Foundation of Worship II
The Jewish scriptures together with the sense of justice that God breathed into each one of us makes it clear that the foundation of our worship is the fact that we are completely dependent upon our Creator who is the Author of all existence.
Once this fact is established, it becomes obvious why the Christian claim for the incarnation of Jesus is actually an attempt to redefine the very basis of worship. The scenario proposed by the theology of Christianity, in which Creator takes on the form of created – and demands worship in that form – is in effect claiming that worship is not rooted in our dependence upon the Author of all existence. “Creator”, by definition means the one to whom worship is due, while “created” means the one who owes the worship. By saying that Creator became created that is like saying that…
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Once this fact is established, it becomes obvious why the Christian claim for the incarnation of Jesus is actually an attempt to redefine the very basis of worship. The scenario proposed by the theology of Christianity, in which Creator takes on the form of created – and demands worship in that form – is in effect claiming that worship is not rooted in our dependence upon the Author of all existence. “Creator”, by definition means the one to whom worship is due, while “created” means the one who owes the worship. By saying that Creator became created that is like saying that the One to whom worship is due became one who owes worship and has no right to demand the devotion that is owed to Creator alone – unless we redefine worship.
Dear Rabbi Yisroel, It has been awhile since I have written to you, but you are always in my heart and prayers. I think your statement above has redefined what Yeshua/Jesus taught His followers: The only prayer He ever taught His disciples was ‘Our Father’ … He taught His followers to worship and obey His Father who is in heaven. He claimed that the Scriptures spoke of Him, in Torah, Psalms and Prophets and they indeed do! And of His Coming to be a sacrifice for His people, Israel. You know those Scriptures, but disagree that they show the Sovereignty of the Messiah – which was part of the mystery G-d opened up to Paul when he studied the Torah, Psalms and Prophets. Yeshua/Jesus Never asked for our worship – never! His disciples/Apostles after His resurrection, G-d indeed opened up the Scriptures for them to See with their eyes what Yeshua/Jesus had meant when He taught them – The Torah, Psalms and Prophets spoke of His coming … He Himself said, “I have come to fulfill what is written about Me.” The worship was not, and is not to Jesus the Man, which He did indeed come as the Son of Man – but rather to His Father and the Ruach HaKodesh which raised Yeshua/Jesus from the dead. Jesus/Yeshua fulfilled what was written about Him and will return in the clouds as the Messiah you are awaiting. Just as Joseph’s brothers thought Joseph was an Egyptian leader, but was indeed their Jewish brother … so Zachariah prophesied in Chapter 12 Verse 10 that you will look upon Him whom you have pierced and mourn for Him … The L-RD was not only naturally pierced, but His heart has been pierced by our people for over 2,000 because the nation of Israel has missed His coming to bring peace to the soul of man. However, the L-RD Will turn it all to the good because the Gentile nations have now entered into the promises of Israel, or commonwealth (Ephesians 2:11-13; 3:10) as a result of the partial blindness put on our people as to the Diety of the Messiah and His Coming (Romans 9,10,11). A True follower of Messiah/Christian, worships the Holy One of Israel. A True follower of Yeshua/Jesus worships our Creator who Created man in His image and His likeness. I’m eternally thankful to G-d for opening my eyes to See Him during the times of the Gentiles! To See Yeshua/Jesus as Messiah and L-RD and King. He is the One Whom Moses saw; Jacob wrestled; Samson’s parents saw; Abraham saw when the three ‘men’ coming to visit him and Abraham called Him L-RD. Adam and Eve walked in the garden of Eden with the L-RD G-d … He was there before the foundation of the earth – He was in the heart of His Father … that is why He said to our people,”When you see Me you see the Father!” I totally understand your believing Jesus as the Messiah, or becoming a Messiah Follower/Christian, is foreign in Jewish understanding – because it was foreign in my understanding until the Holy One touched me and opened my eyes to His Scriptures. I read the Scriptures in the Chumash/Tanach and wept, because they were same as the Bible given to me NASB. The way the nations have worshipped the Messiah/L-RD since the Nicaean Council has caused a deeper blindness for our people. The Holocaust was a culmination of the failure of the Church loving G-d’s people! Most church goers have No idea what it means for Yeshua/Jesus being the King of the Jews! Or, the Messiah being promised to Israel and Not to the nations! But He Was both! The promises G-d has for our people, Israel, in the Prophets and Torah and Psalms that will come to pass when Yeshua/Jesus returns to Jerusalem to set up His Kingdom and redeem the Jewish people who will rule with Him during the Millennium! That truth will be a a Big surprise for most, but Not for the ones whose eyes are opened to the Prophets, Psalms and Torah according to the teachings of Yeshua/Jesus, the Apostles and the greatest of all apostles, who called himself the least of the apostles, Paul. I look forward to THAT Day! The Day of His Coming! His Kingdom is coming to earth as it is in heaven. Yeshua/Jesus taught us to pray: Thy Kingdom come – Thy Will be done – in earth – as it is in Heaven. His Father’s Kingdom Will Come – for the L-RD will return as KING of kings and L-RD of lords … to Jerusalem – Hallelujah! With Respect, June
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Hi June,
Seems we’ve ended up on different pages, I’ve seemed to clicked the wrong reply?
I just wanted to say Hi and it’s all your fault I’m here; I posted on one of your replies months ago and have left, hahaha!
“Once this fact is established, it becomes obvious why the Christian claim for the incarnation of Jesus is actually an attempt to redefine the very basis of worship. The scenario proposed by the theology of Christianity, in which Creator takes on the form of created – and demands worship in that form – is in effect claiming that worship is not rooted in our dependence upon the Author of all existence. “Creator”, by definition means the one to whom worship is due, while “created” means the one who owes the worship. By saying that Creator became created that is like saying that the One to whom worship is due became one who owes worship and has no right to demand the devotion that is owed to Creator alone – unless we redefine worship.”
christians have really created a separate self aware existence for their god.
there is god with all his powers and there is “god man”
this god man is aware of the fact that he is created and finite being. he smell, touch, see, taste , breath and hear like any human being.
it is dependant on another self for providence and salvation. it cannot switch between seeing what god sees or hearing what god hears, because it is, just like everyone else ,CREATED “god-man”
my basic point is that there is nothing created which can be derived from infinite beginingless being who has divine powers like all seeing, all hearing, all control etc etc
nothing created can be derived from such a being . he can never choose to unknow what he already knows. he can never choose to unhear what he already hears. these are essential attributes of his.
the only choice is for them to create a SEPARATE existence for their god. a separate “god man” who gets trumped by the divine being.
i mean think about it.
you have “1 person 2 natures” and the divine person was using his flesh body /praying through the flesh to higher god?
they say “united natures”
so then fully god and fully man is invoking and calling upon a higher and powerful god.
Shalom Edward, Do you still believe that there is a teaching about “God-man, fully god and fully man, or one person two natures” in the Renewed Covenant (New Testament)? where do you see that?
bro, as you know, majority of christians do think that there is idea of “fully god and fully man” in nt.
I know bro. that is sad. Many christians including myself missed the point, i think, in Matthew 9:16
where Yeshua said,
“No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse.”
New cloth vs. Old garment.
I used to think new cloth is new testament or gospel or church, and old garment is old testament or Torah or Israel. so interpreted like new testament should not go back to the old testament or Torah or Israel, it should be interpreted and applied in the context of new church age! Almost like replacement theology.
The comparison is not
New garment vs. Old garment.
It is New cloth vs. Old garment.
New cloth is doctrines and theology extracted from New testament (garment). So, Yeshua is saying that if you put new testament theology or doctrine such as “trinity or justification by faith” onto the Old Testament, it doesn’t work! It makes a HOLE!
Therefore, you must put Old Cloth onto the New garment, then it makes the revelation of God WHOLE! It is the time that we put our Tanak into the good news and see the whole picture of God’s plan of redemption of His humanity and the world!
In response to the claims of Matthew Perri and others:
Because the claims of any miracle worker, prophet, or guru are astounding, they are not easily believed. The claims of the Church fall into this category. Jesus is supposed to have walked on water, healed many sick people, returned the dead to life and returned from death to life himself. In order to substantiate these claims, the Church has argued for the authenticity of the first hand testimony of the witnesses. While it acknowledges that Mark and Luke are not penned by eyewitnesses, the Church claims that Matthew and John were written by two of Jesus’ disciples who both heard Jesus’ teachings directly and observed first hand the wonders he is supposed to have performed. This claim is exaggerated and serves only as an apologetic support for the believer, while being without merit.
With only a little application of the intellect, one can observe that Matthew could not be an eyewitness to many of the events that he records, many of which are meant to be quite important. He was not a witness to birth of Jesus or any of the events surrounding it, the angel that informed Joseph that Mary was not an adulteress, the angel that warned Joseph to flee with Mary and Jesus to Egypt, or the astrologers from the east that came to worship Jesus. He was not a witness to the baptism of Jesus or the subsequent forty days of temptation. If the Gospel of Matthew is in chronological order, he may not have witnessed the Sermon on the Mount, which precedes Matthew joining Jesus’ entourage in chapter 9. Nor did Matthew observe the transfiguration, though he was a follower of Jesus during that period of time. After the arrest of Jesus, Matthew fled, so he was not a witness to the trial of Jesus nor his death. The claim that Matthew was an eyewitness is overblown.
Moreover, one cannot help but eye such a claim with suspicion when read in light of Mark. Something like 95% of the Gospel of Mark appears in the Gospel of Matthew. This is particularly odd, inasmuch as Mark is believed to have been written prior to Matthew. If Matthew did not draw from Mark, that is an extraordinary coincidence, particularly when one considers John’s claim: “But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (Jn. 21:25). One must ask why Matthew, the eyewitness, must rely so heavily on a non-eyewitness.
Unfortunately, the two gospels that are purported to be by eyewitnesses share little information in common. The importance of them being eyewitness reports is that this is supposed to make them more trustworthy. The implication is that the witnesses are truthful, and indeed the Church argues that the disciples would have little reason to lie. However, the motivations of these men cannot be known. Their honesty could be better established by comparing their accounts. But very little can be compared between them.
John and Matthew seldom write about the same events, which means they can hardly be used to cross-examine one another. This is not a criticism by itself, but the claims of the authors cannot be substantiated. Wherever Matthew and John do not write of the same events, their claims cannot be known to be true. If one accepts them, he does so on insufficient evidence.
He must also overlook the great differences between the testimonies of the two men where they do write of the same events to which they are both witnesses. It cannot be ignored that Matthew and John do not agree about the day of Jesus’ crucifixion. This means also that they have Jesus in the tomb for unequal periods of time, since they both have him resurrected on the first day of the week. Also, their resurrection accounts differ in many ways, which the reader may study for himself and note that the stories are not merely two different perspectives on the same events but differ to a degree that places them in contradiction to one another. Rather than substantiating one another, they collapse under the least scrutiny and cross-examination.
Nor must one overlook too readily the oddity of Matthew, Mark, and Luke being the three gospels in which the transfiguration is recorded. Of the gospel writers, the only one present for the transfiguration was John, according to the story. However, his is the only gospel that does not record the event. Not only does this undercut the authenticity of the event, it undercuts the claim that Matthew and John are eyewitness accounts.
Even if they had been eyewitnesses to the things they wrote, it is obvious that certain claims of the Church regarding Jesus could not be verified by John or Matthew. The Church contends that Jesus never sinned, not once in the entirety of his life. Obviously, neither man knew Jesus his whole life. Neither could claim with any certainty that Jesus never sinned. Such a claim would be difficult to substantiate even if limited only to the three to four years they lived with and learned from Jesus. Surely they did not accompany him every moment of the day.
Indeed, according to the gospels, eyewitnesses of the day did not find Jesus to be the morally perfect being the Church imagines him to be. The people among whom he lived for the majority of his life did not marvel at his moral probity and exceeding loving-kindness, at least not according to Matthew, the supposed eyewitness to Jesus’ homecoming (Matt. 13:54-58). John testifies the same about Jesus’ brothers (Jn. 7:5). While the gospel writers mean to indict the doubt of those who knew Jesus, they reveal that Jesus was not likely to be the perfect being the Church would like him to be.
(For more on this topic, see here: https://yourphariseefriend.wordpress.com/2016/08/18/invisible-perfect-by-jim/ ).
It is understandable that the Church would like to establish the reliability of its claims, but in order to do so, it has had to exaggerate greatly. Matthew and John are not reliable witnesses. Matthew in particular writes of many things to which he could not have been a witness. Moreover, he and John do not agree even on the day of the crucifixion. Nor can they verify one of the most important doctrines of the Church, the moral perfection of Jesus. The claim that these are eyewitnesses is overblown and can only serve to comfort the believer.
Jim
Jim,
the Gospel of Matthew is NOT in strict chronological order, it’s more “theme based.” This is a well know, established fact in scholarly circles.
In a nutshell, here is my “educated opinion” of the big picture.
Mark recorded the teachings of Peter and other Apostles, most of whom could not write. Matthew then took this as the foundation of his Gospel, much of it word for word, confirming it thus as a second written witness.
In some cases, Matthew added some details that are missing from Mark which Matthew knew about personally. In other cases, Mark has details which Matthew did not personally know about, or did not think relevant or necessary enough to copy, so Matthew glossed over them or omitted them.
Matthew also did some background investigation (like Luke did). And of course, Matthew is famous for quoting lots of the Tanach as backup, which Peter and the other illiterate Apostles would not be able to do very well.
Why should John make yet another copy of all the same material, which already had 2 witnesses? No reason to.
“Mark recorded the teachings of Peter and other Apostles, most of whom could not write. Matthew then took this as the foundation of his Gospel, much of it word for word, confirming it thus as a second written witness.
In some cases, Matthew added some details that are missing from Mark which Matthew knew about personally”
you mean matthew added all the special effects and everything happening near crucifixion site and then reverted back to following marks wording and sequence?
If you applied the same standards to the Torah as you do to Matthew, you would give Matthew more of a break.
I understand the spirit of the 10th commandment is not to covet anything or anyone – that is enough to know, and try to apply. I don’t have to hammer Moses because the wording in Exodus 20 is slightly different than Deuteronomy 5 regarding the 10th commandment.
i just don’t see why, if one spent 40 days with jesus after he allegedly came back to life, one like matthew, was dependant on marks wording but distubs the continuity of his narrative by adding special effects and then reverts back to markan wording. scholars say that even when they are at pains to disagree with mark, they still reproduce markan wording which is very strange for eyewitnesses who were there.
“theorchardchristianchurch.blogspot.com
If you applied the same standards to the Torah as you do to Matthew, you would give Matthew more of a break.”
yes, i agree.
*they still reproduce markan wording which is very thing strange for eyewitnesses to do.
Edward,
What is so strange? If I’m praying with someone, and I agree, I can simply say AMEN. I don’t have to rephrase the same prayer request again in my own words. Why should I? This is the confirmation of a second witness.
Regarding my blog, the last time I posted anything there was over 7 years ago – I have learned some new things since then – really Dina 🙂
” I don’t have to rephrase the same prayer request again in my own words. Why should I? This is the confirmation of a second witness.”
prayer request? why don’t you have 4 people following you around for 4 hours and lets see if they can write the same things and follow the same sequence. if they do , then won’t you think one was copying the other? lets assume that they see you flap your arms all the way to the moon, but only one of them records it, don’t you think that the other 3 were silly to not record this miraculous event? just one of them disturbs his continuity and adds the miracle and then reverts back to the same wordings as the others.
Jim,
I agree with all you’ve written above, however if you were to apply the same standard to the Tanach, you may find yourself a bit more open minded a investigative when searching out truth.
We are dealing with very old Texts often based on oral tradition. GOD is sovereign and yet gives mankind free will, it is in this light Texts are to be studied and read.