More On Christianity with Mr Debanjan Banerjee
Reader comment on item: Barack Obama and Islam: An Ongoing Saga
in response to reader comment: More on Islam with Mr. Tovey

Submitted by M. Tovey (United States), Sep 17, 2009 at 15:06

Let us clear up first things first, in that the reference to the Hebrew Holy Bible, for this reader, comprises both the Old and New Testaments, the Tanach and the Brit Hadassah. Reason: Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of this reader's faith, established the Hebrew nation, was born to a Jewish tradition during His brief season in temporal humanity, and is the returning King of Israel. Inherently, the Holy Bible in its entirety is Hebrew.

Now, straying from the homogenous nature of the Holy Scriptures is the single greatest failing of humanity, that in rebellion to its truth, human logic is most oftentimes inserted to make some human sense of something that is supernatural in its essence. We read of the dissertations of the Jewish scholars, Christian scholars, agnostic scholars, even Islamic scholars, all trying from their humanist perspectives to make the WORD of the LORD fit their perception of what Almighty God is all about, and failing to let HIM tell them what HE wants them to know. It is no wonder mankind has limited understanding, if any understanding, of what Almighty God wants for mankind: no one in their fallen human nature really wants to hear what He has to say.

As they say, 'Let us start from the beginning.'

We will start with the nature of the Being we shall call Almighty God, and direct our inquiry towards the only reliable source on such matters, from His own WORD, the Hebrew Holy Bible, part one. From this, we shall start with the first of the many names given for the use of identifying Almighty God – Elohim. Before going any further, let us caution ourselves; Almighty God is passionate about many things, but few things exceed His passion for the protection of the use of His NAME, such as we find in the directive of one of the commandments; thou shalt NOT take the NAME of the LORD in vain. We'll come back to that later. The name then, is the first of many things that provide insight into the nature of Who Almighty God is, and the nature of His personality. While observance of Almighty God as a single Deity, the basis of Judaism, Christianity (some denominations will make a finer point of that in violation of the Scriptures) and Islam, this is done in opposition to the implied understanding of His personality as can be derived from the Old Testament, and from the confirmation of the Old Testament in the New.

Back to Elohim, which by the scholarship of many Hebrew sources, is a plural word in the Hebrew language. So in the first sentence of the beginning of the Holy Bible, we have our first clue. We move on through the reading of several verses as 'Elohim' speaks each part of the Creation into existence until we get to verse, 26, when we read " And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:"……..Let us? Now the question is, who is Us? We'll come back to that later.

We will now fast forward to Abraham, a man we are told by Almighty God is blessed of Him in that he is the first of the Hebrew nation, and a man who makes himself accountable to Almighty God by his faith, a man who is used of Almighty God to anchor the faith of all by his belief in the WORD of the LORD. It is to him Jehovah (another of the names of Almighty God) made an appearance, providing Abraham audience with the LORD in a way no other man would be able to countenance until Moses. The LORD is on His way to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah when He pauses at Abraham's tent to discuss His intentions, and Abraham is able to recognize Who He is. What we see here, then, is the pre-incarnate person of the LORD, the Personality of Yeshua HaMashiach, a distinct representation of the Deity of Almighty God in a form recognizable to humans. Alternative theological theorists will have a humanistic logical explanation for this, but reality, none make a true Biblical argument.

We come next to a contemporary of Abraham's, Job. The name of Elohim is first referenced, yet Jehovah is employed throughout the verses as Job is engaged in dialogue. In that dialogue, the LORD (Jehovah) provides a description that implies physiological form to the LORD, of His mighty arm, of a voice unimaginable in its strength to accomplish anything the LORD intends. If we are to follow the basic tenet that the LORD is a Spirit, to be worshiped in Spirit and Truth, we marvel then that the Hebrew Holy Scriptures depicts the LORD in a fashion as a man. Why? Let us move on.

Then we move next to a brief mention, unmistakable to those of a true faith in Jesus Christ, of the prediction of His temporal human birth, and the names associated with that event: Isaiah 9:6, 'For to us a child is born, to us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.' It is an Old Testament reference to the Second Person of the Godhead.

Then we move to Isaiah 61:1 (portion), 'The Spirit of the Lord GOD [is] upon me:' the portion of Scripture Yeshua Hamashiach read to His Jewish brothers to announce that He is the Chosen One, the fulfillment of all the prophetical passages regarding Who Yeshua is to them then, and Who He is to all of us now. This is again reference, one of many others, to the next personality of the Deity found in the Hebrew Holy Scriptures, yet it does not truly detract from HIs being known as One God.

Now, it is argued by many that the term 'trinity' does not appear in the Old Testament, and this is, by this reader's understanding, true. But we must understand also, it does not detract from the different and distinct appearances of the LORD in His manifestations to the Hebrew people mentioned in the Holy Bible, only a few of which have been mentioned here. The other thing to remember here, that the term 'trinity' does not appear in the New Testament either, yet it does not minimize the plural (remember the Name 'Elohim' is plural) representation of Almighty God, such as when we read when Jesus Christ describes the LORD as His 'Father.' The plurality is enhanced when Jesus Christ describes sending His Comforter, the 'Paracletus', in His place to give that direct contact to Heaven while Jesus Christ sits in His position of being our Mediator for the remission of our sins.

On which topic, sin, we come now to the next dissertation, of 'Original Sin(s),' suggested by some, and by your understanding, to be a manufacture of human logic in order to sway unsuspecting believers from the truth of the Holy Bible, cloaked and couched in ecclesiastical semantics never meant to do anything beyond preventing the common man from coming to the truth of salvation in Jesus Christ as LORD and Savior. Fortunately for this reader, never having more than an introductory understanding of the early scholastics of Augustus, Origen, Eusebius, et al, what the message of Jesus Christ means to this reader is simple, that in the Gospel, Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, preached the Good News of His first appearance (see the Isaiah 9, 53, 55, 61 Old Testament references again), was condemned by the Jewish religious rulers of that time and sent to Roman execution on the cross to die for our sins, raised again from the dead for our justification in faith that He is indeed our LORD and Savior. See the Gospel of John.

Oh, but, there is that word again, sin: how does that apply in reference to the 'Original Sin.' The early commentators of the Church did not create the concept of sin; they could not describe that to which they are as susceptible as all. Original sin is nothing more than the Biblical reference to the disobedience of Adam in rebellion to what Almighty God told him in Genesis chapter 2. Rebellion to Almighty God results in death. Sin equals rebellion: rebellion equals death. Introduce Jesus Christ into that equation and we find in the Second Person of Almighty God the One who takes our penalty of death unto Himself and dies our death for our sin, which by our belief in Him in faith and in His love provides the basis of our salvation, in the Name of Jesus Christ. The Third Person of the Godhead thereby is the power of Almighty God given to believers on earth to deal with the issues of Spirituality while still in these temporal, mortal bodies trapped with the effects of 'Original Sin', until replaced with incorruptible bodies of eternity.

Let us proceed further, for the previous writer has posed many questions already answered by many, but with answers that did not satify the need for the truth. This is partly due to the situation that the Adversary of our souls has had decades, nay centuries, to develop counter humanistic arguments to the Biblical truth contained in the Holy Bible, to the confusion of all who have allowed the mentality of rebellion to enter into their souls.

Now to the allusion of the previous writer's position, there is the impression that Islam is the preferred philosophical persuasion, demonstrated by a more than passing knowledge of debated questions about the veracity of Christianity versus other theological persuasions. It may be that by saying the Quran is an attempted substitution for the Holy Bible is a nice way of presenting the reality, that actually the Quran takes pointed and directed parts of the Holy Bible and replaces the doctrine with the Prophet's understanding, typically in direct contradiction to what the Holy Bible says. This reader is not aware that the Islamic Prophet said the Holy Bible is to be replaced, except as his followers say he does; yet we see in the actions of the extremist Muslims in subjugating societies and obscuring what the Holy Bible says about, say, who Jesus Chris really is, does one understand the need for the follower of the Quran to dispel Holy Biblical directives so that the Quran may survive the truth contained in the Holy Bible. Therefore, rejecting the Islamic Prophet for his being Arab is not the real reason for adopting a position skeptical of the tenets of Islam, but only in that the followers of the Islamic Prophet saying that the Holy Bible is corrupt without the real spiritual proof does one of the Islamic belief system put themselves in jeopardy of the judgment of the Holy Bible.

Next, as to the schisms of denominational diversity (that's putting it mildly), there is the simple answer; that those who have rejected the simple truth of the Holy Bible (much in the same fashion that can be found in the reasoning Muslims point to for disparaging Christianity) must find argument of justification for doing to in order to salve their seared conscience for turning their back on Jesus Christ.

Next we move back to the simple fact of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, of the sufficiency of His sacrifice on the cross to be the Savior of all who believe. Therein lies the application of the truth, that only those who accept His sacrifice in His love and kindness will be specifically identified with Him in eternity; the rejection of the others of that sacrifice will get their desire, of being rejected by Him and the application of His blood for them will not occur: their choice, their judgment. Remember why Jesus Christ wept at the tomb of Lazarus, for the unbelief of the people there who had the best chance to see and be with Jesus when He could be seen of all. We who believe not having seen Him the first time have a greater blessing coming, seeing Him in His full glory.

Now as to the Christian influences on the Constitutional process that formed the United States of America, remember that just like we see today, the Constitution was established for the better good, but not all would follow it for the better good. Here again the same mistake is made that we do not live in a perfect world, that there are bad people living with the good people, and there are people who will take advantage of the good people's goodness in their performance of the bad deeds. So we see that the Indians were mistreated (actually before the United States was formed, the early Europeans developed a bad rapport with the native populations, causing the bad blood at least a hundred years before the United States was though of), thereby setting the stage for poor relations ever since. Another misunderstanding of history portrayed here is on the issue of the first (so far the only – Iran and North Korea notwithstanding) use of nuclear force in a hostile situation. Remember, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not targeted for American aggression in the Japanese Islands. Had the Japanese not begun their aggression in China, Indochina, the Philipinnes, etc., etc., and then attack the American presence on the Hawaiian Islands, then the need to seek a solution for ending what became the most egregious time of hostilities would not have been there. Remember also, that had the Allies not stopped the similar activities of the the Germans in development of their nuclear capabilities for actual aggressive use, you might very well be having this discussion in German. Verstehen Sie?

Finally, as you have made your request known, so to this reader begs indulgence for the length of this answer, which in all sincerity, hopefully provides some illumination as to why Christianity is always sullied with the misperceptions that prevent the truth of the love of Almighty God from being shared when the evidence is that only in Jesus Christ will the real answers of humanity's need for Him be found.

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