Saturday, December 24, 2005
God Sent
Dr. Gary Cohen, in his article on the Shema, offers three brief answers as possible Christian responses to doubting Jews.
1. Jesus isn’t another god but was sent by the God of the Shema. Jesus is the long awaited for Messiah. Christ (Greek) means Messiah (Hebrew).
2. The Shema was strongly stated in the midst of Egypt’s and Canaan’s multiple gods and paganism. God was truly trying to protect Israel, His beloved. Here is where the much avoided tri-unity of our One and only God is discussed. Jesus, Son of the Father God, was there at Creation: “The Word was with God and the Word was God…Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.” (The beginning of John’s Gospel) In brief, the Holy Spirit, the third part of the God of the Bible, is an indwelling in men of faith. It’s not so much that God is broken into pieces as much as we need to have Him broken down for our feeble minds to comprehend His Glory!
He wants us to see more than an awesome, bright Shekinah Glory. He knows we, for the most part, can understand His complexity beyond a blinding Light. God has always wanted us to know Him better. As Dr. Cohen points out, the detail of His Creation, as we learn more and more, directs us to an ingenious, miraculous, wondrous Designer. His plan for all time was to save us from ourselves (Genesis 3:15) and to send a Lamb, the focus of the Old Testament, as the once and for all Atonement.
Prove Jesus was and is God? Prove you’re Joe Green! You have a piece of paper? Jesus has more documents than one single paper! Some things are taken on faith, after the evidence is examined! Jesus declared the Shema! There is no such rule such as: “The One eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, Holy Creator cannot be complex in His Oneness.” (Cohen; Zion’s Fire; p 15)
3. If, just supposing here, Jesus were the One sent from Heaven to earth, Meshea, the Anointed One, the Lamb of all lambs, for the pinnacle purpose of releasing us from our greatest debt, an unpayable debt, for our continual betrayal of God, THEN accepting His life and sacrifice in our hearts is not the rejection of the One True God! Rejecting Jesus IS. To put it another way, seeking the Messiah is a directive from God and must come from within. Finding Him is a discovery, not surrender to outside pagan cultural pressure. You might hear the News from the Christian “religion” but God’s Word, i.e. Isaiah 52:12-53 and the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are where Meshea is to be wonderfully found!
Israel as a nation, and as Chosen individuals in love with God’s Holy Word (as the Shema commands), have “a special obligation to await [the One whom God Himself would raise up and send to them] and should He come, to accept Him and love Him specifically because God sent Him. The essential point of Messiah is that He is God sent.” (Cohen; pp15-16) Putting aside the fact that Jesus Christ our Savior is God, this obligation of the Shema remains plastered in the heart of every human soul.
“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the Bright Morning Star.” ~Revelation 22:16
1. Jesus isn’t another god but was sent by the God of the Shema. Jesus is the long awaited for Messiah. Christ (Greek) means Messiah (Hebrew).
2. The Shema was strongly stated in the midst of Egypt’s and Canaan’s multiple gods and paganism. God was truly trying to protect Israel, His beloved. Here is where the much avoided tri-unity of our One and only God is discussed. Jesus, Son of the Father God, was there at Creation: “The Word was with God and the Word was God…Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.” (The beginning of John’s Gospel) In brief, the Holy Spirit, the third part of the God of the Bible, is an indwelling in men of faith. It’s not so much that God is broken into pieces as much as we need to have Him broken down for our feeble minds to comprehend His Glory!
He wants us to see more than an awesome, bright Shekinah Glory. He knows we, for the most part, can understand His complexity beyond a blinding Light. God has always wanted us to know Him better. As Dr. Cohen points out, the detail of His Creation, as we learn more and more, directs us to an ingenious, miraculous, wondrous Designer. His plan for all time was to save us from ourselves (Genesis 3:15) and to send a Lamb, the focus of the Old Testament, as the once and for all Atonement.
Prove Jesus was and is God? Prove you’re Joe Green! You have a piece of paper? Jesus has more documents than one single paper! Some things are taken on faith, after the evidence is examined! Jesus declared the Shema! There is no such rule such as: “The One eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, Holy Creator cannot be complex in His Oneness.” (Cohen; Zion’s Fire; p 15)
3. If, just supposing here, Jesus were the One sent from Heaven to earth, Meshea, the Anointed One, the Lamb of all lambs, for the pinnacle purpose of releasing us from our greatest debt, an unpayable debt, for our continual betrayal of God, THEN accepting His life and sacrifice in our hearts is not the rejection of the One True God! Rejecting Jesus IS. To put it another way, seeking the Messiah is a directive from God and must come from within. Finding Him is a discovery, not surrender to outside pagan cultural pressure. You might hear the News from the Christian “religion” but God’s Word, i.e. Isaiah 52:12-53 and the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are where Meshea is to be wonderfully found!
Israel as a nation, and as Chosen individuals in love with God’s Holy Word (as the Shema commands), have “a special obligation to await [the One whom God Himself would raise up and send to them] and should He come, to accept Him and love Him specifically because God sent Him. The essential point of Messiah is that He is God sent.” (Cohen; pp15-16) Putting aside the fact that Jesus Christ our Savior is God, this obligation of the Shema remains plastered in the heart of every human soul.
“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the Bright Morning Star.” ~Revelation 22:16
