What God Has To Say About Himself.

In the second century there was a religious teacher by the name of Marcion of Sinope. He started a religious movement that became known as Marcionism. Marcion was declared a heretic because he held to many errant views, but he is primarily known for his belief that the Old Testament Scriptures were not authoritative for a Christian. He denied that the God of the Old Testament was the same God presented in the New Testament. For Marcion, Jesus was the Son of the God of the New Testament but not the Son of the deity described in the Hebrew Scriptures. 

And while some 18 centuries have passed since his time, there are still many people today that pretty much believe the same thing. They have separated the God of the Old Testament from the God that Jesus reveals in the New Testament. This is made known every time someone talks about the God of the O.T. who destroys His enemies, and sends down wrath and punishment upon the people. Even the God who will send much of His creation to an eternal Hell! One does not have to read very far into the O.T. to find this God who urges His people to wipe out every man woman and child, even the animals. For example 1 Sam. 15:2-3 "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.  Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."

So it is no wonder that when Jesus appears on the scene, and talks about loving your enemies, doing good to those who spitefully use you, etc. it appears that Jesus is talking about a different Heavenly Father than the one the O.T. seems to reveal Who would not do the same to His enemies. So then what is going on here? Why the difference?

The truth is that the Father God that Jesus reveals IS the God of Old Testament. The discrepancy comes from the God depicted in the Old Testament writings being a distorted record told by a people who had an incomplete understanding of this God that was being revealed to them piece by piece throughout history. Each time God reveals a new Name to be called, the Children of Israel get another revelation of a Character of His Nature. But each Name was an incomplete understanding of who God is in the fullness of Himself. In the meantime, God lets His people tell the story. 

Does that mean that the Biblical account is not inspired Scripture? Of course not. It is a record of the nation of Israel being led out from among other nations to be separated unto God, to be blessed, and a blessing to the other nations. It is the process of this nation of Israel acting out according to the incomplete knowledge of God as they were coming to know Him. They also were acting out in a manner that was contrary to the full True Nature of God who is Love. It is also a record of the Israelite's failure to obey the purpose God for which He had called them.

 So do we do away with the O.T. because they got it wrong some of the time as Marcion wanted to do? No, because each experience of successes and failures are part of the nation's process along the journey of coming to know God. It would be no different than getting rid of a record of your understanding and experiences of coming to know God because you got some of it wrong, and dare I say we all STILL are getting some of it wrong! The question isn't can we find it in the Bible, the question is can we find it in Jesus.

If you want to know about the True Nature of the God of the Old Testament, the sure fire way to do that is to look at Jesus!  Jesus is the revelation of what God has to say about Himself.  Phil 2:9-11 "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:"  Meaning that the nature of Jesus is the fullness of All of the Names of God revealed in the O.T. in bodily form!... "in that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

 Jesus is the revelation of what God has to say about Himself. In Colossians 2:9 "For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;" Colossians 1:5 Amp.  "He is the exact living image [the essential manifestation] of the unseen God [the visible representation of the invisible], the firstborn [the preeminent one, the sovereign, and the originator] of all creation."

In the Gospel of Luke 24:16-17 Jesus is talking with two disciples on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection, and he says this: "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." Don't you wish that more was recorded about that conversation? But it is not hidden from you. All that is needed is to read the Old Testament with the realization that God and the Son are ONE, and if you can't see Jesus doing the things the Scriptures depict God as doing,  you can then realize the Children of Israel did not know the God revealed in Jesus like you do. John 14:9 "Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?" 

There are many who say that Jesus never claimed to be God in the Gospels, but that is simply not true. Jesus made it very clear to the religious leaders of His day exactly who He claimed to be, and they crucified Him for it! 

God is NOT schizophrenic. He is not vengeful in the O.T. and loving in the New Testament.  God does not change. God is not malleable. God IS LOVE, all of the time!

In fact, as I learned from listening to Brian Zhand, pastor of Word of Life church in St. Joseph MO., "God is like Jesus. God has always been like Jesus. There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus. We have not always known this, but now we do!"

Just remember: Jesus Is The Revelation Of What God Has To Say About Himself! Amen.

That SEEMS Right.

TLAR, is an acronym for "That Looks About Right". It is usually used by someone who is not interested in taking the time to be accurate, when only a close enough is good enough to get by. If it looks about right, then it will be okay. 

Proverbs 14:12 says: "There is a way that seems right unto a man but the end thereof is destruction." Well that certainly would lead you to think that accuracy is of utmost important in this case! No room for error there! The question then becomes if you end up in destruction from just going the way that seemed right to you, then  how do you know what right way to go so that you don't end up in destruction?

What about the verse in Matt 7:13-14  where Jesus says  “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it."

That is usually preached in such a way as to mean, that it is the way of the world that seems right to a man. As a way to separate from living the life of a Christian rather than living the life of the world system. But the truth is that the way of the world does not really seem right at all even to the world. In fact if you asked someone if worldly ways of sin etc seem right even if they were not saved, would have to agree that it doesn't seem right. Even the worst criminal has some sort of standards of right and wrong, though there is a line even they won't cross. 

So if the wide gate is not the way of the world, then what is Jesus saying? This verse is within the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is not preaching to a bunch of Gentiles, He is speaking with people who are Jews, and who are very familiar with the Scriptures, and who would already be living their lives by the laws separated from the world, so it would not make sense to warn them to not do what they are not doing anyway. 

So what He is telling them is that the way they are living that DOES seem right is the way of following the LAW. But following the law was NEVER meant to make them right with God. It was always meant to be self proof that you cannot by your own works make yourself righteous! It was to constantly remind them of their sin consciousness! To keep them always aware of their need for forgiveness. Sacrifices and rituals and prayers were a daily reminder of their sinfulness. Thus they placed the emphasis on the sacrifices as if that is the point God was making, which is why Psalm 50:12  If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: For the world is mine, and the fullness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, Or drink the blood of goats?" Heb. 10:8 "Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law"

So what is going on here? Wasn't it God who gave the Law to Moses, and laid out the whole sacrificial system? Yes. But the point was not for the same reason pagans would sacrifice to their gods. The pagans would do it to receive favor in exchange for the sacrifice to appease their gods. Instead the God of Israel wanted the Israelites to sacrifice as a reminder of the Covenant He has with them to become the ultimate sacrifice for their sin in the person of Jesus Christ. They lost the point of what Hosea writes in 6:6 "For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings."

The Pharisees were a group of religious leaders that believed that the Messiah would come when everyone started becoming as righteous as they saw themselves. That is why they had so much disdain for "publicans and sinners". The Pharisees blamed them for preventing the Messiah from coming. They also berated Jesus for eating with tax collectors and sinners, claiming that he endorsed their lifestyle and was part of the problem why the Messiah isn't coming, never believing for a moment that the Messiah had come and it was Him; Jesus, who they were condemning! They were promoting a "way that seems right to a man..."

"Wide is the gate and many there be that find it, and it leads to destruction." Well, Jesus did not say that it leads to eternal torment in hellfire! But that is what gets preached in order to scare people into churches! But the fact is that preaching the law IS the invitation to the wide gate. Rom.6:23 " For the wages of sin is death,... Oh how we like to preach that to put sinners under condemnation (Notice that it does not say the wages of sin is eternal torment in the fires of hell!) ...but the GIFT of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Speaking of condemnation, Paul addresses that in Rom. 8:1-2 "There is therefore now NO condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." 

 Paul is teaching that the outcome of the Mosaic Law could only produce sin and death. But now since the sacrifice of Jesus, we now live under a NEW LAW of the Spirit of LIFE! We are a NEW creation, and therefore have entered into the narrow way of abundant life in Christ! We are now free from a conscientiousness of sin. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Definitely; once your eyes have been opened by the Spirit of God, then looking with the new eyes of the Spirit, you will now see the path of truth. Now: That SEEMS Right.