Judaism does not have a spiritual kingdom. Judaism does not teach this, so how can they expect a spiritual kingdom when this concept is not a part of their faith?
Brian why do you think they misunderstood the nature and purpose of the Messiah. They already had a kingdom and a king, the deliver was of a different nature.
Besides all of this I cannot for the life of me understand how a person like yourself that studies Biblical matters can make a comment such as this above. Brian God is spiritual, they believed in God, he was their king, it was therefore a spiritual kingdom. It was always intended by God to be a spirit ruled kingdom. How could a group of people that dealt with a spiritual being as their king not have a spiritual kingdom
The Messiah was the manner and method of forgiveness of sins in the form of God as a king. He was always their king
But, yet again, there is NOTHING in the OT to hint at this. They were promised a physical kingdom and they are still waiting on it.
I just demonstrated it. Besides this from a physical standpoint what would you call the collective people, their borders and territories, regardless of its size
EMA writes: Zechariah 9:9, says he would be king, bringing salvation, but not salvation from physical enemies in the form of the Messiah.
Why not? All I have here is you word for it and it is contrary to what Judaism teaches. Why should I believe you instead of centuries of Jewish thought?
Brian think about it, they already had a king, it was God himself, he discouraged them from having an earthly king and he himself was always the deliverer anyway. You see now your starting to get it. A spiritual God, a Spiritual king. In either instance the Old testament or New, God was essentially the king. Can you remember a time when he did not deliver them. He was the king and they were the kingdom
You seem to be doing very well in reading the mind of God EMA. Again though this claim is not even hinted at in the OT, again all we have is your word that this is what God meant because God cannot tell the Jewish nation exactly what He meant for some reason! Why on Earth would God play these silly games?
But he did Brian. Do you not remember him discouraging them from an earthly king. Besides all of this what were they lacking in God anyway. He discouraged it because they wanted to be like the other nations. He was gently trying to say no fellas that’s not my plan
Do you mean Isa 53 is not descriptive enough on what his intentions were in the Messiah? Nearly all prophecies attributed to the messiah would be understood as a humble servant
Isa 9:6 is about Hezekiah.
Your kidding right? Even the simplest reading would understand it to be about God, even if you didn’t believe it to be about Christ . it certainly can be a reference to Christ, whether you believe it personally or not. Remember the question is not whether I can convince brian of this or that but whether it could be understood as a fulfillment in the Nt writings.
Isa 9:6 is a cross reference to Jeremiah 23:5-6, this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. Clearly a reference to God and future reference to Christ.
You really are a piece of work. You dismiss almost 3000 years of a nations faith as if it is nothing. You really think that the millions of followers of Judaism are all morons? Not a single one of them actually realised what God was trying to say to them because what God said to them he didn’t really mean!
I really wish you and PaulK would leave your emotions and verbage at the stoop, it does nothing for the discussion and is simply a vulgar way of attempting prejudice against a person or their position.
Think about it Brian. What kind of message do you think he was sending to them in encouraging them to avoid an earthly king. What kind of message do you think he was trying to convey when he said, you don’t need a king, I am your king. Maybe just maybe a spiritual one, I am the God of your fathers
Now watch this, if it is your belief that they never received the physical kingdom as you say, then maybe this is not what he had in mind in the first place. Did you ever think of that?
Now I know the idea of premillinilism suggests that at some point in the future there will be a restoration of Israel in a kingdom form, and my (our) belief is that that restoration is simply through the person and mission of Christ. The lost of Israel or the remnant will be saved through Christ and in Christ in the church which is the kingdom.
But heres the point, Israel ALWAYS HAD A KING and a kingdom, most of the time it was even in some physical form. They always had a deliverer, until such time as they indicated they did not want to abide by Gods laws. Can you remember a time when they weren’t delivered in the Old Testament except when Gods judgement was on them?
And what are you replacing this ancient faith with? Someone who achieved nothing at all that resembles the OT prophecies. What is your justification for that other than circular reasoning?
My justification is that he never intended them to have an earthly king in the first place and the king he desired for them , they rejected in the form of God in the Old Testament and in the form of God in Christ in the NT
You seem unaware that people can lie and invent stories, but the stories that the NT invented would have had an impact on history and this is where we can confirm that Jesus failed. It even solidifies my stance when all we get are apologetics about concepts that are not even Jewish. We get excuses like ‘such and such a verse doesn’t really mean what it says’ and the reinterpretation of that verse is ludicrous.
Im not making anything up out of the OT. God never intended for them to have a physical king and he demonstrates clearly a reference to himself as king in those passages as quoted above and as any thinking person can see a reference to Christ as a spiritual king. Those references could only have reference to God
Don’t you realize that if Jesus was the Messiah then the authors of the NT would not have had to misrepresent the OT on so many occasions? Why do you think the author of Matthew has over 50 prophecies taken out of context from the OT? The NT authors are simply making it up EMA, Jesus failed and they are protecting their own interests. Look at the stories the NT authors tell about Jesus, the miracles, the arrest, the trial, the crucifixion, the resurrection, all unadulterated garbage. Now compare it to the Jewish Messiah, how can there be such a difference? Is God some kind of retard that He cannot tell His people what to expect, how does God get it so wrong? What is the excuse for that? He did tell them but they misunderstood because God told them something that was 100% the opposite of what they were to expect? Jesus H EMA, how obvious does it have to be?
Jesus only failed in your mind, because what you have in mind is not what God ever intended. Its only opposite in your mind because you cannot see that God all along was their King and that king needed to manifest himself in physical form to save them from their sins
It may well do, but Jesus cannot be the one on it. As you and every other xian has failed to do is to establish that bloodline, that fatal flaw. How can you ignore that, are you really so desperate to make this con man into something He wasn’t?
As I stated earlier, I claim to be no expert in this area, but I would point out one simple fact. If so little is known about David, or if he even actually existed, as you indicate at times, how is it that you can be certain of the bloodline you advocate as accurate?
Ah, a little bit convenient that isn’t it considering Jesus failed first time around.
Since a physical kingdom was never a consideration in the form of the Messiah, he could hardly be considered a failure for saving his people from their sins and the entire world
You are reading spiritual because that’s what you NEED to save your failed messiah. You have this crazy notion that Jews were somehow worried about an afterlife, I have no idea where you get this from.
The mere fact that they believed in God, the spirit world, angels, demons, would refute this very silly notion. I am certain that there were groups that believed less or more as the certain in the NT did not believe in the resurrection and others did. Some believed in angels others did not.
Your whitewashing of entire peoples beliefs is simply nonsensical and silly
Here we find the problem. You really are not interested in the truth, this is why you cannot see the obvious. You have already made up your mind that Jesus is the promised Messiah and nothing will ever change that view. I can sympathise. Until you take a step back and try to read the Bible for what it is you will never learn anything about it, it is always going to be this magical document to you. Before I decided examine my faith I found it difficult to take the Bible as anything other than the Truth. But it was only when I truly wanted to discover if my faith had a solid foundation that I found out what a con Christianity actually is. I could not believe I had been so blind. What a relief though when one takes off the blinkers of faith and sees the NT in context. ALL it is really is a collection of propaganda, literature to start off an institution of self preservation. There came a time for me when enough was enough. The excuses were worn very thin. Almost on every occasion that I researched a topic there was no support for the biblical claim, or there was a huge amount of evidence against that claim. Then when I kept hearing stuff like ‘well Jesus didn’t do that yet, but He will in the future’, or ‘you cannot understand this or that without the guidance of the holy spirit’, there then comes a point when it is blatantly obvious that Christianity is a piss take. Who can be happy following something that makes no sense at all, is rife with internal contradictions, full of logical errors, strewn with historical inaccuracies, and comes with a book full of myths, legends, and folk tales that contradict science, I certainly don’t want to live a life like that. It is a life of ignorance and fear.
And here we find a problem that is deeper than any objectivity or rational treatment if items. This is what I meant earlier, such aggressive behavior and willingness to find truth in the Old when it suits your purposes, then in almost the same breath decry it (the New)as a magical document with nearly no merit. Such extremes.
Please brian, such arrogance do you think you are the only person that ever did any objective and detailed studies of these matters? Are you comparing yourself for example to men like F. F. Bruce and thousands of other very skilled Biblical scholars, that came away believing in the very thing you oppose.
Give it a rest, it has no place in the discussion and your prejudices are obvious. Give it a rest
Well I haven’t met any Jew that thinks Judaism teaches a spiritual kingdom for the messiah.
Then you need to get out more. Simply turn on your television and listen to any messianic Jew, that is now a convert of Christ. I can recommend some books
EAM writes: can you not see the simple point, that for you to claim that jesus was a failure because he did not fulfill a single prophecy and you use as your source some unreliable Old testament books, as you claim they are, is both contradictory and nonsensical.
I have no idea what you are on about here. My source, the OT, is different from your source, the NT. There is nothing contradictory at all. If the OT says that the Messiah will be a king of Israel and the NT says Jesus wasn’t, then where am I contradicting myself?
He did say he was a king and a king of the Jews
One thing is certain though, Jesus did not sit on it so we can comfortably reject Him as the Messiah promised in the OT.
Your looking for the wrong type of kingdom. Here is a simple question.
Why do you think the Israelites rejected God as a king and requested a physical one?
He never intended them to have a physical king, even though they eventually obtained one. This was one by God to demonstrate exacally why they didn’t need one. Except for a few most of them were wicked beyond belief. The need for God to be king was obvious
But the thing with historical research is that all of it is simply degrees of plausibility. 3 million people in the Exodus group, historically impossible and has been shown to be untrue. A king descended from David is completely plausible there is nothing fantastic about it. Do you see the difference? We cannot reject an entire collection of texts just because much of it has been shown to be untrue, that’s just silly. It’s like saying that just because Joshua and his armies did not conquer Jericho then there was no such city as Jericho! History is about degrees of truth, and your sources need to be examined individually.
But that’s the point Brian many of your contentions of unreliability have been demonstrated to not be implausible, when other information is offered. But the fact that God never intended the Israelites to have physical king and that the Messiah need not be a physical king, is simply to easy to demonstrate
So we dismiss my argument that we can discover through history whether Jesus was a king or not? He wasn’t king of this realm then He must be king of another? Can you see how childish this is? Xianity really can be torn apart with the most superficial of enquiries.
You speak as if you have considered all the interpretations from the Old testament and have considered your conclusions as absolute as in the case of Isa 9:6-7 and Jer 23:5-7, which are a clear reference to God himself and very little doubt to Christ in the form of God. or atleast it can be easily seen that christ could be that fulfillment
Which, if any king of Israel before the Messiah was described as saving his people from thier sins, A Mighty God, eternal father? does that sound spiritual to you?
But sin in the OT is not the same as sin in the NT. There are a variety of definitions for sin. People can save themselves from sin in the OT.
Please provide a rfernce for this idea, if you will please
No it doesn’t. I’ve already explained this reference, it is referring to the nation of Israel and your repetition of spiritual kingdom does not affect what that reference is saying. Keep repeating your claim though, you might talk yourself into it.
Only the worst form of interpretation would declare that Isa 53 has refernce to Israel only, even the simplest reader can see it is a reference to God himself and it is a clear discription of Christ as God in the NT. Both here and jeremiah the reference is clearly, to through and about God
Of course it won’t be found in history because Jesus failed to establish the Jewish messianic kingdom, and since He failed we do need some excuse for Him don’t we? Tell you what, let’s invent a spiritual kingdom then that way no one can prove us wrong (again).
Until you can demonstrate either in the Old or the New that God intended them to have a king in a physical form from the beginning and that this was not his wishes and until you can demonstrate that god was not thier king and deliverer and until you can demonstrate that any king could deliever them from thier sins other than God and until you can show in any passage where God alludes to a man as those things described in Isa 53 and Jeremiah 23, you have failed in your task to demonstrate that christ is not the fulfillment of such passages, or atleast that he could not be described as such.
When you understand this simple point then you will understand the nature of Christ as the Messiah and the fulfillment to those prophecies. That simple point is that HE NEVER INTENDED THEM TO HAVE AN EARTHLY KING, from the beginning.
EAM
Edited by EMA, : No reason given.
Edited by EMA, : No reason given.
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