Question about the Messiah.

reply to post by jmdewey60

The question which was raised earlier was the timing of the "coming of Jesus". I pointed out the NT expectation of a general and final appearance, which has obviously not yet happened, and you were for identifying it with a local event in the past.

The question of how far the descriptions of the judgement event were literal or metaphorical pictures was not at issue, and I'm not going to be diverted into it.

For the purposes of this discussion, the literal understanding of "Jesus judging the world" is "Jesus judging the world", and the metaphorical understanding of "Jesus judging the world" is "Romans beating up Jerusalem."

I am basing my view on all the texts I quoted in my original reply to you, and I refer you back to it.

reply to post by DISRAELI

. . . I refer you back to it.

I already dealt with the verses that you cited, and showed that they equally can be referring to the literal historical judgment, as to the interpretive hypothetical future judgment based on metaphorical passages.
There just isn't any clearly non-metaphorical texts that support your conjecture of Jesus physically arriving on earth and mounting a terrestrial throne.

reply to post by jmdewey60

I have already dealt with your dealing with my texts, and pointed out why your interpretation of them was inadequate.

PS I said absolutely nothing about "mounting on a terrestrial throne". Don't put words into my mouth.
I have already said that I'm not discussing the literalness or otherwise of the pictures of the event.
My point is "general event in the future" rather than "local event in the past".

reply to post by DISRAELI

For example, Paul promises the Corinthians that they will be sustained and found "guiltless" on the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. But what on earth is the relevance, to the Corinthian Christian, of being guiltless on the day when Jerusalam is destroyed. And why should this moment be described as "rhe end"?

And there you have it.
PAUL is not "Jesus".

Time to do some real research and figure out which of the two (Paul or Jesus) you want to believe and 'follow.'

jmdewey60
reply to post by gladtobehere

 

Christians and Moslems both believe that the Messiah will be Jesus ie the Second Coming.

I'm a Christian and I believe that Jesus is currently the Messiah.
There is no purpose for Jesus to "Come Again" any more than what he has already.
The idea within early, New Testament era Christians of a Jesus that "every eye shall see" and "coming in the clouds" is one of the supreme elevation of Jesus to the position of God, in that he will be the one people will see when there is a hypothetical "Judgment Day" or "That Day" or "The Last Day" that was a common belief passed down through Jewish mythology.
So it isn't a demand that Jesus should "return", but a classification of his true status in the grand scheme of things of the Cosmos.

But Jews think it will be someone else.

So what happens when the alleged Messiah appears and he isnt the "right one"?

Can we expect even more discontent? Will this future event be a reason for more turbulence?

No one will "Come". The "one from Heaven" already came, and we are to believe in him, now, and not after some future divine "breaking into" the mundane world.

edit on 3-10-2013 by jmdewey60 because: (no reason given)

So all the verse in the OT about the day of the Lord is just crap?

reply to post by guitarplayer

So all the verse in the OT about the day of the Lord is just crap?

Yup.
Pretty much.
Sorry, gp.

reply to post by DISRAELI

My point is "general event in the future" rather than "local event in the past".

You are ignoring the import of the new covenant and the new age and the end of what was believed by many people to be the world religion of the True God, manifested as a ritual practice of offerings in Jerusalem.
That is not a "local event".
That was absolutely cataclysmic in the view of the "true believers" in that system.
That was a judgment as things were understood in that time and culture, by God, but in this case, being the manifestation of Jesus in the position of supreme sovereign over the earth (as judge).

Any future thing way off at some hypothetical point is based on beliefs of the time by individuals Jews in general, and are dealt with in a very fuzzy way by the New Testament writers. It means, when it is alluded to, that eventually the bad institutions of power in the world will come to an end, replaced by just ones.

reply to post by guitarplayer

So all the verse in the OT about the day of the Lord is just crap?

Those are oracles by anonymous writers in the scrolls of the prophets, not distinct actual prophecies of a specific day, but an expression of the general idea that one day things will all be as they should be, thanks to God.

jmdewey60
reply to post by DISRAELI

 

. . . I refer you back to it.

I already dealt with the verses that you cited, and showed that they equally can be referring to the literal historical judgment, as to the interpretive hypothetical future judgment based on metaphorical passages.
There just isn't any clearly non-metaphorical texts that support your conjecture of Jesus physically arriving on earth and mounting a terrestrial throne.

edit on 5-10-2013 by jmdewey60 because: (no reason given)

What do you consider as metaphorical in the Bible?

Zechariah 14:1 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.2:For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. 3:Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.4:And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.5:And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.6:And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:

It says in the OT that the saints were coming with Him. Isn't that familiar? Did we hear that same prophecy in Jude? Enoch the seventh from Adam prophecied these things saying I saw the Lord's RETURN with ten thousands thousands of his saints. The Lord returning means he left and is coming back. Jesus said "woe unto the man who says my Lord delayeth his coming"

Jesus referred to his returning as a thief in the night, as lightning shines from the east unto the west.

In Zechariah's time they were waiting for the Messiah to come, and yet here is a prophecy saying he is returning. So Zechariah was looking at a time beyond.

If this prophecy was related solely to the temple built by Herod, which Jesus said would be torn down and he would raise up a new one, then let's think about this one for a minute. There has never been a time when all nations have gathered against Israel. The Romans were just one nation. And think a minute about what is in Jerusalem at this very moment, a mosque stands in Jerusalem, of a religion that has denied the resurrection of Christ. But they believe the Mahdi will come and burn all the crosses, from Jerusalem.

What is a mosque, anyway? Isn't it a temple?? Don't they worship Allah in that mosque? That golden domed mosque has the symbol of the crescent moon on it, doesn't it? In Jerusalem, a temple is there, but a temple for a god that isn't the God of the Bible and built by man's hands. Jesus said he would raise a temple not built by man's hands, so therefore, the temple that stands there now was not ever ordained by God, nor can it ever be.

This is about the end times, of which the OT prophets knew about and warned about. None of this has happened yet. Zechariah and Enoch saw the Lord's RETURN with the saints. They are coming with him for one purpose, to win the last and final battle. You might never see it in your lifetime, but it's coming.

Would you like to hear how it describes a nuclear holocaust?

Zechariah 14:12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.

Do we live in an age of nuclear holocaust capability? Absolutely we do. And since there has not been a nuclear explosion in Jerusalem yet, and the Romans did not have nuclear weapons, then it's safe to say it could only happen in a time when it is possible, which is now. In a nuclear blast, the light is so bright that neither the sun or the moon can be seen. How could Zechariah explain a nuclear explosion if he had never seen one before? But yet he describes exactly what happens. And when the Bible was translated, I am sure all those people asked themselves "what kind of power is this?" and the world discovered in 1945 what kind of power it is. We now live in a world that such destruction is possible.

The thing about Biblical prophecy is that it was given in a time when people had no knowledge for the visions they were seeing. All they could use was their lexicon. Understanding comes in a time when we have experienced the things they were talking about.

As lightning shines from the east unto the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be.

reply to post by WarminIndy

It says in the OT that the saints were coming with Him. Isn't that familiar? Did we hear that same prophecy in Jude? Enoch the seventh from Adam prophecied these things saying I saw the Lord's RETURN with ten thousands thousands of his saints. The Lord returning means he left and is coming back. Jesus said "woe unto the man who says my Lord delayeth his coming"

There are different variants of the Jude manuscript, and some translations put the "Lords coming" in the past tense, maybe in some event in Genesis.
You can't in a convincing way interpret it as Jude predicting Jesus coming with "the saints".
The "holy ones" if Enoch was describing them would have been angels or other denizens of the heavenly realm.

Jesus' parable was about the leaders of the Jews who were bad servants for their lack of faithfully executing the responsibility of leading the people.

jmdewey60
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

It says in the OT that the saints were coming with Him. Isn't that familiar? Did we hear that same prophecy in Jude? Enoch the seventh from Adam prophecied these things saying I saw the Lord's RETURN with ten thousands thousands of his saints. The Lord returning means he left and is coming back. Jesus said "woe unto the man who says my Lord delayeth his coming"

There are different variants of the Jude manuscript, and some translations put the "Lords coming" in the past tense, maybe in some event in Genesis.
You can't in a convincing way interpret it as Jude predicting Jesus coming with "the saints".
The "holy ones" if Enoch was describing them would have been angels or other denizens of the heavenly realm.

Jesus' parable was about the leaders of the Jews who were bad servants for their lack of faithfully executing the responsibility of leading the people.

edit on 6-10-2013 by jmdewey60 because: (no reason given)

Do you think it refers only to angelic beings? When Jesus died, the Bible says the saints of old came up from their graves. Were these only angelic beings or were they flesh and blood people? If I were to post every verse the word saints appear, there is a definition of the word used for flesh and blood.

Psalm 16:3 But to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight.

Psalm 50:5 Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.

Those who made a covenant by sacrifice? Who made a covenant with God by sacrifice? The Jews first and then the Christians. And what is the sacrifice covenant spoken of here?

Psalm 116:15 Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.

Holy angelic beings do not die.

Mat 27:52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,

Are these all angelic beings? Which angelic beings die?

reply to post by wildtimes

If Paul is telling me to expect Jesus, and I expect Jesus on that basis, then i'm following both of them at the same time.
I'm not going to be drawn into talking about "differences", because those would be off-topic.
The only aspect of Jesus that is relevant to this thread is the "being expected".

reply to post by jmdewey60

You, in turn, are ignoring the following points;
Paul promises the Corinthians that they will be sustained and found "guiltless" on the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. But what on earth is the relevance, to the Corinthian Christian, of being guiltless on the day when Jerusalam is destroyed. And why should this moment be described as "rhe end"?

Similarly in 2 Peter, the readers of the letter are advised to be keep themselves in holiness and godliness "waiting for the coming of the day of God". But why should it matter to Christians in general that they should be in holiness and godliness on the day when Jerusalem is destroyed?

In 2 Thessalonians, we read that ALL not knowing God and not obeying the gospel of Christ will suffer exclusion from the presence of God when the Lord Jesus is revealed. But that statement is simply untrue, if the last part of it merely means the destruction of Jerusalem. On the day when Jerusalem was destroyed, there were many people in the world who did not know God and were not yet obeying the gospel of Christ, and yet the gospel continued to be preached and accepted, which implies that the destruction of Jerusalem was not an "eternal destruction" and permanent exclusion for these people after all.

I still think you are offereing a very strained interpretation of the texts and ignoring the most natural understanding of them

DISRAELI
reply to post by wildtimes

 

If Paul is telling me to expect Jesus, and I expect Jesus on that basis, then i'm following both of them at the same time.
I'm not going to be drawn into talking about "differences", because those would be off-topic.
The only aspect of Jesus that is relevant to this thread is the "being expected".

And if Paul repeats the message that Jesus Himself taught, then wouldn't it be the same message? When Jesus said it, Paul was still Saul and held the cloaks for those who stoned Stephen. Paul didn't believe Jesus was the Messiah and that he was coming back while he was still Saul.

But it is a good point that you make, there is no difference in the message and we have to remember that Paul himself was killed for being a Christian. But Saul went from persecuting Christians to embracing the message of Christ's return. And since the NT wasn't compiled yet, as Paul's letters are part of the NT, Paul was then preaching from what? The Torah.

Saul was a Pharisee, one who knew the Torah intimately and followed the law to the letter. He knew prophecies from all the earlier prophets, because it's in a famous book called...the Tanahk. Paul didn't have the NT to preach from, he had the Torah and the Tanahk. And he was preaching to others who knew the Tanahk as well. He wasn't preaching to people who had no idea about it. And the Christians were not called Christians until he preached at Antioch. He even clarifies that the mother and grandmother of Timothy were Jewish women who were now believers.

And to clarify that point about the Jewish idea of resurrection, Jesus says to Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus "Do you believe that your brother will rise again?" The reply was "Yes, the resurrection at the last day". To which Jesus responds "I am the resurrection and the life". They had an already established belief of the resurrection of the dead...in the last day. Where did they get that from? The Torah and the Tanahk.

It's as though people forget Paul was teaching an already well-known prophetic message. And John wrote the book of Revelation 20 years after the fall of the temple at Jerusalem, while Domitian was emperor. Nothing in the book of Revelation states that the end was 20 years prior. He says it is going to happen soon. The temple had already fallen.

John does not even mention Rome at all. Why does John not mention the one group that should have been the one who ended the world 20 years before? He does not say Rome one time. Paul does not even claim it would be Rome. He wrote an entire letter to the church at Rome, but never once does he say that the Romans would be responsible for the end.

John and Paul knew each other. Paul also knew James and Peter. In fact, Paul and Peter had a feud over the method of preaching to the Jews. It was never over the message, but over the method. But they fought over preaching to whom? The Jews. They didn't fight over how to preach to gentiles or Christians.

But Peter and Paul were both killed for being Christian. But they both believed that there was going to be an end time in which the Lord would return. Peter heard it for 3 1/2 years. But why didn't Peter even mention it was going to be the Romans? In fact, not one single disciple mentions the end of the world by the Romans.

So nothing can convince me that it was a localized event to occur only in 70 AD when all the disciples who were alive at that time preached the end as they heard Jesus say it.

As far as some people want to believe that the Jews created a mythological history, why then did Jesus Himself reference Solomon? "Hast thou not considered the lillies?" And why would Jesus say "The Queen of Sheba will rise in judgment because she came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold a greater than Solomon is here".

So the question of whether or not there are differences, there are none. Paul preached the same message every prophet since Moses had preached about the end. It may have been the end for those at Masada, but it was not the end for the entire world. The message had not been preached across the entire planet yet at that time, but now it has been.

When I worked as a radio announcer, our station was the first in North Carolina to go live stream on the internet, and I had listeners from all over the world. It has now gone global to such a degree that you can hear the message on any television, commercial radio, ham radio and shortwave radio. We are living in that time now.

reply to post by WarminIndy

Do you think it refers only to angelic beings?

I can hardly take any argument by you seriously if you can't even read Greek.
Jude is not saying "saints" even if some old translations have it like that.

reply to post by DISRAELI

But what on earth is the relevance, to the Corinthian Christian, of being guiltless on the day when Jerusalem is destroyed. And why should this moment be described as "the end"?

1 Corinthians says, in part,
. . . keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day . . .

"The end" would probably be the end of their lives, and "the day" would be the judgment after.

The "our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed." could be the revelation of his sovereignty in the demise of those who stood against him, which would have happened during the lifetimes of a lot of those people of Corinth that Paul was writing to.

On the day when Jerusalem was destroyed, there were many people in the world who did not know God and were not yet obeying the gospel of Christ . . .

There isn't anything in that passage that would indicate that was what the writer meant.

I still think you are offereing a very strained interpretation of the texts and ignoring the most natural understanding of them

The "natural" understanding is to consider the part,

God’s judgment is right . . . you are suffering. God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you . . . This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed . . . He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. . . . on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people . . . This includes you

which is that they will see those who afflict them being punished.

jmdewey60
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

Do you think it refers only to angelic beings?

I can hardly take any argument by you seriously if you can't even read Greek.
Jude is not saying "saints" even if some old translations have it like that.

And the old translations were translated by Greek and Hebrew experts. Has Greek changed so much in the last 400 years?

Why is the word saints used in this verse in Jude..

1:3 Beloved, while I was giving all diligence to write unto you of our common salvation, I was constrained to write unto you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints.

What has changed from verse three to verse fourteen? How does it go from flesh and blood people to angelic beings?

reply to post by WarminIndy

What has changed from verse three to verse fourteen?

Jude is the fourth shortest book of the Bible.

4. Jude --- 1 chapter, 25 verses, 613 words
www.kneeholedesk.com...

It's based on the same word but a different form. The form in verse 3 is used 19 times in the New Testament for "the saints".

In verse 14, Jude is saying basically, "the holy army".

jmdewey60
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

What has changed from verse three to verse fourteen?

Jude is the fourth shortest book of the Bible.

4. Jude --- 1 chapter, 25 verses, 613 words
www.kneeholedesk.com...

It's based on the same word but a different form. The form in verse 3 is used 19 times in the New Testament for "the saints".

In verse 14, Jude is saying basically, "the holy army".

edit on 7-10-2013 by jmdewey60 because: (no reason given)

Then there you have it, the holy army comprised of the saints coming back with Jesus. Isn't that what they have been saying all along?

The word forms are this, jmdewey, the saints in Jude 1:3 are not dead yet, the saints in Jude1:14 are those saints who have died, been resurrected by Christ and coming back for the final battle in the end.

As English relies on English grammar rules, you say I was, I am and I will be. Now suppose I am speaking another language that follows their grammar rules. In German you would say Ich war, Ich bin, Ich werde sein.

In Greek, it is this: I was is Ήμουν, I am is Είμαι, I will be is Θα είμαι. So while you are scrambling to explain why different Greek words are used, you forgot conjugation. But as those are verbs, let's consider Greek noun cases.

Greek nouns are grouped into three categories, called declensions. The concept of declension in nouns is basically the same as conjugation involving verbs. Both conjugation and declension involve the inflection of the words.

The matter of the declension of Greek nouns. There are three recognized declensions of nouns. These inflections are based on the ending of the noun stem. The rule is that nouns that have a as their characteristic stem ending are assigned to the first declension. Those with o as the characteristic stem ending are in the second declension. The third declension includes nouns whose stems end in a consonant or in i, u, or eu. The second declension (omicron declension) is the most important because more nouns belong to this declension. As a rule, the nouns that belong to the alpha declension (first declension) are feminine gender, there are some exceptions. The nouns of the omicron declension (second declension) are usually masculine and neuter (there are a few feminine genders). The third declension presents the greatest variety and the most difficulty of the three. At this time, I could mention mute, liquid, syncopated, and vowel stems but I do not believe you have to understand these stems to have a basic grasp of the Greek noun.

Now wait you say, it's not Koine. But you forget that even Koine followed grammar structure and it was a dialect. If I were to use a common phrase, "go to the store and buy a Coke". We know what it means, but if I were to say it like this "y'all go down yonder to the credit store and get some pop (soda). I said the exact same thing in a different way. And that's what Koine is, saying the same thing in a dialect. Unless you actually lived in Koine times, you wouldn't understand the context of the vernacular. So you have to take the Koine context like every other passage in the Bible, you have to understand the context from what comes before and after.

You have said "The word for saint is this many times...." but what you have not done is presented the context with which it was said. Paul addressed to the church in Jude, which they spoke Koine, the living saints presently in the church and then addresses about the saints who will die or have died previously, and those are the ones coming back.

You can't say different rules apply between the time Jesus spoke and when Paul wrote. Jesus never spoke in Koine, He spoke in Aramaic for daily use and Hebrew in the synagogue. He read from the Torah, which has always been in Hebrew. So if you want to get the context of what He said, then you need to study classical Hebrew, which is still used today in synagogues.

Then people bring up the difference in Masoretic Text and the Septuagint. While there are some verses stated a little differently, the essence and meaning are the same. And that goes as well for the Wycliffe Bible and the KJV.

The Wycliffe Bible says "those who are cleped" or "the clepping with which you have been cleped". In the KJV, cleped means called. But must I ask, are these words so different that they must be completely different words altogether?

gladtobehere
I consider myself to be a student of religion though I often get confused by different interpretations and varied explanations.

Please correct me as needed.

Its my understanding that Jews, Christians and Moslems all believe that a savior or Messiah will reappear.

However, these groups dont agree on who that Messiah will be.

Christians and Moslems both believe that the Messiah will be Jesus ie the Second Coming.

But Jews think it will be someone else.

So what happens when the alleged Messiah appears and he isnt the "right one"?

Can we expect even more discontent? Will this future event be a reason for more turbulence?

Question. How could you possibly call yourself a student of religion, and not spell Muslim right? Or even know that Muslim's don't believe Jesus will be the messiah? They're not waiting for the same second coming that christians are.

None of that matters, because there will be no "second coming" or first coming for that matter. There is no "messiah" and all religions are a bad joke.