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6.2.20

Saadia Gaon in raised the two most famous objections on Jesus: (1) nullification of the commandments; (2) Divinity.
To answer the first objection it is possible to point out bahnsen The Theonomic Position

I have known about this essay for about two or three years but never thought to mention it. It seems important but I guess my blog was about other issues. So it simply never occurred to me to bring it up.
The other objection I have mentioned that "I am" (When Jesus stood before the Roman judge he was asked, "Who are you?" He said, "I am".)  is not the same thing as "אהיה אשר אהיה" "I will be that which I will be" [Which is the name of God at the Burning Bush].[That is the usual source for the claim. That is that "I am" refers to the name of God.] [The idea that Jesus is always refers to "the son of man", does not in itself seem to have any implication along these lines. So the critique of Saadia Gaon is a critique on the church rather than on Jesus. [And Avraham Abulafia also was critical of the Church, but about Jesus himself he said very positive things.]

So to me pursuing truth is more important that being "politically correct." PC means any mention of Jesus has to be with some insult. You might get away with saying something nice as long as you insult him afterwards.. But that has nothing to do with pursuing truth.



Here is a middle part of that paper of Bahnsen:
it would be senseless to think that Christ came in order to cancel mankind’s responsibility to keep them. It is theologically incredible that the mission of Christ was to make it morally acceptable now for men to blaspheme, murder, rape, steal, gossip, or envy! Christ did not come to change our evaluation of God’s laws from that of holy to unholy, obligatory to optional, or perfect to flawed. Listen to His own testimony:
Do not begin to think that I came to abrogate the Law or the Prophets; I came not to abrogate but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, until all things have happened, not one jot or tittle shall by any means pass away from the law. Therefore, whoever shall break one of these least commandments and teach men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:17-19).
Several points about the interpretation of this passage should be rather clear. (1) Christ twice denied that His advent had the purpose of abrogating the Old Testament commandments. (2) Until the expiration of the physical universe, not even a letter or stroke of the law will pass away. And (3) therefore God’s disapprobation rests upon anyone who teaches that even the least of the Old Testament laws may be broken.16
16 Attempts are sometimes made to evade the thrust of this text by editing out its reference to the moral demands of the Old Testament—contrary to what is obvious from its context (5:16, 20, 21-48; 6:1, 10, 33; 7:12, 20-21, 26) and semantics (“the law” in v. 18, “commandment” in v. 19). Other attempts are made to extract an abrogating of the law’s moral demands from the word “fulfill” (v. 17) or the phrase “until all things have happened” (v. 18). This, however, renders the verses self-contradictory in what they assert.
In all of its minute detail (every jot and tittle) the law of God, down to its least significant provision, should be reckoned to have an abiding validity—until and unless the Lawgiver reveals otherwise.