THE ALTERNATIVE

By Reno Omokri

For over a decade, I have been trying my best to lovingly teach fellow believers about the real name of our Lord and Saviour.  The most consistent barrier to Christians unlearning the made-up name Jesus has always been their claim that the name of Jesus works wonders for them, and as such, it must be acceptable to God.

When I read or hear people say that, it reminds me of the words of Mark Twain, who said, “The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”

And sadly, many believers do not read. We rather rely on dogma, and pastors to tell us what we should think. And after a lifetime of religious conditioning, our resistance to the truth is much stronger than our resistance to dogma.

But as the Turkish proverb goes, no matter how far you have gone down the wrong road, turn back.

The name of our Lord and Saviour is not Jesus. And there are vested physical and spiritual forces who do not want you to know His real Name. And they are prepared to go to any lengths, in order to fulfil their mandate of hiding the truth from us.

The mandate after all is to steal, kill, and destroy.

Our Saviour’s Name is Yeshua. And He is not the Christ. He is the Messiah, or more accurately, Hamashiach.

And for those saying that they get answers to prayers, and cast out demons, and perform miracles in the name of Jesus, please allow me to quote Yeshua Hamashiach in Matthew 7:21-23.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me.”

Many people think Jesus is a translation of Yeshua. No, it is not. Jesus is a transliteration of the Name Yeshua. Which is very different from a translation. A transliteration is not a translation. It is just like when your name is Kayode, and you go abroad, only for a European to tell you, ‘I can’t pronounce Kayode, so I will call you Kay!’

Almost all the names you see in your King James Version and subsequent versions, are corrupted transliterations.

John is Yohannan

Judas is Yehudah

James is Yaakov

Bartholomew is actually a phrase, Bar Talmai, meaning son (bar) of Talmai. And so on and so forth.

Yeshua means the Name of God saves. Jesus has no corresponding meaning in either Koine Greek or modern-day Greek.

For example, my name in Itsekiri is Bemigho. The Yoruba translation is Bamiwo. But Jesus does not mean Yeshua in Koine Greek. In fact, the word Jesus is the Latin form of the Greek Iesous, which is itself a transliteration. Do you see how far we have drifted? Jesus is the Latin form of a Greek transliteration.

Meanwhile, what is hard in pronouncing Yeshua, the Name that God gave Him through the angel Gabriel? Why must we translate it? Why must we even go beyond translation and transliterate it?

Names have power in the spiritual realm. And instructions passed down directly from God have great power.

Hence, when Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu “offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not” in Leviticus 10:1, they were killed in Leviticus 10:2.

And if Yeshua was hard to pronounce, I could even understand, but still not accept why we had to call our Lord and Saviour Jesus. But what is hard in pronouncing Yeshua?

Imagine the audacity! You, a mere mortal, taking it upon yourself to rename your own Saviour?

We are referring to the most important Name that ever existed for a living human person. We did not translate or transliterate the names of Nelson Mandela, William Shakespeare, George Washington, Vladimir Lenin, Kwame Nkrumah, and other notable historical figures. But it is the Name of our Lord and Saviour we want to translate and transliterate? Meanwhile, all these names have more syllables than Yeshua. But the target for name dilution is aimed only at Yeshua.

And the first rule of translation is that you don’t translate a Name.

To even lovingly show you that Jesus is a made-up name, as at the time of His earthly ministry, the letter J was unknown and the English language had not even been invented or created. English came into existence as a kind of patois, when the Romans took their Germanic Saxon slaves to Britain, and after other Saxons and Germanic peoples migrated as free men to the British isles around 500 years after the death of Yeshua.

And the letter J did not come into existence in ANY language until 1000 years after the invention of English, which coincided with the translation of the King James Version in 1611. Prior to that, Europeans used the names Iēsous (Greek) or Iesvs (Latin). Please note that the V in Iesvs was pronounced as a modern-day U.

If you think praying in the name of Jesus gives you much power, then try praying in His original Father-given name and see if you will not get even greater power made available to you from God. I am not teaching you a new name. No. I am teaching you to call Him by the Name that is above all names, INCLUDING the name Jesus! And that is the name that proceeded from the mouth of angel Gabriel to Yosef in Matthew 1:21.

And it is not just that they changed His Name. These same forces also gave Him a contrived birthday, to hide their pagan agenda.

Christmas is not the birthday of Jesus, for the simple reason that there was never even a historical religious figure named Jesus. Christmas is actually the birthday of Mithras, the sun god. That is why I said it is no better or worse than the Oro festival, or your village’s new yam festival.

I actually went to Bethlehem around Christmas time and it is impossible for our Saviour to have been born on December 25, even when you take into effect climate change. This is based on the weather in Bethlehem now, and what it was 2000 years ago, and how the description we are given in Scripture contradicts those weather patterns.

Besides, it was not the practice of our Lord to mark His birthday. Rather, we are to mark His death, which occurred precisely on the 14th day of the Jewish month of Nisan.

Even the Quran is more accurate in describing Him than many of us ‘Christians. The al-Quran describes Him as al-Masihu Isa (Yeshua the Messiah) in Quran 3:45.

Sadly, Black Africans and other colonised people have just swallowed hook, line, and sinker, all the dogma and propaganda that Europeans brought to us in the name of Christianity (following Christ), when in reality they are practicing Christendom (the political mixture of Christianity with their pagan beliefs).

And when I teach these things, some people accuse me of teaching Judaism, rather than Christianity. Alas, many of us do not know our faith.

At the risk of repeating myself, let me reiterate that during His Earthly lifetime, Yeshua Hamashiach was a Jewish Rabbi, who lived and died on the Earth as a Jew. He worshipped on the Sabbath. He obeyed the laws of Moses. And He never introduced a new religion. He only introduced new commandments, which is what He said with His own Mouth in John 13:34.

He never introduced the word Christian. That name was more like a nickname given to His followers by the townspeople of Antioch-Acts 11:26.

Both Yeshua and His disciples, including Paul, never disavowed Judaism. They all remained Jews. And you can see this in John 4:22, where Yeshua told the Samaritan woman of Sychar that “salvation is of the Jews.”

We also see this in Paul’s confession in Acts 21:39, where he said that “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia.”

Now, when we Gentiles started believing in Yeshua’s teachings, a council was held in Jerusalem, where we were given a special dispensation not to follow the strict rules on Judaism. The dispensation leniently gave us just four rules to abide by, of which you can see those rules in Acts 15:19-21, where James (Yaakov), speaking for the council, said:

“It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. For the Law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”

Notice that James called us Gentiles. Only a Jew calls a non-Jew a Gentile.

So, don’t get carried away by the nomenclature of the word Christianity. In essence, our faith is an offshoot of Judaism and we are meant to follow Yeshua Hamashiach’s example, except that we are not subject to the Laws of Moses, beyond the four rules given to us by the council of Jerusalem in Acts 15:19-21.

Following Yeshua Hamashiach is not hard. Just get Scripture and read it. Then do everything it requires of you. And where what Scripture mandates you to do clashes with what your church prescribes for you to do, then quietly, and without much fuss, obey Scripture.

And why do I say this? Because, as Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

In other words, you are complete with Scripture, and there is no need to go outside Scripture for any doctrine. Even if it is the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury that gives you a doctrine outside Scripture, ignore it, as you would do if it came from a nonentity. And the reason for this is in Galatians 1:8, which says:

“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse.”

Reno’s Nuggets

Don’t make money in order to be rich. Instead, make money in order to have freedom. Freedom to travel. Freedom to move to a new country, or town. Freedom to sit at home, or go to the office. In short, freedom to live life at your own pace, instead of the rat race. And you have to escape the rat race: Go to work. Come home. Watch TV. Sleep. Wake up. Repeat the cycle from Monday to Friday. Then go to church. Then repeat the whole cycle again. That is not life. Do something meaningful with your life. Travel. Write a book. Go sky diving. Do new things. There’s more to life than 9 to 5!

#RenosNuggets #FreeLeahSharibu

Eid Greetings

I wish the Muslim Ummah a blessed end to Ramadan 1444/1445 AH. May God bless you all, and may your prayers for peace and prosperity of all people come to a realisation. May the virtues acquired in the last month be lasting, and may the deen flourish. May the Almighty also grant the sarkin Musulumi divine wisdom as he continues to lead the mu’min. Finally, may we all be alive to celebrate the end of Ramadan next year. Eid Mubarak.