THOMAS JEFFERSON

If there were ever a man utterly ruined and spoiled by vain philosophy it was surely Thomas Jefferson.  Along with Thomas Paine, he was America’s greatest deceiver and antichrist – if you judge him according to the scriptures.  Jefferson perhaps more than any other, typifies the last days “scoffers, walking after their own lusts” warned about in the bible (2 Peter 3:3).  Jefferson said this about the Book of Revelation in a letter to General Alexander Smyth on January 17, 1825:  

“It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it and I then considered it as merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams.”

Through the rest of his letter, Jefferson makes it clear to the general that he had not repented of his formerly held view.  Some have tried to whitewash Jefferson because he thought Jesus was a fine teacher of morality; but here is what he said:

 “The greatest of all the Reformers of the depraved religion of his own country, was Jesus of Nazareth.  Abstracting what is really his from the rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by its luster from the dross of his biographers, and as separable from that as the diamond from the dung hill.” (Jefferson, letter to William Short, Oct. 31, 1819)

The above passage describes the approach Jefferson took in writing his so-called Jefferson Bible (properly titled The Life & Morals of Jesus of Nazareth). What he claimed he was attempting to do (and wrote about extensively) was to separate the “true” sayings of Jesus from the things he believed had been added to the gospel accounts.  But he did not really believe in the authority of the Bible, Old Testament or New.  In a letter to John Adams, he wrote:

 “… where did we get the ten commandments? The book indeed gives them to us verbatim, but where did it get them? For itself tells us they were written by the finger of God on tables of stone, which were destroyed by Moses … But the whole history of these books is so defective and doubtful, that it seems vain to attempt minute inquiry into it … we have a right to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine …” (Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814)

As seen earlier, Jefferson’s view of the New Testament was no better.  In the same letter to John Adams, he writes:

 “In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.”

When one reads The Jefferson Bible, it becomes clear what Jefferson was referring to when he mentioned “dunghills.”  He specifically removed the virgin birth, the miracles of Christ, the Lord’s resurrection and His ascension into heaven.  Needless to say, the entire Book of Revelation was omitted.  These were among the things Jefferson believed came from “inferior minds.”  Concerning the Lord Jesus, Jefferson wrote:

“Among the sayings and discourses imputed to Him by His biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others, again, of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism and imposture … I separate, therefore, the gold from the dross … and leave the latter to the stupidity of some, and roguery of others of His disciples. Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the … first corruptor of the doctrines of Jesus.” (Jefferson, letter to W. Short, April 13, 1820)

Jefferson & John Calvin

There seems to be an odd sort of pride that swells from the breasts of neo-Calvinists when they consider the American Revolution.  It is often asserted that the Founders were somehow or other operating on “Calvinist principles.”  If referring to the Puritans, we might agree.  But to mingle men like Jefferson with the likes of William Bradford and Jonathan Winthrop would be like mingling Judas Iscariot with Moses and Elijah.  They did not have the same faith.  In his writings, Jefferson reviled Calvin and Calvinism.  Jefferson wrote: 

“I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did. The being described in his 5. points is not the God whom you and I acknowledge and adore, the Creator and benevolent governor of the world; but a daemon of malignant spirit. It would be more pardonable to believe in no god at all, than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin.” (Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823)

Remember this the next time some neo-Reformer tries to tell you the Revolutionaries were Calvinists.  In truth, had Calvin been a governor in America during the time of the Founding Fathers, he likely would have had most of them arrested and sitting in a jail cell next to Michael Servetus.

In the Beginning was … Reason?

That extent which Jefferson rejected the Divinity of Jesus Christ, as the Son of God is best seen in his explanation of John chapter one.

“… the 3 first verses of the 1st. chapter of John, in these words,`{en arche en o logos, kai o logos en pros ton Theon kai Theos en o logos. `otos en en arche pros ton Theon. Panta de ayto egeneto, kai choris ayto egeneto ode en, o gegonen}. Which truly translated means `in the beginning God existed, and reason (or mind) was with God, and that mind was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were created by it, and without it was made not one thing which was made'. Yet this text, so plainly declaring the doctrine of Jesus that the world was created by the supreme, intelligent being, has been perverted by modern Christians to build up a second person of their tritheism by a mistranslation of the word {logos}. One of it's legitimate meanings indeed is `a word.' But, in that sense, it makes an unmeaning jargon: while the other meaning `reason', equally legitimate, explains rationally the eternal preexistence of God, and his creation of the world.” (Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823)

From this thinking, Jefferson next concludes that Christians, who think these passages refer to Jesus, are in fact the enemies of Christ.

“The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation …” (Ibid, Jefferson, same as above)

In his conclusion of all this, Jefferson went so far as to say that he hoped the true Gospel (which he called an “artificial scaffolding”) would eventually be destroyed in the United States of America.  In the same letter to John Adams he wrote:

“And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.  But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines …”

Both Jefferson and Thomas Paine expressed their desire to see the Gospel destroyed.  In the case of Paine, he said:

“The Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient Mythologists, accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and it yet remains to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud.” (Paine, The Age of Reason)

The Word of God is true

Far from being discouraged by the words of men like Jefferson and Paine, true believers should count it the fulfillment of all that the Scriptures warned us of.  The hatred such men had toward the Gospel of Christ was explained by the apostle Paul:

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish
foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power
of God.  For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of
the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding
of the prudent. (1 Corinthians 1:18-19)

For Thomas Jefferson, the entire Christian belief was nothing more than “foolishness,” and he said so in the most contemptuous ways possible.  As Christian patriots charge forward to defend Jeffersonian democracy, and the wisdom of the other Christ-rejecting founders, they should consider the ultimate end of that wisdom.  How will it fare in the consuming fires of the Most High God?


Comments

[J Pritchard]

With the rise of David Barton, via Glenn Beck, you should address the things Barton uses to paint Jefferson as a true Christian in this piece. The information you write in this is much darker than Barton paints, or should I say, void of light whereas Barton makes it shine bright.

Vanity, vanity. Me thinks at times there is no use in trying to understand and fight for freedom. Shall we rather just keep to ourselves and hide in caves and wait for the anti-Christ to finish his global empire so we can see the true Christ return?

As much as I'd like to, I still believe we have the obligation to influence our culture and government rather than stand back and watch.

I'm still listening (reading).