Kurt,
In our text messages the past few days (April 2016) you
continue to find reasons to accuse Jesus of being a false-prophet because he
did not, from your point of view, follow through on what he said about his
immediate return:
Luk 9:27 But I tell you most certainly, there are some
standing here who will not experience
death before they see the kingdom
of God."
Mat
16:28 I tell
you the truth, there are some standing here who will not experience death before they see
the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."
Mar 9:1 And he said to them, "I tell you the
truth, there are some standing here who will not experience death before they see
the kingdom of God come with power."
There are two common threads in these three verses: First, the
truth. Second, some of his hearers would not experience death before they “see
the kingdom”. As I understand your position, you don’t think any of the
people ever saw the ‘the kingdom”, and therefore Jesus was a false-prophet. Do I
have that right?
As I understand it, “the kingdom” is a spiritual kingdom and
not a specific place.
As I address this subject it seems so trivial and at the
same time absurd to assume that none of Jesus’s followers ever saw ‘the kingdom’.
Then there are these three verses from the Olivet Discourse
accounts:
Mat 24:34 I tell you the truth, this generation will
not pass away until all these things take place.
Mar 13:30 I tell you the truth, this generation will
not pass away until all these things take place.
Luk 21:32 I tell you the truth, this generation will
not pass away until all these things take place.
These verses are taken out of some very serious and profound
contexts, ones not to be taken lightly. Smarter men than I have labored over
these verses, each searching for their own answers.
Here is another one of Jesus teaching that I don’t
understand (actually there are bunches of them):
Luke
11:49-52 NET.
(49) For this reason also the wisdom of God said,
'I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and
persecute,'
(50) so that this generation may be held accountable for the blood of all the
prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world,
(51) from the blood of Abel to the blood of
Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you,
it will be charged against this generation.
(52) Woe to you experts in religious law! You have
taken away the key to knowledge! You did not go in yourselves, and you hindered
those who were going in."
If this use of ‘generation’ in these verses means that all
the killings from Abel to Christ were somehow to be charged to people listening
to Jesus – then I don’t understand. That would seem very unjust! The term ‘generation’
must have more than one meaning!
I watched a TV program recently and I thought about our
discussion. The TV program was a who-done-it of sorts, there was a murder - a woman
had been shot. The main players were a suspect, the hardnosed investigator Mr.
G., and the DA – the prosecutor.
The scene was Mr. G. interrogating the suspect who confesses
to the crime and as Mr. G. is leaving the interrogating room the DA steps out
from behind the one-way-glass and says, “Good job, we have our killer, I’ll
take custody of him now.”
Mr. G. stops him, “Not, yet.”
The DA, “Why?”
Mr. G., “Because he didn’t do it.”
DA, “I just heard him confess, we have our killer!”
Mr. G., “I’ve known this man for 40 years, we grew up
together, he saved my life once. If there was a bullet in the air he’s the man
that would take it, he’d never be the man to fire it! He’s covering for someone.”
As the TV program developed Mr. G. was right and the DA was
both mad and amazed.
When the program finished I thought about us and Jesus being
a false-prophet. It seemed to me that you are like the prosecuting DA, you look
at these verses and say Jesus confessed to this crime. He said some of those
living would see him come in all his glory, but he didn’t do that, therefore he
is a false-prophet. Case closed!
On the other hand, I’m more like Mr. G.. When I consider
that the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament, his birth was announced
by and angel, he was preceded by John the Baptist, God approved of his baptism,
he healed the sick, made the blind see, raised the dead, spoke only what his
Father told him, he died unjustly on a cross, was buried, God raised him on the
third day, he ascended back to heaven, and that he saved my life, then I must
conclude that he didn’t lie! He is the kind of person that people lie about,
but he would not lie!
Since we both read the same Bible and since we come to
different conclusions, then the problem is not with the Bible but with the
assumptions be bring to the Bible.
If we assume that God is made in man’s image, then God cannot
be perfect, Jesus is not his son, and the Bible is not true – we can reach that
conclusion without opening the Bible.
If, on the other hand, we open the Bible and we learn that
man is made in God’s image, that God loves what he made, and that he sent his
son to be the son-of-man, so men can be the sons of God. Under these
assumptions, God is perfect, he has no need to lie, and therefore Jesus did not
lie in the above verses. If we don’t completely understand what Jesus said, the
problem is not with the speaker but with our understanding.
If Jesus was a liar and if his return during the lifetime of
his hearers was a Christianity deal killer, then I’d expect Christianity would
die as soon as these people died. However, those closest to Jesus did not
discount him or his teaching because he didn’t return in their lifetime as you
and others demand. If the above verses were a Christian deal killer I would
have expected the youngest apostle, the Apostle John, to be writing about the
end of Christianity rather than the Book of Revelation.
History reports the second generation of Christians defending
and dying for their faith, they did not understand that Jesus had to come back before
his hearers died. Justin Martyr (100-165 A.D.) was martyred for his belief in Jesus.
Ignatius of Antioch (35-108 A.D.) was fed to wild beasts, Polycarp (69-155
A.D.) was burned at the stake for his beliefs. There are too many more to
mention here.
Instead of Christianity dying during the second generation
of Christians we find it expanding, eventually taking over the Roman Empire
(the government that killed Jesus), and becoming a worldwide religion.
In conclusion, looking at the complete life of Jesus, lying
is not something he does and therefore I’m not tempted to trash the Son-of-God
over one topic that may be hard to understand.
Here are two helpful web sites – written by men smarter than
me:
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