Summations Only

The lamb was referred to prophetically because it was fulfilled in the ram in the thicket.I believe I've said I'm not clear about it otherwise. Abraham said it to Isaac, it was fulfilled in the ram, that much is true.We know from Hebrews 11 and, as I've shown, it must be inferred from Genesis 22, that Abraham expected Isaac to be resurrected. I don't see any way to doubt that.How the statement about the lamb fits in I don't know for sure but the above are facts.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It wasn't addressed to you so it might be best if you stayed out of it. Arach kept objecting to the idea that Isaac parallels Jesus based onJesus having brothers, insisting that Isaac also had a brother so the parallel I was making is wrong. But it is God who says Isaac is Abraham's only son, and that is what makes the parallel with God's having only one Son. It is Mary who had the other sons, not God. This is really very clear, NN, it must take some kind of extra effort to come up with an objection to it.All the parallels between the sacrifice of Isaac and the sacrifice of Christ are quite clear, and again, this IS the orthodox understanding of the passage. It reaches way beyond the event itself into the future.

I think I just figured out what your problem is. When I say that the lamb was prophetic of the ram in the thicket you think I'm saying Abraham knew there would be a ram in the thicket. But I am not saying that. I think Abraham made the prophecy in spite of himself. The commentaries seem to believe it was a direct prophecy of Christ, since the Messiah was expected by all believers back to Eden.I did indeed show that Abraham's expectation that God would raise Isaac from the dead is implicit in Genesis 22, I went through it at least twice and here it is again:Abraham believed God that He would make Abraham the father of a great nation through Isaac. Believing that, he would have to believe that Isaac would survive the sacrifice.At the same time Abraham fully intended to go through with the sacrifice and take Isaac's life. When he raised the knife it was with this full intention.Putting those two facts together we can only conclude that Abraham expected God to raise Isaac from the dead. And Hebrews 11 confirms it.You complain but don't offer any other possible explanation. There isn't one.

You aren't making one iota of sense and you haven't deserved to be answered for all your miserably misbegotten posts on this subject. For pete's sake, It was not GOD "who felt obligated to perform" the sacrifice, it was Jepthah. Jepthah made the vow, he felt obligated to perform it.And what I said in what you quote from me is that it would be sin to sacrifice a human being so that Jepthah was not actually obligated anyway, according to some of the commentators, it was his own overzealousness that made him feel he was. And one commentator thinks he couldn't possibly have done it because he would have to have known that God forbids it, and suggests that he might have performed an alternative, of sending the daughter to serve in the tabernacle instead, where she would have been a virgin among older women.The point of the story, by the way, is to illustrate the reasons why we are warned against making rash vows.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Orthodox Protestant understanding reads the Old Testament from the revelations of the New Testament, but the Jews were expecting the Messiah before the NT was written, because they knew the OT prophesies Him. It is full of prophecies of the Messiah from Genesis to Malachi. And Jesus Himself says the OT is all about Him.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What I wrote in Message 1502 remains a very good sketch of how the incident of Abraham's going to sacrifice Isaac is prophetic in itself of the sacrifice of Christ almost 2000 years later. The responses to it are nothing but confused nonsense that muddies up the simple parallel, ridiculous objections. The evidence is in the post, it describes facts that are in the Genesis 22 account and shows how they relate to the sacrifice of Christ. This prophetic connection is taught by all good Bible teachers.

He Himself claims that He is the subject of all the OT messianic prophecies. Some day you will answer to Him for your insults.

Here's where Jesus Himself teaches that He is prophesied in the scriptures. The second is a direct quote by John, "a first person contemporary source." You will not find better testimony of the thoughts of any other ancient figure than this: And here's another reference to a disciple teaching from the OT scriptures that Jesus is the Christ: And of course the OT is all they had, you know. It was always from the OT that they taught that Jesus was the fulfillment of the messianic prophecies.

God never approved of human sacrifice, ever. It was practiced by heathen nations in anticipation of the one-and-only sacrifice of the Messiah, which was generally known to all peoples from the promise to Adam and Eve, and in fact many of the heathen religions were invented as a supposed answer to that prophecy. That is why there are themes of death and resurrection in so many of them, but the real thing didn't come along until Jesus Christ. God NEVER approved of human sacrifice and that is one of the messages of the Genesis 22 incident. NO sacrifice could ever really atone for sin, anyway, all the animal sacrifices were required as a foreshadowing of Christ, to keep the costliness of sin always in the minds of the people.Your example of Jepthah is just a case of your misreading. You think because he had the Holy Spirit for dealing with the Ammonites that he would have known who would come out of his house, but there is nothing in scripture to say the Holy Spirit grants omniscience, that is your own made-up notion. The Holy Spirit is given for specific purposes. Jephthah made a terrible mistake with his rash vow.You brought up incest. Adam and Eve's children could only marry each other but at that point there was no genetic deterioration so it wasn't a problem, as it was later on as the effects of death due to the Fall took their toll, and especially after the massive death due to the Flood. So that can't even really be called incest.Incest became a problem genetically much later, after the Flood, and it's always seemed most likely to me that the prohibition is to prevent the proliferation of deformities in the population due to genetic disease. It is only in recent times that we know that this is a danger, but it has to have been God's reason then as well even if the people didn't understand the reason for it. Or perhaps they did surmise it if they saw the results of incestuous unions.In Abraham's time there were still people living hundreds of years, showing genetic strength even that late in history, but it rapidly deteriorates after that, and that is the most likely reason for the prohibition that came through Moses.There was no change of mind on God's part, there was a change in circumstances that God dealt with as they came up.And it was Lot's daughters who got themselves pregnant, that wasn't Lot's fault. And again, this occurred during the time of Abraham, when there was still quite a bit of genetic strength left.And do keep in mind that God often overlooks sin. If He didn't the whole human race would likely not have gone on existing after the Fall, or certainly after the Flood.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

But no would be a lie. Jesus clearly taught that He is the subject of the OT.

John the Apostle, John the one who leaned on Jesus' chest, John one of the three who witnessed the Transfiguration, John the one who wrote a gospel, three letters and the Book of Revelation from the Isle of Patmos where he'd been exiled for his faith, John the brother of James and the son of Zebedee. He's well identified. And even if he were totally anonymous there is no valid reason to discredit his testimony, it holds together.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Please try to get it right what I actually said. I did not DENY that Abraham was lying, it was my first thought, but then I considered that he might not be lying if he really had the expectation that Isaac would not die or would be raised from the dead. You then said that if he was resurrected there wouldn't be any need for another sacrifice anyway and that seems right, (abe: but I'm not sure, since his resurrection wouldn't mean what Jesus' did and a further sacrifice might very well have been expected/abe) so that seems to mean that Abraham was either lying or prophesying Christ as many of the commentators think he was doing, in order to avoid answering Isaac directly. After all this I think it is still a puzzle what was meant by that statement when he said it. It DID prophesy the ram in the thicket, however, whatever else it meant, and you are really making a mountain out of a molehile with your carrying on about this.It had already been clearly said that Isaac was the "son of promise," so your idea that God could simply have given him a new son is really not an option. And if Isaac was in his thirties, or even a teenager that would make Abraham well over a hundred and remember what a miracle it was that he and Sarah conceived Isaac at all at their ages. No, there is no way there would have been another son, the fanfare, the miraculous nature of the birth of Isaac was definitive. Isaac was the son of promise. Therefore my two facts -- that Abraham believed God's promise to bring a nation through Isaac, and that Abraham fully intended to sacrifice Isaac --
stand as proof that Abraham had to be expecting God to raise Isaac from the dead.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Oh good grief. Your interpretation is not set in stone, but hey I really could not care less, it doesn't make an important difference anyway. There is obviously no such thing as having a nuanced discussion with you so have it your way: Abraham must have lied. OK? Will you stop your ridiculous quest now?

AGAIN, the point of mentioning the NUMBERS of those I agree with is to counter the claims by the gaggle of lone wolf interpreters of the Bible at EvC. Sure there are billions of misguided people, but it's certain that lone wolves have no right to regard their views as right.

Well if you are going to insist on your own way of reading the text over what it actually says there is really no way to have a discussion with you at all.