Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Israel
Well, this is simple enough, if you believe the Torah:

First, dealing with the title: yes, "G-d" is wrong. There is no Biblical precedent for calling God "G-d." Anyone who does so shows he is not content with Biblical revelation.

Second, here is what the Torah says about Messiah, taken from the old American Standard Bible translation (where Jehovah is used for Yahweh):

15 Jehovah thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; 16 according to all that thou desiredst of Jehovah thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of Jehovah my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. 17 And Jehovah said unto me, They have well said that which they have spoken. 18 I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. 19 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. 20 But the prophet, that shall speak a word presumptuously in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die. 21 And if thou say in thy heart, How shall we know the word which Jehovah hath not spoken? 22 when a prophet speaketh in the name of Jehovah, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which Jehovah hath not spoken: the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously, thou shalt not be afraid of him.
Debarim [Deuteronomy] 18:15-22

Now, let us single out three indisputable facts, and one inescapable inference, from this passage:

First, the three indisputable facts:

  1. The Prophet will speak the very words of Yahweh (v. 18)
  2. In spite of this, some in Israel will reject what He says, thus rejecting what Yahweh Himself says (v. 19)
  3. Those Israelites who reject Yahweh's words through Messiah will suffer the judgment of God (v. 19)

Now, the inescapable inference, which I will develop in a four-point progression:

  1. Yahweh Himself commands His people to love their neighbors as themselves (Leviticus 19:18)
  2. Nobody would want himself, whom he naturally loves, to fall under the judgment of God
  3. Therefore nobody should want his neighbor to fall under the judgment of God
  4. Therefore those who affirm the words of Yahweh through the Messiah AND who love their neighbors would try to persuade their neighbors who reject His words to repent of that rejection, so as to avoid the judgment of God.

This isn't rocket science.

Dan
Biblical Christianity web site

14 posted on 01/17/2002 6:19:18 AM PST by BibChr
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: BibChr
You are very well aware of the reason Jews spell G-d so why the continual disrespect from you? You can't be that stupid but I have seen many times that you are arrogant. Not everyone believes exactly as you do. Imagine that.

Would you like to understand one of the big reasons Jews do not accept Jesus as the Messiah?

From Dennis Prager's book, The Nine Questions People Ask About Judiasm, Judaism does not believe that Jesus was the Messiah because he did not fulfill any messianic prophecies. The major prophecy concerning the messianic days is that "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war anymore" (Isaiah 2:4; see also Isaiah 2:1-3, 11:1-10). World peace must accompany the Messiah, and should peace not come, the Messiah has obviously not come...

20 posted on 01/17/2002 6:43:19 AM PST by BlueHorseShoe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies ]

To: BibChr
Debarim [Deuteronomy] 18:15-22

The Jewish interpretation of this passage is that it refers to all the future prophets, not just one. You agree that there was more than one prophet after Moses?

29 posted on 01/17/2002 6:54:56 AM PST by malakhi
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies ]

To: BibChr
Good post, especially the point about "G-d." It may help a lot of sincere FR believers who are sort of stuck in the Old Testament despite the Book of Hebrews' warnings about that kind of retrograde Christianity.

As I understand it, the OT Jews were worried about the commandment which says "I will not hold him guiltless who takes My name in vain." If we read this verse in the way the Jews would have been likely to read it, we see it as presenting an apparently unpardonable sin.

My point is that to be held "not guiltless" is a damning disaster. And the verse promises this damning disaster for anyone who uses His name in vain. The Jews figured that they'd better put a whole lot of distance between themselves and that disaster--so they didn't use God's name at all.

But if we continue this mindset in the era of the New Covenant, we miss some of the most important points of the gospel.

First of all, what God demands of us is genuine faith, not vain professions of same. It follows from this that God will burn the tares--and He explicitly declares that He will do this.

This reminds us that God will not hold guiltless the person who has no genuine faith in the God Whose name he would presume to take upon himself. To profess faith in Christ when you are not even born again is a vain use of the Lord's name.

But it is also true that the very nature of faith is such that it entails a true vital union with Almighty God and a trust stemming from that relationship. We must appropriate this bliss in the faith of God's elect. And the bliss is like that of a blessed marriage, in which the bride certainly does take upon herself the very name of her beloved.

It will not do, by the way, to say "Well, I'll take the name of Jesus/Yeshua upon myself, but not the Name of G_d." This is tantamount to a denial that the person who is Jesus/Yeshua, no matter what name we use, IS God. We need to stay out of this antichristian confession. It is potentially deadly, as the Apostle John warns us!

(My point here is that the legalistic mindset is more dangerous than some folks have realized. See Jeremiah 17:9. Except a man be born again, he will get everything important to Christianity WRONG. It is possible to be a pseudo-sincere religionist like Nicodemus was in John Chapter 3 and wind up in hell.)

Therefore, the faith of the Son of God demands that we sincerely claim for ourselves the name of Almighty God and expect in that sincerity of trust that He will save us unto heaven itself.

Failure to do this is to draw back to perdition. Failure to be bold in the faith of the Judgment Day sincerity which regeneration always produces is a kind of cowardice which God loathes.

So, when we apply the third commandment to the matter of hypocritical claims upon the Name/Being of God, we see that intractably obdurate unbelief is the real essence of the only unpardonable sin mentioned in the Lord's gospel.

Look at the ironies here. It is possible for a person to be so worried about fastidiousness concerning the legal implications of the third commandment that he misses Christ altogether.

I do not assume that Messianic Jews are lost just because they are afraid to use the name of God in the ordinary which Gentile-born Christians do dare to use it. Most of the Messianic Jews have learned the wrong mindset from birth, and it is hard for them to come all the way out of this. But they really need to grow out of some of this stuff. They need to leave carnal baggage behind and walk in the Spirit.

I am not saying that the Messianic Jews should not delight to realize that God has a remnant of His elect among "even" the Jews in a day and age in which the vast majority of Christians are Gentiles. But they need to realize that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile. They need to realize that the Law Code which partitioned us into two groups is not in force as a Code anymore. They need to realize that attempts to continue the Old Covenant in any form undermines the New Covenant which it anticipated in the typology of progressive revelation.

The pinnacle of God's purposes is not national Israel, not even a converted national Israel. Rather, the pinnacle of God's purposes is His BRIDE. And that is the CHURCH.

When we see that, the gospel is exciting indeed! I certainly hope that some of my FReeper brethren will get this vision. Failing that, there is a worst-case scenario which should be mentioned. It is possible for some ostensibly "Messianic Jews" to be harboring an evil heart of unbelief after all. As the Book of Hebrews warns us, we'd better not make a vain profession and draw back to perdition as faithless cowards. We need to see the continuum which the two Testaments present, but we'd better not get stuck in the mindset of the lost Jews.

We'd better be Christians. That's different. According to Paul, we Christians are the true Jews. The fellow who is a little too interested in being an ethnic Jew may not be a true Jew after all. (See Romans 2 and Ephesians 2 and Philippians 3 and Galatians and Hebrews and John 3!)

61 posted on 01/17/2002 8:12:08 AM PST by the_doc
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson