stretched said:
The OT prophecy regarding the messiah, indicates an earthly kingdom. Why did god then persue a heavenly kingdom. I would be confused too if my god chenged direction in mid stream.
Excerpt from:
http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/jewishsociety/Why_Jews_Dont_Believe_In_Jesus.asp
I quote:
Where does the Jewish concept of Messiah come from? One of the central themes of Biblical prophecy is the promise of a future age of perfection characterized by universal peace and recognition of God.
They believe that a normal, earthly king will be able to convert the world. Is this possible without a miracle from God himself? A world who believes in God without reserve is hardly "earthly" - at least not in the traditional sense. They refrained from mentioning that the prophecy also states that gentiles will come into the covenant, and that "lambs will lie with lions" - i.e. nature itself will be at peace. These are all things that only God himself can do. I don't disagree that He would use a man to accomplish this, but I also believe only Jesus' claims fit the bill in any form that makes sense.
"What is the Messiah supposed to accomplish? The Bible says that he will:
A. Build the Third Temple:
26 I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever.27 My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. 28 Then the nations will know that I the LORD make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.' (Ezekiel 37:26-28).
2 Corinthians 5:1
Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.
Acts 15
15The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written:
16" 'After this I will return
and rebuild David's fallen tent.
Its ruins I will rebuild,
and I will restore it,
17that the remnant of men may seek the Lord,
and all the Gentiles who bear my name,
says the Lord, who does these things' (Amos 9:11-12)
Rev.7:15b
"...they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them."
B. Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel:
Since you are precious and honored in my sight,
and because I love you,
I will give men in exchange for you,
and people in exchange for your life.
5 Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
I will bring your children from the east
and gather you from the west.
6 I will say to the north, 'Give them up!'
and to the south, 'Do not hold them back.'
Bring my sons from afar
and my daughters from the ends of the earth-
7 everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made." (Isaiah 43:4-7)
.
God will bring all His
sons to
Him. At that time it was Israel. But since Israel was only chosen for the benefit of the nations, what exclusive right does this give them to be called "sons", and God now resides in the rebuilt temple (PS. The Jews have no temple at the moment).
Romans 9
25As he says in Hosea:
"I will call them 'my people' who are not my people;
and I will call her 'my loved one' who is not my loved one,"[Hosea 2:23] 26and, "It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them,
'You are not my people,' they will be called 'sons of the living God.' [Hosea 1:10]"
C. Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease.
4 He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.(Isaiah 2:4)
But verse 2 says:
In the last days the mountain of the LORD's temple will be established
as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills,
and all nations will stream to it."
The "mountain" is God's kingdom (Dan.2:35,44).
And verse 3 ends with: "The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem."
Put the two together: "all the nations that will have peace" are the ones who have become part of God's kingdom by accepting his law and his word, who will judge and mediate, respectively. The goal of God's laws are to bring peace on earth, a peace that is only available with Him.
D. Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one.
As it says: "God will be King over all the world -- on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9).
But how will that come about?
Zechariah 14
7 It will be a unique day, without daytime or nighttime-a day known to the LORD. When evening comes, there will be light.
8 On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem...
John 4
14"...whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
John 7
37On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." 39By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.
Revelation 7:17
For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."
(By the way, the prophecy ends with a peculiar verse:
"And on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite [merchant] in the house of the LORD Almighty."
If an individual fails to fulfill even one of these conditions, then he cannot be "The Messiah."
Because no one has ever fulfilled the Bible's description of this future King, Jews still await the coming of the Messiah. All past Messianic claimants, including Jesus of Nazareth, Bar Cochba and Shabbtai Tzvi have been rejected."
Know what I mean Jenyar? Difficult to resolve that one without apologetic gymnastics.
Acts 1
6So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"
7He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
Jews are waiting for the very thing that is busy happening. But it seems they will see their messiah for the first time when Jesus returns. I'm not sure what that means in terms of their salvation, but the question is: who will God call "His children" on that day? The Jews themselves believe that even believing gentiles will be called "sons", but how would this have been possible if things hadn't happened as they did?
All I know is that I have accepted the message the Isrealites carried through the desert, and it has lead me to where I am now: where I can spread the message that God has invited the whole world to become part of His Israel with confidence. I don't have to wait while the Jews wait. My salvation has been made possible not just because of them, it seems, but it in spite of them.
That is what was prophecied - an earthly kingdom. Meaning any other kingdom is deceptive. Or confusing. Or both.
The "kingdom" has always been God's kingdom. It was established on earth, through Israel, and it is renewed on earth, through David's descendants. This was God's promise to David:
1 Chronicles 17
13 I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will never take my love away from him, as I took it away from your predecessor. 14 I will set him over
my house and my kingdom forever; his throne will be established forever.' "
The OT does predict a messiah. Seems he has not arrived yet. Yes maybe Jesus was in the running, but he failed the test.
Only if you fail to have faith in God. It is said that when God promises something, it is as if it had already happened. God never "fails the test" - it was pure mercy that God gave us gentiles a chance to repent before He judged finally between the nations. The Jews may think that they can afford to wait, but I'm not a Jew - I don't have Moses's laws to protect me. All I have is God's promise and Jesus.
All the above were not fulfilled Jenyar.
He did not become the King of Israel, nor is he now.
There was no peace nor is there now.
He did not bring knowledge of god then, nor does he now. (except to Christians)
The temple was not rebuilt.
These tasks were certainly not accomplished in his lifetime, we only know he did not return as he said, in the lifetime of his diciples.
He was crucified as the king of the Jews. It's more than just ironic that it was as a mockery of an earthly king. Besides, think back a moment: who was the real king of Israel in 1 Samuel - Saul, or God?
I also have to disagree with you about there being no peace. That peace is described in Acts 9:31, but that was not a peace that would last. There is a peace brewing, you might say - an unavoidable peace. One that people overlook at their own peril.
The knowledge God brought to Israel, He brought to us through Jesus - the knowledge of God's love. Even at this moment, you can be assured that wherever there is a BC/AD calendar, literacy or media coverage, this knowledge is spilling out. And where there isn't, miracles are happening.
The temple is rebuilt in Jesus body - from the Tent of Meeting, where God's
Shekinah dwelt, to the temple of Solomon where we could atone for sins, to the body of believers fed by Christ's lifeblood, where God's presence makes our own lives an holy and acceptible sacrifice, so that He can reside in and change our hearts. We're experiencing the last few skirmishes of a war that has already been won, a peace that has already arrived, and a promise that has already been fulfilled.
The Torah remains unchanged. The rejected him then, and they reject him now.
You forget that there were no "Christians" in the time of Jesus. The first Christians were Jews. As for the Torah remaining unchanged...
For their part, Jewish rabbis, particularly Pharisees, reacted to the Christian appropriation of the Septuagint by producing fresh translations of their Scriptures (e.g., Aquila, in 128 CE, or Symmachus in the late 2d c. CE), and discouraging the use of the Septuagint. In any case, in the second century Christian and Jewish leaders seemed to stake out and codify their position on the form and character of the Scriptures. By and large, Christians held to the peculiar, prophetic character of their Septuagint, while Jews rejected it.
In many cases, it seems the LXX is based on a version of the Hebrew different from the standard, Masoretic text (MT) of the 9th c. CE. ... Nevertheless, this much seems certain: the MT changed over time, and the LXX is a crucial witness to this process.
- The Septuagint Onlinehttp://students.cua.edu/16kalvesmaki/LXX/
Who are we to presume whether or how God could die? Potentially God could redeem mankind just with a thought. The manner in which man is redeemed in the Christian mythos is very bloody and typically human. Almost as if it was authored by humans. God, by humans, for humans.
It was just a thought, expressed in a Word that became flesh to
effect redemption in mankind. That suffering and injustice is part and parcel to the human condition is the
problem. What else would we need to be saved from? And if our sins was actually the cause of such suffering, then we need redemption all the more. It should shock us to see how cruel we were able to make our redemption - when God made it so easy for us.
I have done plenty of research, and made up my mind. If the story of Jesus is one of love, why does Mel Gibson concentrate on the gore? It seems gore and Christianity are synonomous.
What's the matter, are you insulted by violence that isn't supposed to be senseless? I wonder, when you saw Matrix, Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs, did you ask the same questions about Tarantino or the Waschowski brothers? Or do you just eat it up and forget about it? For once there is a movie that exposes just how senseless violence is... no, for once there is a movie about how
God exposed just how senseless violence and injustice is. And it doesn't permit us to eat it up without choking on it. What it does to us, it also does to Him. We see a little of the love God has for us in the love Mary had for her Son. We see a tear from God cleave the whole world in two: straight through the temple. What was supposed to be holy was condemned, and it condemns
us.
But what a dead building or a blind law couldn't do, Jesus could: He could forgive those who did that to Him. He showed us what love should really be able to do to have any meaning.
We do
that to the person whom God called his Son. The perspective that
should bother you is the one Jesus himself held: that whatever wrong we do to the least of people, we do to Him - the Sermon on the Mount was Jesus' judgment over us. Each sin is a lash of the flagellum.