Posted on 02/20/2004 4:48:28 PM PST by dinok
Coming soon to a synagogue near you: "The Passion: The Counteroffensive." Jewish groups across the city are gearing up for the premiere of Mel Gibson's movie with sermons, forums and press conferences on the death of Christ. Their aim is to fight any suggestion that Jews - two millennia ago and today - are responsible for Jesus' crucifixion. Only a handful of Jewish activists have seen the movie, which chronicles the last 12 hours of Christ's life, but they've raised the alarm about its message.
They believe Gibson faults the Jewish high priest Caiaphas rather than the Roman tyrant Pontius Pilate for sending Jesus to his death, and they're upset Gibson did not cut a line implying Jews are cursed by God.
The Anti-Defamation League is planning an interfaith forum March 10 at Rodeph Sholom on the upper West Side, where Rabbi Robert Levine already has a full slate of discussions about the movie. "We've got ‘Passion' everywhere," Levine said.
The New York Board of Rabbis plans to see the movie when it opens Wednesday — Ash Wednesday — with Christian leaders and hold a press conference.
The American Jewish Committee has a symposium next month, and the Board of Jewish Education of New York is updating its Web site with materials about the movie for schools.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Their campaign will be in vain. While I crucified Christ because of my sin, God, through the Apostle Peter answered the question of responsability in Acts 2:22 - 41, at the end of the following message, 3000 Jews who heard it accepted Yashua as their savior... becoming the first members of the church. My prayer is that multitudes of Jews come to Yashua as a direct result of this film, for He, the stone that was rejected by the builders is in fact the chief cornerstone and their (and my) Messiah, the savior. The very one promised in Isaiah 53 and Psalm 23 and presented to Israel as the suffering savior.
“Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know—
this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.
“But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.
“For David says of Him,‘I SAW THE LORD ALWAYS IN MY PRESENCE; FOR HE IS AT MY RIGHT HAND, SO THAT I WILL NOT BE SHAKEN. ‘THEREFORE MY HEART WAS GLAD AND MY TONGUE EXULTED; MOREOVER MY FLESH ALSO WILL LIVE IN HOPE; BECAUSE YOU WILL NOT ABANDON MY SOUL TO HADES, NOR ALLOW YOUR HOLY ONE TO UNDERGO DECAY. ‘YOU HAVE MADE KNOWN TO ME THE WAYS OF LIFE; YOU WILL MAKE ME FULL OF GLADNESS WITH YOUR PRESENCE.
“Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.
“And so, because he was a prophet and knew that GOD HAD SWORN TO HIM WITH AN OATH TO SEAT one OF HIS DESCENDANTS ON HIS THRONE,
he looked ahead and spoke of £the resurrection of the Christ, that HE WAS NEITHER ABANDONED TO HADES, NOR DID His flesh SUFFER DECAY.
“This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.
“Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear.
“For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says: ‘THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD, “SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND, UNTIL I MAKE YOUR ENEMIES A FOOTSTOOL FOR YOUR FEET.”’
“Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified.”
Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?”
Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
“For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.”
And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation!”
So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. (Acts 2:22 - 41)
14 For you, brethren, are become followers of the churches of God, which are in Judea, in Christ Jesus: for you also have suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even as they have from the Jews:
15 Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and have persecuted us, and they please not God, and are adversaries to all men;
16 Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sin alway: for the wrath of God is come upon them to the end.
Witham - The Jews filled up the measure of their iniquities by the opposition they every where manifested to the religion of Christ. The earliest Fathers of the Church testify that they dispersed people into every nation to blaspheme the name of Christ; and hence sprang the evil fame which Christians bore among the pagans. See the apologies of S. Justin, Tertullian, Origen, etc.
I've been reading message boards on AOL and what I keep seeing in post after post is a concern that "this movie could incite violence against Jews because that's happened in the past after Passion plays."
Well, I did some research and could find no reports of violence against Jews after Passion plays here in the US. As a matter of fact, the only references I found were to incidents that happened in the middle ages.
So, I talked with one of the ladies who has been making those posts and she claims that there aren't accurate hate crime stats, etc.
I asked if she was willing to consider the possibility that Jewish leaders are exaggerating things. She wasn't willing to entertain that idea and when I expressed my concern that Muslim extremists could attack Jews with the intention of making it look like Christians did it in an effort to create problems between American Jews and Christians she didn't have ANY concern about that happening. She said "I don't think in this country that they are that sophisticated."
I don't get it.
No guts or emotion is required, nor does the agreement with myself have anything to do with it.
Jesus Christ remained obedient to the Father even unto death on the Cross. His soul descended and three days later ascended and resurrectted in the body, and later ascended even unto the third heaven and seated at the right hand of the Father.
His faith was counted as righteousness and that faith unto all those who believe also is our hope. His blood in a somatic sense displayed he was indeed physically dead when placed in the tomb. His blood as reference to the Perfect Sacrifice became the propitiation of the Father and redemption for the sin of all mankind.
Every man born today inherits the sin nature of the first Adam at physical birth, dead and separated from God spiritually. Jesus Chrsit as the second Adam, was the first human to possess a perfect body, soul and spirit, both as a human and with divine nature after the fall of Adam in the Garden.
His entire life on earth, during the first Advent, displayed to man how man is to live. A new Church Age was then established by which every believer is a priest with equal status before the our High Priest in heaven, Jesus Christ, and as such have fellowship with God.
Until one has faith in God through Jesus Christ, there is no mediator by which imperfect man may fellowship with perfect God. The Blood of Christ, symbolizing the Perfect Sacrifice, propitiated the wrath of the Father, redeemed man's condemnation in a marketplace of sin, and offers salvation to man who is even today initially born with a sin nature separated from spiritual holiness, but now has an opportunity to be reborn in the spirit and again become whole in fellowship with the Living God.
Don't take my word for it,...follow God's Word. God Bless.
“I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me WHOM THEY HAVE PIERCED; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.
“In that day there will be great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the plain of Megiddo.
“The land will mourn, every family by itself; the family of the house of David by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself and their wives by themselves;
the family of the house of Levi by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by itself and their wives by themselves;
all the families that remain, every family by itself and their wives by themselves." (Zecheriah 12:10 - 14 Emphasis mine)
It seems that God does hold the Jews partially responsible because they will, after over 2,000 years recognize Christ "whom THEY have pierced" and they will mourn for Him.
They will mourn because at last they will realize that the Lord Jesus Christ, the very one they rejected and had crucified and who arose from the dead, is in reality THEIR Messiah, the one they have been waiting for throughout their entire history! The good news is they will repent as a nation and finally accept Him as their savior and Christ.
According to Acts 2:23, in the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, the Jews nailed Jesus to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. Those are the facts, that along with the reality that I crucified, Christ. He died because of MY sin and in My place.
That's 'cause Christians won't truck-bomb your HQ if they suspect you're "dissing" them. In another time, and another movie, the philosophy was called "Let the Wookie win"
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