One of the “Also”
Now the apostles and the brethren who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. Acts 11:1 NASB
Also– Put aside the last 2000 years of theological manipulation. Read this statement as a believing Messianic Jew in the first century. It should totally confuse you. It might even make you mad—or cry! How in the name of heaven and all that is righteous could God, YHVH, the God of Israel ever allow uncircumcised, uncouth, undisciplined, pagan-practicing GENTILES! to come into fellowship with Him? How could Peter, the figurehead of the community, be seen commiserating with such people? And now we hear that he actually ate a meal with them! What was he thinking? This will destroyour separateness to God, undermine all we hold sacred, and besmirch God’s holy name. Something must be done!
Two thousand years of theological adultery makes us think that the enemy of believers in Yeshua is the Jew, but that is not the case, nor was it ever the case. Jews were the first to embrace the Messiah. Jews were the first to die as martyrs for his cause. Jews were the first to proclaim the great arrival of the Kingdom. Jews were the first to accept the good news. Gentiles were the enemy. Gentiles were the ones who refused to acknowledge the sovereignty of YHVH, who worshipped a panoply of gods, who ate pork and didn’t remove the foreskin, who pursued all kinds of suspect behavior and rejected the sacred Torah. Gentiles were the enemy—of God’s people and God Himself. And God promised to bring wrath down upon them, to judge them mercilessly, to rid the great and glorious creation of this pestilence once and for all in the ‘olam ha’ba. No, today we read this brief narrative upside-down. We are the outsiders acting as if we are now in first position. We are the Esau’s of life, claiming the promise because we think we were first.
But it isn’t our Messiah. It isn’t our Torah. It isn’t our Temple or our sacrifices. This community that we wish to join has been around for 1500 years before we arrived on the scene. And we weren’t invited by them!
The Greek in Luke’s rendition of the early history is kai. This conjunction has a very wide range: also, after, again, along, although, besides, both, certainly, continue, either, else, even including, indeed, just, likewise, more, nor, now, only, or, same, so, than, then, though, together, too, until, very, well, when, while, without . . .etc. Wow! Context, context, context: that’s the only way to determine what meaning to attach to kai. But we don’t have any trouble determining the emotion suggested here. This is scandal! And that’s why we need to pause. Perhaps you never thought of your place among God’s people as scandalous, but perhaps you should. We might be the adopted children of Abraham, but we are direct descendants of Rahab.
Topical Index: kai, also, Gentile, Acts 11:1
But Skip, by that time, the Jews had already had 1500 years of trying to separate themselves from the Gentiles – the wrong way! Abraham was called to be the “father of all nations” and the Promised Land was the pivotal apex of the traffic of the ancient world: it was no accident that he was sent there. The Jews were told to include the world and to evangelize it, too. Jewish evangelists were not invented by Paul: they were enjoined by Moses first.
I think the revulsion of the Jews for the Gentiles they were supposed to have been taking responsibility for all along was no more righteous than the revulsion of the Gentile population for the Jews has been since: in fact, they did it first (that’s not a good thing for either side, of course). What is sin for the goose was also sin for the gander. I think it is no more righteous for Jews to exclude Gentiles than it is for Gentiles to exclude Jews – then or now. Just as there is no ‘untouchable’ class, nobody has a ‘right’ to God, either. We all stand equally condemned and called, too: then as well as now.
The Jews were given the responsibility for that call, first. When they failed and it went out without them, they got sore, but it was not a righteous jealousy: they weren’t sorry that they were falling down on their job. Now we are called to be a part of them being “grafted back in”, but I think our soreness at the Jews is no more called for than their soreness was at us. Perhaps it might be more profitable to spend our time studying how to bridge the gap (original assignment) than it is to point fingers at others or ourselves. Are we up to rolling the ball they dropped?
Thanks Laurita, for bringing balance to this TW. I initially felt shamed, until, after reading your comment, I was reminded of God’s plan from the beginning…”to the nations”…(which includes, Rahab, Bathsheeba, Ruth.)
And, you’re absolutely right. Neither of us should be sore at the other. While there will be different roles for each of us in the ‘olam ha’ba, we will all have equal value. Just like all the parts of the body that work together. Glad you woke up early and posted your comment…and it was the first thing I read after reading “One of the Also.”
If I remember correctly… Ezekiel 37 and very clearly in Ezekiel 40 God speaks to his prophet and tells him about the two sticks, this answered a lot of questions for me, in a way that I could share it with others. That Israel was never to be a hierarchy but a inclusion of what Israel was meant to be a United Kingdom of all Nations. There is always a remnant, and that Remnant has much influence wherever it goes. Hallelujah. The Remnant must be faithful.
Yes, Brett, Messiah, like Israel, was sent for everyone. Unlike Israel, He went. He IS the entire reason that nation was brought into existence (for the “seed”). In fact, without Messiah, Israel loses its identity as the carrier for that seed, but the seed was not just for them: the seed was for the planet. However, He isn’t ‘just’ for the Gentiles (RCC, Protestants, etc.) any more than He was ‘just’ for them. In fact, He says He isn’t going to come back for any of us until there are all of us in the house. Messiah’s house. Together. Can we get it right this time? That grafting stuff, that is. After all, we are Messiah’s arms and legs. How else is He to graft?
Laurita, I am not sure how to respond to your blanket proclamation that Israel’s sole existence was to birth the Messiah. I doubt few Jews of antiquity or today would agree with your assessment and some may even call your Pro-Messianic view anti-Semitic, though I would not. However, to say that “without Messiah, Israel loses its identity as the carrier for that seed” does seem to go out on a limb from the tree of Replacement Theology. Many in Israel today await for the Messiah and their lack of knowledge of Yeshua in no way lessens YHWH’s love for them, nor deters them from their many other missions, including Tikkun Olam, knowing, obeying and loving YHWH, celebrating Torah and becoming human, and 611 other reasons to exist as “Am Yisrael Chai.” Yeshua may be the answer to all our quests and questions, but we can’t begin grafting into a tree that we do not value other than for its ability to be the “carrier of the seed” and to bear our fruit. Nor should they take kindly to our cutting without permission on the promise that it is for their own good or for the good of the world. So far we have not given the Olive tree reasons it should allow a strager to cut, bleed and graft into it’s sacred bark, only demands and deeds of violence against the gardeners of the grove. And we wonder why the Jews are so “stiff necked and stubborn.”
That raises the question for me that if Israel had followed through with being a light to other nations, how would the rest of this played out? Would there have been another way to defeat death? That is i big what if.
Michael, you are blessed with a lack of filtration that allows you to voice the elephants in the room. May you be abundantly blessed for that! If the emperor is naked, we all need to know how to say so. You are a good voice, I think, for a very popular opinion that I see today, but how does that opinion – that political and genetical Israel is the chosen womb for Messiah to come – square with scripture?
The Mosaic code outlined the rules for a community that was perfectly aligned with heaven: a Body that demonstrated to the world what perfect peace, health and devotion to God looked like. The world does not lack a perfect king, political or religious structure or correct legality: what the world lacks – and has always lacked – is a working model: a witness. Israel was designed for the world to pass through this model so that all could see – AND JOIN – the first democratic republic, YHVH style. I think history shows that they never really ‘got it’ that Torah, properly worked out, was to be an inscription on the base of their Statutes of Liberty for the world to want and join, too. A magnet of answers for the lost world to be attracted to and connect with.
Next point: all – ALL – of the temple services were designed to be a working model of Christ so that when He came, everybody: Israel, AND the world through Israel: would recognize Him. They had no other inherent ‘meaning’. The moral law, however, was written to Israel to give to the world: a model of how to live right. Israel never ‘got’ either set of codes right – the moral code that we are expected to fulfill (applicable to all the world as well as Israel), as well as the codes of the prophecies, temple services and other rituals specifically pointing forward to the first coming (death and resurrection) Messiah, Who would fulfill these pictures of what He represented.
It is true that YHVH promised to never turn His back on them – and He never has – but Israel is still rejecting the owner of the vineyard through His Son – the promised Seed. However, I think that they, like the rest of us, are now – as before – nothing (lacking purpose which gives identity as a THEOLOGICAL grouping, anyway) without that Seed.
I think because of this (um, lack of purpose which they share now with the lost world?) political Israel is attempting, like ancient Israel, to play by the rules (politics) of that world (and, incidentally, is still NOT LIVING what it claims as its own moral code, either). They think if they could just build yet another temple, their problems (political, of course) would be solved. What they (and a whole lot of other well-meaning but not well-versed in scripture good-hearted folks) don’t get is that that temple has no meaning without Who it pointed to but Who it pointed to has already come – and gone on, too. Today we are told that temple is in heaven (Hebrews, Revelation) where He is presiding as our current High Priest with no term limits. I will say it again: Israel – as a religio/political entity, anyway – has no ‘meaning’ possible (EXCEPT as the historical carriers of the Torah and begetters of the Seed) because the Messiah/Seed/Son-of-the-Owner-of-the vineyard boat has already sailed.
Now, all who include themselves in the identity they call Israel, like us who have ALSO BEEN INCLUDED whether they like it or not (which is why I have said that it was against their will), along with all the other folks not yet on board, need to leave the land of worldly or political or already-fulfilled-so-therefore-meaningless religious activity (i.e. yet another temple) ‘solutions’ and get in the rowboat and catch up. Messiah is not going to come to ‘just’ them again. Now they, along with the rest of us still on shore, need to come to Him. He said that if He was lifted up, the world would come to Him. Well, He is lifted up – all the way to heaven – and is waiting on us – all of us – to do exactly what He told us to do. (Um, He said those words to Israel, too.) None of us – including political/genetic Israel – are waiting on Him to come to us again because He already did. I have noticed that YHVH does not repeat Himself because He says His Words right the first time. I have noticed that He fulfills them right the first time, too.
Yes, this “lack of filtration” is, no doubt, one of the “blessings” from having endured 4 TBI’s. So I am within my element to note that the straw man that you set up and set on fire was not my creation, nor my point. I am not of the opinion – “that political and genetical Israel is the chosen womb for Messiah to come”. I believe that Yeshua was and is the only Messiah sent by YHWH for the salvation of the “Jews and Gentiles, bond and free, male and female.” My point was and remains that the Jews are still of value to YHWH (and therefore to us) for more than their one time “identity as the carrier for that seed” (Yeshua) and “the historical carriers of the Torah”. If not, the Jewish race could have been eliminated after the ‘Seed’ came (and went back to Heaven), but they weren’t. Not in 70 AD or 135 AD, nor in the Shoah. As to your statement that “None of us – including political/genetic Israel – are waiting on Him to come to us again because He already did.” Well, I am one “of us” and I am waiting for Him to come again…to the Jews…in Israel…in Jerusalem…on Mount Olivet. Anyone else? I think many, including at least 144,000 “political/genetic” Israelis who are yearning for their King to come and usher in His long promised Messianic Millennial Kingdom.
The fact that today there is a vibrant Jewish population, many still scattered among the Nations, but the majority residing within the boundaries of political Israel, part of the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their seed cannot be understated. Only recently did the Knesset pass the controversial “Nationality Bill” which affirms the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. How many of these “chosen people” will be “saved” and in what manner (Yeshua, genetics, Torah observance, a combination?) I do not know, it is beyond my pay grade and my understanding.
But, no matter the number or method, as I said in my initial post, we can’t begin grafting into a tree that we do not value other than for its ability to have been the ‘carrier of the seed’ (and also, as you later added, “the historical carriers of the Torah”). The Jews are right in not taking kindly to our cutting and grafting into their stock without permission on the promise that it is for their own good, our good (believers) or for the good of the world.” I am of the opinion that Paul was right when he wrote in Romans11:12-36 (long quote, but I think it’s important to my (non-straw) point for it to be read in it’s entirety). [Complete Jewish Bible]
“Moreover, if their stumbling is bringing riches to the world — that is, if Isra’el’s being placed temporarily in a condition less favored than that of the Gentiles is bringing riches to the latter — how much greater riches will Isra’el in its fullness bring them! However, to those of you who are Gentiles I say this: since I myself am an emissary sent to the Gentiles, I make known the importance of my work in the hope that somehow I may provoke some of my own people to jealousy and save some of them! For if their casting Yeshua aside means reconciliation for the world, what will their accepting him mean? It will be life from the dead! Now if the hallah offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole loaf. And if the root is holy, so are the branches. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you — a wild olive — were grafted in among them and have become equal sharers in the rich root of the olive tree, then don’t boast as if you were better than the branches! However, if you do boast, remember that you are not supporting the root, the root is supporting you. So you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” True, but so what? They were broken off because of their lack of trust. However, you keep your place only because of your trust. So don’t be arrogant; on the contrary, be terrified! For if God did not spare the natural branches, he certainly won’t spare you! So take a good look at God’s kindness and his severity: on the one hand, severity toward those who fell off; but, on the other hand, God’s kindness toward you — provided you maintain yourself in that kindness! Otherwise, you too will be cut off! Moreover, the others, if they do not persist in their lack of trust, will be grafted in; because God is able to graft them back in. For if you were cut out of what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree! For, brothers, I want you to understand this truth which God formerly concealed but has now revealed, so that you won’t imagine you know more than you actually do. It is that stoniness, to a degree, has come upon Isra’el, until the Gentile world enters in its fullness; and that it is in this way that all Isra’el will be saved. As the Tanakh says, “Out of Tziyon will come the Redeemer; he will turn away ungodliness from Ya‘akov and this will be my covenant with them, . . . when I take away their sins. With respect to the Good News they are hated for your sake. But with respect to being chosen they are loved for the Patriarchs’ sake, for God’s free gifts and his calling are irrevocable. Just as you yourselves were disobedient to God before but have received mercy now because of Isra’el’s disobedience; so also Isra’el has been disobedient now, so that by your showing them the same mercy that God has shown you, they too may now receive God’s mercy. For God has shut up all mankind together in disobedience, in order that he might show mercy to all. O the depth of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments! How unsearchable are his ways! For, ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord? Who has been his counselor?’ Or, ‘Who has given him anything and made him pay it back?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”
I look for Him to return, too, Michael, but they are looking for Him to come to THEM. The first coming. But this time He says He is coming to all of us equally. Paul, as you have shared, is saying that He is waiting for the “fulness of the Gentiles” so that the Jews can be “grafted back in”. In other words, we are not waiting for Him: He is waiting for us to get our act together. What act? Wouldn’t that be resolving our differences with our Jewish siblings?
The Jews do have something to offer the world, but that something is the same thing they always had: Torah. Is political Israel offering Torah to the world? Are they? (No, yet another edifice on Temple Mount does not count in my book. That’s probably about the last thing the Middle East needs for lasting peace.)
Hi Laurita, I’m just reading Today’s Word and found myself stumbling over some of what I read in your response. Let me quote:
“The Jews were told to include the world and to evangelize it, too. Jewish evangelists were not invented by Paul: they were enjoined by Moses first.”
“The Jews were given the responsibility for that call, first.”
Could you please indicate for me where I may find, in the Torah, Moses instruction(s) to the Israelites to evangelize the world? Also, if it is to be found elsewhere in the Tanach, I’d like to know where.
“When they failed…”
Please for some reference to failure.
“… it went out without them…”
Are you saying ‘evangelism’ went out without them (the Jews)? If so could you also give some reference from Scripture?
“… they got sore, but it was not a righteous jealousy: they weren’t sorry that they were falling down on their job.”
Sorry, I seem slow to grasp…but could you please indicate for me where this is also evident in Scripture?
I’d like to follow your argument but it seems I do not know the references to justify your reasoning.
Thanks.
You ask good questions, too, Arnella! Torah is a picture of an ideal community of love that is attractive to others because it shows – lived out in action – what love looks like. Further, Israel was commanded to include ALL those others: both in their laws (Ex. 32:26; Lev. 24:22; Num. 15:16) as well as their hearts (Ex. 22:21, 19:34; Lev. 25:35,36; Deut. 10:19; 24:17, 19; 26:26) AND THEIR LAND. They were to practice open borders and unlimited immigration: not world domination. Notice that they were NOT told to conquer the world; just drive out the nations that had already soiled the Promised Land. If they, in turn, soiled that land, they would be driven out, too (Ex. 32:26; Lev. 18:28 “lest the land spew you out as it spewed out the nations that were before you”). This is conditional land treaty!
As part of that giant working demo, they were told that all the world would be looking, and if they did not fulfill their commission to show (witness to) that world what obedience looked like, they would be showing it what YHVH does with disobedience. Either way, they would be evangelizing (telling the truth to) the world. (Do you need me to show you those terrible verses, too?) Why do you think Israel is having to use political force to hold onto the land? Because they don’t have another way to. Building a temple is only, in my thinking, anyway, going to be further disobedience (misplaced devotion). Misplaced devotion is what all false religions practice, after all. Israel doesn’t need another temple: they need to recognize the One who fulfilled that temple already.
One working community (144,000 in perfect unity) is all it would have ever taken for the world to be convicted (driven to make a final choice for or against real love). One working Man, in fact, can force the world to that choice. We are given that same commission by that same Man. Will we stand in our furnace and show what love does, or will the planet “spew” us out, too? Israel – along with us – is now in the same boat, whether they (or we) like it or not.
To answer your other question: if the Jews would only claim that they were the ones that spread the Good News about Messiah, then I would not have to conclude that it must have spread without them. If I could see one reference (in NT scripture, any other record, or now) that the Jews are sorry that they weren’t the ones who are getting the credit for the spread of the knowledge of Messiah I will take back my conclusion. Do you still need all the “sore” verses? There are a lot of them.
Laurita, I would like to know who you think the first believers were, Jews or Gentiles? After the obvious answer re the apostles and Paul, then who? Everything I read says they were virtually all Jews, not the entire nation lockstep for sure but by the tens of thousands, absolutely yes. And come the destruction of both the Temple and the city of Jerusalem and the expulsion order from Rome, these tens of thousands of all Judeans were dispersed throughout the region and the empire, near and far. They spread the Gospel to Egypt, Ethiopia, north Africa, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Spain etc. The diaspora was a few Gentile believers but mainly Jewish Messianic believers and continued as such for the next couple of centuries, centered mainly in Antioch but also in Rome and Alexandria etc. The Gentiles became believers mainly BECAUSE of this diaspora and equal opportunity hatred of the Romans everywhere in lockstep with the Jewish Messianic believers who were also happy to be out from the control of corrupt Pharisee/Sadducee rulers of the Sanhedrin.
But for the battle between Rome and Alexandria for primacy, the Eastern church of Antioch would have prevailed, there would have been no Trinity, Jews and Gentiles would have co-existed in harmony as God always intended but when the Sabbath was deep sixed, Easter replaced Passover, the Messiah becomes God and the church and state are one in absolute contradiction to Torah, the result was the intended Christian destruction of the Jews as a religion/nation. This never happened because there has always been a faithful remnant as there is today. God never ordered the Jews to subscribe to a belief in a Messiah that I know of for redemption and Consummation, only faithfulness to Himself and Torah.
God didn’t invent anti-Semitism, Roman Christianity did.
No argument, George. I don’t have a problem giving Jewish believers credit for spreading the good news: I am lamenting the fact that JEWS refuse that credit; and by that refusal they are the ones who have made those Jews that did that work into NON Jews. They are doing that even today. Christians are the only ones giving Jews credit for spreading Christianity – credit that Jews have always refused.
I, too, lament the fact that Rome prevailed over the Antioch/Syrian and other Eastern true churches, many of whom continued with Sabbath-keeping until the Jesuit onslaught: some of these ancient churches were still keeping Sabbath (and, incidentally, passing on Scripture that never went under the gnostic knife of Alexandria and Rome) until almost within our lifetimes. Too bad it is now so popular to reject their extremely numerous and synchronous versions of scripture in favor of ones Alexandria and Rome kept under lock and key. (On a similar note, I think we today can be tempted to believe that manuscripts could have been preserved in Alexandria and Rome without gnostic perversion, but we can also believe that the fox would never hurt the hens, either.) We know that the vast majority of the history of the FREE church has been destroyed by Rome, but it still is true.
If God did not order the Jews to follow Messiah (show me where He didn’t, and I will show you where He did, starting with “Hear ye him” Matt. 17:5), Yeshua certainly did. His statements about Himself TO THOSE JEWS EXCLUSIVELY were numerous and pointed. They left no room for rejection. Perhaps Yeshua was misinformed?
It is sad that Yeshua is not claimed by the Jews as Messiah, but it was not for lack of Him trying. It was the Jews that handed Him over to the Gentiles: the Gentiles did not exactly steal Him. It is not the Gentiles’ fault that they are the only ones who seem to want Him. He cried about this in public.
FYI, Alexandria and Rome ultimately colluded (classic nasty example of sythesis out of the mutually-agreed-upon artificially-created thesis and antithesis). I think the baleful results of that collusion are still reverberating today, and they go far beyond the Trinity snafu. Woe is us. Great discussion!
For the most part we seem to be agreeing but after Nicaea, Constantine, Easter, Sunday, and the Trinity, how were the believing Messianic Jews supposed to worship, where and when? Were they expected to support Rome on Sunday or Torah on the Sabbath? Easter or Passover? Impossible for both. There was no middle ground for both as there should have been. Yeshua didn’t invent Christianity, he just lived and interpreted Torah perfectly, right? No Christianity required just proper exegesis of Torah for the Jews and, for the Gentiles, circumcision of the heart. Grafting requires a live root not a dead branch. Without Torah no graft. No Christianity.
The Ways that Never Parted. A collection of historical scholarly articles on the Torah observant Messianic communities that existed up to about the 5th Century when Rome and the Church finally either exterminated them or they died out because there was no support from Jews or Christians. What is certain is this: in the first century the Messianic communities were mostly Jewish, followed Torah and kept Jewish customs. As the Church gained power, especially after Constantine, these groups were marginalized, executed or faded away.
Yes, George, we are singing in tune. Torah must be the basis for reconciliation. But we can always find the devil in the details, right?
Not all of the Torah instructions were moral law universally applicable to all people at all times (I think we can agree): parts of the Torah were pictures of Messiah to be acted out. This did not start with the Mosaic code, however. At the gate outside Eden the sacrifice for sin pointing to the slain Lamb was instituted: not that it had any merit of its own, but it enacted through ritual our participation in that salvation. Circumcision, too, enacted through ritual our agreement to the Covenant. These basics of covenant were instituted long before Moses. Even the Ten were given before Sinai. Sinai was not about something new: Sinai was about the spelling out of what had been either forgotten (“remember”) or misunderstood or misapplied. But part of the additions were more specific rituals designed to increase faith in and recognition of Messiah: more specific things that He would fulfill.
I think what is divisive for us today can be found largely in the ritual pictures of Him: what He fulfilled. Type and anti-type. Therefore there can never be agreement with what constitutes Torah obedience today unless and until a: the Jews accept the Messiah who fulfilled the parts applicable to Him and b: us Christians accept the parts of Torah that WE are expected to fulfill. I think the arguments lie along the lines of these two obedience understandings. The rituals He fulfilled are no longer essential (even if they are still useful to some of us) for obedience. In fact, to continue to enact rituals He specifically fulfilled could even be to deny faith that He did fulfill them. Slain lambs on altars would be one of those examples. I cannot find a single verse that tells us any believer, AD, slew a single lamb for sin after the crucifixion, nor can I find a single reference in any other material that tells us any believer ever did. I guess I just stepped in it. Oh well.
“…In fact, to continue to enact rituals He specifically fulfilled could even be to deny faith that He did fulfill them….” That’s my position.
Sure, no first century Jew would accept the Trinity. But in accepting the Messiah come attendant new beliefs, to include no longer doing certain things, while adopting a new comprehension as to exactly Who the Messiah is and what He represents. This is what needs to be fully ferreted out.
Craig, you are right that they would not have accepted the Trinity, but it is obvious that they were accepting some version of new comprehension as to how the Godhead works. They also were figuring out that Yeshua was divine and to be worshiped as God. But my question is, what were they understanding? We will NEVER find that out if both sides of this argument continue to insist that they both – together – SHARE (yes, they do, despite the apparent duality inherent in all dialectics) the correct understanding of the definition of God. A single definition that allows for division at this level – in my book, anyway – is no definition. Let’s go back and start over with the terms, shall we? Aren’t you even a little curious as to what they were really basing their belief on? I am!
Laurita,
I noted in the 9:43PM comment below about the ‘two powers’ doctrine found in first century Judaism. And, yes, Jesus was certainly considered divine in some sense. Paul consistently called Yeshua “Lord”, a term used for YHWH in the LXX, while calling the Father “God”. I don’t know that we’ll ever never know what was truly in the heads of first century Jews in this regard. But, then again, we have the works of the NT to consider. Now it would certainly be anachronistic to claim that first century Messiah followers, Jew or Gentile, believed in the Trinity, since that was a later formulation. Yet this does not preclude the possibility of some sort of proto-Trinitarian belief at this time. Hurtado initially called referred to the relationship between Jesus and the Father as “binitarian”, then later changed it to “dyadic”. His intent was to interpret strictly from the evidence without anachronistically imposing later formulations.
Same could be said for Christianity: particularly the thousands of martyrs being maimed, hounded and slain in hostile countries every year right now. But my point was that for us to get back together we have to agree on what constitutes Torah obedience today, and that hinges on Yeshua. He claimed to be the stumbling block for the Jews. I guess He knew what He was talking about. There is no separate law now for Jew and Gentile, post-cross. That is probably equally bad news for mainstream Judaism and mainstream Christianity.
P.S. The Jesuits considered Christians who worshiped on Sabbath “Jews”, too (the term was “Judaizer”). The Sabbath keepers were dispersed all over all those same countries. It’s enough to make you proud. Keep reading Truth Triumphant.
Laurita and George you have me thinking…
Was it not the God of Israel that said when he gathers out of all the nations those he had scattered and when he does the wrongs of the past will be forgotten…
The truth is we are all in a measure anointed to promote truth. Truth for me is not knowledge but rather experience. Knowledge guides us towards a specific choice. Choice determines actions and actions result in experience…
Spreading knowledge is why we have the internet today and the written word. Unfortunately this does not bring life. His breath in my nostril is all that brings life… Receiving the word without an anointing is what was most probably what was experienced during the exodus. The Hebrews commenced a journey but maybe did not understand it implied dying off…
People believe knowledge is power when in fact experience is the only truth of power. Experience we have been reminded is also the only way how we can know God. How can I testify of a God that has kept himself secret. How can I convince others that I serve the only true and living God when he has kept me at arm’s length…
Consider the journey through the wilderness. He revealed his power but deliberately did not explain the 3 day journey, turning it to 8 days, eventually resulting in the crossing taking years. Was it trust and faith missing on the side of the Hebrews? Or was it the mysterious God working in his mysterious ways fathering yet again the fact that change and redemption is a process not a mindset, not a bloodline but a lifestyle. Skip’s emphasis in Crossing if I understand the process correct.
My personal testimony of a mysterious God that does not reveal his full plan will be an unknown God, a God forcing his hand or suffer.
That is fear talking not a positive testimony.
Even Job tried to convince his friends that their understanding of God’s instructions create more misunderstandings and fruitless arguments. We need to accept and live in the moment (love life) not in the ideal (follow the laws)… Yeshua reiterated this and also the fact that there was never a limit from God’s side on rewarding those that live now and love now as we can only experience God when we see the results, not when we are being the anointed for others to eat from…
Let’s rather ask… Did the Hebrews reveal hospitality, did they share, did they assist and aid foreigners? Yes. Did they reveal the power struggle, Yes, as do Christians today. Nothing has changed in this principle even the Moslems do this.
Unfortunately we have been warned on earlier blogs of the Spiderman pun… With great power comes great responsibility. (Was that Robert or Michael’s comment?)
Moses received his reward. Even Yeshua consulted him, period!
Paul said it well… to also recieve means we need to die a1000 deaths everyday if needed. But with every death I remind we will never know the purpose until we reveal the new life. The death is the process the 3 days, 8 days or is it years in the wilderness. The result is God in flesh, God’s kingdom being manifested the promise land being entered. Now and here.
There exists only one soul we are accountable for, our own. This responsibility is what Skip and others remind us of by asking how far have we come not how far have others overstepped… I slip and fall every time I put knowledge before experience. Seeker before God’s anointment etc. I a heathen, gentile, siner rather seek God’s grace to actually rise after dying off. Pulling out of the pit is his strength not mine nor my insight… His power and grace when he knows the time is right…
Yeshua came to redeem. He opened the path of anointment for everyone who abides by his teachings and example. We need to invite God to anoint us (Ask in his name) when his time is right. Till then I am still scattered among the nations, I am lost and confused. But yes I heard of his grace, I heard his commandments I read of his teachings. I must practice his presence, I must keep myself holy amidst this nation I have been scattered into. That is faith. I cannot guide others least they witness my light and ask me how… That is right if they do not ask that means my light is not burning it is not God’s grace that is missing…
Shalom in God’s anointment.
George,
I’ll challenge this statement: “God never ordered the Jews to subscribe to a belief in a Messiah that I know of for redemption and Consummation, only faithfulness to Himself and Torah.”
Having just finished a blog post on the Passion sequence leading up to and focusing on Pilate’s inscription over the cross as in John’s Gospel, it became obvious to me—for the first time, I’ll add—what ‘eat my flesh and drink my blood’ in John 6 really signifies. Of course, the RCC erroneously interprets this quasi-literally, which is wrong on a few levels. The key to its interpretation lies in the way John frames his Gospel from a post-Easter perspective, with historical occurrences and discourses interspersed with narrative comments explaining these actions from a post-resurrection understanding via the Spirit’s illumination (John 14:26; 16:12-15).
Both eating flesh and drinking blood were strictly forbidden in the OT, of course. So, the interpretation of John 6 can in no way be semi-literal. Even the Jew who would have seen some sort of connection between Moses’ manna and Jesus as the true manna, they would have bristled at any notion of ‘eating’ Jesus. So, this is not about eating or drinking in any quasi-literal sense.
John is at pains to fashion his entire Gospel into one in which Christ is the Lamb of God (1:29), to the extent of depicting Jesus’ last meal as the night before Passover, on the eve of the Day of Preparation. Comparatively, the last meal in the Synoptics appears to be the Passover meal. There is no mention of a Passover meal at all in John’s Gospel. Why? Because there was and is no longer a need for a Passover meal! With Jesus’ sacrificial death on the Day of Preparation—the day when priests would begin sacrificing unblemished male lambs—He Himself, the unblemished Lamb of God, was the final Passover sacrifice (1:29; cf. 1 Cor 5:7; Heb 9:11-15; 1 Pet 1:19; Rev 5:6).
Exodus 12 explains the Passover, of course. Once the lamb is sacrificed, some of its blood is to be put on the lintel (horizontal post over the door) and on the (vertical) door posts. Where was Jesus’ blood shed? On the horizontal and vertical beams of the cross. The remainder of the lamb—completely intact including head, legs, and internal organs—was to be roasted on the fire. Jesus’ entire body, His entire flesh, died on the cross. Thus, ‘eating His body and drinking His blood’ merely means understanding Jesus’ sacrifice as the replacement for the Exodus Passover observance. In other words, ‘eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking His blood’ is to embrace the Messiah’s death on the cross as the once-for-all-time fulfillment of the Passover sacrifice and to recognize that the celebration of the Passover as per the instructions in the Tanakh is no longer necessary. This recognition is the requirement to obtain “eternal life” (6:57-58). Conversely, those who do not will not obtain eternal life (6:53).
There is likely another connection to ‘flesh and blood’ intended. Besides the Bread of Life discourse, the only time these two terms appear together is in 1:13. Those who believe in Christ’s name receive the authority to become Children of God (1:12)—“not from blood(s) nor from desires of the flesh, nor from the will of the husband/man, but of God they are begotten” (1:13). Stated another way, they are begotten of God by ‘eating the flesh and drinking the blood’ of the Messiah, as per the understanding above. This is how one becomes “born again/from above” unto eternal life.
The way I see John’s Gospel, it should be understood as a Gospel, an implicit apologetic against various errors (proto-Gnosticism, e.g.) directed primarily to a Jewish audience, and a clarification of some things not clear in the Synoptics. I’m not entirely sure about the intentions behind the clear difference between the Synoptics’ timing of the last meal and John’s. Is it a correction? Is it a reinterpretation for theological purposes? Most American commentators try to reconcile the accounts in some way, but I no longer find that a tenable option.
Craig, I really appreciate the time thought and effort you put into your dissertation(s), (as well as Laurita) but as a former RCC member when I read your opening statement of “John frames his Gospel from a post-Easter perspective”, my hackles go up. Where did this Easter thing come from? Paradigm. Doctrine. Dogma, 1700 years ago. The Reformation was only a partial success. Too bad.
I agree with what you say re Passover sacrifice but I don’t see it as annihilation of Torah or Jewish traditional practices. There should be such a thing as co-existence between Jew and Gentile, at least the way I see it. We should have been learning from each other instead of obliterating each other with dogma and theology. In the “beginning” there was only Jews and Gentiles and there always will be. Full stop.
For 3,500 years at least and counting.
George,
I can understand your concern with the term “Easter”. “Post-resurrection” or “post-glorification” would suffice. I don’t personally celebrate “Easter”, as in eggs, etc.; but, I do celebrate Messiah’s resurrection. (I also quietly celebrate “Christmas” as the day in which His birth is celebrated, fully recognizing that day is NOT His actual birthday, while eschewing all the usual trimmings–trees, gift exchanges [which most do under compulsion], etc.)
My main point was regarding Messiah’s sacrifice and what it represents/ed. I don’t see Christ being the Passover Lamb as annihilating Torah. But I suppose it depends on how one defines “Torah”. I think it clear that Jesus’ sacrifice should be understood as a fulfillment of the Exodus Passover. The Exodus Passover was a type/shadow of which Christ was the fulfillment (similar to Abraham with Isaac on the mountain as a precursor to Messiah as fulfillment). And I do think it means redemption, as in being the way to becoming children of God (using John’s vocabulary). But, I don’t think all that entails doing away with the Ten Commandments (the “Royal Law”; James 2:8-13). It’s the effects Jesus’ sacrifice has in keeping them that has changed.
Thus, I’m not suggesting a replacement theology as some Christians suppose. I am suggesting, however, that there is a reason for the Messiah’s coming that fulfills some aspects of the Tanakh, Passover being one. I also see the NT as doing away with ‘unclean’ foods (Mark 7:19: …katharizōn panta ta brōmata = …purifying/cleansing all (the) food; cf. Acts 10:9-16). I think it clear both believing Jews and believing Gentiles make up the one body of Christ:
Craig, with what you have said we are in congruent positions but if I remember correctly you are Trinitarian. Other than that, YES, replacement theology is bunk and it just needs a nice peaceful place to rest in peace. Christianity is slowly moving in this direction and I can understand why they have to tread carefully, especially the RCC (if at all possible).
I see the “one new man” as two concentric circles, the Jew on the interior and the Gentile on the exterior grafted together as one. The Trinity is the fundamental that prevents this. Shema.
Shalom.
Yes, I’m a Trinitarian, but I don’t think this position is contrary to the Shema.
While I cannot speak for the RCC, from my experience in what is broadly called “Protestantism”, ‘replacement theology’ as we are understanding it here is a fringe belief.
How do you reconcile Shema with Trinity?
The Trinity is one God = The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
Sorry. Even CS Lewis notes that the “god” of the Trinity is an IDEA, not a person. The “persons” of God in the Trinity is the Father, Son, and HS. This is completely at odds with the Shema where God (YHVH) is a PERSON, not an idea (collective). But I am sure you will not be convinced, and you will continue to believe that Jews in the first century who followed Yeshua believed that he was God. That is the Trinitarian paradigm. So, enough. I’m not going to go through all this again. We had that debate some time ago. I hope you will admit, however, that no orthodox Jew today could accept the Trinity as an expression of the Shema.
CS Lewis affirms the Trinity, he never denied it. If you think he has, I’d like proof. Even the word ‘homoousios’ as found in the later Trinitarian formula means ‘one-being’. Ousios is a nominative participle of the verb “be”. It’s similar to the one used in Exodus 3:14: Egō eimi ho ōn, I am the being / I am the one who is. (the verb is highly irregular so it doesn’t look like it’s related).
Dr. Michael Brown and former Rabbinical student cum Christian Aaron Budjen have no trouble accepting the Trinity as an expression of the Shema.
But you missed the point about Lewis. He did believe in the TRI-UNE God, but as three PERSONS in one Idea (Being). He did not believe that the three persons were one person. As for Brown and Budjen, they are Christian on this point. No news there.
Skip,
Your claim was “that no orthodox Jew today could accept the Trinity as an expression of the Shema”, so I countered with two examples of individuals who were orthodox Jews and yet ended up accepting the Trinity as congruent with the Shema. If your point was that orthodox Judaism and Christianity are mutually exclusive on this issue, then I’d not disagree.
Lewis attempts to explain the inscrutable. In Mere Christianity he states:
Craig, thanks for sharing the story how C S Lewis inadvertently created the perverse “prosperity gospel” so popular today. WHAT? Wait… how so, you ask? By making the analogy of the Trinity being multi- dimensional as in a ‘lump of sugar’. Trinity + Sugar Cube = God is my Sugar Daddy.
Good one! On occasion, I used to watch TBN to see what kind of nonsense they were spewing, sometimes writing up a short blog post in response. One time I nearly–and I should have–called during one of their pledge drives. You know, the one in which you ‘sow your seed [money] and it returns 100-fold’. I was going to propose a win-win: they could send me ten grand, which would yield a cool million for them. Now that would sure shorten their pledge drive!
Wait! Ol’ Jesse Duplantis says he needs to raise a few more million for his own private jet “for the Go$pel”. Lemme call him up with the win-win proposal…
Unfortunately, I don’t think you’re right about the “fringe belief.” Virtually every official theological position of the main line Protestant denominations contains either direct or implied replacement theology. The very concept of Law vs. Grace is based on replacement theology. So is the idea that Yeshua’s death on the cross removed the necessity of obedience to Torah. From a Jewish perspective (and that is the only perspective of the earliest believers), the Trinity is a direct conflict with the Shema, as any Jew will point out. Furthermore, while the Shema is clearly stated without equivocation in the text, the Trinity must be “inferred” and has no direct statement that does not require theological paradigmatic interpretation. So, you can be a Trinitarian and a Christian, but you can’t be a Jewish Messianic believer in the first century and be a Trinitarian.
Thank you Skip, you are infinitely more eloquent and fulsome (excessive) in your reply than I can hope to be.
A ‘Law vs. Grace’ dichotomy is antinomianism (anti-law), which is considered a heresy. See wiki: en dot wikipedia dot org/wiki/Antinomianism. The true Christian belief is not a dichotomy but an understanding of Grace in adhering to the Mosaic Law. Properly understood (and taught by mainline Protestant churches), Messiah’s sacrificial death does not abolish the Ten Commandments.
Respectfully, I disagree regarding the Trinity. First century Judaism was hardly monolithic, and a ‘two powers’ conception of God was understood by some (see Alan Segal’s work). Yes, it was considered a heresy, and this is why Paul frames it as ‘One Lord and One God’. Though Trinitarianism was a development, it can be rightly inferred from NT Scripture without eisegesis. I’ve posted various comments on here in support of Messiah as God, and I won’t belabor them at this moment. Simply put, John is quite clear that Jesus raised Himself from the dead. The text is in no way ambiguous on this point using the active voice and not the passive (10:17-18; 2:19). This fact must be reconciled with the other texts illustrating that “God” or “the Father” raised Him.
This is my take to date on this, only (and I am anxiously looking for lots of other takes from lots of other folks to help me). I have no references, so take what I say about this with a big grain of salt, y’all.
I think the Trinity fight (dialectic) was not invented by one side only because it takes two to tango. I think both sides agreed to fight and both mutually built the coliseum (framework) in which to duke it out, too. Therefore, you cannot just pick one side or the other, for all dialectics are a catch-22 arrangement: you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. When I went to look at this (unwanted) gift horse in the mouth I saw both sides using the same set of worn-out teeth – I do mean they are both chewing with the same underlying definition of God (necessary framework for the fight), but neither side, I have noticed, are traveling on the Tanakh definition of God, which Skip has been trying to tell us for years.
I think (if anybody hasn’t noticed yet) the Trinity/Oneity fight is a tempest in a very narrow, very Greek (for BOTH sides), teacup which I can see both sides depending on to keep each other apart.
(If I managed to miss stepping on anybody’s toes with this, y’all can let me know and I will try to step on them later.)
First READ THIS: Richard Rubenstein: When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome First Edition
You might find that the real issue wasn’t theological at all. It was about POWER. To the victor went the spoils.
No doubt. But BOTH sides – Jews as well as Christians – wanted that power.
On the other note, what not many people know, it seems, is that neither Rome nor Alexandria were the ‘capital’ of Christianity after Jerusalem fell: Antioch was. The power both other places wanted was the power centered in Syria, but they had to take Syria and all the other ‘Judaizing” churches that had a rather low opinion of both (Alexandria and Rome) those hotbeds of gnosticism (as well as sun worship) down, first. Again, see Truth Triumphant by Wilkinson.
Laurita, I am only just starting to read Truth Triumphant but I find it difficult to compare anybody’s lust for power to what the semi-pagan Church was generating in the 4th century in Rome. Jerome in particular with his weird ascetism and vitriolic fervour for the superiority of celibacy and continence was much more than desire for power, it was pure evil that ultimately, through Augustine, led to the monstrous doctrine of “compel them to come in.” You know who “them” are don’t you? Millions were killed using this weapon of mass destruction.
The unmarried clergy rule had the same outcome that is just beginning to fully come to light today leaving an untold number of “corpses” in its wake.
From day one of Constantine’s call for a council at Nicaea it was all about the power the glory and became a direct downhill path for 1200 years into the dark ages of feudalism throughout Europe. I find it difficult to relate anything anywhere else to such total abuse of power by anybody for such an extended period of time let alone a comparison to Jews under any circumstances, any time, any where.
Oh the abuse was (and is) horrendous, but you can’t say the Jews share none of the blame. I lived with a precious person who had suffered rejection in their family of origin. This person acted out extremely abusively because of that hurt. Those around got caught in that crossfire. But all this person really wanted was to have been loved, not rejected. The Christians got “thrown out of the synagogues”. That is rejection by their family of origin. They weren’t learning there because they weren’t allowed there. They didn’t run away: they got kicked out (and persecuted and tortured and killed). I think it is when we become rootless that we can become desperate and forget who we are and where we came from. Abuse starts somewhere; usually from being abused/neglected/abandoned/rejected. I stand on my insistence that the family of origin shares that guilt.
Did Israel never act this way? Oh, yes, they did too, in spades. YHVH said that they were much worse than the nations around them. Such is the nature of good gone bad: it goes really, really bad.
I can give you examples of similar behaviour both ways. I have many Mennonite cousins, some sects of which will shun members of their family for not agreeing with them and others who will forgive people who have killed a member of their family unconditionally.
I have been to a Passover Seder meal in a synagogue with Orthodox Jews and the only rule was – no discussion of the Trinity please. Other than that, anything goes and did.
Don’t blame the Jews for defending monotheism. The same thing happened to Celtic Patrick’s bible based churches eventually after they staunchly defended Arian philosophy of faith in the Bible alone. And thousands died once again at the tip of Roman spears and swords, didn’t they? The abuse started in Rome. IMHO yours is a stretched comparison.
This is an inner family fight. There are rules to family fights. One is that both sides have to take responsibility because there has to be a basis of reconciliation: there will be no winner-takes-all, loser-gets-shot-behind-the-woodshed; therefore there can be no good-guy bad-guy posturing. In a fight between brothers, both heads get cracked together to bring them to their senses. I don’t hate them for defending monotheism: however, I do blame them for probable collusion with the other side on what constitutes the definition of that monotheism.
Skip says that the Trinity is an ideal made up of 3 (singular) Persons. The Jews have an ideal Single Person, too. They both agree on singular: ideal: and what a person is, but nowhere in there can I see anything that looks like what love is. Somewhere in the search for perfection (and difference?), both sides left how love really functions behind. I am afraid both sides look equally Greek to me, looking in through the window at Animal Farm.
I hate the Bangor Massacre too: it started a millennium of grief.
P.S. I beg to differ on who started the family feud. The abuse started in Jerusalem, hundreds of years before Rome; part of which Paul tried to ameliorate for for the rest of his life. Read Acts.
The abuse started with skeptical Abraham, Sarah and Hagar, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, not Jerusalem, with our heritage as untrustworthy beneficiaries, sinners. Not Jerusalem.
‘Twas every thus, as my saintly mother in law would say.
I like your mother in law, George. I know she has a great daughter, too.
You are right: we are human, first. Um, that would be all of us. That’s what I was trying to say before, I think, but she said it best.
Skip. Thank you for reference. I now also have more insight into how incorrectly the apostolic creed reflects the content of scripture portions it is supposed to be supporting…
George comments above . . . (10:25 am)
“God never ordered the Jews to subscribe to a belief in a Messiah that I know of for redemption and Consummation, only faithfulness to Himself and Torah.”
The exact elevated position of Yeshua is debatable, but it seems that God thought very highly of Yeshua. So high in fact that, God DID order the Jews to believe in the Messiah in order to be redeemed.
Joh 5:23 . . . He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.
Joh 5:24 . . . he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life
Joh 5:25 . . . when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
Joh 5:27 and He gave Him [Yeshua] authority to execute judgment . . .
Joh 5:28 . . . all who are in the tombs will hear His [Yeshua] voice,
Joh 5:29 and will come forth; [to redemption or judgment]
Joh 5:30 . . . I judge; and My judgment is just, [Yeshua’s]
Joh 5:34 . . . I [Yeshua] say these things so that you may be saved.
Joh 5:38 “You do NOT have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe HIM [Yeshua].
Joh 5:39 “You search the Scriptures because you THINK that in THEM you have eternal life . . .
Joh 5:40 and you are unwilling to come to ME so that you may have LIFE.
Joh 5:43 “I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive ME . . .
Joh 5:44 . . . you do not seek the GLORY that is from the one and only God?
Joh 5:45 . . . the one who accuses you is MOSES . . .
Joh 5:46 “For if you believed Moses, [TORAH] you would believe ME, for he wrote about ME.
Joh 5:47 “But if you do not believe his writings, [TORAH] how will you believe MY words?”
The hatred of the unbelievers among the Jews for the Jewish believers in Messiah came from somewhere; was it because so many of them – at least according to George (who I believe is quoting a popular belief today) – were confused about where to look for “redemption and Consummation”? If Messiah’s message was for the Jews, and the early believers were wrong to have quit going to the synagogues for instruction (isn’t that a little like blaming the victims? They were thrown out, as I recall.), too, then what was Messiah FOR to the Jews? I think you can’t have it both ways: either the Jews were wrong about the promised Messiah (they thought – from Abraham on – that He was sent to them) or His message (He preached about that “redemption and Consummation” exclusively to the Jews His whole life) was really for them.
I have seen estimates that as much as a third of the Jews became believers, but that percentage was probably even higher among the diaspora. If the message of Yeshua about redemption was not for the Jews (“I came first to Israel”), then somebody needed to have explained that to those (confused?) Jews then, I would think.
……So I will Spring into action. My understanding of the Messiah is that he was the perfect interpretation of Torah, how to live Judaism properly, and also how to incorporate the Gentiles at the same time into redemption. Yeshua brought no new theology, doctrine or dogma, just Torah more fully developed, expanded, explained, such as circumcision of the heart, what comes out of the mouth is more important than what goes in, when someone is in need of something, give him whatever you have and then some more, you can “kill” someone with your words as well as a sword, turn the other cheek, love your neighbour, ALL of them as one, do as I do, etc.
Furthermore, this enhanced Torah development of blessings from God to the oppressed also including the Ten Commandments to the Gentiles that was critical and the time was right, perfect, with the Temple intact, limited diaspora, and synagogue access for explanation of the good news message to all, anywhere there were Jews.
Roman oppression totally surrounded Judea and well beyond for the “benefit” of equal opportunity oppression to all non-Roman Gentiles from Egypt to Scotland alike. No one left behind. So the Gospel message of relief to all was in perfect harmony for the Jew and Gentile alike. Is it any wonder it was so well received by both “sides” as it was always meant to be, “and all nations, Jew and Gentile.” Combined with the additional benefit of the Pentecost message to foreign speaking Jews in their own language, the message was dynamite. And it was so….quickly, from Atlantic to Pacific.
But maybe I am wrong.
Amen to all the above, George. BUT a significant part of what the Jews were given was an enacted picture of Messiah so that when He came no one could mistake Him. Sadly, so many of them chose the picture over Him: the ritual over the fulfillment: the type over the antitype. They are still choosing that today. I think it’s a little like choosing to keep the circus poster instead of going to see the elephants. What good is the poster without the elephants? And if that was the right response to Him, why did He cry about it? No one – not even the Jews – are going to get the first coming again, and the second one is going to do no good to those who didn’t act on the salvation the first one afforded. Jew and Gentile have to be built into the same Body, just like they started out doing in the first century. Period. Or nobody gets Him (second coming). I think this is what He is waiting on. That’s the way I read it, anyway.
Very well put, but as I asked Craig, how do you deal with the HUGE roadblock problem of the 4th century Roman church’s tortured, inferred, implied, Trinitarian doctrine, almost universally inherited and accepted by the (partly) Reformed churches, that virtually all Jews espouse as anathema? I know how I dealt with it, I left the RCC church and I am ecstatic with what I found, mostly via Skip and Rabbi Bob etc.
But for this doctrine, we would be miles ahead including for a correct interpretation of simple things like the Sabbath and graven images etc. and the world would have been a much better place without it. But when you combine religion and politics, LOOK OUT BELOW! That is certainly NOT a Jewish problem, that is forbidden. Most Christians violate the Sabbath amongst other things. Do they do so with impugnity?
The Trinity/Oneity doctrine (I suspect they cannot exist without each other) was as bad as you say – and worse: it split the western church off from Judaism. BUT, it did not necessarily split all the church from Judaism. There were all the other churches who still followed Torah and ignored or condemned the Roman fight – at least mostly (however, I suspect Judaism was not following Torah very well at this point, either, or why would they have thought the Talmud was such a useful addition?). I think I can see that Greece had thoroughly infected everybody by that time.
But I posit that Judaism had to abandon their original understanding of YHVH to engage in this fight, as Christianity had to, too. I think they both found a Greek red herring (confirmation bias for pre-existing conditions?) to legitimize the fight that was already going on long before this blew up. This fight certainly gave them both a reason why they did not have to get along. It still does.
I’m not actually sure Yeshua did enhance the Torah, e.g. circumcision of the heart is old, Old Testament news, and Torah commands that NOTHING be added to it, or taken away. BUT, in the Christian view, that which Yeshua fulfilled, is, fulfilled. Hence, it does not need to be repeated.
You seem to be saying that Yeshua was nothing less than an example of perfect Torah living, but also, nothing more. Are you saying His death and resurrection were ultimately unnecessary? A nice enhancement, but something which God really didn’t need Yeshua to do, and something no one really needs to believe?
Whichever way you look at this, essentially you are describing replacement theology, Gentiles over Jews, which is wrong Biblical interpretation. There was and always will be two kinds of people; Jews and non-Jews, aka Gentiles. The arrival of the Messiah doesn’t change this, it adds to this. Gentiles will never be Jews and vice versa. They are BOTH invited into the Consummation of Redemption.
Replacement theology solves nothing, it only creates a greater problem for Christians; if God can replace the Jews, then He could do the same with Christians, couldn’t He? But Paul clearly says, “to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Partial rejection of Israel actually provides time and space to bring the message to the Gentiles. Had the Jews done otherwise it would have been “over.” God has done such-like before with Joseph and his brothers, Pharaoh, Moses. It is inconceivable that God would annul his blessing of Israel, “the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.” Rom. 11:29. “God” is the “God of Israel” AND Christian theology.
The church is commissioned to proclaim the gospel of this God of Israel to all the nations of the world to which the Gentiles belong. Rom. 11:25-27 and when the full number of Gentiles have done so, all Israel will be saved. Has the Christian church that this is addressed to done so? Doesn’t look like it to me. I wonder why not. “Out of Zion will come the Deliverer.” Is the church giving out the wrong message? Maybe. Redemption will happen when Jews and Gentiles bless each other.
Define Jew. And what are Messianic Jews? Is this about genetics? Do Ashkenazi Jews fall through the genetic cracks or is it because of what they choose to believe? What about converts to Judaism? See the problem? But what does the Bible say? Many, many times?
We are not called to “bless each other”: that would be the doctrine of the Church of Tolerance. We are called to be one Body. This is crystal clear.
What does Saul/Paul the Pharisee say?
A Gentile can be a Jew, and a Jew can be a non-Jew. This isn’t ‘Replacement Theology’.
Why are you ignoring Paul who clearly says, “to the Jew first and also to the Greek”…..
…and no a genetic Jew will always be a Jew and a genetic Gentile an “other than”. The other than branch can be always be grafted into the rooted Jew but you cant graft a root into a branch can you. No!
I concede this one.
… as we say en francais, merci Laurita.
This verse George refers to needs to be cited before I will concede anything.
CLV Rom 11:17 Now if some of the boughs are broken out, yet you, being a wild olive, are grafted among them, and became a JOINT participant of the root and fatness of the olive,
What must be correctly understood here is that the Jews are NOT the root. The nations may be grafted in AMONG THEM, (the original branches) but BOTH are supported by the root, which is clearly God.
Rom 11:21 For if God spares not the natural boughs, neither will He be sparing you!”
Yes, to the Jew first but now the two of them are to jointly participate; (which Strong defines as “co-participant”)
Not so fast Dan. When I read Isa. 10:32 to 11:15, this is the essence of the Hebrew Messianic prophecy that I am sure many Jews had a problem with, then and later, particularly in view of replacement theology by any name or any explanation, 3 hundred years later but I would love to hear from any Jew on this point.
Sarna says on Isa. 11:2-5, and “the spirit of the Lord” is explicated as “the spirit of wisdom, insight, counsel, valor, devotion and reverence.” Then Isa. 11:3-12 follows with the descriptive of the peaceful world in that day with “His people” who have been dispersed “from the four corners of the earth”, ending with “a mythic imagery of a new Exodus across the Euphrates” in v. 15.
So according to my understanding of the rules of exegesis with a Jew prophesizing to a Jewish audience, this Messiah was the expectation of many Jews in the Herodic days and beyond. Is literal Isaiah unreasonable for a Jew in any day to expect whether it is the first coming or the second coming of the Messiah and to which any believing Gentile will also be grafted into?
And just so we are perfectly clear, there were many thousands of Jews who did believe he was the Messiah, right? Everywhere the apostles went with the message. The bible says so.
If I were Jewish I would be interpreting Yeshua in this fashion which I think Rabbi Bob does when I hear him speak, in a monotheistic sense the way any believing Jew of the day would have done for three hundred years before the trouble started with Constantine’s final ruling of the issue which was VERY disputed almost everywhere by the bishops except Rome and Alexandria and in particular in Antioch, the primary teaching center of the world in its day. Torture, murder, expulsion, etc. does have a way of getting people converted though.
In John 15 Yeshua asserts He is the True Vine while the Father is the Vinedresser. It is the Father who cuts off those branches bearing no fruit, while pruning others that do bear fruit so that these become even more fruitful.
So if I read you correctly you are saying that faithful Jewish Torah observers who had difficulty accepting Yeshua as the Messiah were “branches bearing no fruit”.
Where does it say that you MUST believe in the one and only Messiah to please God and NOTHING ELSE WILL DO?
Besides John 15, there are Luke 10:16 and 1 John 2:23, e.g.
Christ is the Savior of all, whether they know Him or not; but if there is opportunity to know, and that opportunity is rejected, there is no other way: I think the Scripture is abundantly clear on that, OT and NT. We are judged on what we know: not on what we don’t know. Many earnest Jews still don’t know the truth (even though they were given that amazing 2000-year start on the rest of us). Many un-earnest Christians do know, but they still choose to not improve upon that opportunity. The Judge is fair: we are not judged for what we don’t know, but if we choose to avoid what might have been known – especially for fear that we might be responsible for knowing it if we do go look – there just is no excuse in any court of law. To be fair, I think the same goes for Christians who might have been able to figure out that the Law is still applicable, but choose to ignore it because they ‘aren’t Jews’, by the way. It washes both ways (well, according to Paul, that would probably be all ways, whether they be Jew or Greek or bond or free or male or female). As always. Good discussion, by the way.
Hi Laurita, that might be the most profound bit of teaching I have read in my long quest for the truth in such a rational concise way. It could (should) become the preface for a book, (the bible, all bibles?). I totally accept it 100% although I would like to hear if you can elaborate on it a bit. If we will be judged upon what we know, then surely we will also be judged on what we do as a result of what we know, right? In short, faith and works, not faith alone.
What do you think? Shabbat shalom and many thanks once again for the encouragement and wisdom as you so often do through your posts.
Hi back, George. It is clear that you are championing fairness. You go, brother! Fairness is the root of all justice, for sure. I didn’t make up the above, so there is no credit of mine: I was taught it. I like the way you persist when you know you are after the right. I fight like a bulldog, too: don’t let go the last grip till you get the next one.
If you take the word “knowledge”, Hebraically speaking, and substitute the word “experience” for it, I have found that there is practically nowhere in the Bible that it won’t work equally well OR BETTER. For example, check it out with Is. 53:11 “As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; by His knowledge (experience) the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities.”
You ask “If we will be judged upon what we know, then surely we will also be judged on what we do as a result of what we know, right?” Substitute the word “experience” for the word “know” in your own sentence – like a good Hebrew – and see if even that doesn’t read better? (This is such fun!) I think you will find that part of your sentence does not need to be repeated, and that you may have been actually attempting to parse a tautology (no wonder you were adamant!). I suggest that because I am convinced that we automatically act on what we trust: conversely, if we do not actually trust, we WILL NOT ACT because I believe that this is the hardwiring of the human. I believe that it is impossible for a human to separate true belief (heart knowledge, or, understanding, of the truth) from resulting action; therefore, what we believe (put our trust in) is the real cause of all action. In other words, if you don’t do it, it is because there is something about it you still are not trusting. End of story.
To understand the inherent synthesis between thought and action, take Deut. 11:13-20. Moses told the Israelites to “not be deceived”; to “hearken diligently” and also to “bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes”. If you literalize the action without including the “thoughts and intents of the heart”, however, you can run the risk of folks just walking around with little boxes containing some writing tied to their hand and between their eyes. That’s all fine and good, but only if they understand that the whole point of the exercise is that what the writing says needs to be between the ears as well as in the actions of the hands; otherwise, they are going to be deceived either one way or the other.
I think this warning was deliberate for we can see today a classic, dialectic separation – that both Jews and Christians are guilty of engaging in – on opposite ‘sides’, no less (which, of course, don’t really exist) because you can’t get out of action without intention any more than you can get out of thought without action. The point of the exercise is not writing in little boxes, of course: the point is that both head and hand are to be equally engaged by that writing: further, that either both are engaged, or neither are; otherwise you are going to get ritualized motions (all false religions engage in these ‘works’) or you are going to get “all I ‘need’ to do is believe”. Both approaches separate forehead and hand; therefore, both are equally “deceived”, because there is no such thing. Thought and action will always go together: that is what I believe is being taught here.
Paul’s obvious point is that there is a distinction in the New Covenant instituted by the Messiah. An ethnic Jew who denounces Jesus as Messiah is not part of the New Covenant–just as any Gentile would not be. Thus, an ethnic Jew who is a non-follower of the Way is ‘a Jew outwardly but not inwardly’. To be a “Jew inwardly” one must undergo a circumcision of the heart, which comes “by the Spirit”.
This is what signifies the importance of Laurita’s question above regarding defining what a Jew is in a Messianic and non-Messianic sense.
George,
Let’s put the word’s of Paul you quote in their full context:
for I am not ashamed of the good news of the Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation to every one who is believing, both to Jew first, and to Greek (Romans 1:16, YLT).
Paul is saying the Gospel comes first to the Jew, but then to the Greek. If the Jew refuses, then, by definition this particular one is not a “believer” and, according to Paul in the next chapter ‘not a Jew inwardly’.
Essentially you are still defending replacement theology which first you said was a fringe theology of Protestantism and refuted by Skip. You never replied but as Skip has said and I agree, this issue is DOA (my words). God does not do OOPS! Thanks anyway for your input.
George,
So, when Paul calls this era the new covenant by quoting the Messiah’s exact wording as recorded Luke 22:20, what does this signify to you?
Let me add this:
And more from Paul:
Sure Craig, and thousands of Jews accepted and learned enhanced Torah as taught by Yeshua, correct Torah, if you prefer new covenant, that opened Torah to the Gentiles fully, but the Jews still went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, not Sunday, and read Torah and lived proper Torah as Yeshua preached, and said their Jewish prayers everyday and lived their Jewish lives faithfully to their God of Israel and repeated Shema as did Yeshua and Paul and the apostles didn’t they, but they did so with the benefit of Holy Spirit eyes.
They gave unto God that which is God’s and to Caesar that which is Caesars and the boot to the corrupt Pharisee rabbis in the Sanhedrin and ignored the power crazed pope and Caesar in Rome in due course and his replacement anti-Jewish theology.
Thank you Constantine.
While it’s true that things were wrongly changed at Constantine, you’ve not addressed the real issue here. What happens to those Jews who do not accept the “new covenant”? Paul is not unclear here. They are “perishing”. That’s not ‘Replacement Theology’, those are Paul’s words. And he specifically mentions an “old covenant”. What is the difference between the “old” and the “new”, and what is it that makes those not accepting the “new” perish, as per Paul?
Perhaps I’m just unclear on what you mean by “Replacement Theology”.
I assume you mean “NOT” clear on “replacement theology” but let’s keep it simple. I like simple. When God made his covenant with the Israelites and HE said HIS covenant was everlasting, did He mean it or not? God knows His humanity and its natural proclivity to disobey His commands. “Twas ever thus.” Amen. For them and for us today. We are ALL fallible weak humans, aren’t we? ALWAYS will be.
Do you REALLY think God just dumped His chosen people into the garbage can after 1500 years of support that proved otherwise just to jump from the Israelite frying pan into the Christian fire? I don’t think so. If there is one thing that God is, it is consistent, what I call faithful. Trustworthy. He can be counted on when the chips are down and we think He is not there, not listening. He is. Full of emotion on our behalf for us to please return! But we are pathetic humans who think we can control everything and we keep trying our way and keep failing. So what is left? Just trust in God’s word.
As it was in the beginning, now and forever amen! You, me, and the chosen people. I will leave “chosen” up to Him to say who that is. But I think I know.
Yet you are still dodging my questions by posing another, unrelated question. I’ll make you a deal. As soon as you answer my essential question, which I’ll rephrase, then I’ll answer the one you just posed. When Paul wrote that those who don’t believe in the cross (aka new covenant) are “perishing” as juxtaposed with those who do believe in the cross who are being “saved” (1 Cor 1:18), what does this mean?
I know you are a student of Greek and good on you for it, but this issue It is NOT unrelated even remotely to interpretation and not subject to a Greek deal of logic. But It is FUNDAMENTAL logic. Either replacement theology is correct or it is false. Either God’s covenant that HE made of His volition is true or it is false. Either HIS chosen people are chosen or they are not.
It takes three things to make a nation; land, laws, and a people. Sine qua non. God gave ALL of these to the Israelites just as He promised in spite of all the trouble that the Israelites gave him incessantly for 1500 years, didn’t He? Nobody else can make this claim. HIS WORD IS HIS BOND.
Read your bible. Torah. It was spoken to NOBODY ELSE, not gentiles of any sort whatsoever, given by His choice with an everlasting covenant as He said to His chosen people, for the chosen people (first) AND then for the Gentiles (second), eventually, in His own good time and in His own way.
So the real question becomes, who do you trust, who do you believe? Is His word true or false, and let’s stop dancing? This may or may not hang together for a PhD but it sure passes the smell test I think.
Israelites. Chosen people with everlasting covenant or not, with Gentiles grafted in? Or some form of replacement Israelites who can do a much better job and who know better than them.
Now think 1200 years of Dark Ages for the answer.
Since you insist on discussing the Abrahamic covenant, what do you make of John 8:34-47? In this discourse, Jesus tells his Jewish adversaries they are “Abraham’s descendants” yet then alludes to their actual identity as ‘children of the devil’, they counter with “Abraham is our father”, to which Jesus again counters with the implication that they are ‘children of the devil’ before Yeshua finally comes right out and tells them their father is the devil, and at the climax informs them, “you do not belong to God”.
It seems to me that some of “Abraham’s descendants” are not ‘children of Abraham’. What is it that makes one a ‘child of Abraham’?
This isn’t ‘Replacement Theology’, it’s ‘displacement theology’ in which one displaces himself through unbelief.
Craig,
I like your concept of “displacement” theology. It explains how some, or many, of Abraham’s genetic descendants, can opt out of his faith based belief system, but it does not explain how some of his genetic descendants can opt out of being a genetic descendant.
Are you familiar with “Two Seed Line” theology? It purports to give an answer to Yeshua’s question, but one most people will out rightly reject.
Daniel,
Yes, I’d heard about the “Two Seed” doctrine. Weren’t there other ethnic Jews at Abraham’s time genetically unrelated to Abraham?
This “displacement” idea came to me as I was typing that comment, and it seems to best explain Yeshua’s words about His adversaries. I like your comment that Gentile and Jewish Messiah followers are simply enjoined, no ‘replacement’ involved. The invitation is there for one to accept, Jew or Gentile. No acceptance, no admittance!
(Re George at 12:09 pm)
Why is joining two people groups together “replacement” theology? They are not replaced; they are not even demoted; they are enjoined. As you say, both are invited, but an invitee has to put on the wedding garments or get kicked out of the party. Jews have to come to the One Who was specifically sent to, and invited, THEM. What’s the big deal? They had to eat the Passover or die, eat the manna or die, look upon the “serpent” or die, obey the Law or die, so now, they have to accept their Messiah’s invitation or be cut off.
No, there weren’t always two kinds of people. Abram was an uncircumcised descendant of Adam, as are the rest of us. But yes I agree with you, “it is inconceivable that God would annul his blessing of Israel” but all in good time. All Israel will be saved, but just not now. Why does everyone think eternal bliss or damnation revolves around this one tiny and (obviously) confused lifetime?
Craig and Dan, I am a relative new comer to this business of Bible study unlike you two so I will reply to you in a simple fashion accordingly, as I understand it in relatively lay terms so to speak. You can read the “professional” stuff for yourself, just like I do.
It is a fact of life that there has ALWAYS been a faithful remnant of Israelites, Jews, who have always been faithful to God’s law, Torah, Yeshua, perfectly, being the foremost amongst these, but always thousands of others too in good fashion beginning with Peter and the other apostles. All Jews. The entire nation, no, SOME, yes. And for at least two centuries CE and more this continued in parallel fashion well beyond the borders of the land of the chosen people. I do not believe one of these followers thought he was God, divine emissary yes, but not God. They subscribed to this re“new”ed covenant which gave full access to a “modified” Torah for Gentiles (e.g. circumcision of the heart, no dietary laws etc.) as was promised by God. But God did not provide for any changes to be required for Jews to abandon Torah, the Ten Commandments, but no “new” Sabbath or graven images or worship of relics or a hierarchy of a pope, archbishops, bishops or any other changes that gave extraordinary power to secular kings, emperors or others to do as they pleased in His name and specifically against Torah for the Gentiles either.
Yeshua never called himself the Messiah but Hebrew is a language of verbs so he let his actions speak for themselves. No one was ever condemned for calling themselves the Messiah, many did. But more importantly Yeshua denied being God. “Why do you call me good, no one is good except God (and) no one (including himself) knows the day of redemption when I shall return as is promised (for Jew and Gentile alike).” Divine, yes. God, no. Especially not through any tortured, implied Greek illogic. So now we have a two fold group of people called Jews and non Jewish believers, Gentiles, as is written, who are now following the “new” Torah teaching or interpretation for Gentiles and an “old” one for Jews. Call them OT and NT if you must. I would prefer like Skip to just tear out the page between the two.
I am no believer in Universal redemption nor a Trinitarian God nor anything resembling Christian replacement theology of the Jews by Gentiles. Just God and His first born Jewish emissary Yeshua. Simple like I said, so I call myself a Messianic follower of God’s “Torah for Gentiles” gospel and I leave the rest to Him. There are lots of professional authors who you can read to back this up as Skip has referred to many times. Take it or leave it. What all this looks like on the day or redemption, who knows, I sure don’t but I don’t expect it to be all pretty. C’est tous, that’s all folks.
p.s. Arnella below says what I am saying in a more concise and up-to-date fashion if you like. Thanks Arnella.
George,
In Luke 18:19 (“Why do you call Me good? No one is ‘good’ except for God”) do you think Yeshua said He Himself is ‘not good’? The word used here, agathos is used quite often in other contexts in Luke (1:53 [good things]; 6:45 [good man, good heart, good things in his heart], etc.).
Luke 18:19 is an interesting verse in the Greek:
ti me legeis agathon? oudeis agathos ei mē heis ho theos
Why me call good? No-one good if not one the God
Why call me good? No one [is] good if not/except the One God.
(The second sentence is verbless, which is not unusual in the NT; we just supply the obvious verb for translation.) Here’s the Shema in the LXX:
kyrios ho theos hēmōn kyrios heis estin
Lord the God our, Lord One is
[The] Lord our (the) God, [the] Lord is One.
Now we’re back to the definition of “One” again…
You wrote, “Yeshua never called himself the Messiah but Hebrew is a language of verbs so he let his actions speak for themselves.” I would take this same sentence and switch one word: “Yeshua never called himself God but Hebrew is a language of verbs so he let his actions speak for themselves.”
I certainly agree with you regarding icons and other pagan symbols adopted by the RCC. Last year I researched and wrote a brief article on the ICHTHYS, the Christian fish symbol. In my research I discovered that early Christian artefacts of the late 1st and 2nd centurires were NOT idols, but were strictly symbolic representations. The ‘fish’ symbolized being purified in water in baptism, i.e., born anew. But more important, ICHTHYS is an acrostic/’backronym’ in Greek meaning Jesus Christ God’s Son Savior. And a likeness (painting) was never made for Yeshua in the early centuries, though He was pictorially symbolized as a Shepherd carrying a lamb on his shoulders, e.g.
Marsha, Revelation 13:8; Hebrews 4:3 may be a good start in your search of scriptures that speak to your question. If you haven’t read Skip’s book, Cross Word Puzzles, you will find that very helpful.
Ephesians 2 especially verse14 and after. The problem isn’t about being separate (biblically), but about isolation. That’s the false dialectic that has been inserted into the program of unity to render the body (Jew and gentile) largely ineffective in it’s witness. Separateness from each other isn’t to be sought, it’s separateness TO God that is, and it’s what will bring true unity. No Jew, no gentile, no slave, no free…..
I read this TW simply as a condemnation of supercessionism, replacement theology, and I agree with it on that basis, no more no less.
I’m wondering why you can’t say the the Passover is about the crucifixion, and Easter is about the resurrection. Can we not celebrate both? Just a thought.
Ex. 23:13
Besides, the crucifiction and resurrection is already displayed in the terms of Passover. God will display these things on His own terms, not the terms of the pagan world. Gods terms are pure, the pagan version is violated. Take a minute and look up “Ishtar” and find out what surrounds that “celebration”. Should be pretty clear. ?
Ummm…. that would be crucifixion.
According to John, the Day of Preparation (for the Passover) was the day Messiah was crucified (just as the sacrificial lambs would be sacrificed on that day for that evening’s meal, i.e. the Passover meal [understanding that evening begins each new Jewish day, of course]). And if my interpretation of the Bread of Life discourse in John 6 is correct–and I think it is–then Messiah, as the Lamb of God, was to be ‘eaten’ in a strictly symbolic/metaphorical sense as the replacement Passover meal, thereby fulfilling the Exodus Passover. His resurrection was 3 days later after His crucifixion (the Day of Preparation), during what was the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Craig: It is impossible to reconcile the timeline of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) with that of John regarding the Passover chronology during the Passion Week UNLESS one realizes that two different calendars are in play. I have learned that the Sadducees followed a procedure of killing the Passover lambs just after sundown at the start of Nisan 14. To this day the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim slaughter the lambs just after sundown and eat the roasted meal that same evening. .There is plenty of time between 6pm and midnight to do both . The Sadducees then celebrated the Feast of Unleaven Bread the next night. (i.e. the 15th of Nisan) This process honored the Exodus story of a Passover meal before deliverance then the Feast of Unleaven Bread after leaving slavery. The Pharisee calendar lumps the two events together into one Feast Pssover/Unleaven Bread celebrated on the evening of 15 Nisan. The lambs are slaughtered starting at 3pm of the afternoon of Nisan 14 as the sun begins to drop towards dusk.
The synoptic gospels follow the first calendar outlined above. The meal was eaten immediately following slaughter after sundown. Later in the evening Jesus was “handed over” about midnight when the firstborn sons were slain in Egypt.. This is called the Night of Watching. Recall that Jesus implored his disciples to “watch” in the Garden… he was about to be seized and tried.
The next afternoon (still 14 Nisan) Jesus died on the cross at 3pm just as the Pharisee slaughter of Passover lambs started. That is why Paul, himself a professed Pharisee, does not refer to the Last Supper as Passover as the Synoptics clearly do. Note in 1 Cor. 11:23 Paul says “on the night that Jesus was betrayed…took bread…”.Why? Because for the Pharisees the Passover meal was joined with Unleaven Bread in a feast eaten the following night 15 Nisan. However the disciples and Jesus were clearly following the former calendar. .Note that when Judas left the meal the disciples thought he had gone to get items for the Feast (which would have been held the following evening)
So what about John? Realize that he wrote his gospel account decades after the Synoptics and well after the Temple destruction. At that point in time there was only ONE calendar in use…the Pharisee calendar. That is why John uses that calendar.
Secondly, understand that the Passover sacrifice is NOT a sin offering, notwithstanding the thousands of sermons in churches that claim as much. Note that the author of the book of Hebrews who spends so much time describing the various sacrifices system never mentions Passover AT ALL. In fact the term only occurs ONCE in the entire New Testament. This is in 1 Cor 5:7. There the whole context is getting rid of leaven to celebrate the Feast (of Unleaven Bread)
So what is the Passover sacrifice all about? Does the lamb not “take away the sins of the world? YES, but not as the Passover sacrifice. At 9am and 3pm in the Temple there was a lamb sin offering sacrifice called the Tamid. This is the lamb that Jesus represented in his death at the same time. So what was the Passover lamb all about? It was a communal meal…the sacrifice is not for sin…rather it was a Peace offering that was given back to the worshipper to enjoy with his family and friends. Recall that at the Passover supper Jesus spoke about eating his flesh…. He was the metaphorical meal that really counted.
The amazing beauty of this two-calendar system was that Jesus could celebrate Passover with his disciples then be the Passover lamb dying the next afternoon.
Thirdly, in ancient times in Israel the place of slaughter was the threshold doorstep of houses. A sacrifice of blood was a welcome invitation to enter fellowship with the occupants of the house. Blood on the lintel and doorposts completed a rectangle not a cross.. The blood is an invitation, NOT an exclusion! Based on this understanding the Israelites would have understood that they were welcoming the God of Israel into their homes to enjoy a fellowship meal. Thus if they invited God to “Passover” the threshold then his angel would “Passover” the house and not judge the occupants for defiance. Sad that we miss these important understandings!
HSB,
Thanks for the information. Before I respond further, I ask that you please read my comment @ March 17, 2019 3:22 pm above to see my perspective on John’s Gospel generally. You’ll see we have some points of agreement already, specifically regarding the fact that John was written later than the Synoptics, that it centers on presenting Jesus as the Passover Lamb, and that in the Bread of Life discourse He was conveying that He was the Passover meal.
I’d read something about two different calendars, but I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I’ll consider it further.
Craig: I agree that “eating flesh and drinking blood” is a metaphorical statement. The hearers would have “gotten it”. But I am a bit surprised that you qualify your comment about the Synoptics by saying “appears to be the Passover meal”. Jesus himself in Luke 22:11 says he desires to eat the Passover with his disciples then again in 22:15.says he is doing so! Matthew 26:18-20 clearly describes a Passover meal as does Mark 14:16 etc. Are you really unsure if this was in fact a Passover meal? Even when three gospels testify that it was?. You ask at the end of your comments: Is it (John) a correction? A reinterpretation? Well if it is either of these I give up. The ground of Scripture would be shifting dramatically. What then can we trust about any of the comments the authors made. Do you think that Jesus and the disciples had no idea what they were doing??? This is a serious question for you to consider.
Why no reference in John to Passover? Because when he wrote there was NO Passover on the evening of 14 Nisan…it was the next night. In my opinion it is a real leap of conjecture to conclude that there was no longer a need for Passover at all. Why does Paul inform the Corinthians in chapter 5:8 “Let us celebrate the Feast” What is he talking about if not Passover/Unleaven Bread?
Regarding your quotes, John 1:29 has nothing to do with the Passover lamb. It does NOT take away sin. There is a Tamid sin offering that was slaughtered at 3pm. That sacrifice is related to sin NOT the Passover lamb. Likewise Hebrews 9:11-15, 1 Peter 1:19 and Rev 5:6 do NOT reference the Passover lamb at all. None of them make that connection. Again the Passover is NOT a sin offering, it is a Peace/Thanksgiving meal that is eaten by the worshippers. That is what Jesus is talking about at the Passover…consuming him!
Needless to say I reject your conclusion that the Passover is “no longer necessary”. This throws in the face of clear New Testament instruction from Paul and the other writers. With respect I look forward to your response to these observations.
HSB,
I don’t have time presently to provide a fuller response, so quickly: There are definite differences between John and the Synoptics. The question to answer is why. For example, in John the catalyst for crucifixion is Lazarus, whereas in the others it seems to be the cleansing of the Temple. In John the cleansing comes much sooner. I don’t think there were two separate cleansings.
There is more than one reference to the Passover in John: 6:4; 11:55; 12:1; 13:1; 18:28, 19:14 (Day of Preparation for the Passover).
The “feast” Paul is speaking of in 1 Cor 5:7 is the “feast” fulfilled in Messiah’s sacrificial death for the New Covenant (cf. Luke 22:20)!
kai gar to pascha hēmōn etythē Christos
and for the Passover [Lamb] our has-been-sacrificed Christ
For Christ our Passover [Lamb] has been sacrificed.
Christ IS the Passover, according to Paul. “Passover” is a nominative, just like “Christ” is here, which means they are both the subject, in apposition. The “feast” of which Paul speaks is not the Feast of Unleavened Bread; he’s making an analogy using the concept of a little “yeast” (sin; see 5:1-5) will work its way through the whole “dough” (congregation). Get rid of the “yeast” (sexually immoral person) to keep the rest of “dough” unleavened (unaffected by this man’s sin / so the sin won’t spread).
I still don’t yet have the time for a full consideration of your points, but let me leave you with these in the meantime. Even the Synoptics differ from each other in substantial ways. Matthew tends to group Jesus’ words in large chunks, for example, in the Sermon on the Mount and the Olivet Discourse (24:1-25:46). You’ll find their contents scattered in different places in Mark and Luke. But, John differs from all three in a number of ways. We must wonder why Lazarus is not mentioned by the others, nor the blind man in John 9 (which provides Jesus the opportunity to tell his adversaries about their figurative, spiritual blindness). John’s Gospel is certainly Jewish and it is more ‘spiritual’ than the others. It’s the only one with the Upper Room discourse, in which Messiah tells them about the coming Holy Spirit. And why no Nicodemus in the Synoptics? This speaks of the all important new ‘birth from above’.
I’d say John’s is structured around his theological and christological emphases, perhaps at the expense of chronology. This doesn’t mean John is ahistorical–it’s just not a chronological history. It speaks of real historical persons, but it does not seem to do so by strict chronology–though there are some discourse sections following a chronology.
Paul quotes Luke 22:20 (Jesus referring to the “new covenant”) directly in I Corinthians 11:23-26 in speaking of the new practice of what Protestants call Communion, which is done “in remembrance of Me”. We know Paul was not at the Last Supper (as told in the Synoptics), yet he knew Yeshua’s words here. And this section of this letter is after he’d already referenced Christ as Pascha, Passover [Lamb] in chapter 5.
All the Synoptics mention “the paraskeuēn“, “the Preparation”, on the day after Messiah was crucified (Matthew 27:62; Mark 15:42 [“…the Preparation, that is, the day before Sabbath”]; Luke 23:54 [“…Preparation, and Sabbath was about to begin”]). Comparatively, John 19:14 uses paraskeuē tou pascha, Preparation of Passover, on the day of and just before Christ was to be crucified.
As an aside (hope this is OK), last week I posted an article centering on Pilate’s sign above Christ, as depicted in John. Once again, John is keen on making a particular theological/christological point, and I do an extensive historical investigation on the word John chose to use–not used anywhere else in the NT (and I think John was first to use it)–for this sign (titlos, a ‘loanword’ from the Latin titulus), something I’ve not seen others investigate. (I spent a LOT of time translating Latin, including some interesting poetry.) John chose this word for a specific purpose, and the Gospel writer also uses grammatical/syntactical cues to make a few other related points that are lost in the English. Most importantly here, it illustrates how John has fashioned his Gospel from a post-glorification perspective, and how this affects certain passages (I don’t cover the Bread of Life discourse at all, though): notunlikelee dot wordpress dot com/2019/03/14/what-did-pilate-state-in-john-1922-conclusion/
HSB,
First I must make a correction in the immediately preceding comment (March 19, 2019 9:33 pm) all the Synoptics mention the paraskeuēn (“Preparation”) as the day OF the crucifixion (not the day after as I erroneously stated), in the context of Yeshua’s burial.
I neglected to mention the second occurrence of paraskeuēn (“Preparation”) in John, which is in 19:31, referenced after Jesus had died. ‘The Jews’ did not want to leave His body on the cross
Now, admittedly, I’m a bit fuzzy regarding the specifics of the Feasts, but to my understanding this must be referring to the next day’s Pascha (Passover) [which may also be the weekly Sabbath]—especially given John’s mention of paraskeuē tou Pascha in 19:14, as mentioned earlier. Assuming so, according to John, Jesus was crucified on the Day of Preparation for Pascha. John mentions “Preparation” once more (19:42) in the immediately following account of Joseph of Arimethea and Nicodemus preparing then entombing Yeshua (19:36-42). Following this, there is a gap, for the narrator in John next speaks on the ‘first day of the week’, which is the day after the weekly Sabbath, of course.
Given the foregoing, this is what I see of the events of the crucifixion, first from the Synoptics, then from John, with each arrow representing the next succeeding day:
Syn.: Pascha Meal + Crucifixion + Preparation > weekly(?) Sabbath
John: ?-Meal + Crucifixion + Pascha Preparation > Pascha Sabbath [+ weekly Sabbath?]
I welcome corrections, clarifications, conclusions, etc.
I’m reminded once again about Nicodemus: Why is he not mentioned along with Joseph of Arimethea in they Synoptics’ burial account?
If the only eyewitness to both accounts of Nicodemus was Nicodemus, then the most likely way John would have gotten the info would have been a proprietary interview with the subject: perhaps near the end of his life; perhaps even after the others were written?
I dunno. Though John 3 doesn’t mention anyone else in that pericope (until v. 22), it seems to me that Jesus was rarely unaccompanied by at least the Twelve. Yet maybe Nic did get a one-on-one. (But that’s not what I think.)
I think the account of Jesus’ burial is more telling. It seems hard to fathom that the Synoptic writers were aware of Joseph of Arimethea, yet were in the dark about Nicodemus having accompanied him, or had chosen not to mention him for some reason. There are also the women (Mary Magdalene and Mary of Joses: Mark 15:47; cf. Matthew 27:61) who had accompanied Joseph of A (Luke 22:55) to figure in.
We know that Nicodemus was a powerful member of the Sanhedrin who’s m.o. was to work quietly and influentially. Did he ask not to be talked about so as to be able to continue being effective in his position? If he came by night, it was surely because he did not want to be seen; even by the disciples.
I believe the Synoptics were written and in use decades before the gospel of John. Joseph was a member of the Sanhedrin but likely had died well before the Synoptics were published. Nicodemus on the other hand was probably very much alive at this point. When one understands that Jesus was considered to be a mesith leading the nation astray it would be dangerous to be acknowledged as a follower for any member of the Sanhedrin. Nevertheless when John wrote 15 to 20 years after the destruction of the Temple, the whole Saduccee system had disappeared. No doubt Nicodemus was also dead by then. Recall that John was very young compared to the other disciples and lived up to around 100 A.D.
HSB, you have been a wealth of info lately. Thank you. I am copying what you have been writing. It seems probable that Nicodemus gave John an exclusive, but perhaps John had other reasons to publish so late. He seems to be battling a lot of heresy that cropped up, in his letters: his gospel, also, seems to be addressing stuff that might not have been a focus when the other gospels were published. I have read that the others were formulaic in composition because they could have been intended for oral transmission before they eventually got transcribed. Do you have any further history on that? I am so appreciative of your thoughtful and informative responses!
Thank you for the kind words Laurita! I enjoy reading your comments very much. Clement of Alexandria reported that John filled in the gaps left by the earlier gospels (Synoptics). Thus John does not mention the parables of Jesus since Luke and the others had covered them so thoroughly. But think for a moment about Thomas and his meeting with Jesus after the resurrection. The declaration “My Lord and my God” is one of the main pillars of Trinitarian theology yet the other gospels do not even mention the interaction at all… yet all of the disciples were present. To be quite candid I think they were all embarrassed by Thomas and his lack of faith. Interesting to me that Jesus declares a blessing not on Thomas but rather those who believe without seeing.
Well I never thought about the others being embarrassed. By Yeshua’s response, I always felt embarrassed for Thomas, however.
I have been thinking about faith. The design of the cosmos and matter itself: how life is supported by other life in many ways, from genetics to biomass interactions, and particularly how the spectrum of light – sunlight – not only heals but imparts life and energy as well as nourishes the soul. Reality ‘seems’ to run ‘on its own’.
I think this happens to give us the necessary substrate for faith because we cannot ‘see’ by sense or experience the direct hand of God pouring into that reality life, love and purpose on a continual basis. I guess we think (because of our experience) that the sun shines and things grow and the air diffuses and rain rains itself, regardless of whether those below are choosing death or life. Wait: we do believe that, and have an entire philosophy – evolution (which, like creation, no one has ever caught in the act) – to ‘support’ that paradigm – a paradigm that excludes the necessity of faith. But when we think that life runs itself, I think faith then becomes a mere nicety that we can choose the flavors of, to paint the theological rooms we have chosen, with.
I believe that faith is HOW love ‘proves’ itself: faith is necessary not only to give us a true choice, but is how that choice is determined and demonstrated. However, when the Lover shows up, the chance to prove our faith has past: all knees bow (whether the person they are attached to wants to or not) when the King ascends the throne. Then, it is a day late and a dollar short to say “my Lord and my God”. Then “faith that works by love” is impossible because the necessary substrate for the free choice faith must have has vanished: the sun has been eclipsed; a river has replaced the rain; all interactions and functional connections (obedience) – or lack thereof – of all life to its real Source lie exposed: then it’s Judgment Day.
I think Thomas got a crack on the knuckles instead of a pat on the head: not because what he said was or was not commendable (because at that point what he said was beside the point), but because it took no faith to say it. I have noticed that the others in the room may have been shocked, but they were at least keeping up (kinda). Thomas was obviously having to start over.
Hi HSB, you have done a bang-up job on this TW. You sure covered a lot of territory on this topic. My little mind is boggled with the breath of your knowledge.
Can you tell me the primary source(s) you use. I am a keen follower of all things Jewish although I am a Gentile, ex RCC. Is it safe to assume you are Jewish and if so do you mind telling me if you are are monotheistic or Trinitarian?
Thanks again for your contributions. They are great!
Dear George thank you for your positive comments. We are all on a journey, hopefully towards truth. No I am not Jewish, but love Israel and have been there 16 times. I grew up in evangelical churches and taught adult Sunday School classes for over 25 years. I abandoned Trinitarian doctrine a few years ago. I simply could not find support for it in Scripture. The gospel is not that God came to earth as a man. Rather the good news is that God sent the Messiah who will return as King of Israel (and the world). Jews believe that Christian theology by worshipping Jesus as God is idolatrous. This is a major impediment to them accepting him. I use the standard resources like Strongs and seek to understand what the original authors were communicating to their audiences. A good resource to tap into Jewish perspectives is Sefaria dot org. My personal background involved post graduate degree in Physics then a career in Education and administration, not Theology.
HSB,
Your explanation has much to commend it, as it reconciles all the accounts. Essentially, Nicodemus is not mentioned in the Synoptics for his own protection. Like you, I place the dating of John’s Gospel late (ca. 90-95, I think).
Yet there are still a number of differences between the Synoptic tradition and John that cannot be reconciled (I’m considering your March 21, 2019 10:18 am comment below here, as well). (And Thomas confession, by its grammar and syntax, is very difficult to interpret other than a proclamation of Messiah’s deity.) Why is the Temple incident mentioned so early in John, while it is the catalyst for Yeshua’s death sentence in the Synoptics? In John it was almost Passover before the Temple incident, then the Passover is mentioned again (Bread of Life discourse, 6:4) but not until after Messiah had gone through Samaria (John 4), and other things had taken place, so, what, a year later? Then, it is mentioned again at a time after the revivification of Lazarus (11:55). Was that another year later?
And what about the footwashing scene found only in John? And why don’t the Synoptics contain any of the Upper Room discourse?
I have a long comment prepared regarding the timing of the crucifixion in the Synoptics as compared to John, but I’ll place that one in response to your specific comment related to it.
Craig: Regarding the cleansing of the Temple, clearly the Synoptics place it in the last week of Jesus ministry while John puts it up front. Each gospel only describes one cleansing so it is unlikely there were two. I think the chronology of the Synoptics is correct… the event happened near Passover at the end of Jesus ministry. So why would John place it in a Passover context at the beginning of the ministry? Note that John never claims everything was in chronological order. .I think John does this to frame his gospel narrative with signature bookend events.
For many years something always bothered me about the story of cleansing the Temple. By what authority did Jesus upend the tables and scatter the money everywhere? Was this legal even if the authorities were gouging in their exchange rates? Secondly why was there no resistance? Nobody opposes Jesus. Why did the Temple authorities not intervene? Nor is he ever charged with a criminal act. It does not come up at his trial which is held only a few days later. It seems like everybody simply forgets about it and moves on. Am I the only one bothered by this???
UNLESS the whole action by Jesus was in fact perfectly legal, even necessary. Sound preposterous? Read on…
In Deut. 14:25-29 Israelites were instructed to bring the Tithe of the Third Year to Jerusalem as money. There they would exchange it for food and drink (yes even strong drink for the Baptists out there!) This was NOT a tithe for the Temple… this was a deposit for a big party for themselves. It was not for the priests, it was for the people especially the alien, orphan and widow…the destitute poor and powerless ones. So the hoarding of this money by the authorities was the actual criminal act (Jesus calls them robbers). What Jesus actually did was “liberate” the money and returned it to the people by upending the tables and scattering the coins everywhere. Oh ….the authorities knew exactly what he was doing and did not intervene. There is NO opposition to Jesus action because he was making the equivalent of a citizens arrest. No one teaches this stuff!
So if liberation from oppression, celebration of life (even with “strong drink” and purification of the Temple were the main themes of this event perhaps John had good reason to make that a “shout out” at the beginning of his gospel. After all, John’s readers would all know that the Temple criminal system had been annihilated in 70 A.D. A key to my theory is the reference to the oxen. Notice only John mentions in 2:14 that oxen were being sold. These cattle are specifically identified in Deut 14:26 as menu items for the Israelites, especially the poor and powerless, to EAT, not sacrifice for sin.
The “poor tithe” aka “third tithe” (end of the third year) could well account for John’s specific mention of the oxen. (But why didn’t the narrator identify it as such?) The timing would fit, as the cleansing was when “the Passover of the Jews was near”. While you may be correct that Yeshua was setting things aright, I do think it raised the ire of leadership (see 2:20). I think here John’s is supplemental to the Synoptics (as it seems you imply or alluded to earlier), though only slightly downplaying it (maybe because it was obvious in the Synoptics? Cf. Matt 21:15-16; Mark 11:18; Luke 19:47-48).
Like you, I don’t see John’s Gospel as strictly a chronological history, but a reframing of events. Sure there are bits of historical, chronological sequencing interspersed, but John wants to frame his Gospel as one in which Yeshua is the Passover Lamb (Lamb of God: 1:29, 35). And I think the Temple cleansing is at the last Passover (to match the Synoptic accounts), as are all mentions of Passover in John. The Bread of Life discourse, the portion with Jesus claiming to be the ‘new manna’ may or may not be a historical event but is certainly John’s way of further explaining the significance of and the meaning behind Jesus’ saying ‘this is my bread, this is my blood, do this in remembrance of me’ in the Synoptics. This section is also prefaced with the note about Passover, but again, I think this is a framing device and not meant to reference a different Passover.
But it’s the Lazarus healing that is the catalyst for crucifixion in John—and this is also referenced with respect to the Passover, the final one in John.
Bultmann found the sequencing so odd that he thought a redactor came and rearranged it. So Bultmann did his own rearranging to ‘fix’ it! Though this is wrong methodology, I do believe he paved the way for others to reconsider John. On balance, the American commentators do their best to reconcile John with the Synoptics chronologically. The Europeans, on the other hand, are more apt to remove that paradigm and try to work it out from the text.
Raymond Brown’s two volume on John is fantastic, though he is, at times, too controlled by his RCC upbringing. For example, he sees some ‘Eucharistic’ influence in the miracle at Cana—something I find very strained. But he was considered too liberal by RCC standards, with some even calling him a flat out heretic for some of his views. Yet his view on John 10:30 is more robust than most here at TW would accept.
Some of the material in John seems best understood as a means by which to more properly explain Yeshua’s ontology (1:1, which forms an inclusio with 1:18; 8:58, 18:5-6; 20:28, etc.), as revealed by the Spirit in the post-glorification era (14:26; 16:12-15). This is the purpose of the Upper Room discourse. But, did Jesus really speak these words during his ministry? I dunno. It is indeed curious that the Synoptics do not record a word of it. But, it could be that they were more focused on providing more of a chronologically historical account of how Yeshua was broadly understood. And it could be that they were written in such a way as to portray that even the Twelve were somewhat blinded to His overall mission.
Craig: you say Thomas’ confession is “very difficult to interpret other than a proclamation of Messiah’s deity” yet look what Thayer writes about S2316:
4. Θεός is used of whatever can in any respect be likened to God, or resembles him in any way: Hebraistically, equivalent to God’s representative or vicegerent, of magistrates and judges,
Maybe Thomas is speaking “hebraistically”. is that possible?
As I work on responses to your comments, I figure this will be the easiest to respond to first. If you look closely at Thayer, his 4th definition lists applicable verses under it, and John 20:28 is not there (if your source does not contain this extra verbiage, let me know and I’ll provide it). This verse is, however, under his 3rd definition, the one applying to the One God.
Syntactically, the two designations before and after “and” (kai) are in parallel:
ho kyrios mou kai ho theos mou.
the Lord my and the God my
My Lord and my God!
Also, both are in the nominative case and accompanied by the Greek article (ho). I think he could have used the vocative form kyrie for “Lord” (like a name, as Ezekiel is called consistently “son of man”, or as the rich young ruler refers to Jesus as “Teacher” in Matthew 19:16, somewhat similar to a term of endearment: “honey”, “sweetie”, etc.), but it would have been sacrilegious to refer to GOD in such a way.* In other words, he phrased it like this to keep both sides parallel and also not to be profane.
Raymond Brown suggests that ho kyrios mou is akin to the vocative here. Brown is very careful to not over-ascribe “God” to Jesus in the NT. In the following you’ll see him ‘debunk’ some of the verses others use to claim the NT calls Jesus “God”. However, he is certain that John 20:28 is not one of those, but is one that does proclaim His deity (see page 21):
cdn dot theologicalstudies dot net/26/26.4/26.4.1.pdf
*As an aside, the only time the vocative form of “God” (θεέ, thee̒) is used in the entire NT is in Matthew 27:46 in Yeshua’s cry on the cross (twice), quoting Psalm 22:1(2). Interestingly, the LXX does not use the vocative, instead using the nominative in the Psalm.
Craig: I need your help with this. I am using an on-line version of Thayer. For definition 3, the one applying to the One God there is no reference to John 20:28 as you indicate in yours. However my version has the following for meaning 2.
“Whether Christ is called God must be determined from John 1:1; John 20:28; 1 John 5:20; Romans 9:5; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 1:8f, etc.; the matter is still in dispute among theologians cf. Grimm, Institutio theologiae dogmaticae, edition 2, p. 228ff (and the discussion (on Romans 9:5) by Professors Dwight and Abbot in the Journal of the Society for Biblical Literature, etc. as above, especially, pp. 42ff, 113ff).
Are you using a different edition of Thayer than the one I just cited?
PS I have enjoyed studying Raymond Brown’s work on the Deity of Jesus discussion. He accepted this doctrine since it was approved at Nicea in 325A.D.. Looking for evidence in the NT to support their conclusions is much more difficult. Even Athanasius admitted that much! Maybe we can chat further some day about this.
The version I have (in Accordance software) reads identical to what you’ve just posted for meaning 2. Thayer is just being honest in that there are those disputing it.
Meaning 3 is long, but here it is below . I simply cannot make the time to properly format all the italics here, but I’ve bolded the applicable section, which is near the bottom of this definition.
Thayer thinks that John 20:28 is an example of the nominative functioning as the vocative (as does Brown). Sounds reasonable (though, as my note above, I don’t think it would be proper to actually use the vocative form).
I recall someone making the comment that this verse could be understood as Thomas looking at Yeshua “My Lord”, then looking to the sky “My God”; but, that doesn’t work in the context, nor does it work grammatically. As I noted, both are in parallel, but also, the narrator’s pronoun preceding the statement is a singular: Thomas said to “Him”.
I should add: In the NT there are numerous (over 100) uses of the vocative kyrie, “Lord” for Yeshua. This is further evidence, I think, that Thomas used the nominative for “Lord” and “God” instead of using the vocative, then the nominative, which would not be parallel, and, more important, using the vocative for “God” would have, to my way of thinking, be profane. And as I noted, the vocative is only used one time in the entire NT.
I mentioned Bultmann earlier. He was another who challenged some of the ‘norms’ of Christianity. He erroneously thought, though, that John’s Gospel was framed from a Gnostic redeemer perspective, with John correcting that. In any case, I mention him again only because he affirmed 20:28:
HSB,
I did some searching for a two calendar explanation, but the ones I find point to a Temple calendar vs. the solar calendar, and yet they do not seem to reconcile it anyway. Nonetheless, it took me some time to try to figure out how your explanation could possibly reconcile the two accounts (hey I’m slow at times and I need simple pictures to conceptualize some things). While it potentially answers a few questions, it opens up others. For example, it still doesn’t reconcile the fact that the Synoptics call the evening meal preceding crucifixion the Pascha, while John simply does not identify it. In other words, no matter how you slice it, accepting your proposal amounts to John’s account as an anachronistic reframing of the events. And where is the historical evidence (1st century) for this calendric shift? I’m not saying there isn’t any, I’d just like to see it.
Since, as I said earlier, I’m fuzzy on the Feasts and also quite unfamiliar with related terminology, I did a bit of research. After some digging, here’s a bit of what I found. There is a Mishnah titled Tamid, and in the following are a few quotes using the term and/or sourcing this Mishnah.
Brown compares the soldier’s piercing of Jesus’ side (John 19:34) with what is typically done to the sacrificial lamb:
Fitzmyer, referencing Luke 18:10 writes:
For Acts 3:1 Fitzmyer states:
Of Hebrews 7:27 (…who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His [Yeshua’s] own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself [NASB]) Koester states (italicized Scripture is his own translation):
Now why did the writer of Hebrews conflate/fuse the daily sacrifice with the one on the Day of Atonement (and cf. 9:11-15)? Probably because Paul called Messiah the Pascha, “Passover [Lamb]” (1 Corinthians 5:7; see my comment below @ March 19, 2019 3:07 pm) and that Paul also said:
And as the writer of Hebrews states:
AMEN!
Craig: thanks for the research. As I mentioned earlier, in my estimation the death of Jesus at 3pm as an atoning sacrifice best correlates to the Tamid sin offering at the same time. The Passover sacrifice has NOTHING to do with sin. It was a Thanksgiving/Peace offering eaten by the worshippers in a clean state, hence the sole NT reference to Jesus as the Passover in 1Cor 5. The context of that passage is getting rid of leaven.
According to Exodus 23:15-16 and Lev 23 there are three feasts in the calendar (Unleaven Bread, Harvest/Weeks and Ingathering/Tabernacles) Passover was not originally a feast but a meal held the night before deliverance from Egypt. The FEAST was held the next night to commemorate what had just happened.. a celebration of deliverance. Note that the Synoptics do not refer to Passover as being a FEAST but John does. Why? When the Synoptics were written the Temple still stood but by John’s gospel account it had been in ruins for over 2 decades. Along with the Temple passed the Saduccee calendar system. As an aside my research reveals that the criminal sub-court of 23 of the Sanhedrin that would have tried Jesus were all Saduccees handpicked by the Chief Priest.. With the Temple system gone only the Pharisee calendar remained in effect. So when John writes there is only one calendar in effect…so that is the one he uses. In this calendar system the lambs were slaughtered late in the afternoon of 14 Nisan not after sundown and the meal was eaten that night (actually now the 15th of Nisan. The Pharisees combined the anticipatory Passover meal with the Feast of Celebration for deliverance and called the whole thing the Feast of Pasover/Unleaven Bread. It makes sense to me that John would use calendar terms that were familiar to his listeners when he wrote, not necessarily to those who attended the meal some 60 plus years earlier..
I will comment on the Cleansing of the Temple separately…
HSB,
With all due respect, while I appreciate the info regarding the calendar, you’ve completely disregarded the NT evidence I provided pertaining to how Yeshua’s death is portrayed as applying figuratively to the Passover meal itself with the added dimension of effecting a once-for-all Atonement offering in his sin offering (Tamid). According to both Paul and the writer of Hebrews there’s a dual (or triple) significance here: He was/is the Passover [Lamb], He was the daily sacrifice, and He was/is the once-for-all time Atoning sacrifice. One has to ignore all these NT verses in order to claim Jesus’ sacrifice was merely the daily sin offering (Tamid) at His crucifixion. If that’s all it was, why would that be significant? And what is the significance of Him being the Passover meal?
I do believe your findings on the calendar have merit, and I’d like to research this myself, so I ask: Where did you get this info specifically?
BTW, we are not very far apart in our understandings of John’s purposes in his Gospel. I’ll elucidate further when I comment re: the Temple cleansing. In the meantime, if you haven’t looked at this yet, you can get clues by reading my most recent blog post (you can skip to the section The Crucifixion and Pilate’s Enduring Statement): notunlikelee dot wordpress dot com/
Craig: actually I have not disregarded the NT evidence. For what it is worth I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH YOU that Jesus death IS the ultimate perfect atoning sacrifice for sin (represented in the Levitical system by the Tamid) AS WELL AS the perfect Passover Lamb Peace Offering that was consumed. I never claimed Jesus death was ONLY a Tamid. He does everything you outlined. Where have I stated otherwise. My point about Passover is that that sacrifice itself was NOT a sin offering…that’s all. Jesus death is EXTRAORDINARILY significant in all these ways. .I don’t know how to say it any clearer. Obviously in trying to clarify what a Passover meal signified somehow I gave you the impression I was deprecating the incredible work of our Lord!
Oh, sorry about that. Sometimes it’s difficult to convey and to understand blog comments–no matter how well articulated.
Thank you both, HSB and Craig! I am scribbling furiously to keep up.
Craig and HSB:
I’m so grateful for your scholarship and dialogue.
Blessings to you both!
Rich and Laurita,
Thanks for the encouragement!
To any and all celebrating the Passover meal tonight (14th) and Passover (15th) tomorrow Chag Pesach Sameach!
Though very busy, I have been following this thread with keen interest. Having lived in Israel for many years, attending Graduate School, learning Hebrew and earning a Degree in Middle Eastern Studies, I came to love both The Land and its People. As Purim and Passover approaches, I’d like to share some thoughts from my heart.
I find that many (perhaps most), Christians have been unwittingly conditioned to be anti-Semitic and have been duped into accepting Replacement Theology as the ‘gospel truth’. This false teaching, once embraced, leads to contempt for the Jewish People and Israel, produces a false identity and causes the Christian to become proud and haughty.
Today, the whole world is being swept into the ‘controversy over Zion’. This is neither surprising nor shocking; it is merely inevitable. However, the controversy as it relates to Israel and the ‘Christian world’ continues to take on a diabolic quality. Untold numbers of Christians (having benefitted the MOST from the Jewish legacy), are still antagonistic towards Israel!
How can beneficiaries of the good legacy of the Holy Scriptures, Israel’s Messiah and the Holy Spirit, become so blinded to the goodness of their benefactor?!!
This blessing and priviledge which the Father has made available to the non-Jewish world at great Personal cost to Himself and His Son, has also come at the expense of Israel’s safety among the world of Nations…
The Benjamite Shaul/Paul, because of his own experiences in the non-Jewish world, along with his sharp spiritual insight, pinpoints the problem for the Gentile Believers – CONCEIT. In Romans chapters 9 and 10, Shaul addresses
the Jewish-Gentile distinctiveness, and in chapter 11, culminates his teaching with a sober warning to non-Jewish Believers as well as reminding the Believer of Israel’s special place in the Father’s heart. Sadly, the warning of the snare of conceit, was hardly given serious consideration and unfettered display of ignorance, envy and hatred wreaked immeasurable havoc. The awareness of the Christian involvement in the Holocaust has caused many Believers to be aroused from a deep slumber.
It also became clear that in the same way that Messiah was/is a stumbling block to many of His Jewish brothers (even as He was to Shaul initially), so was/is Israel and the Jewish People a stumbling block to the Christian world. For the Believer, the mystery of Israel would be understood, as blind conceit is removed and antagonism in the heart is replaced by Messiah’s love.
The response of the Nations of the world towards Israel, has also to be understood. As surely as every superpower since the days of Egypt, was made to respond to the Jewish presence, so today’s superpower, the ‘Christian’ United States of America, will be next in line to lead the globe in determining it’s response to the Nation of Israel. It is no accident that this season of Purim (beginning with today’s Fast of Esther), preceeds Israel’s national elections and the unveiling of the President’s ‘Deal of the Century’ peace plan. Will this plan ask Israel to facilitate open boundaries and unlimited immigration as Europe has done, to their own undoing?
As Israel celebrates Purim let us remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
Regarding the Passover/Last Supper conflict, may I suggest this resolution.
It seems to me, in Exodus 12, that the 14th of the month became known as “preparation day” because that was when the lamb was killed, roasted, and everything else was prepared for the festival meal, served after sunset, and ate with unleavened bread. During that same night the firstborn of the Egyptians were killed. The next morning the Israelites were hurriedly ordered out of the country. This was the 15th day of the month, also known as the first day of unleavened bread. This became a High Sabbath Day of rest and no work.
Whether or not the Pharisees and Sadducees had two different traditions and timing of these events, I’m sure did not matter to Yeshua. Although HSB describes a beautiful scenario that tries to harmonize the Gospels, it is futile as only ONE sequence and timeline is correct, and that would be the one laid down by YHWH in Exodus 12.
1. All four Evangelists write about Yeshua dying on preparation day. Mt 27:62, Mk 15:42, Lk 23:54, Jn 19:14. As preparation day is before the Passover meal, the (last supper) meal with the disciples could not have been the Passover. The next day was the High Sabbath; it could not be a day when the Pharisees would be running around trying to get anyone crucified.
2. At this meal in question, Yeshua broke and ate bread. If the meal was the Passover, it could not be leavened bread. In Greek, unleavened bread is, “azumos”, and leavened bread is, “artos”. The synoptic Gospels all use the word, “artos”, thus they were eating leavened bread and so the meal could not be the Passover. Mt 26:26, Mk 14:22, Lk 24:30
3. If there was a difference in timing for the Passover, this would also affect the timing of Pentecost, the next major feast, but there is no indication that it was also celebrated on two different dates.
4. John plainly states that sometime “before” the Passover . . . supper being ended, Judas goes off to betray Him and He then washes the feet of the disciples. Jn 13: 1-4. This is fairly unambiguous that this was NOT the Passover, but the synoptic gospels SEEM to say different. They seem to say that it was on the first day of Unleavened Bread that the disciples said to Yeshua, “Where should we go to kill and prepare for the Passover meal?” Mat 26:17, Mk 14:12, Luk 22:7
But according to Exodus 12, the disciples would have already been a full day late in preparing for the Passover. As this makes no sense, how do we reconcile these accounts? As usual, I believe our English translations confuse the issue. For example, the KJV reads like this,
5. Mat 26:17 Now the first (day) of the (feast of) unleavened (bread) the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the passover?
First, I have bracketed the words that have been added to the original text. The important one is, “day”. This word is NOT there. Secondly, the word, “first”, is “protos”, which is defined as, “first in time, or, in any SUCCESSION of things, or, at the first.” (also FYI, the root word of protos is “pro” which is almost always translated as “BEFORE”.)
I am no Greek scholar, but with the definitions given, it can be argued that this means something like, “Now, first in the succession of things leading up to the feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus . . .” (Craig?)
6. Mk 14:12 On the first day of Unleavened Bread, WHEN the Passover (lamb) was being sacrificed, His disciples said to Him, “Where do You want us to go and prepare for You to eat the Passover?”
In Mark’s account, the word “day” IS there but the word, “first” can still be understood to make the verse mean, “first in time leading up to” – the day of Unleavened Bread – when the lamb IS sacrificed, then His disciples asked . . .
We might also wonder, isn’t it a little late, WHEN the lambs were ALREADY being sacrificed, for the disciples to suddenly ask Yeshua at the last minute, Hey, should we get a lamb from somewhere, sacrifice it, roast it, get everything else we need for the great feast, and, find a place to eat it? No, the disciples were being proactive, days in advance of the Feast. Jerusalem was jammed with pilgrims, nothing like this could be left until the last minute.
7. Luk 22:7 Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the Passover must be killed.
This Greek is beyond me and I hope Craig can confirm that this can also be understood to be in harmony with the others, but let me also put it this way. If I said, “Then came the day of New Year’s, when the celebrations must be held.” It is well understood, by those familiar with New Year’s celebrations, that the celebrations start on New Year’s Eve and continue on New Year’s day. (And continue for 15 days in China.) The Jews of that era were very familiar with Exodus 12. These two events, and the whole next week, were a package and everyone knew the Festival routine without Luke needing to spell it out for them.
Personally, I liked my old paradigm that linked the Last Supper to the Passover, but I’ll change it to go with whatever is Scripturally consistent. Maybe us “Christians” got this one right.
Hi Daniel. In the event of the Exodus there was only one chronology as you point out. The problem occurs years later when scholars attempt to sort out the details. For example, what year was Jesus born? What year did he die? I think 30 but others can argue for many others. In my comments I outline what for me is an understanding that takes the NT Scriptures at face value. Interesting that you mention in 3. the timing of Pentecost. Actually I read that there was dispute between Sadducee dating of Firstfruits, and hence later Shavuot, with Pharisees. Apparently the stumbling block was which Sabbath was meant to start the process. The Sadducees opted for the weekly Sabbath. This meant Firstfruits would always fall on a Sunday. Same for Shavuot. But Pharisees opted for the Sabbath to be the one related to Passover/Unleavened Bread. So on Nisan 14 slaughter lambs, eat Feast on Nisan 15 and then celebrate Firstfruits on Nisan 16. According to this calendar, which is the rabbinical one still in effect, Shavuot always falls on Sivan 6, regardless of the day of the week.
The whole thing is very complex to sort out. Here is a link to a nice study on the topic. I Don,t agree with everything the author concludes but it shows how complicated things are. He mentions no less then FIVE calendars in effect, sunrise, sunset, Roman, Etc.
Bottom line for me is that Jesus perfectly fulfills everything about the Exodus account and more so. He is what the Tamil anticipated. Likewise the Passover lamb, and the Firstfruits offering, etc. If you agree with this and study the possible correlation with the Exodus story some fascinating conclusions emerge about what his arrest in the garden connects with, his resurrection etc. I can explain further if there is any interest.
Daniel I respect your insights and comments. I think they add to the discussion in a significant way. If you like to study this material here is that link as only one of many…
Nowoezone dot com then New Testament chronology. Available to download free of charge… about 27 chapters and reading list of hundreds of citations. Happy study. Note: I am not endorsing everything the author outlines. I just think he did a decent job of considering possibilities.
HSB, Thank you for your comments and the link. I will be sure have a look. It is amazing where I have looked to find fascinating solid conclusions and yet have it mixed in with other material difficult to even consider, e.g. a flat earth belief. But here a little and there a little.
The calendar is another good example. I am unsettled on the Sabbath but if you want a full study on harmonizing the gospels, try Michael Rood’s, The Chronological Gospels.
On my first two-day stop in Israel, I hired an Israeli tour guide, and in trying to explain everything to our small group, his oft-repeated explanation was simply, “It’s complicated.”
I’ll quickly add this, which I found yesterday. It mentions the dispute between the Pharisees and the Sadducees relating to the timing of Pentecost:
biblehub dot com/library/edersheim/sketches_of_jewish_social_life/chapter_15_relation_of_the.htm
Daniel,
As for point 1 (and 2) and the relevant Scriptures in 5, 6, and 7, here are my observations.
Yes, all four Gospels mention “(the) preparation [day]” as the day of the crucifixion. This word is specifically paraskeuēn (more further below), while the word for “(to) prepare” below is the more general hetoimazō. But, while John does not identify the previous evening’s meal, the other three do, calling it the Passover (to pascha). Matthew and Mark use prōtos with the article to indicate that the Festival of the Unleavened Bread[/Passover] in general had come and this was the first day (hēmera̧ in Mark and Luke, but not Matthew) of the occasion. Following are the three Synoptic passages, translating as ‘literally’ as possible:
Matthew — Then (on) the prominent/first [Tȩ̄…prōtȩ̄] of the Unleavened Bread [tōn azymōn] the disciples came to Jesus asking, “Where do you want us to prepare to eat the Passover [Lamb(?)] [to pascha]?” (26:17). In 26:18 Jesus states that He was going to celebrate to pascha with His disciples.
Mark — And (on) the prominent/first day [tȩ̄ prōtȩ̄ hēmera̧] of the Unleavened Bread [tōn azymōn], when they had to sacrifice the Passover Lamb [to pascha], the disciples asked Him, “Where do you want us to go to prepare so that you could eat the Passover [Lamb(?)] [to pascha]?” (14:12).
Luke — Then came the time period/day [hēmera] of the Unleavened Bread [tōn azymōn] on which the Passover Lamb [to pascha] had to be sacrificed; and He sent Peter and John, saying, “go prepare us the Passover [Lamb(?)] [to pascha] so that we may eat (it)” (Luke 22:7-8).
The presence of the article before pascha each time indicates to me that they are speaking of a specific meal of the Passover—but which is it exactly? It may or may not be the Feast of the Unleavened Bread. But also note that every time when it is absolutely clear the Passover Lamb is mentioned via its slaughter/sacrifice it also has the article.
Matthew does not even mention a Sabbath in the context of “Preparation Day” (paraskeuēn), while both Mark and Luke do; however, John is the only one to specify that it was a ‘great Sabbath’:
ēn gar megalē hē hēmera ekeinou tou sabbatou
was for great the day that-one the Sabbath
for that one {the next day’s Sabbath} was the day of the great/high Sabbath.
As for points 2 and 4, John’s Gospel never once mentions azumos, “unleavened”. However, importantly, every time to pascha is mentioned in very near proximity is the word for “feast”, heortē: 2:23; 4:45; 6:4; 11:56; 12:12, 20; 13:1, 29. [“feast” is also used quite often in conjunction with the Feast of Tabernacles in chapter 7.] Verse 13:29 is integral to this discussion: for some were thinking, since Judas had the money bag, that Jesus said to him, “Buy what we need for the Feast”, or that he may give something to the poor.
Here is John 13:1:
Pro de tēs heortēs tou pascha eidōs ho Iēsous hoti ēlthen autou hē hōra…
before now the feast of the Passover having-known Jesus that came his (the) hour/time
Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come…
13:2 merely speaks of that evening’s meal as a deipnou, a dinner, supper. When this is considered alongside 13:29, we don’t know for sure if this dinner is part of the Feast of Passover, as per John’s preferred nomenclature (over against “Unleavened Bread”).
I offer the above to provide fodder for further discussion. I’ll have to reflect on this a bit myself…
Dan/Craig, one important comment re your “replacement/displacement” theology explanations (which I think of as code for Trinity doctrine cover and a lot more) is that Yeshua is sometimes described as “the perfect living Torah”. When the Bible uses the term “the Jews ……….,” as it often does, who exactly is the referent, particular Jews or the entire nation of Jews? It can hardly be the entire nation can it when Yeshua already has masses of followers, believers.
It is speaking particularly about Pharisaic and Sadducee elders who may even be members of the powerful Sanhedrin who are abusing this power for their own corrupt purposes. Think papal RCC in days to come and it would be like condemning every well intentioned honestly practising Catholic AND also including all Orthodox non-Trinitarian Catholics in the heresy too.
So if any particular Jew is doing his best to be a “faithful remnant” living Torah, why MUST he become a “card carrying Christian?” It would certainly be helpful but absolutely necessary? I don’t think so. The apostles didn’t call themselves Christians did they. You can use whatever term and explanation you want but the majority of traditional Christian churches don’t use any other term than replacement and they know exactly what they mean by it. Replacement.
Ergo Gentiles can be grafted into the root of Jesse but not vice-versa. A graft is always something similar but different, not the same.
George you may be right with this view. Christ is the anointed or sent not for our self but to bless others. Salvation or empowerment is living this anointment out. Expressing God’s will above all. As Paul reiterated our growth in faith or deeds pleasing God is growing in Christ or achieving the fullness of the complete Christ atonement. .. Not what we promote but as Skip keeps reminding faith is living out what we believe we have been assigned or the spiritual gifts endowed on us. Not becoming a follower of a doctrine but becoming true Sons and Daughters of God.
George,
With all due respect, you’re positing a dichotomy that needn’t be. Must it be a ‘this’ or ‘that’? Can’t there be something in between? Even the Arians of the third century, though not Trinitarians, saw Jesus as an entity between God and the rest of mankind. To this group, Yeshua, though a ‘creature’ born at some point in time, was God’s Son distinct from any other kind of ‘son of God’. I’d been having a very long running discussion on my blog with a guy who fits into this, and he claims to be more or less ‘binitarian’ (that’s the term he used). He asserts that Christ is divine, but he’s not quite of the same divine ‘essence’ as God the Father (very close, though), having been ‘created’ just prior to the rest of matter, then mediated that matter into the creation we see today.
And I’m not so sure the Arians were a monolithic group anyway. I think some perceived Jesus as robustly more divine than others, though some saw Him as simply a man, though the Messiah.
…and the disciples were called ‘Christians’ [Christianos] first in Antioch (Acts 11:27). We don’t know if that was used pejoratively or descriptively (or both). Taken at face value, they were called ‘Christ-followers’, aka Messiah-followers. Whatever the case, the point was to make a distinction of some sort. While Paul consistently used the general term ekklesia (of _______________ [fill in city/region]) for individual Messiah follower groups, he also consistently used “in Christ” as a further designation.
What we know for certain is that God sent his Messiah. This Messiah was not sent strictly for ethnic Jews, though He came first to the Jews. I cannot speak for God, of course, as to how all this relates to Jews who keep Torah ‘as per Messiah’, but it sure seems this [belief in Messiah] was and is a big deal. John’s first epistle minces no words: Whoever denies the Son neither does he have the Father; he who confesses the Son has also the Father (1 John 2:23). And this aligns with the words of Messiah in John I’d referenced earlier, in which he spoke to some of ‘Abraham’s descendants’, telling them bluntly: “you do not belong to God”. Was it because of their faulty Torah adherence or because they rejected the Messiah? The context makes it plain it was because they rejected Him, the One the Father sent (John 8:36-47). The rejected the Messiah; they displaced themselves. Messiah followers, Gentile or Jew, didn’t replace them.
An aside: (You) as a former RCC adherent, I think you’ll appreciate the work of this other former Catholic. He debunks many of their doctrines by doing systematic historical analyses. The doctrine of the ‘real presence’ and incipient ‘transubstantiation’ in Ignatius? Nope.
whitehorseblog dot com/2014/07/27/eating-ignatius/
Craig I have enjoyed the discussions on this TW. In your estimation is it critical that a person believe that God came “as” a man or would it be sufficient to say God came “through” or even “in” a man Messiah Yeshua? Does eternal destiny hang on that answer?
The Judge for eternal life is Jesus Christ Himself (John 5:27-30; Rev 19:11-16), not me. Now, to answer your question a bit more directly, I’ll say ‘it depends.’ The way I interpret Scripture overall, it seems that imperfect doctrine (and who has perfect doctrine?), including an imperfect understanding of christology, does not necessarily disqualify one from eternal life. It will depend on the ramifications of the particular christology in question.
For example, on my blog I’ve written extensively about a popular teacher who teaches that Jesus, though “eternally God” (an equivocation in his schema), came to earth not as “Jesus Christ”, for “Christ” is a title Jesus received at baptism when he experienced the “Christ anointing” (his exact words), with this “anointing” also providing the means by which he could perform miracles, and he encourages others to receive this exact same “Christ anointing” so they can similarly perform miracles. Of course this logically implies that any others so ‘Christ anointed’ would also receive this same “Christ” title—though he never actually states this explicitly. (This is a variation of the “little gods” teaching of Kenneth Copeland, et. al.) This christology is nearly identical to one found in a late 1800s new age book (The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ), but at least this book is explicit in that anyone so “christed” becomes a “christ”, i.e., “god”. Such a christology does not provide eternal life. And this one could well be interpreted as ‘God coming in a man’, as this is essentially how “Christ” is defined. It’s neo-Gnosticism.
Now getting more to the substance of your question, near the end of John’s Gospel the narrator provides his purpose in writing (20:31): But these (signs) have been recorded so that you may believe that └Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God┘*, and that by believing you may have life in His [Christ’s] name. Life in Whose name? The One who Thomas had just addressed (20:28), exclaiming, “My Lord and My God!” (*The portion in between the brackets above could be translated, alternatively, the Christ, the Son of God, is Jesus.)
In an earlier comment I didn’t directly answer your specific question regarding John 20:28, though I’ll do so now, since its answer pertains more directly to this response to your current question. You asked if Thomas could be speaking “hebraistically” here, as if Christ were God’s viceregent, etc. Under Thayer’s definition 4 he uses a few examples, the first of which is John 10:34ff, which itself refers to Psalm 82:6 (81:6 LXX). In John’s passage Jesus is using the Psalm in making a qal vachomer argument. If God’s earthly representatives (judges, kings, etc.) are called “gods”, theoi (plural of theos and without the Greek article) how much more should God’s singular representative, the One sanctified and sent by the Father, be able to make the unique claim, “I am God’s Son”? (huios tou theou eimi, Son of [the] God I am = I am God’s Son.) In the Psalm, the Hebrew uses elohim, which the LXX translates theoi (again, no article).
Thayer also references 2 Cor 4:4 in which it is apparently ‘the devil’ who is called the god of this age. Thayer’s last Biblical reference is Phil 3:19: their god is their stomach. In this last instance the presence of the article is used in making a figurative statement about a fictional god, so this usage wouldn’t apply to John 20:28. In the former “the god” is substituted for “the devil” which is used elsewhere in the NT (John 13:2, e.g.), and, once again this is not applicable for similar reasons. In John 10:34-35 the plural form is used and it’s without the article. Thus, none fit the pattern and context of John 20:28. And all other times the article is used with the singular “God” it refers to the Father or to the One God (e.g. in prayers in which “God” is not specifically identified as “the Father” such as Luke 18:11, 13).
If one takes John 20:31 in conjunction with 1 John 2:23—and other related Scriptures—I think one can see how important Christology is. Jesus is God’s Son in a very unique sense (much more than a shaliach, agent, he is monogenēs Son: John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18), so much so that to reject Him is to reject the Father and to confess the Son is to have the Father.
Craig is eternal life not gaining knowledge of God and Christ who he sent…John 17?
Is knowledge not experiencing these in our life and the anointment coming to the fullness Eph 4.
Which then results in being born from above as explained as in Christ according to 1 Cor. 15.
Etc.
Is this not what we read of throughout the scriptures. Becoming sons and daughters of God. When we fined ourselves servants of God rather than serving our survival needs through our man made and argued principles…
Reading history is as s rule intended to gain from the experience of others and learn how they came to be anointed so that we can progress on our pilgrimage.
Seeker,
Can you be more specific? I’m not sure what you’re responding to, so I’m not sure the point you are making.
Sorry Craig… The anointing Christ.
God has a purpose with earth this earth we all seem to think we have the answer. The anointment or sending seems to be the only biblical truth to this answer.
The bible does not provide any other clue. We have created theologies to debate God’s intent but everything remains a mystery until we are born into Christ…
Only in or through Christ is the truth revealed…
The rest of all becoming Christ’s and christology I do not support as that is God’s choice… It does not matter how hard we try we cannot anoint ourselves we can just keep ourselves holy by trying to do good works… Which are still rags in God’s eyes and not the white linen the deeds of the righteous…
Seeker,
OK, thanks for the clarification. There is a true Jesus/Spirit/Gospel and a false Jesus/spirit/gospel (2 Cor 11:1-15), a true anointing and a false anointing (1 John 2:20-27). If someone comes claiming a “Christ anointing” (or what-have-you) we must be sure that this “anointing” is the true one. The only way to know is by checking the Scriptures. So, praxis needs doctrine and, conversely, doctrine needs praxis. A doctrine with no works is dead. Works not anchored in doctrine consistent with the Scriptures are not necessarily of God.
It is belief in the Christ of the Scriptures that leads to the born again/from above experience. Unfortunately, there are many who are ‘born’ into an incorrect “anointing” because it is one incongruent with the Scriptures. This is the issue John’s first epistle is centered on (see esp. 1 John 2:22-23; 4:1-3).
We become children of God by belief in the name of the Christ of the Scriptures (John 1:12-13). Upon receiving a true ‘born from above’ experience one receives God’s Spirit, and one is sanctified by submission to the promptings/leadings of the Holy Spirit, these promptings consistent with the truth found in the Scriptures (see e.g., Gal. 5:16-26; James 2:8-13; 3:13-17; 4:1-17). This is how we come to ‘know’ God through His Christ (Phil. 3:2-11).
Does this address your concerns?
Craig
Thank you again for the well presented response.
Maybe more correctly phrased. You have confirmed my paradigm.
I think my concerns are more of a paradigm fixation than a concern. I don’t read about a person in the scriptures I am stuck with a process. Christ the anointment while Yeshua or salvation is the end result. If there truly was a saviour in the apostolic teachings I cannot decide…
Let’s take 1 John 2:22-23 (NIV) 22 Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
I do not deny anointment leads to salvation and that this is only possible through God. When we unite in this understanding the divine strength and blessing from God is there… This has always been the testimony of believers.
I cannot proclaim Jesus as saviour as I did not know him. I can and do proclaim salvation or solutions for 99% of all our concerns can be found if we accept God anoints those walking in humble ness before him and men. Those not promoting views or principles of man but those that remind us to seek the old ways and to live by them, As in these we find truth and peace. Ten words. Two principles; love God above all, and care for those that cross your path enough to pray for them. Not as in uttering words to God but by guiding them towards doing introspection to unite with the spiritual gift bestowed on them….
And as the narrators of John phrased it.
John 14:20-26.
Or am I from the Antichrist???
Seeker,
No, you are not the antichrist! But since I perceive that you are earnestly seeking truth and that you are sincerely asking for my input, I wish to be somewhat delicate without sidestepping the issue: the way I understand what you are conveying, your understanding of “Christ” is faulty. I think I know where it comes from. Let me explain.
In the Tanakh christos is used primarily as an adjective = “anointed”. A few times the article is placed in front of it, making it a noun (e.g., Lev. 4:5: “the priest, the anointed”), but it is mostly used adjectively. Comparatively, in the NT Christos is consistently used as a noun referring specifically to Jesus (except the few times Messiah speaks about “false Christs” in Matthew 24). The best way to see this is the examples of John 1:41 and 4:25, in which the noun “the Messiah” is further defined as “the Christ”. Jewish expectations were for a personal Messiah (or Messiahs, as evidenced by Qumran). In the NT, “the Christ” is a Person: Jesus/Yeshua of Nazareth. And “Christ” pretty much amounts to a title or name: Jesus Christ, or Jesus the Christ, Yeshua the Messiah. According to Luke 2:11, Jesus was born as Christ: “for today in the city of David there was born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” No one else is or becomes “Christ” / “Messiah”. Nor does anyone become Jesus/Yeshua in a literal sense.
Some of the confusion I have seen online very likely stems, in part, from some online lexicons which translate christos simply as “anointed”. This is deficient. We can say Jesus is the Anointed One, because He is the only one in the entire NT referred to in this manner. But it would be incorrect to think of Jesus as simply “anointed”. He is the Messiah, the Christ. In fact, just like my parenthetical comment above (March 25, 2019 12:03 pm) regarding John 20:31, the same could apply in 1 John 2:22: …whoever denies that the Christ is Jesus…. I think this is the correct rendering.
You mentioned John 14:20-26. In John 14:20-21, 23-26 it is the person of Jesus, the Son speaking. You will notice that in the entire Upper Room discourse, in the portion where Jesus speaks of the coming Holy Spirit (14:15-16:16), he never once uses “Christ” (“anointed”). The Son sends the Spirit from the Father (15:26). He doesn’t send (ho) christos.
The related verb form “anoint”, chrio is used five times in the NT, two of which refer to Jesus’ Baptism (Luke 4:18; Acts 10:38), another most likely to His Baptism (Acts 4:27), and once at or after His Resurrection or Ascension (Heb 1:9; cf. Ps 45:6-7; Isa 61:3; Php 2:9). In the remaining instance, it is used to refer to those “anointed” by God (2 Cor 1:21). I relay this for the sake of completeness, but I understand this can possibly lead to some confusion. Just keep in mind that it is the Person of Jesus who is the Christ. John the Baptizer said Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit (John 1:33), not that He would “anoint”, chrio with the Holy Spirit. My opinion is that John chose his words very carefully, as I think John’s Gospel is an implicit apologetic against a proto-Gnosticism (see below).
It was Jesus Christ (aka Yeshua Messiah) that came in the flesh (see 1 John 4:1-2). Jesus was not later “christed”, thereby receiving “Christ” as a title or name at that later point. This is what the Gnostics of the late 1st/early 2nd century taught, and this teaching has had a resurgence in the last 150 years (or more). It may have never subsided fully. Think of this as separationist christology, in which the Gnostics erroneously separate “Christ” from Jesus. The noun form “anointing” (chrisma) is used only three times in the NT and all are found in John’s first epistle (once in 2:20, twice in 2:27). This is where John speaks of the true as compared to the false anointing. Think of “the antichrist” in 2:22 as HaSatan or the Devil. Those teaching this doctrine do so by ‘an antichrist spirit’ (1 John 4:1-3). Those following an understanding of this doctrine have fallen prey to the same spirit; they don’t have ‘an antichrist spirit’ necessarily (and such an understanding will depend on one’s pneumatology).
I do believe it was errant Americans who spread this faulty teaching to Africa and other parts of the world. I used to have a contact in South Africa, who informed me that this teaching is very prevalent, with a number of locals teaching it. It’s usually, though not always, part of the ‘prosperity gospel’.
To allay any concerns I suggest praying and asking God to reveal to you if your understanding of “Christ” is faulty. I firmly believe He will make this known to you.
Feel free to ask me any further questions.
Craig
Thank you for your dedication to assist and clarify…
I accept I do not pray for these answers I patiently continue seeking.
As Daniel refers to in his comment I need to agree that if this individual was sent and tasked it was for a specific era and specific cause. Save the lost sheep; cure the sick. Revive the dead, grant sight and hearing, fix the ability the walk… Do you notice something here. These are the exact actions God tried to restore through Moses and other individuals in the OT.
Understand His will, Focus on doing it, Start doing and the solution manifests.
Hear, understand and do. Is that not the Shema… All paraphrased in a different message style to fit the audience of the time…
There is no new dogma or theology. In the NT All a reminder to an audience through an ordained or anointed messenger. Yes the anointed is empowered, can do miracles as and when God permits… As is evident in OT anointed individuals.
One thing is very true there are dogmas in SA. One is promoting the 5 serving gifts apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd and teacher are what the Apostle Paul introduced as the body through which salvation is gained. This group does proclaim this leadership structure represents the body of Jesus Christ to equip and guide the redeemed individuals to assist others to gain redemption. Your research is thorough…
So ye I am still very confused…
Thank you and Daniel again for your in depth response. I will pray over my quest..
Craig
I reread your, George and Daniel’s comments and something stands out. There is one tree individuals are being crafted into. Laurita so often refers us back to the tree of knowledge of life the one all have been called to eat from, as in Genesis.
Paul refers to this same tree in his use of the olive tree, crafting analogy. Yeshua used the vine as the tree… All about be nourished by the same root. While each exercises a choice to carry fruit or not… That is something new in the covenant bare fruit….
Something else about the cross is we need to carry our own no more a high priest or teacher as mediator. Only the person Jesus Christ. Wait let’s dissect this…
Our mediator is Jesus Christ. Baring fruit and being responsible for our own cross all new additions to Torah reading and daily prayers… That tells me we trust and ask in his name. Not Jesus or Yeshau but what we ask and pray for to gain salvation God will provide and we will be saved. Is this also what you said… Are we maybe referring to the same coin just looking from s different angle.
Now being crafted is done by God not by human intervention and Gods new covenant is that he will personally inscribe his laws in the hearts… Wait that is the only new covenant God introduced and Yeshua reiterated… What am I missing.
If God calls, inscribes, crafts into, cuts off into the single tree of life which we are called to eat of not called to manipulate. How do we eat from the tree. Let me explain. Baring fruit is a result of eating from the root. Eating of the fruit and being the fruit is not eating of the tree. It is eating of the efforts of the tree.
Is it Jew, Hebrew, Christian or is it baring the fruit which we are capable of so that God can prune so that we can produce more fruit not receive more fruit… What I am trying to say is that by baring fruit we are living a covenant or anointed life. Being fruit for others do that they can become a tree that needs to be crafted into the tree. Without eating of the fruit we cannot become likened to a tree to be crafted in as we bare the lesser fruits of the original tree.
Being anointed is by God His new covenant. Being saved is the result of baring fruit of the anointing not eating of the fruit.
Craig, I essentially agree with you except I believe the word, “christ”, is often referring to Believers in God, Whom He calls “anointed”.
“the” Christ is Yeshua, and He is “the” one and only Messiah/Redeemer. Our English versions often read, “Jesus Christ”, or, “Jesus the Christ”, or, “Christ Jesus”. And the Bible, by the use of these phrases, makes it very plain that Jesus is The One sent by God Who is particularly anointed to be Israel’s Redeemer. But I can’t help but notice that it is NOT always Jesus who is being referred to when the word, “christ” is used.
I would think that it is well understood that the N.T. phrase, “the Body of the Christ”, e.g. 1Co 12:12, does not mean, “the flesh of the Jesus”. No, most Christians understand this phrase as metaphorically meaning, “a group of people who believe in Jesus and act as He would on His behalf in this world”. Many Christians like to sign off letters with, “in Christ” or, “in Him”.
I don’t think the phrase, “body of christ” is wrong, but it can be simplified, and simple is usually better. It should just be, “the body of the anointed”. God called the common Believers in Israel, His anointed. Psa 2:2, Ps 28:8, Psa 89:38, Hab 3:13, 1Ch 16:22. This did not change in the N.T.
Is this a fine point, or does it help us understand Scripture?
1Co 1:13 NASB, “Has [the] Christ been divided?”
Is Jesus divided between Paul, Peter and Apollo? Of course not, it is the people, the Believers, the anointed, who are divided. Not Jesus Christ.
1Co 4:15 NASB, For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ . .”
Is this not referring to, countless tutors, among the Believers? What else could it mean? Countless numbers of Jesus tutoring you? No, that’s senseless.
Eph 4:12 NASB, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of the Christ;”
Does Jesus’ body need a work out, or does the community of the Saints require strengthening in having different people for different jobs?
Act 4:26 the kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ;
Act 4:26 is a quote of Ps 2:2. Are they talking about YHWH and His Jesus, or about YHWH and His anointed people? (Was Jesus around and being attacked in the O.T?) This example should be extremely plain. When Acts quotes the Psalm, Luke translated, “anointed”, correctly into the word, “christ” but he did not mean, Jesus, or even Jesus Christ.
These next two verses should be plain as they are a repetition and in parallel with each other.
Heb 11:25 having chosen rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than for a time to have enjoyment of sin;
26 having counted the reproach of Christ greater riches than the
treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.
The “affliction of the people of God”, equals, “the reproach of christ”. Moses chose the, “affliction of his people”, which was just another way of saying, “the reproach of YHWH’s anointed”, meaning YHWH’s people, the Hebrew slaves.
Moses did NOT choose the reproach of Jesus. (Does that make any sense at all in an O.T. context?)
Daniel,
I certainly don’t claim infallibility, but on this issue I don’t think I’m incorrect. I’ll illustrate why and how.
First, as to the ‘body of Christ’, this should be understood as Colossians 1:18 (and He (Jesus) is the head of the body, the church) and Romans 12:4 (so in Christ we who are many form one body). With this in mind 1 Cor 12:12 must be seen in context with the next verse:
The NASB of Eph 4:12 is probably best seen in the KJV: For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying[/building up] of the body of Christ:. The final part in Greek is
eis oikodomēn tou sōmatos tou Christou
The first word is a preposition (best rendered “for” here), the second is an accusative/direct object, while the last two, each with corresponding articles, are genitives. The first genitive modifies the direct object, the second genitive modifies the first genitive. Most literally it is for building up/edifying of the body of the Christ, but it could be, alternatively, for building of the Christ’s body. When the phrase “the body of Christ” is found it could be understood “Christ’s body”. It’s a collective of one, one body.
Psalm 2:2 in Hebrew is “against YHWH and His Masiach”[singular]. The LXX is pretty faithful as kata tou kyriou kai kata tou christou autou = “against the LORD [understood as YHWH] and against His Christ”[singular]. The Greek in Acts 4:26 is exactly the same, with a single “His Christ”.
In 1Cor 1:13, the first part is memeristai ho Christos? = has been divided the Christ, or has the Christ been divided?. Once again christos is singular and with the article. Looking at the broader context, Paul consistently refers to Jesus Christ.
In 1Cor 4:15 there are “countless tutors”, yes, but they are all in Christ, that is, they are all in the one Christ Jesus.
As for Hebrews 11:25-26, this is the writer of Hebrews’ own Messianic reinterpretation of the passage. This is not unusual. But even still, I don’t see the two passages you say are parallel as parallel. And “Christ” is clearly singular here referring to Christ Jesus, “…because he saw Him who is invisible” (11:27), i.e., the preincarnate Christ. This should be understood as akin to Paul’s reinterpretation of Numbers 20:11 in 1Cor 10:4 with Christ as the rock instead.
Craig, I absolutely agree that divine is something in between the two but divine does not mean same as God anymore than Lord (in parliamentary context) does or that a Queen’s Counsel means the counsel in question is not the Queen but her intimate representative. Same for a diplomat, who retains independence and protection from a host country for the same reason. They represent the Queen and what they say has the same POWER as that of the Queen. Skip has explained this at length. I buy it. One God of Israel means one God absolutely. No more or no less that no elliptic rhetoric can explain otherwise with a sensible biblical explanation.
Yeshua “Simply a man.” Your term, I would not use it. Divine yes, God no. Who for instance were the men that Abraham was hosting and protecting? Simply men or something divine? Who did Jacob wrestle with? Who are Gabriel and Michael? For that matter exactly, who are we, as we are created in the image of God. Don’t we have a divine nature as such?
I absolutely agree that the Messiah was something special but the Trinity is about something otherworldly agreed to by Pope Sylvester and Constantine, that nobody can clearly explain with biblical support, can they. And this is a HUGE source of division not unity which is what the bible should be but that is exactly what Rome wanted. Europe became barbaric heathens for twelve hundred years with the feudalistic ignorant uncivilized Dark Ages thrown in for good measure. How to dumb down and entire continent. Nice job RCC!
George,
I think the chasm between Creator and creature is so wide it’ll never be crossed. This does not negate humans being made in God’s image; we’re just far from exact duplicates. But this is all a bit beyond the intent in my initial response to you.
My point in that comment was that, as you’re aware, there wasn’t a monolithic belief system among ‘Christians’ with respect to Deity in the early centuries. So, “if any particular Jew is doing his best to be a ‘faithful remnant’ living Torah” this hardly means he must become “a card carrying Christian” (whatever that means). He is just “doing his best to be a ‘faithful remnant’”. If he accepts the Messiah, then he is the same while accepting the Messiah. Now back to my point.
There was apparently a very early belief that Jesus Christ was God. This accounts for the reactions of the Docetists who claimed Christ only ‘seemed to have a body’ and the Gnostics who claimed that “Christ” was divine while “Jesus” was human. Early apologist Irenaeus refuted these groups based on his understanding of Christ’s Deity in an incipient Trinitarianism (ca. 170-174). Tertullian was the first to use the term “Trinity” in an incipient Trinitarianism.
The Greek philosopher Celsus (On the True Doctrine) criticized Christianity in numerous ways because of the belief in Christ’s Deity. He scoffed at the virgin birth, but especially Jesus’ body:
The point is that Celsus appears to understand that some were claiming Jesus’ Deity.
Then there was Sabellius, who claimed the Father, the Son, and The Spirit were all Deity, yet separate manifestations of the One Deity, with only one manifestation appearing at a time, since they were not distinct. This was his way of reconciling what he perceived as the Deity of all three.
My overarching point is that there was a long pre-history leading up to Nicea. Belief in the Trinity didn’t start in 325.
That some still accept some form of Arianism is a consequence to this day. You are of the opinion that this is the valid understanding. I do not think it is, as per the way I read and interpret Scripture. And, as it stands, never will that chasm be bridged either. And I don’t think that makes either you or me a bad person. We just disagree.
George,
I understand your dissent against “The Church” and I sympathize with it, not only for the sake of unbelieving “Jews” but also for the other billions of people in the world who don’t believe Yesuha is necessary for their salvation. If you don’t like the beliefs you were given, a person is free to make up any belief they want, to make the world seem fair. That is only human, and it is the essence of Humanism. Go ahead, it’s logical and what else can one do anyway?
Oh, one thing else, one other option. One can believe in, and act according to, revelation from God. That’s what I do, and I know you do too. Now, there are lots of gods and lots of revelations. We have both settled on the God of Israel as the one supreme God and we both agree His revelation is the “Tanakh”, but I include the “New Testament” as just as valid, and for a critical reason.
In the Tanakh, God promised all men would die, (mind, body and soul). Period.
Now completely separate from this “everlasting” curse, God made another “everlasting” covenant with Israel, through Moses, based on law keeping. But of all the incredible promises contained in it, none of them promised immortal life. All of those promises were earthly, and even if those earthly promises included a future paradise on earth, it was STILL a flesh-based paradise. Nothing in Moses’, or even in Abraham’s, covenants, promised them immortality. (If you can find otherwise, please let me know.)
So I concede, you’re right, Jews don’t have to accept Yeshua as their Messiah to obtain worldly and “everlasting” abundance. Solomon’s Kingdom proved that, but if they want immortality, that only comes through belief in Yeshua and His resurrection. And as I have expressed here before, this brief and confused lifetime, is not anyone’s only “day” of salvation. All Israel will be saved.
Reading “Constantine’s Sword”, by James Carroll. He spends the first part of the book describing supersessionism. It’s a shame that Christianity has largely defined itself over and against Judaism, and vice versa.
Dan and I both left the RCC at different times for different reasons. The most divisive force in history for me has been the RCC from whenever is was formulated as such in the early days. It would claim day one with Peter. I would say 325CE at Niceae with Sylvester and Constantine.
Arguably, and I accept it, Thomas founded the Assyrian Church in India called St. Thomas Christians. Later, Patrick did the same with the Celts in the north. Those believers, (who some would call Arian or Orthodox);-
Condemned the pope’s supremacy. Affirmed that the Roman Church had departed from the faith. Denied transubstantiation. Condemned the worship of idols. Made no use of oils. Denied purgatory. Would not admit of spiritual affinity. Knew nothing of auricular confession. Never heard of extreme unction. Permitted the clergy to marry. Denied that matrimony and consecration were sacraments. Celebrated with leavened bread and consecrated with prayer. Kept the Sabbath. Had no hierarchal clergy with pomp and ceremony. Separated church and state. Did not eat pork. Espoused a lifestyle and preaching like Yeshua to support the weak, the humble, the poor, the orphans, the aged and infirm.
Now let us compare the two Christianities, eastern Orthodox Arian monotheism and western Roman trinity what are we left with? Twelve hundred years of illiterate ignorant peasants with feudalism and superstition in obeisance to the Crown who was anointed by the Archbishop. Chaos. Division. Bloodshed. Warfare. Persecution. Crusades. Inquisition. Eventually Colonialism, slavery, anti-Semitism and Holocaust.
I know where my vote went. I voted with my feet. How about you?