel, who proceeded to show him a vision of the last days.

" 9 And it came to pass that he said unto me: Look, and behold that great and abominable church, which is the mother of abominations, whose founder is the devil.
10 And he said unto me: Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth."
(1 Nephi 14)

Nephi saw that there would be two competing educational systems; one was the church of God, the other was the church of the devil. Of the two, the church of the Devil would be by far the most popular.

John the apostle also taught about a competing organization which was corrupting the saints of God.

"18 Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.
19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us."
(1 John 2)

The antichrist, as John explains, was not just one person, but a number of people who came out of the church. He sees this as a sign that the end was near. The end of what? The end of a dispensation. Who were these people? John goes on to tell us what they taught:

"22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. "
(1 John 2)

He goes on to say:

"2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. "
(1 John 4)

This sounds like the two churches that Nephi saw. The antichrist believed in Jesus - after all they came out of the church - they just didn't believe that Jesus was literally the physical son of God. That would presuppose that God too was a physical person.

Paul too noticed the spread of this heresy, and commented on it in his letter to the Galatians.

"6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. "
(Galatians 1)

Paul goes on to explain the source of the two disparate doctrines; one comes from revelation, the other comes from the wisdom of men.

"11 But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.
12 For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. "
(Galatians 1)

Paul prophesied that the church would eventually turn to fables in lieu of the gospel.

"3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables."
(2 Timothy 4)

The fables of which Paul speaks were taught by the philosophers. Philosophy is the man-made religion that competed with and eventually corrupted Christianity. The church of the devil is the schools of philosophy. The antichrist were those who adopted Christianity and then changed it to reflect their philosophies. The emblem of a graduate of one of the schools of philosophy was the black robe. It is still the mark of a graduate, as anyone who has ever attended a college graduation ceremony can attest. It is the robe of Judges, and the robe of priests; it is the emblem of a false priesthood that traces its tradition back to the schools of philosophy.

Greek philosophy was quite popular among the Romans, and those Romans who later converted to Christianity still clung to many of their former beliefs.

According to John, the heresy taught by the antichrist concerns the nature of God, and the nature of Jesus and the nature of their relationship to each other. Plato used two words to define his worldview - "ousia" and "hypostasis". He noted that although all horses might be different, that they shared a common form. He refered to the physical reality of any individual horse as hypostasis, and theorized that the form of all horses came from some non-material reality that he called ousia. He deduced that this ousia must be independent of physical reality, and this came to be known as homoousios.
Origin was one of the early church fathers (251 AD) who adopted the idea that God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost were all of one ousia or homoousios. The Synods of Antioch condemned the word homoousios, since it was entirely of pagan origin. Despite that condemnation, the idea of homoousios was forever linked to the nature of God at the council of Nicea in 325 AD. The Nicene Creed, as it has come to be known, has been adopted in one form or another by almost every Christian church; the one church that refutes the idea is the Mormon church. Philosophy is still taught at every major university.