Facts On ---- The Masonic Lodge -- Chapter Seventeen

 

#17 The Facts on the Masonic Lodge
 

17. The Masonic Lodge teaches that the Bible is only a symbol of the will of God and not to be literally obeyed. Is this true?
 

    On the Masonic altar lies the square and compass and the Volume of Sacred Law. The volume of Scared Law is a symbol for the will of God.
    Masonry has at least five distinct teachings about the Bible.
 

(1) The Bible is a piece of Lodge furniture, a great "light" upon which the candidate obligates himself to Masonry.
(2) The Bible is only a symbol of the will of God. Masonry teaches that the actual contents of the Bible are not the Word of God. In Coil’s Masonic Encyclopedia we read, "The prevailing Masonic opinion is that the Bible is only a symbol of Divine Will, Law, or Revelation, and not that its contents are Divine Law, inspired, or revealed. So far, no responsible authority has held that a Freemason must believe the Bible or any part of it.
(3) The Bible of other faiths are equally valid for the Mason. Mackey’s Revised Encyclopedia of Freemasonry states:
 

"The Bible is used among Freemasons as a symbol of the will of God, however it may be expressed. Therefore, whatever to any people expresses that will {of God} may be used as a substitute for the Bible in a Masonic Lodge. Thus, in a Lodge consisting entirely of Jews, the Old Testament alone may be placed upon the altar, and Turkish Freemasons {Muslims} make use of the Koran. Whether it be the Gospels to the Christian, the Pentateuch to the Israelite, the Koran to the Mussulman, sic; Muslim) or the Vedas to the Brahman, it everywhere Masonically conveys the same idea-that of the symbolism of the Divine Will revealed to man."

 

(4) The Bible is only a part of the "revelation" of God. In the Holman "Temple Illustrated Edition of the Holy Bible" Masonic leader Reverend Joseph Fort Newton wrote:
 

"Thus, by the very honor which Masonry pays to the Bible, it reaches us to revere every book of faith...joining hands with the man of Islam as he takes oath on the Koran, and with the Hindu as he makes covenant with God upon the book that he loves best... {Masonry} invites to its altar men of all faiths knowing that, if they use different names for ‘the nameless one of a hundred names’ they are yet praying to the one God and Father of all; knowing, also, that while they read different volumes, they are in fact reading the same vast Book of the Faith of Man as revealed in the struggle and sorrow of the race in its quest of God."
 

    In conclusion, virtually all Masonic authorities "establish three things:
 

(1) that the Bible is only a symbol, (2) that a Mason is not required to believe its teachings, and (3) that some other book may be substituted for it.
 

    This is what Jesus and the apostles taught about the Bible:
 

"He who rejects Me, and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day. For I did not speak on my own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me commandment what to say, and what to speak...(John 12:48-50).
 

"All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16,17).
 

    How can a Christian Mason, who claims to believe that the Bible is the literal Word of God, help to promote an organization that denies the Bible is God’s Word and denies Jesus’ teachings on the Bible? Scripture tells us we are to live "worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory" (1 Thessalonians 2:12).
 

John Ankerberg & John Weldon