The Redefinition of Yahweh
by Kiké Anthony
Atheism is not the grand, quintessential problem, the quizzical and unsolvable plague of today. To be sure, it is an issue, and a detrimental one. It is, in fact, a fundamentally diabolical one. How so? It is denial of the existence of God and, therefore, Jesus Christ. “If you deny Me, I will deny you before My Father” (Matt. 10:33), Jesus plainly says in the Scripture. Denial is the sine qua non of everlasting, unceasing, perpetual residence in hell. Of course, atheists, non-theists, God-deniers do what they do best: deny this out of hand. “There is no hell, no eternity, destiny, etc.”
We can see why only 7% (10% if stretched) are positively atheistic, while religion remains an integral part of the majority of people’s lives. Eighty-four percent of the world's population testifies to this by identifying with a religious group.[1] Fundamentally and functionally, religion is man reaching out to God in some way, shape, or form, and the world’s population is enthusiastically doing so. But atheists unreasonably go on contending that the evidence for God, a god, or gods is not there. They especially emphasize that Yahweh has not provided sufficient proof to push them toward belief. That is, they are actively invested in sustaining and confirming their position that there is no God (Psalm 10:4). Here, they are not impressed that their dilemma is an ancient one—one that even the Hebrew writers were aware of in a world where Egypt and Assyria and many other nations and kingdoms were into their gods. Atheists have always been an unreasonable minority.
Interestingly, sociologist Phil Zuckerman finds that most atheists today originate from China (200 million).[2] Seemingly, many atheists are made, developed, or fabricated through their environment. That the Bible is unsalable commercially in China demonstrates the obvious connection that atheists, God-deniers, can indeed be manufactured. That’s why Jesus indicts their manufacturers in Matthew 18:6: “‘But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.’” Belief is the more natural human outreach. Mankind is designed to reach out for God more than reject Him.
What about other countries? “Relative to its own populations, Zuckerman ranks the top five countries with the highest possible ranges of agnostics and atheists: Sweden (46–85%), Vietnam (81%), Denmark (43–80%), Norway (31–72%), and Japan (64–65%).” There are various reasons for this, but they are not the same as China. Denmark, Norway, and Sweden encourage self-seeking, pleasures, hedonism, as their preferred medicines. Japan promotes other gods and deities as the primary options of spiritual seeking and satisfaction. Appeasing gods, spirits, and all religions is the Japanese way—Shintoism. The conclusion here is still the same: any god or no God, but certainly not the God of Scripture—Yahweh.
Romans 1 is not so concerned with denying Yahweh as it is with redefining Him and “exchanging the truth of God for the lie, and worshiping and serving the creature rather than the Creator” (v. 25). The lie is what I call the Great Exchange: the spontaneous, subconscious, and permitted redefinition of Yahweh. Saying out loud that we have the right and authority to reconceive God into someone or something other than what the Bible declares is unacceptable, yet Christians and non-Christians alike redesign Him into a god more appropriate for ourselves—our lifestyles, desires, and ways. Of course, we claim otherwise. Lord Buckbeak in April confirmed, “Jesus remains a uniquely powerful and popular figure in American culture. The great divide is over what he stands for.” He is not a figure and stands for nothing. He came to redeem rebellious man. But that’s just it, according to the author: many Jesuses exist—the tweaks and twists ever so slight, but leaving the lug nuts loose enough for the wheels of faith to fall off down the road.
Nonetheless, the new meaning of God—the new identity of God—is always one more suitable and satisfying, one more appealing to and appeasing of man’s fragile, sinful state. Unbelievers actually approve of this image of God too, by the way, which should be a red flag, but Christians remain all too ready to celebrate the shared beliefs of their unrepentant counterparts. This same, wearied, and hackneyed witchery never changes or goes away. Jesus is like software or an iPhone—a new version out every year. It is the repeated serving of the same stale lie that somehow never loses its flavor: to remake and redefine God and make ourselves believe that God accepts this worship. Yum. May I have more?
Redefinition
Redefining God is to change the satisfactory and concrete definition of God. It is to change the nature of the entire paradigm of God the Creator, and us, the created. Creator is greater; created is lesser. But not under the new terms.
The creator of Facebook (Zuckerberg) will forever be over and above everyone—conceptually, positionally, and societally—with respect to social media and his platform. Without him, the social media revolution takes a different turn and becomes something else or other than what we know today. Naturally, he is rewarded economically and respected and regarded higher in terms of status for his rank as creator. Facebook works and functions how he wants it to work and function. Users cannot change or redefine it. They don’t have the authority or autonomy or authorization or access—no matter how much they “could do it better.” To do so would be to use something else or other—but certainly not Facebook.
But with God, we have believed ourselves to have hacked God, reimagined Him, and assured each other that we are still worshipping the one true God—when what we have done is switch platforms. It is not Facebook, but we have convinced ourselves and others it is. Obviously, believing this lie is deception.
This reinvention is not about alternative religions. It is about how the Christian God—the one of Scripture—has been reconceived and reformulated by Christians. It is Christ’s people who have pioneered this method of maintaining His biblical origination—the idea that we are all still talking about that God when we mention God, the one who still holds a patent on the heaven we all want in the end (if there is one, for the positive atheist)—when this god is a fake, an image of God but not Him at all.
Herein lies the lie. “Has God said?” (Gen. 3) is the knife in the tire letting the air out. The tire is the Word of God, the Bible, and the false notion that man gets to interpret it instead of receive its revelation. Any form of disconnecting, denying, or diluting the full force of the revealed God of Scripture is to fall for the first lie that continues to fascinate people on their way to destruction—yes, even for the Christian. Christians don’t go to heaven; truth bearers, holders, keepers, and followers do.
“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). That Way is the literal Word of God. “The Word is God” (John 1:1).
Christians have redefined God into someone who has switched man’s need for God into God’s need for man. That is, He wanted us so much He sent His Son—not that we needed Him so much He sent His Son. All sorts of false expressions come from here, and many are following the Jesus who helps them along their self-absorbed life—who is there to pick us up when we’re down, to save us from a snare, etc. Yes, He does these things for His followers, but these are not sufficient, satisfactory reasons for choosing Him, and thus they are not saving reasons. That the church promotes these as considerable motives is another layer to the lie.
“This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1 Tim. 1:15). One’s need for salvation because one is a sinner is the proof that realization of truth has occurred.
Reposition
What we will always discover is that once the redefining of God occurs, one’s position as a needful transgressor, lawbreaker, and trespasser shifts. Somehow, when the truth of God is exchanged for the lie—that is, the human tendency toward self-appointed authority to self-assign the capability and authority to redefine God—then one’s posture as a humble, wicked scoundrel becomes transparent. Its thick, black coloring vanishes, and that idea disappears, becoming invisible and thus imaginary and inoperable. In other words, such notions do not matter.
Christianity has made its mark and money by changing its purpose and identity. It has started many organizations, congregations, and associations filled with drive-thru customers conniving and convincing people that Jesus’s crucifixion was a proposal—begging the lost to come to Him and receive His husbandry love. How much Jesus wants us to wear His ring and be our doting Groom. But this is the repositioning.
The unbeliever, rejector, or ignorer of God simply thinks they—and all mankind—are good, and God, if there be any, is evil. And certainly the Christian God—Yahweh, His Son, and His Spirit of Holy Scripture—are utterly detestable. For no self-respecting God could ever allow this world to turn out as it has while He twiddles His almighty thumbs. Then they realize, “Oh yes, but He can’t possibly be real or, as He claims, powerful.”
Creative power would mean ensuring things remain good. So many implications arise here.
First, the term good is assumed as universal. However, God’s good (recall, God doesn’t exist—so how can He be the cause and take the blame?) and their good are always assumed to be the same. Interesting how this major leap is as easy as jumping across the Atlantic from the East Coast to Europe—yet they will insist there was no ocean between this idea.
Second, and the one that shows up in real life at all ages, is that since no creative power of a supposed God could allow millennia of bloodshed, evil, and atrocities to exist under His watch, well, then He is not powerful. If not all-powerful, then He certainly could not have created. Therefore, since we are not created—voilà!—no God.
We are free to create gods or redefine God and dress Him up or down—whatever—because Scripture is a mythological tale of the Christian God who, well, had His celebrity, but should now retire the jersey. The creature—us, in our brief existence—tailors God to suit us, our beliefs, desires, and instincts.
Sure, many will maintain a morality that serves as a badge of self-approval. If one approves of themselves, then that is evidence that God does, because repositioning allows for this. So, this badge—or pass—allows one to be guilt-free, to maintain relationships, and to thrive. Most morals, although preloaded into our created beings from God, are universal. Although that proves more a precoding than a social utility, opposers will illogically suggest otherwise.
Universal, societal, or personal morals mostly borrow from these—don’t murder, don’t cheat, don’t steal, lie, assault, etc.—with minor variations (island tribes, indigenous groups, corrupt governments). This is why many collectively condemn such behaviors. The agnostic, atheist, and altar-goer (Christian) will stray from taboo acts and justify themselves as good, righteous, and approved for doing so. However, when moral treason is self-condemning, a rewrite of the code or constitution is simply a self-justifying doctrine away—a sort of temporary order. If the dissonance does not impede happiness, then one is still in the kingdom.
The danger is that unbeliever and believer in God through Jesus Christ share the same righteousness here—which speaks to one being a deceived Christian. The world already stands deceived. When the agnostic and atheist and the Christian live in the same kingdom, redefining and repositioning are systemic.
Both positions—unbelief and belief—allow for followers to deify themselves and subject God, if He exists, to one who lives to help them, meet their needs, and save them. Did you catch that? God exists to save them. He didn’t painstakingly humble Himself, plan salvation, and execute it over 6,000 years throughout real and raw history as a rescue attempt; He did not sacrifice Himself on our helpless behalf.
Not in the new kingdom. He, in fact, was the lucky one—not us. Of course He would do this. He had to, or else He would have failed us. It was God who moved heaven and earth just to get the chance to hear us say, “I do.”
What a realignment.
No wonder Christians live self-seeking, entitled lives and do not awe and bow that such a feat was accomplished for unnerving sinners. In order for one to love Him much, they have to know they are forgiven much, but realigning the repositioning makes loving Yahweh through Christ impossible.
This is precisely why Christians largely and evidently (a glimpse around the kingdom possessor will show this) do not love Him and keep His Word—which is what it means to love Him. It’s why unrepentant, God-denying, refusing, and rejecting sinners can say—and unflinchingly believe—that “Jesus loves me and accepts me as I am, no need to repent.”
Repurpose
All that is left, then, is the why of life. Why am I here? Of course, with the main character being us, then to live for ourselves, to craft our best life, to acquire a version of success that accomplishes an individual state of never-ceasing satisfaction through the pursuit of personal interests is the great commission. We make disciples who believe in this God—who assume Christ came, died, and rose again to secure the all-encompassing, global kingdom of personal happiness for each of us, if we believe and have enough faith. This paramount virtue is possible upon receiving the grace of Jesus Christ.
Anyone who can seek and discover what makes them happy, and then can brand what makes us all happy, are the saved ones who save others. The high priests of the faith are able to uninterruptedly sustain that happiness. “Seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” is now this. “God wants us to be happy” is concrete scripture to many now—all one needs to do is listen. We were created or concocted, whichever starting point one subscribes to, to be happy. Certainly, that is in Genesis. The church has contributed to the development and distribution of this falsehood.
And it will all work out in the end. It has to, since Yahweh’s prescriptions and declarations in the Word are now adjustable. This is the other part. If happiness is not achieved in the here and now, well, that is what heaven is—our forever happy place. When redefining occurs, repurposing is possible.
The ink of the Holy Word has not dried, and even if it did, this is the 21st century, after all. There is always an ability to delete or edit at our fingertips. If the writers of Scripture had had Google Docs or Microsoft Word, surely, they would have known.
But mankind’s delusion carries on, and the end for all—no matter the faith or fruit—will be heaven.
Today’s top goal unyieldingly remains ultimate and eternal happiness. “What you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and what is bound in heaven will be loosed on earth” can find its pure demonstration through happiness. This is certainly what Yahweh meant and intended, right? God will be there—and is there, here, everywhere—to make sure we are happy forever, just as He is supposed to do now (if He is a good God). And if not, well, we have rewritten our endings because we worship the creature (us) first.
“Clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart” (2 Cor. 3:3), has a new meaning now. And this is what it means to redefine, reposition ourselves before Yahweh, and repurpose the path of eternal life—where happiness becomes the sovereign call and supreme cause.
See how this works?
This is all lived, expressed, and practiced through human lives. Secular society and its institutions (schools, universities, governments, etc.) and mediums (entertainment, media, etc.) promote the spiritual prompting that orchestrates all this “through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world” (Col. 2:8).
Know that the ruler of this world (Satan) is the mastermind and schemer of this.
Thus, following the lie leads to death and damnation—even as the narrative insists living for, believing in, and following after Christ is a life of hell (restriction, obedience, instruction, correction, conviction, etc.), while adhering to him is happiness, and its outcome is naturally and obviously—duh—heaven.
To exchange the truth of God for the lie, and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator, is a religious and irreligious endeavor for the Nones and Somes, the Christian and non-Christian, the theist and atheist, the American and international citizen, the 7–10% and the 84%, etc.
Serving Yahweh as a living sacrifice—holy and acceptable to Him on His terms, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service—and to not be conformed to this world and its stylish ways of redefining God, but becoming transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God (Rom. 12:1–2), is the only reassurance and evidence that one has not fallen for the lie and made the Great Exchange.
The end result for each is different, but the liars and deceivers will continually profess and allege that the destination is the same.
See how the lie works?
It’s relentless.
[1] Anshool Deshmukh.Graphics/Design: “Mapped: The World’s Major Religions.” Visual Capitalist, February 12, 2022. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-major-religions-of-the-world/#:~:text=However, religion remains an integral,identifies with a religious group.
[2] Keysar, Ariela; Navarro-Rivera, Juhem (2017). "36. A World of Atheism: Global Demographics". In Bullivant, Stephen;
Ruse, Michael (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. Oxford University Press.