Did the Jews of the OT worship the same God Christians now worship?
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Drummer4Christ
Member
By "Jews of the OT" do you mean:
The Jews who worshipped the golden calf?
The Jews who worshipped Ba'al?
The Jews who continually turned away from God to instead worship the pagan deities of surrounding tribes?
Or do you mean Jews such as Abraham, Moses, David, Ezekiel, Isaiah whose life works are a testament to Gods triunity and/or Christ's divinity?
It's a simple question and you know what I'm asking. But I'll reword it for you: Did the Jews of the OT who worshiped the God of the OT, worship the same God Christians now worship?
Drummer4Christ
Member
No, I don't know what you're asking, that's why I sought clarification. However, I assume what you are getting is that the Jews of the OT could not have "worshipped the same God Christians now do" because the events of the NT (Jesus' death & resurrection, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit) had not yet transpired. Again, I direct your attention to John 8:21-59 wherein Jesus unequivocally states that:
1. Jews who do not accept Him have Satan as their father, not Abraham.
2. That Abraham knew who He was, rejoiced at His coming, and saw His arrival.
3. That as Abraham once was alive, He is the Living God.
However, for all intents & purposes:
No, the Jews of the OT had a habit of prostituting themselves to false gods. Each time the Jews turned away from God, He would mete out punishment through hostile pagan aggression towards the Israelites. Each time, God would rescue the Jews by rendering judgement against the pagan aggressors by defeat at the hands of the Jews. Each time, the Jews would quickly forget what God had done, and return back to worshipping false gods starting the process all over again.
In short, very few Jews of the OT (i.e. Abraham) worshipped the God of the OT.
Sinthesis
Member
This seems to be a very Islamic way to think about Judaism.:2cents
Drummer4Christ
Member
How so?
Was I incorrect in my summarization of the OT Jews disobedience?
Was I incorrect in my summarization of John 8:21-59?
No, my whole point has been that the Jews have always worshiped the same God as the Christians.
And yet the Jews of the OT didn't accept Christ as their saviour and worshiped Yahweh, not Satan.
All of this is actually not relevant to the question. The God of the OT is the God of the OT and this is who the Jews worshiped and were supposed to worship.Drummer4Christ said:
Drummer4Christ
Member
That's why I asked you to clarify, as I'm sure you aren't equating Jews who worshiped Ba'al to Jews who worshiped Yahweh.
Are you saying that Yahweh never revealed His triune nature to any Jews of the OT?
Are you saying that the Jews of the OT never worshiped any other God except Yahweh?
Yes that is so, but back then, Ishmael and Hagar worshipped who they knew, and that was the God of Abraham. They really didn't stick around long enough to understand all the prophecies about the Messiah. Where abouts in the OT did Jesus make it clear to Abraham, Ishmael or Hagar?
Drummer4Christ
Member
I don't know about Ishmael & Hagar, but God made it clear to Abraham:
Genesis 12:7
The Lord appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
Genesis 13:15
"All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever."
Genesis 24:7a-d
"The Lord, the God of heaven, who brought me out of my father's household and my native land and who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, 'To your offspring I will give this land'
Or, as Paul wrote to the Galatians in chapter 3 verse 16:
The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed" meaning one person, who is Christ.
This verse in and of itself refutes the notion that God's promises to Abraham were imputed to anyone other than Christ (i.e. Ishmael, Muhammed).
Further proof of this lies in Galatians 4:1-7 & 22-31
1 What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. 2 The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. 3 So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. 4 But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. 6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father" 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God's child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. 23 His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.
24 These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is written:
"Be glad, barren woman,
you who never bore a child;
shout for joy and cry aloud,
you who were never in labor;
because more are the children of the desolate woman
than of her who has a husband."
28 Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 At that time the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. 30 But what does Scripture say? "Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman's son." 31 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.
One could even argue that the preceding verses are prophetic in the context of Islam, not only allegedly descending from Ishmael, but vying for control of literal Jerusalem! But I'll save that for a different thread
I don't know about Ishmael & Hagar, but God made it clear to Abraham:
Genesis 12:7
The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land." So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
Genesis 13:15
"All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever."
Genesis 24:7a-d
"The Lord, the God of heaven, who brought me out of my father’s household and my native land and who spoke to me and promised me on oath, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give this land’
Or, as Paul wrote to the Galatians in chapter 3 verse 16:
The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ.
This verse in and of itself refutes the notion that God's promises to Abraham were imputed to anyone other than Christ (i.e. Ishmael, Muhammed).
Further proof of this lies in Galatians 4:1-7 & 22-31
1 What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. 2 The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. 3 So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. 4 But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. 6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. 23 His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.
24 These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is written:
“Be glad, barren woman,
you who never bore a child;
shout for joy and cry aloud,
you who were never in labor;
because more are the children of the desolate woman
than of her who has a husband.”
28 Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 At that time the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. 30 But what does Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” 31 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.
One could even argue that the preceding verses are prophetic in the context of Islam, not only allegedly descending from Ishmael, but vying for control of literal Jerusalem! But I'll save that for a different thread
To much unreadable text to know what you are trying to get across here but the bottom line is that Hagar and Ishmael worshipped the same God Abraham knew up to that point.
Drummer4Christ
Member
I cleaned up my mess, sorry about that.
My point is that Abraham was neither ignorant of the nature of God, nor of the fulfillment of the promises concerning his "seed" AKA Christ. As I stated earlier, it may have been that Ishmael & Hagar worshiped the same God that made (and subsequently fulfilled) these promises to Abraham. However, both OT & NT Scripture are clear that we share no spiritual heritage with the "slave woman" nor her "child born of flesh".
It boils down to this: Either the Qur'an was divinely inspired & Muhammed was telling the truth.
Or, the Qur'an was not divinely inspired & Muhammed was a lair.
If we cannot trust anything Muhammed had to say about Jesus, why should we trust him regarding what he said about Abraham, Ishmael, and Hagar?
I pretty much am but, again, it matters not to my question nor my point.
Yes.Drummer4Christ said:
No but that too is not relevant to my point or the question I asked. Besides, many Christians throughout history, including currently, have worshiped other gods besides Yahweh and may or may not have turned back. This does not mean they didn't ever worship Yahweh.
To keep from getting further off topic, my whole point has been to show the error of arguing that the god of Islam cannot be Yahweh based on the fact that they don't accept Jesus as the Son of God. If that were the case, then we must say the same about Jews throughout history but that would clearly mean we need to get rid of the entire OT.
Drummer4Christ
Member
It does matter. If I were to claim that the Westboro Baptist Church worships the same God we do because they too trace their spiritual heritage back to Abraham and use the same terms to refer to God, no doubt you would be pointing out how it is not in God's nature to "hate fags".
Then perhaps you can explain Psalm 110:1 The LORD said to my LORD
Again, it is relevant if you're going to lump all the Jews into one category, rather than admitting that the Israelites of the OT spent a great amount of time not worshiping Yahweh.
No, we wouldn't have to get rid of the OT considering it contains passages revealing Gods triunity & Christ's divinity. In fact NT writers consistently quoted the OT to back their claim that Jesus is God.
Much better and I agree whole heartily. I was addressing the OP and in that vein they were the same God. Mohamed definitely screwed things up.
Drummer4Christ
Member
Then why believe his claim's regarding Abraham's Islamic heritage?
I have no idea what you are talking about.
Drummer4Christ
Member
Muhammed, the founder of Islam, was the one who first claimed that Arabs were descendants of Ishmael. Muhammed claims that Abraham and Ishmael originally set up Mecca as a monotheistic holy place, that they originally built a shrine to Allah (God) there, but that at some point the Arabs who worshiped there kept adding god's to the shrine and perverted the worship of the God of Abraham and Ishmael. Included in this shrine is a "celestial stone" (meteorite) given to Abraham by an angel, after he constructed the Kaaba that Allah (God) showed him how to make. Again, this is all according to Muhammed.
Where in the OT does Abraham receive a rock that fell from heaven as a reward for building a shrine in Mecca with his son Ishmael?
If the answer is "never", than it is doubtful that the pre-islamic pagan Arabs are descendants of Ishmael since Genesis existed as canonized scripture (hundreds of years) let alone as an oral tradition (thousands of years) prior to the birth of Muhammed.
Stormcrow
Member
Case in point:
When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, "Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades. Revelation 1:17-18 (NASB)
"Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: 'I am the first and I am the last, And there is no God besides Me. Isaiah 44:6 (NASB)
"Listen to Me, O Jacob, even Israel whom I called; I am He, I am the first, I am also the last. "Surely My hand founded the earth, And My right hand spread out the heavens; When I call to them, they stand together. Isaiah 48:12-13 (NASB)
Jews deny the deity of Christ despite the Law and Prophets (and we know this is because of the partial hardening of their hearts for the sake of bringing Gentiles into the kingdom in Paul's letter to the Romans).
Islam denies the deity of Christ because of the Koran and Mohammed.
It's a subtle but important difference.
Sinthesis
Member
Yes you are incorrect. The OT Jews were never as a group completely disobedient. Some were wicked, often including their leadership which then led the masses astray. Yet God always reserved to Himself a remnant of those OT Jews that were righteous. Their righteousness did not depend on their apprehension of the triune nature of God. None of the OT saints perceived the triune nature of God. Rather, it was their faith in God even without a complete understanding of His plan that was counted to them as righteousness.
Likewise, in John Chapter 8 Jesus was confronting a particular group of Jews (scribes & pharisees) who should have know from their studies that He was the promised Messiah, yet would not accept Him because they did not want to give up their heritage as God's chosen people and all the delusions that accompanied that status.
Jews have never been homogeneous to be despised or lauded as a group. This kind of stereotyping is in direct contradiction to Jesus' teaching as regards to being "perfect". Islam teaches the opposite of course.