Whom Do We Listen To? Part 4

Whom Do We Listen To? Part 4
Friday, April 17, 2026 by Dr. James W. Walraven

Categories: Apologetics / Apostasy / Contemporary issues / Scripture discussion / Spiritual deception / Spiritual warfare / The church / Thought for Today / Truth telling

False prophets. They appear to be one thing when they are something far different. In the last post, we started to look at Don Keathley, and one of his tomes, “Unhook the Book.”

We left off examining his teaching that only part of the Bible was written to Gentiles, while the bulk of it, including all Jesus’s ministry, was to the Jews. Note: according to Keathley, it was the Jews who wanted a covenant based on works; it was not God’s intention or idea. It was Moses who turned the 10 Commandments into over 600 other laws that they could not keep.

We left off discussing Keathley’s theory that as Gentiles, under Christ’s completed work, we are not even supposed to confess our sin, that sin and separation are connected to the first covenant through Adam. Everyone is reconciled to God, even those who don’t know it and don’t follow Christ. Jesus dealt with our sin and that is that. Any sense of separation from Him is arguably an illusion, a false belief, a false construct.

But what about 1 John? After all, 1 John is in the New Testament, and therefore one would think that having been written after Christ’s death and resurrection, it would apply to us.

As we noted in the previous post, 1 John tells us that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But, we’ve just seen that Keathley insists we are not to confess sin, that in doing so we wrongly think we are under Adam and that sin separates us from God. How does Keathley get around that command in 1 John?

Easy. Since Peter and John were sent to the Jews (see the book of Acts), they were ministering to the Jews, those who needed to be transitioned from the old covenant to the new. Thus as Gentiles, books like 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2 and 3 John, were not written to us as Gentile believers, but to the Jews. Therefore, while we may learn some things from those books, we must be careful about what we do or do not apply to our lives from them. That clearly includes realizing that, contrary to 1 John, we are not to confess our sins. Keathley goes so far as to insist that we must stop inserting ourselves into the Gospels, as seeing them as applying to us.

Keathley insists that he places a high value on Scripture. Does any of his teaching as outlined above, bear this out? No. He is even more blunt on that point. We don’t even truly know what books should be included in the Bible. He doesn’t say that directly, but he repeatedly implies it. How?

He tells how some denominations include the Apocrypha in their bibles, that those bibles consist of 80 books. Meanwhile others reject the Apocrypha, and have bibles with only 66 books. In addition, some reformers, citing Luther, didn’t like some books of the Bible and would have preferred to throw them out. He repeats these arguments multiple times. Does that sound like anyone who holds Scripture in high regard? No.

That is the essence of his teachings based off the biblical truth that as believers in Christ we are in a new covenant. Does any of it sound remotely biblical? No. The warnings against sin and its consequences as found in 1 Corinthians and Galatians are nowhere to be found. Those warnings are of no consequence, since Jesus finished redemption and all are included in Him, due to God’s radical love and grace. God’s hatred of sin is nowhere to be found. Eternal judgment and separation from God? Nope. Do we need a Savior in the classic understanding of a Savior? No. Indeed even the idea of needing to being saved, of being separated from God by our sin, is in error. All that is necessary is for us to realize that we are already included in Christ, to recognize our true identity that we already have.

Sadly, while he claims that it is the Holy Spirit who is leading him into all truth, doesn’t it appear that a different spirit is leading him into ever deeper error? We will briefly look at the other book, “The Gospel Free from Doctrine,” in the next post.

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