The comment section of my YouTube channel's videos on the First Fruits of Zion over and over contain a variation on this complaint, "I'm in a Torah Club and it isn't anything like what you've described." This is often followed by a polite, or not so polite, accusation that I'm a fool or a liar for claiming that the First Fruits of Zion teaches unorthodox things like denying the Trinity. Those seminar videos that are being commented upon contain primary source quote after quote, but perhaps that isn't enough. Having already shown two powerful examples of anti-Trinitarian statements from Daniel Lancaster {The original audio version of Daniel Lancaster's Only Begotten Son is even more heretical. and The boldly heretical anti-trinitarianism of Daniel Lancaster (One of the key leaders of the FFOZ and Torah Clubs) in his own words}, now the task becomes demonstrating that these ideas are contained within the Torah Club materials themselves. We don't have to look far, Lesson #1 of The Beginning of Wisdom, copyright 2022, contains ideas that undermine the orthodox Christian belief that Jesus was fully God and fully Man, and that he pre-existed with the Father and the Spirit as the Word of God as part of the holy Trinity (John 1).
Page 21 of Lesson 1 follows after a long discussion of the personification of Wisdom (setting up what is to come) drawn in part from the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon, as well as the assertion of the pre-existence of the human soul before our conception (p. 13-14), "To become a human being, the spirit must leave its abode in the heavens and inhabit an earthly body." As well as, "The spirit within you longs to return to the communion with God that it enjoyed before leaving heaven, entering a human conception, and becoming you." Another comment that I find about Torah Clubs is this, "The Church never taught me that!" It is typically used with a sense of wonder at what the Torah Clubs are teaching, and/or scorn at the supposed laxity of the Church's educational efforts. In this case, the Church certainly hasn't taught you that because the preexistence of the human soul was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) {For further explanation see: Could a person’s spirit have existed before their soul was created?} with this statement, "If anyone asserts the fabulous pre-existence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it: let him be anathema." This discussion about pre-existent souls ought to raise a red flag among Bible believing Christians who are invited to participate in a Torah Club, but given that this is a secondary theological issue, perhaps for many it went unnoticed. But what about the Trinity, surely playing fast and loose with the Trinity would send them running for the exits?
"The pre-existent, supernal wisdom of God through whom all things were created ultimately tabernacled among us in the person of the Messiah, Yeshua of Nazareth. He is God's wisdom made flesh...Yeshua embodies God's wisdom in physical form." In the midst of this quote the Torah Club lesson cites 1 Corinthians 1:24 and 2:7, neither of which is saying that Jesus was God's personified wisdom, that's not what Paul was talking about there in either verse. This is a oft-repeated pattern with FFOZ. When the scriptures are quoted the citations often do not connect with how they're being used, and/or the verses are paraphrased or given with word-substitutions that change the meaning. As to the quote itself, do you see one God with multiple modes/facets (heresy), or one God with three persons orthodoxy)? Wisdom isn't capitalized as it would be in English if they were writing about a person. Also, "in the person" hints back at Lancaster's teaching (see the links above) that the man Jesus is only "indwelt" by God, he isn't directly spoken of as God. "Yeshua embodies God's wisdom" is short of saying, "Jesus is God." Hair-splitting? Not at all. Who Jesus is is a vital question.
"This concept helps us understand the prologue of the Gospel of John. If we think of God's supernal word as the expression of His divine wisdom, we could understand the first few verses of the Gospel of John like this:
In the beginning was the Wisdom,
And the Wisdom was with God,
And the Wisdom was God.
It was in the beginning with God.
Everything was made to exist through Wisdom,
And nothing that was made to exist was made to exist except by it.
And the Wisdom became flesh,
And dwelt among us,
And we saw Wisdom's glory,
Glory as of the only begotten from the Father,
Full of grace and truth.
(Paraphrase of John 1:1-3, 14)"
I didn't know the followers of Jesus needed to paraphrase John 1 to understand the Apostle. In John's actual text, it is clear that the Word has the agency of a person, in this paraphrase, however, the Wisdom is an "it," it is an "expression" not (really or fully) a person. This is in keeping with the unorthodox views taught by FFOZ about the nature of God that most resembles the ancient heresy of Modalism.
Either Jesus Christ is fully God, and fully human, or he is something less.
Either the Word of God is the 2nd person of the Trinity, with full personhood and eternal preexistence, or he is something less.
The very first Torah Club lesson is undermining the traditional and orthodox understanding of the Church about Jesus Christ.
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