Y Not I

I was catching on on some of the blogs that I keep on my Netvibes page. If you have not checked out Netvibes or something similar, I certainly recommend that you do. It is great to have a single page that you can log onto from any computer and have access to all the feeds from sites that you enjoy the most. I keep track of the daily Woot! there, plush many of the Messianic and Christian blogs that I frequent, plus tech sites, sports sites and some things that I just find interesting.

Anyway, while reading a post from September of 2006 on the Jews for Jesus blog, I noticed this comment to the post.

Some questions.

How does one reconcile the FACT of ONE God, with the new fact of Three?

I was born and brought up in the Christian Church and have read both the Old and New Testaments many times. Apparently, G-d changed His mind at the time the New Testament was written???

Nowhere in the Old Testament does He say that he will be sending His son as the Messiah.

Then: I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 5:18-20)

It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law. (Lk. 16:17)

Yet, Paul taught that Circumcision wasn’t necessary? Peter taught that Dietary laws were no longer in effect?

One must believe in the Divinity of Jesus? To the question, “what good thing must I do to inherit eternal life?”, Jesus answered, “If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.” When questioned further about which ones, Jesus enumerated the Ten Commandments (Matt 19:17/ Mk. 10:19/ Lk.18:20).

I would remind all of the second Commandment.

Jesus went further. Matt 5:19-20(Jesus speaking)
“Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments(the laws of G-d), and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

Well, I guess Paul and Peter just realized they would get more converts if the did away with some of those pesky laws………..

This shows the problems I see so often from the church. Brought up in the church and read the whole Bible many times and still sees G-d as having changed his mind. This person actually is seeing some things clearly most likely from the reading of the Word. The teachings of man have confused them and things of man and things of G-d mixed together make everything appear to be in conflict with each other. Truthfully there is no conflict, except between the things of man, whether they be what we might consider sinful or what we might consider man made theology. When some teaches another that there is 3 G-ds instead of the complexity that is G-d amongst His creation that is the teaching of man. When anyone sees the inspired words of Peter and Paul as teaching that the Torah is dead and done away with, that too is the teaching and traditions of man. Certainly it has been explained many times on this site and other that G-d has not changed, not one bit. G-d would not make promises to the children of Israel and then take them away, give them things to do and call them good and then turn around and call them a burden.

A question to bring back to this person is did G-d anywhere in the Tanakh every say that the Messiah will not be His own Son? Certainly it should be well known the the Old Testament does not have verses that start, “This is a description of the Messiah”, and then go on with the prophesy.

There are verses that through the ages have been interpreted to be about the Messiah. Some, like Isaiah 53 now more often than not are interpreted by Rabbinic Jews as speaking about Israel and not the Messiah. It is too close to another to intepret this as speaking of the Messiah.

So, truthfully it might not say literally that the Messiah will be the Son of G-d, but there are verses that can and are interpreted that way. The most popular verse that is used often in the Brit Hadashah is Psalm 110:1. Here the L-RD is speaking to David’s Lord. The Psalm has often been considered to be speaking about Messiah and David is referring to Him as “my Lord”. There is some arguments that the Hebrew word used for Lord here only means a human lord and can never be used as an indication of G-d, however when I do a word search on that word I find often times it used in a case where it pretty much has to be speaking of G-d, especially in the Psalms (i.e. -Ps. 8:1, Ps. 8:9, Ps. 97:5, Ps. 114:7, Ps. 135:5, Ps. 147:5). So if David is referring to one of his descendants, how can the descendant be greater than him? Only if he is also more than just a man, and thus He is G-d in flesh.

This is why the church does not need to become Messianic, but they do need to understand the roots of their faith to better connect the teachings of the Brit Hadashah with that of the Tanakh and not claim that G-d has changed things or that the church has the authority to change things (the Rabbi’s also claim the authority to change things), but to understand with an open mind and an open teachable spirit how it can all fit together more beautifully then they might have ever imagined. It is truly incredible the way G-d has pieced together a system with Jews and Gentiles, one that has brought blessing on all through the seed of Abraham. It is so much not about one people being elect, chosen, better somehow, but G-d being better and loving His creation and giving opportunity for all to come into relationship with Him. To them that much is given, much is expected.

B”H