I'm transferring this discussion between GDR and me to a new thread because it's off topic on the thread where I wanted to focus on issues in the justice system. The following is GDR's last post, which I intend to come back to.
Judging by your feelings versus by the facts/evidence. How often that happens and how often people who THINK they are judging by the facts and evidence are not.
OK Faith. Let's look at the facts and evidence. This is from Deuteronomy 7:
quote:1 When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nationsthe Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you 2 and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.
Contrast this from Matthew 5 and the Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
quote:5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
How can you possibly contrast those two Biblical quotes and then claim that the nature of God can be seen in both quotes? And again in Deuteronomy 20
quote:16 However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy themthe Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusitesas the LORD your God has commanded you.
Contrast this again with the words of Jesus in Matthew 5
quote:43 You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Once again. The views of the nature of God that we sometimes, but not usually, see in the OT are completely at the opposite ends of the spectrum. In Deuteronomy we are shown a cruel vengeful deity, very similar to the deities of their pagan neighbours, as opposed to the loving merciful God in the NT. Here are some quotes from the book of Joshua.
quote:Joshua 6 21 They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in itmen and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. 27 So the LORD was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout the land.
quote:Joshua 8 1 Then the LORD said to Joshua, Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Take the whole army with you, and go up and attack Ai. For I have delivered into your hands the king of Ai, his people, his city and his land. 2 You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may carry off their plunder and livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city. 24 When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields and in the wilderness where they had chased them, and when every one of them had been put to the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it. 25 Twelve thousand men and women fell that dayall the people of Ai. 26 For Joshua did not draw back the hand that held out his javelin until he had destroyed all who lived in Ai.
Again contrast this from Luke 6
quote:Luke 6 27 But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you. 32 If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.
This is again the words of Jesus who was a 1st century Jew living in a 1st century Jewish world under the brutal and total dominance of the Romans. They were in the promised land but still in excile. This is from Leviticus 24
quote:19 Anyone who injures their neighbor is to be injured in the same manner: 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The one who has inflicted the injury must suffer the same injury.
What does Jesus tell us in Matthew 5
quote:38 You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.
Jesus actually says, as He does in other places that the early prophets got it wrong. This from Numbers 15
quote:32 While the Israelites were in the wilderness, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. 33 Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, 34 and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. 35 Then the LORD said to Moses, The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp. 36 So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the LORD commanded Moses.
What goes Jesus say in Luke 6
quote:37 Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
Jesus even tells us to pray to be forgiven as we forgive others. I could go on but that is certainly enough. I am afraid Faith that I do not understand how your idea of God’s justice can be so different from one period to the next. I believe in the God as personified in Jesus who is the same yesterday today and tomorrow. The belief that you can harmonize beliefs in an inerrant Bible with the life and teaching of Jesus is just plainly obviously wrong. I’ll go with Jesus.
quote:1 When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nationsthe Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you 2 and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.
Contrast this from Matthew 5 and the Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
quote:5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
How can you possibly contrast those two Biblical quotes and then claim that the nature of God can be seen in both quotes?
God is both a God of vengeance against wickedness and a God of mercy to the meek. There is no contradiction at all. Jesus came the first time as the Savior and Redeemer, but He is to come again to take vengeance on the wicked. Isaiah 61 I think, the passage He reads in the synagogue that defines His mission as the Messiah. He reads the whole section about coming to comfort and set the captives free etc., and stops just before the line about vengeance, because although that is also His mission it is not His mission on His first coming. It will be His mission on His second coming. n Jesus is God, He has the complete nature of God, mercy to the meek and vengeance to the wicked.
God as He is shown in such Old Testament passages is demonstrating how He uses other tribes in this case, but also natural phenomena, to execute His punishment of the wicked. Many exegetes also read the passage about driving out the wicked tribes to refer to the sins, and in some cases even demons, that must be driven out of souls that are to be saved.
Who is being ordered to enact the punishment in the Old Testament? Answer: The whole tribe of Israel, God's army on earth. Who is being taught the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount? Individual believers, no tribe, no nation, no army, but individuals. The same was required of the individuals in the Old Testament too. You quote the one about doing justice and loving mercy. That is individuals being addressed, not an army.
Meekness is often misunderstood by the way. Moses was called the meekest man who ever lived. It is understood to refer to the disposition of obeying God, not being some kind of superwimp who is nicey nice. The toughest ruler of a people can also be the meekest because of his heart to obey God, love righteousness and so on.
And if you are inclined to think nobody could follow the Beatitudes who was actually in God's army enacting those commends you despise, I have no trouble saying they were. Meekness is obediencde to the commands of God. Mercy is something God defines, not us. You may not be able to see the mercy in God's acts of vengeance but I have no problem knowing it is there, most likely a mercy to those who would be seduced by the wicked if they were allowed to live. It's perhaps a logic similar to that which supports the death penalty.
I'm already tired just trying to make this much of a case. I know it's futility with you for one thing, but for another I need to get some sleep so I'll have to come back to it later.
No idea why you felt that belonged on this thread but of course it's always true that what we do is the important thing --- if we're born again, otherwise it counts for nothing. Well, not nothing, I'm sure the LORD judges between the unbelievers too, but that's a completely different judgment than for the believers. Or am I missing your point?
Just the same old Do-Si-Do between God's Love and human "love."
We've been through this so many times I don't think I can even concentrate on it long enough to answer you rightly. But here goes the second attempt:
quote:16 However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy themthe Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusitesas the LORD your God has commanded you.
A believer in Bible inerrancy, just as horrified as you at the scorched-earth judgment of these peoples, yet doesn't judge God for it by our limited perspective as you do despite the horror of it, but wants to know why the punishment is so dire so we can understand the mind of God. And what the theologians have put together is about how the heathen nations would have seduced Israel into their idolatrous sins if they had been allowed to live. For instance, they had all kinds of sexual rituals, both heterosexual and homosexual, as part of their worship of their demon gods, and at least one worshipped the god Molech by burning their babies alive in sacrifice. We know this because Israel DID NOT completely wipe out these peoples as commanded and their descendants DID seduce Israel into worshipping their demon gods and committing those sins.
Another thing we learn from the theologians who have studied the stories in far greater detail than either you or I, is that God had allowed the sins of theise peoples to accumulate for hundreds of years before bringing judgment against them, all during the years when Israel was a slave in Egypt at least. God waits to bring judgment until their sins are "full," which is a principle related to the working of the Moral Law, which we also can learn about if we accept that the Bible is God's words, and otherwise can't learn anything except whatever our fallen little minds can tell us.
If you trust the Bible to be God's word you might learn this sort of thing, might learn what wickedness is and why God abhors it, and what He wanted from His own people in contrast. Otherwise all you have is your own limited thoughts. Not that this will persuade you of course, you will still think your own thoughts superior to God's even if what I'm saying is true.
Contrast this again with the words of Jesus in Matthew 5
quote:43 You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Once again. The views of the nature of God that we sometimes, but not usually, see in the OT are completely at the opposite ends of the spectrum. In Deuteronomy we are shown a cruel vengeful deity, very similar to the deities of their pagan neighbours, as opposed to the loving merciful God in the NT.
Once a person judges God by his own paltry human feelings he's going to go on and on and on with the same judgment and there's no point in answering. You really think your thoughts are the righteous thoughts and mine are not and what can I possibly say to you about that? Nothing. I just have to accept the profane worldly judgment such a perspective dumps on me, cuz to the profane worldly mind you are right and I am wrong. Well I'm used to it by now.
Jesus IS the God of the Old Testament, not God the Father but God the Son, but there is no difference between their point of view. God the Father is as merciful and loving as Jesus is, and Jesus hates sin as much as the Father does, but Jesus came to save us from the consequences of the sins that are hated by God, AT THE COMMAND OF THE FATHER by the way, that God you hate, by dying for us in our place. You continue to refuse to believe or even understand what Jesus did on the cross for us, you trivialize it, put it beneath your merely human understanding of love, so you miss the greatness of God's love to us in that sacrifice. The Reformation brought out the singularity and fundamental importance of the meaning of the CROSS over all else, as the foundation for all else, for that love that in your hands is a puny counterfeit of God's. The Cross is the center of Christianity and you denigrate it. Well, again, you can't hear this, can you? I'm speaking into the void.
You are just going to go on in this same vein, judging God by your little human feelings and thinking those superior to Him. But I guess I'll come back later and go through the futile theological dance yet another time.
Re: Just the same old Do-Si-Do between God's Love and human "love."
GDR I already answered some of the contradictions. The God of both Old and New Testaments is the same God with different emphases and missions for the context. You won't accept that, there's nothing more to be said. We could go on into the familiar territory of what Jesus fulfilled in the OT that is no longer applicable to believers or we could get into the semantics of certain words, but what's the point? We've been here before and I'm sorry I'm so impatient but after years of arguing this I'm tired. If I get a second wind I'll come back to it and that sometimes happens. For now I'm sorry. I'm a believer in Biblical inerrancy and it serves me very very well. I love the God of both Testaments, He is the same God, not the one you have invented. My God is a fearsome Judge who sent His Son out of the deepest mercy and love, to save us from His own judgments, The God whose judgments you despise and therefore whose mercy of the Cross you also must despise though you fail to see this point. Again, I'm sorry. Maybe Tangle or Phat will come along to argue with you.
The God of both Old and New Testaments is the same God with different emphases and missions for the context.
I agree with that.
No you don't. You can only agree with it now by leaving out the whole discussion about how the God who decreed horrific slaughters as punishment of wicked tribes in the OT is not God. That is part of the portrait of the true God but you deny it so no, you do NOT agree with what I said.
It is simply that there is a gradual but progressive understanding of the nature of that one God within the OT up to the time of Jesus.
Again you are using a term in a different sense than traditional theology uses it. Yes there is a progressive revelation of the nature of God throughout the Bible, but what you actually mean by that is not a mere accumulation of depth to the portrait of God but a kind of "progression" that actually overturns earlier revelation, and that is not the same progressive revelation the traditional Church has in mind.
I was pointing out contradictions within the OT itself as well.
I still intended to answer the rest of your original post. TGhere are no contradictions in the OT except those you imagine either because you impute different meanings to the words or simply reject parts of the Bible.
quote:16 However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy themthe Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusitesas the LORD your God has commanded you.
Contrast this again with the words of Jesus in Matthew 5 quote:
43 You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Once again. The views of the nature of God that we sometimes, but not usually, see in the OT are completely at the opposite ends of the spectrum. In Deuteronomy we are shown a cruel vengeful deity, very similar to the deities of their pagan neighbours, as opposed to the loving merciful God in the NT.
Actually I think I did respond to this, but I'll condense it here: There is no contradiction. The God who commands the complete destruction of the wicked tribes for the reasons I gave before is the same God who sends rain on just and unjust and requires mercy of us as individuals to our fellow human beings. Jesus' first coming was to save us from the Law that would condemn us for our sins for an eternity; on His second coming those who have refused to repent of their sins will be punished with the same ferocity you deny as part of the portrait of God.
Here are some quotes from the book of Joshua.
quote:Joshua 6 21 They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in itmen and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys. 27 So the LORD was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout the land.
quote:Joshua 8 1 Then the LORD said to Joshua, Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Take the whole army with you, and go up and attack Ai. For I have delivered into your hands the king of Ai, his people, his city and his land. 2 You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may carry off their plunder and livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city. 24 When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields and in the wilderness where they had chased them, and when every one of them had been put to the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it. 25 Twelve thousand men and women fell that dayall the people of Ai. 26 For Joshua did not draw back the hand that held out his javelin until he had destroyed all who lived in Ai.
Again contrast this from Luke 6
quote:Luke 6 27 But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you. 32 If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.
This is again the words of Jesus who was a 1st century Jew living in a 1st century Jewish world under the brutal and total dominance of the Romans. They were in the promised land but still in excile.
Again you confuse commands to an army with commands to individuals. Punishing crime is not the same thing as how we are to treat our fellow man as individuals. I really don't see how you can continue to make this mistake. We are not to take justice into our own hands, we are to commit it to the authorities in charge, even leave vengeance to God completely, but in ordinary human relations we are to submit to all kinds of injustices against ourselves. If you want me to admit that many of us fail at this that is certainly true. Maybe if I got out of this debate context and cleared my head for a while I would see my own failures a lot better, I certainly know I commit them. But in the debate itself, GDR, you are the one confusing the two different contexts. Jesus is dealing with individuals, not with armies in the NT. There are nevertheless MANY instances in the OT where God is dealing with individuals EXACTLY AS JESUS does, and your favorite quote is one of them. Proverbs and Pslams have plenty of them.
This is from Leviticus 24
quote:19 Anyone who injures their neighbor is to be injured in the same manner: 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The one who has inflicted the injury must suffer the same injury.
What does Jesus tell us in Matthew 5
quote:38 You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.
Jesus actually says, as He does in other places that the early prophets got it wrong.
No, Jesus NEVER contradicts the OT prophets and teachers. What He does is show the underlying meaning of their teachings. In the case of eye for an eye that was given as a legal procedure, not an instruction to individuals, but Jesus is telling His believers to accept injustices from others as a personal individual matter. This is not a legal procedding, this is a personal relationship. This is what you are ALWAYS misconstruing. He is not telling the justice system to turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, etc. He is not talking to the justice system AT ALL, He is addressing individual believers. WE individually are to turn the other check and go the extra mile with other individuals who mistreat us. Again this makes me think I need to get out of this debate so I personally will have a better chance or learning this teaching. It's a beautiful teaching, I certainly agree with you about that, while at the same time disagreeing with you about the whole picture of God, ADAMANDLY disagreeing with you.
This from Numbers 15
quote:32 While the Israelites were in the wilderness, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. 33 Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, 34 and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. 35 Then the LORD said to Moses, The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp. 36 So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the LORD commanded Moses.
What goes Jesus say in Luke 6
quote:37 Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
Again you confuse a command about how to conduct a legal proceding AGAINST A WRONGDOER, an act of the society as a whole, with a command to individual believers.
And you are requiring me to explain for the zillionth time why the gathering of sticks, to build a fire on the sabbath, was considered by God to be such a horrific violation of His Law against any work on the Sabbath. You have no appreciation for the enormity of this offense and my explanation will as usual fall short of anything that might convince you. You are just going to go on judging it by your own utterly irrelevant feelings.
BUT the point is that the Sabbath in the OT is a symbol of the SALVATION TO BE GIVEN THROUGH CHRIST, the DAY OF REST from our burden of sin that He will bring to believers in His sacrifice for us. ANY WORK DONE ON THE SABBATH DAY that is not punished impl8ies that Jesus' death does not suffice to end all our works to save ourselves from sin, that He will pay it ALL, HAS paid it ALL for us. We cannot be saved by works, but only by faith in His death for us, and that is the meaning of God's prohibition of work on the Sabbath, the Sabbath being a day of REST from our works that will be wrought by Jesus on our behalf. The entirely of the Bible, Old and New Testaments, teaches the mercy of God in saving us from the endless works of righteousness that we can never ever accomplish for our own salvation. If Jesus does not die FOR us we will all end up in Hell. And this is why all "works-righteousness" is denounced over and over and over by the Protestant Reformers. Catholicism requires good deeds for salvation, that's works, that's picking up sticks on the Day of Rest/the Sabbath, and all other religions ALSO require us to earn our salvation, Islam among all the rest. Biblical Christianity says that is impossible and we delude ourselves, the Law is way too exacting, we can never ever fulfill it. Only Jesus could fulfill it, and His sacrifice brings us the rest from our works that we could never accomplish. And picking up sticks on the Sabbath to build a fire symbolizes the works He fulfills in our stead, denying the completeness of His sacrifice. That is an unforgiveable enormity from God's point of view. You trivialize it of course because you have no appreciate whatever for what Jesus actually did for us.
Jesus even tells us to pray to be forgiven as we forgive others.
I could go on but that is certainly enough. I am afraid Faith that I do not understand how your idea of God’s justice can be so different from one period to the next.
Perhaps I am simply inadequate at making the point though it isn't for lack of trying. There IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOD'S JUSTICE IN OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS, as I'm trying my beest to make clear.
I believe in the God as personified in Jesus who is the same yesterday today and tomorrow.
The belief that you can harmonize beliefs in an inerrant Bible with the life and teaching of Jesus is just plainly obviously wrong. I’ll go with Jesus.
But you don't "go with Jesus," you deny the whole context of the OT that makes His mission clear, you deny the absolute meaning of the Cross, you deny the essence of His Messiahship, you substitute a puny little idea of love in the place of His true love.
Yes it's one book, properly understood, and no writer of any part of it had any evil intentions -- and your implied accusation of those who believe it to be the truth is breathtaking. And I did go back and finish my response to your original post, and who knows if I'll be able to finish this one.
Why Picking Up Sticks on the Sabbath is Such a Terrible Sin Redux
This is the answer I gave above. I guess you didn't like it but it's the best I can do:
BUT the point is that the Sabbath in the OT is a symbol of the SALVATION TO BE GIVEN THROUGH CHRIST, the DAY OF REST from our burden of sin that He will bring to believers in His sacrifice for us. ANY WORK DONE ON THE SABBATH DAY that is not punished impl8ies that Jesus' death does not suffice to end all our works to save ourselves from sin, that He will pay it ALL, HAS paid it ALL for us. We cannot be saved by works, but only by faith in His death for us, and that is the meaning of God's prohibition of work on the Sabbath, the Sabbath being a day of REST from our works that will be wrought by Jesus on our behalf. The entirely of the Bible, Old and New Testaments, teaches the mercy of God in saving us from the endless works of righteousness that we can never ever accomplish for our own salvation. If Jesus does not die FOR us we will all end up in Hell. And this is why all "works-righteousness" is denounced over and over and over by the Protestant Reformers. Catholicism requires good deeds for salvation, that's works, that's picking up sticks on the Day of Rest/the Sabbath, and all other religions ALSO require us to earn our salvation, Islam among all the rest. Biblical Christianity says that is impossible and we delude ourselves, the Law is way too exacting, we can never ever fulfill it. Only Jesus could fulfill it, and His sacrifice brings us the rest from our works that we could never accomplish. And picking up sticks on the Sabbath to build a fire symbolizes the works He fulfills in our stead, denying the completeness of His sacrifice. That is an unforgiveable enormity from God's point of view. You trivialize it of course because you have no appreciate whatever for what Jesus actually did for us.
If GDR, or you, were so sincerely trying to understand this you wouldn't have needed my half baked attempt at it, there are solid theological discussions available.
Re: Why Picking Up Sticks on the Sabbath is Such a Terrible Sin Redux
Well, I've looked at many theological commentaries and am not finding my own interpretation of Numbers 15:32. The general trend is to interpret the severe punishment in terms of a "high handed" disobedience of a highly publicized Law given by God, the open gathering of the sticks as if it was a trivial matter. Orthodox Jews today regard the Sabbath as sacrosanct and would no doubt interpret along these lines.
I'm puzzled. I know you'll consider me arrogant but I have to think God had the Sabbath rest in Jesus in mind as part of the reason for the dire punishment since we know the Sabbath IS a type of the rest in Christ. I don't understand why it isn't the centerpiece of the commentaries.
I couldn't find that particular passage interpreted in terms of the Sabbath rest in Jesus, but I found a good statement of the New Testament understanding of resting in Jesus, quoted below, which is what I had in mind. If I had it in mind and it is the ultimate meaning of the Sabbath in the Christian context, which it is, then for sure God had it in mind in telling Moses the man was to be stoned to death for violating the Sabbath. ALSO the context of the highhandedness of the sin, of course, but God knew the future as well as the present context and salvation by faith and not works is THE central message of the Cross. Yeah I'm arrogant, I actually think God must have had my interpetetion in mind.
What does it mean that Jesus is our Sabbath rest? Hebrews 4 speaks of Jesus as our Sabbath rest. Verses 9-10 in particular state, "So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his." How is Jesus our Sabbath rest?
The key to understanding how Jesus is our Sabbath rest is understanding what the Sabbath means. The Hebrew word shabat was the word "rest" in the Old Testament first used in regard to God "resting" from creation on the seventh day. The Sabbath would later become part of the Law of Moses, referring to the Sabbath day, Saturday, upon which the Jewish people were to do no work.
In the New Testament, Jesus declared Himself "lord of the Sabbath" (Matthew 12:8). He equated Himself with God the Father, becoming God in human form. In addition, Jesus declared, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27).
In Hebrews 3 and 4, the author developed the concept of Jesus as our Sabbath rest, revealing how a relationship with Christ frees humans from the works of the law and allows a person to rest in the work of Christ to forgive sin. Ultimately, those who believe in Jesus will spend eternity in a "Sabbath rest" with Him (Hebrews 4:9).
Today, many continue to live as if their salvation depends on how many good deeds they perform. Yet Christ is the only one who can provide sufficiently for the sins of people and offer eternal life. It is by His grace we receive salvation, through faith. As Ephesians 2:8-9 reveal, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."
Jesus serves as our Sabbath rest in the sense that He provides freedom from living under the works of the law. Instead, His sacrifice has paid the price for our salvation. We accept salvation as His free gift, entering into His rest both now as well as in eternity in His presence.
Hebrews 4 ends with words of comfort for those who enter God's Sabbath rest: "Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16). As a result of Christ's finished work, we can confidently come before God, receiving mercy and grace in our time of need.
The usual refusal to distinguish justice from crime. Amazine
A lot of "killing" you all say as if it were murder. The usual refusal to distinguish between judgment/justice and criminal killing. *Sigh* "The wages of sin is death," folks, that's judgment on sin. We will all eventually die, that's judgment for sin. We get sick, we get injured, little deaths in a way, all part of the wages of sin passed down through the generations from Eden due to the Fall, the original disobedience of God by the human race. We're supposed to LEARN from these things about God's view of sin, not fight Him about it. That's a fight we can't win.
The usual idea as I understand it is that stoning by the community was to impress the whole community with the seriousness of the offense, but I didn't look it up, this is merely what I remember from somewhere or other. Instead of hardening their hearts it should have put the fear of God into them, that was its point.
God of course governs all things, including the Romans' use of crucifixion (there were other nations that also used it though I don't remember which). I'll take your word for the Romans' reasons which I'd never heard before, but God's reason was to punish Jesus for OUR sins, remember, since He had no sin of His own, and our sins deserve such a death. One thing I did learn years ago was that the shape of the cross mimics the shape of the altar where animals were sacrificed, tied to four corners, so it also has that symbolism in it. Jesus IS the Lamb of God, the one Sacrifice that ends them all.
The wages of sin is death. Suffering of all sorts is included in death as we inherit it down the generations. What would be the point in making Jesus' death in our place lighter than we deserve?
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