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Of course we all know that people will reject the messiah and by extension the New Testament. Jesus did say this about the Pharisees who were teachers of the law.
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.
He also said this:
“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
“Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.
“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
Eight Woes
13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut the kingdom of heaven in front of people; for you do not enter it yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.
15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.
16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, that is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is obligated.’ 17 You fools and blind men! Which is more important, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold? 18 And you say, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, that is nothing; but whoever swears by the offering that is on it is obligated.’ 19 You blind men, which is more important, the offering or the altar that sanctifies the offering? 20 Therefore, the one who swears by the altar, swears both by the altar and by everything on it. 21 And the one who swears by the temple, swears both by the temple and by Him who dwells in it. 22 And the one who swears by heaven, swears both by the throne of God and by Him who sits upon it.
23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the Law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. 24 You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may also become clean.
27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you too, outwardly appear righteous to people, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs for the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, 30 and you say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers. 33 You snakes, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?
34 “Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will flog in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, 35 so that upon you will fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
Grieving over Jerusalem
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who have been sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord!’”
THE SEED OF ABRAHAM (Genesis 13:15, 17:8)
… for all the land which you see, to you will I give it, and to your
seed forever.
(Genesis 13:15)
And I will give to you, and to your seed after you, the land of your
sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession;
and I will be their God.
(Genesis 17:8)Commenting on the use of the word zer’a (“seed”) in Genesis 13:15 and 17:8, Paul says: “Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. It does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ referring to many; but, referring to one, ‘And to your seed,’ who is Christ” (Galatians 3:16). Paul’s claim that a single individual is meant by the term “seed” in Genesis 13:15 and 17:8 is fallacious.
Nowhere in the Hebrew Bible do we find the plural of “seed” used with reference to human descendants. In all instances, the singular term “seed” is used in a plural sense (e.g., Genesis 13:16, 17:10, 22:17-18). This is clearly stated in Genesis 17:8: ” … and I will be their God,” where the third-person plural
pronoun, “their,” refers to “your seed.”So we can see here here clearly how the NT writers like Paul misquoted Hebrew scriptures to prove their preconceived ideas on Jesus the so called Messiah.
More facts to be disclosed……
SIN AND ATONEMENT (Leviticus 17:11)
There is a Christian misinterpretation of the Scriptures according to which the Jewish people can have no assurance that their sins are forgiven, for it is written in Leviticus 17:
11: “It is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul.”
This was misquoted by the writer of Hebrews in Heb 9:
22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
Where there is no blood, it is claimed, there is no atonement. The fasting and repentance of Yom Kippur, it is contended, cannot give any assurance of sins forgiven. It is asserted that God will never accept something else in place of a blood sacrifice for the atonement of sins. Finally, this distortion culminates in the claim that Jesus, by his death and supposed sacrifice for humanity’s sins, made atonement for all who believe in him, and so there is no longer any need for a Temple or a sacrifice or a priesthood. Within a few years of Jesus’ death, it is claimed, God permitted the Temple to be destroyed, and the priesthood to be abolished, since they were no longer needed. Jesus was now to be the unblemished lamb that would bear away the sins of the world.
To fully comprehend how Christianity has misinterpreted Leviticus 17:11, we must first understand the nature of the physical and spiritual ingredients of a Jewish sacrifice. The physical sacrifice was an unblemished clean animal. The spiritual sacrifice constituted a repentant mental attitude. Thus, the ceremonial service was an external symbolization of prayer, the service of the heart. The God of Israel has never left His people to wander in a spiritual vacuum, as Christianity thought. Let us briefly review some of the passages in Scripture which declare that prayer, without the shedding of blood, can and does provide a means for the atonement and forgiveness of sin. Interestingly enough, in Solomon’s prayer at the very dedication of the First Temple {1 Kings 8:44-52), prayer is given prominence as a means for remission of sin:
If Your peaple go out to battle against their enemy, by whatever way You shall send them, and they pray to the Lord toward the city which You have chosen, and toward the house which I have built for Your name; then hear in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause. If they sin against You-for there is no man that does not sin-and You are angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near; yet if they take thought in the land to which they are carried captive, and repent, and make supplication to You in the land of their captors, saying: “We have sinned, and have done iniquitously, we have dealt wickedly”; if they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies, who carried them captive, and pray to You toward their land, which You gave to their fathers, the city which You have chosen, and the house which I have built for Your name; then hear their prayer and their supplication in heaven Your dwelling place, and maintain their cause and forgive Your people who have sinned against You, and all their transgressions which they have transgressed against You, and give them compassion before those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them; for they are Your people, and Your inheritance, which You did bring out of Egypt, from the midst of the furnace of iron. Let Your eyes be open to the supplication of Your servant, and to the supplication of Your people Israel, to hear them whenever they cry to You.
The idea that prayer takes the place of animal sacrifices is clearly expressed in Hosea 14:3 “So will we render for bullocks the offering of our lips.” In fact, prayer is considered superior to animal offerings, as stated in Psalm 69:31-32: “I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify Him with thanksgiving. And it shall please the Lord better than a bullock that has horns and hoofs.” And as Samuel said: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams” (1 Samuel15:22). That forgiveness of sin can be achieved through prayer, the offering of the heart, rather than through an animal sacrifice, the offering of blood, is also seen in Psalm 32:5: “I acknowledged my sin to You, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said: ‘I will make confession concerning my transgressions to the Lord’ -and You, You forgave the iniquity of my sin.”
It is a Christian claim that the Temple was destroyed and the sacrificial system abolished only after Jesus offered himself as the supreme sacrifice. If that is so, what of the generations living in Babylonia during the first exile? Did God write them off as generations lost in sin with no means of atonement and forgiveness? Where was their blood atonement? But Jeremiah unequivocally told the exiles that they were not discarded by God, as even in the land of their exile they did not lack the means for achieving the atonement of their sins: “And you shall call upon Me, and go, and pray to Me, and I will hearken to you. And you shall seek Me, and find Me, when you shall search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:12- 3). Not by the blood of bullocks slain, but by the offerings of their lips, i.e., prayer, were they able to effect atonement. And so it is with us-by our prayers and repentance we make atonement for our sins, and God in His mercy forgives.
Prayer without blood sacrifice was recognized, among the ancient Israelites, as a means of atonement:
“And the people came to Moses and they said: ‘We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord, and against you; pray to the Lord, that He take away from us the serpents.’ And Moses prayed for the people” (Numbers 21:7).
There are cases where the holy incense, without the use of a blood sacrifice, could effect atonement: “And Aaron took as Moses spoke, and he ran into the midst of the assembly; and behold, the plague had already begun among the people; and he put on the incense, and he made atonement for the people” (Numbers 17:12). On returning from battle, the Israelites brought jewelry as an atonement offer for their sins:” And we have brought the Lord’s offering, what every man has found, articles of gold, armlets, and bracelets, signet rings, earrings, and girdles, to make atonement for our souls before the Lord” (Numbers 31:50). In the preceding instances no shedding of blood was required for forgiveness of sin. Isaiah also bears witness to the incorrectness of the claim that the only way for sin to be atoned for is through the shedding of blood: “Then flew one of the seraphim to me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs off the altar; and he touched my mouth with it, and said: ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin forgiven’ “(Isaiah 6:6-7). Despite the Christian contention that there is no substitute for the shedding of blood, we find that Isaiah is forgiven his past misdeeds by means of a live coal that touched his lips. No shedding of blood is required, only the contrite heart and the will of God.
When David sinned against God by transgressing three of the Ten Commandments (the tenth, seventh, and sixth), in his affair with Bathsheba, he admitted to Nathan that he had sinned against the Lord, and Nathan answered him: “The Lord has put away your sin, you shall not die” (2 Samuel12:13). Did David offer a blood sacrifice to achieve this? No! This is attested in Psalm 51, in which David’s confession of his sin is expressed before God. This psalm shows explicitly that cleansing from sin may be achieved by the contrite heart:
Deliver me from blood guiltiness,
0 God, God of my salvation; So shall my tongue sing aloud of Your righteousness. 0 Lord, open my lips;
And my mouth shall declare Your praise.
For You have no delight in sacrifice, else I would give it;
You have no pleasure in burnt-offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
A broken and contrite heart,
0 God, You will not despise. (Psalms 51:16-19)And what does the Torah say concerning a poor man who cannot afford the price of a blood sacrifice? But if he cannot afford two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, then he shall bring his offering for that which he has sinned, the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a sin-offering; he shall put no oil upon it, neither shall he put any frankincense on it, for it is a sin-offering.
And he shall bring it to the priest, and the priest shall take his handful of it as the memorial portion and make it smoke on the altar, upon the offerings of the Lord made by fire; it is a sin-offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin that he has sinned in any of these things, and he shall be forgiven; and the remainder shall be the priest’s, as the meal offering. (Leviticus 5:11-13)
Clearly, the poor man’s meal offering is accepted by God as the equivalent of a blood sacrifice. There is thus sufficient evidence that blood sacrifice was not essential for attaining atonement. Animal sacrifices are prescribed for unwitting sin, sins committed without intention, as stated in Leviticus 4:2, 13, 22, 27; 5:5, 15. The Torah, with one exception, does not decree any blood offerings for sins deliberately committed. The exception is for swearing falsely to acquit oneself of the accusation of having committed theft (Leviticus 5:24-26). Thus, the sacrificial system was virtually reserved for unwitting sins. The person who wittingly sins is “cut off” with no means of atonement prescribed (Numbers 15:30). The deliberate sinner, seeking atonement, had no other recourse but to come directly to God with prayer and contrition of heart.
It is clear from the Scriptures that sin is removed through genuine remorse and sincere repentance. A sinner fulfilling this require111ent may expect the Almighty to forgive his sins and allow him to enter into fellowship with God. For what does God require “but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). God asks of the sinner: “Return to Me … and I will return to you” (Zechariah 1:3). This proves that the writer of Hebrews had misquoted Hebrew scriptures to prove his ideas of Jesus’ death on the cross as a blood Atonement for sins of mankind.
A Legal Controversy
First, Matt 5:17–18: “Do not imagine that I have come to do away with the law or the prophets. I have come not to do away with them, but to fulfill them. I mean it when I say that, until heaven and earth disappear, not one letter, not even a stroke of a letter, will disappear from the law, until everything is accomplished.” There are three things to say in response to the fundamentalists’ use of this text. First, the reasoning behind their use of this text is viciously circular. The only reason they are able to claim that these verses represent “Jesus’ teaching” on scripture’s inerrancy is because they already presuppose that the Gospel of Matthew is giving an inerrant record of Jesus’ words. In other words, inerrancy is supported by the assumption of inerrancy. But the reality is that there is good reason to suspect that some of these words may have been attributed to Jesus by Matthew, in support of Matthew’s own theological agenda. By the time Matthew’s gospel was written, there had already been mass conversions of Gentiles to Christian Judaism. The policy of Paul and others was that the laws of Moses did not apply to the Gentiles, and this policy was highly controversial. Many Jewish Christians dissented from Paul’s position, arguing that the laws of Moses were still in effect. Matthew’s gospel seems to take that stance of opposition to the policy of Paul and other gentile churches. In Matthew, Jesus says that “until heaven and earth disappear, not one letter, not even a stroke of a letter, will disappear from the law.” This phrase, “until heaven and earth disappear,” is an idiom in Hebrew which basically means, “until forever.” In other words, in Matthew, Jesus says that the laws of Moses will never become irrelevant. There will never be a time when they should not be obeyed.
On the other hand, the Gospel of Luke quotes this same saying of Jesus, with a minor but significant variation in the wording: “But it is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for a single stroke of a letter in the law to be cut out” (Luke 16:17). Note, however, that in Luke, this saying is preceded by a rather different claim: “Until John came, the law and the prophets were in effect; since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone is rushing madly to get into it” (16:16). In Luke’s gospel, the same saying of Jesus is given the opposite meaning to that of Matthew. In Luke, although it is difficult for the law to pass away, it has! It was only valid until the ministry of John the Baptist, after which point it was set aside in order to allow the Gentiles to come into the kingdom. This also happens to be Luke’s theological agenda—being a Gentile himself. Thus, the Gospel of Luke takes Paul’s side in the controversy, and the Gospel of Matthew takes the side of the Jewish Christians who are highly polemicized in Paul’s letters as “Judaizers.” Both Luke and Matthew use the same saying of Jesus to articulate polar opposite positions.
The second thing to say in response to the inerrantists’ use of this passage in Matthew is therefore precisely that the inerrantists themselves do not agree with it. Matthew says that the laws of Moses will be in force forever, yet the Chicago inerrantists tend to believe that the laws of Moses were abolished after Christ’s death on the cross—an explanation given nowhere in these texts. Luke himself says that the laws of Moses passed away at the time of the ministry of John the Baptist. Thus, Matthew, Luke, and the Chicago inerrantists all disagree with one another. Finally, the fact remains that even if this saying is original to Jesus, and conceding that by it he meant that the law and the prophets were inerrant (a claim
he does not make, but which the Chicago inerrantists believe is inferred), Jesus still makes no statement about the Writings—the books of Hebrew scripture that fall outside both the categories of the Law and the Prophets.It’s All About Me?
Of course, inerrantists will then point to Luke 24:44, which includes the other writings in Jesus’ canon: “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still together with you—that everything that was written about me in the law of Moses, in the prophets, and in the psalms must be fulfilled.” Here “the psalms” is just shorthand for the third section of the Hebrew Bible ordinarily called “the Writings.” Jesus refers to it as “the psalms” because the book of Psalms is the first book in that section of the Bible. The Writings include Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles. According to the Chicago inerrantists, Jesus’ reference to “everything
that was written about me … in the psalms” must mean that Jesus believed that every detail of every book in the Writings must be inerrant. But this claim is certainly overstated. At most, all Jesus claims is that any messianic prophecies in these texts must be fulfilled. That says nothing about the vast majority of these texts, which say nothing about the Messiah.Moreover, as we saw in the last chapter, the assumption that these texts actually make claims about an end-times messianic figure is an assumption Jesus shared with other apocalyptic sects of his day. It is not a belief rooted in a historical-grammatical reading of those texts, but one that is rooted in an eschatological hermeneutic which presupposes that those texts must be talking about the present generation, a presupposition that is based on the belief that the present generation was the last generation before the end of the world. In short, this passage can hardly be used as “evidence” that Jesus affirmed the inerrancy of the scriptures. At most it is a statement of the infallibility of any perceived messianic prophecies in those texts, but it says nothing about, for instance, Job and Ecclesiastes’ denial of the possibility of the afterlife. There is no doubt that Jesus disagreed with them on that point…(taken from the book “Human Faces of God What Scripture Reveals When It Gets God Wrong”)
Hi Gadam,
You: Note: “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.”
ME: explain please to me HOW ISRAEL NEVER BORN, IS CALLED IN THE ABOVE, ACCORDING TO YOU:
A CHILD?
NOW, AS WE ALL KNOW ISRAEL IS ONLY A SPIRITUAL NAME ESTABLISHED ENIGMATICALLY, EITHER BY SATAN, THE WRESTLER, OR BY GOD!
Genesis 32:24 He remained alone: and behold a man wrestled with him till morning. 25And when
he saw that he could not overcome him,(???)
he touched the sinew of his thigh, and forthwith it shrank. 26And he said to him: Let me go, for it is break of day. (???) He answered: I will not let thee go except thou bless me. 27And he said: What is thy name? He answered: Jacob. 28But he said: Thy name shall not be called Jacob, but Israel:
for if thou hast been strong against God, (???)
how much more shalt thou prevail against men? Jacob asked him, Tell me by what name art thou called? He answered: Why dost thou ask my name? And he blessed him in the same place. 30And Jacob called the name of the place Phanuel, saying:
I have seen God face to face,
and my soul has been saved.
Gadam: Did Jacob wrestle God, an angel of God,
Satan, or one of his angels?
Genesis 35:9 And God appeared again to Jacob, after he returned from Mesopotamia of Syria, and
he blessed him,
10Saying: Thou shalt not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name.
And he called him Israel.
11And said to him: I am God Almighty,
increase thou and be multiplied. Nations and peoples of nations shall be from thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins.12And the land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give to thee, and to thy seed after thee.
Gadam, are you in the position to determine who in the above verses is really GOD ALMIGHTY?
Are you in the position to determine the title CHILD in actual fact, since THE NAME ISRAEL is SPIRITUAL, is referring to, whether it is established by GOD OF HEAVEN, GOD OF EARTH OR
BY BOTH GODS?
Peace and love in Jesus Christ
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