Author: Ken Ammi

God Who?

This essay was written on July 2002.

This very basic essay was written because of the recent revival of God and prayer throughout the USA. On the one hand, we have experienced a wonderful time of coming together, repentance, prayer and thankfulness. On the other hand, this is a time in which due to syncretism1 we are seeing quite a bit of distortion, delusion and melding of who God is and how we ought to worship Him.

God is Back!
In light of our recent national tragedy on September 11, 2001, God has been allowed back within the borders of the USA and He has been allowed back into public view. The President encouraged all Americans to pray, schools are praying, the government is praying, prayer is revived and God is back! Apparently it is only acceptable to pray in America when tragedy strikes.We don’t thank God when things are good, we just cry for His help, question and blame Him when things are bad. And although God has been allowed back, back too is the ACLU. They are again hard at work trying to put God away and ruining the joy and freedom of the overwhelming majority of the population for the psychologically and politically offended minority.

These people are so convicted by the Holy Spirit that they do not what to ever hear, read or see anything at all about God or related issues.

Intolerant Unity
We have seen over and over again in the media and at local events that the various religions can come together in unison to preach and pray. We all pray, they say, we all believe in God, they say. But God who? Which God? The danger of such events is that God becomes a generic higher power, an undefined being who loves all, hears all prayers and judges no one. After all, aren’t we all God’s children? In fact, no, we are not. The Bible states, “Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12) We do not need to become something that we already are. Yes, we are all God’s creation but we are not all His children. This is where being born again comes into play (see John 3:1-21).

Interestingly enough, the Hebrew word Elohim is somewhat of a generic term. Biblically, it is used in reference to the One and only God, to false gods, and to human judges. This is because Elohim can be translated as God, god, gods, goddess, mighty one or mighty ones.2 Yet the God of the Bible is Tetragrammaton (known as YHWH, Yahweh, Jehovah, etc.).

But is God just some indefinable, all encompassing, non-judgmental being? Even as we hear over and over the expounding of syncretism, we still hear a bit of intolerance. God seems to have been relegated to Judaism, Christianity and Islam alone. Jews, Christians and Muslims are now getting together and stating that we all believe in one God. But God who? Which God? There is intolerance in an attempt to be tolerant because there are polytheistic and henotheistic3 religions that are being ignored. For example, Hinduism worships some 330,000,000 gods, Mormonism believes in an innumerable number of gods because gods give birth to gods and so on and so forth. Buddhism is atheistic. Some religions worship idols, some don’t. Some religions teach the assurance of salvation, some don’t, etc., etc.

Thus, the monotheists come together to pray to God, but to a generic God. The only agreement as to who God is is that God is one-that there is but one God. And so God is God is God, the same God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This is a danger because the God of even just these three religions is vastly different. Christians worship the One God of the Bible, the One God of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures and worship the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as God. This is unacceptable to Judaism who rejects Jesus as Messiah and certainly rejects Him as God.
Islam claims to worship the One God of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures and the Qur’an, but Allah and the One God (YHWH) are different in character, in word, in deed and in promise. Islam also completely rejects the idea that God could have a son and they accept Jesus only as one of many prophets (and reject the New Testament, relying on the Jesus described in the Qur’an, which was written more than half a millennia after Christ’s time). Most Christians are Trinitarians and yet the Qur’an teaches that Trinitarians are hell bound sinners whose only hope of salvation is conversion to Islam-Surah 5:72-73.

If Jews and Muslims worship the same God as Christians, them we should ask them if they now believe that Jesus is God, that would end such pseudo- syncretistic dreams.
God does not mean the same God, just as the Jesus Christ of the Bible is not the same Jesus Christ of Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, Islam, the New Age, etc. The name is the same but the person is different.

Today in the USA, in the name of syncretism, and political, and religious correctness, we are being told that we all worship the same God. We cannot judge whether these exponents of syncretism are being purposefully deceptive, are ignorant, or are just willing to fold under pressure. But what we can do is examine the beliefs of the various religions and clearly see that they cannot be mixed together. What we have seen recently is like mixing oil and water, there is an illusion of cohesion yet, given a little time to settle and we will see that they do not mix.
We can go as far as respecting that people have the right to worship whom they please, after all God has allowed us free will. However, we cannot respect those beliefs and practices since they are false and therefore, against God.

Generic Prayer
If our gods are different then we pray to different beings. The recent syncretistic prayers are generic and addressed to God; whoever that might be. There are some methods of prayer that all religions cannot accept or agree upon. For example, the repetitive prayers of Roman Catholicism and the chanting of Hinduism both go against the New Testament (see Matthew 6:5-15). Some religions have prescribed prayer, while others enjoy the spontaneity of personal communication with God. Islam prays five times a day while facing a specified direction, and praying by one’s self without a valid excuse is a sin.4 Jesus taught that there is no specific location where one must pray and that prayer is intimate communication with God (see John 4:21-24 & Matthew 6:6).

Death of the Innocent
This is perhaps the saddest, most sensitive, and emotionally charged aspect of our national tragedy. People have been saying that those who died have gone to heaven because they were innocent and that those who died attempting to rescue them are in heaven because they were innocent and in the midst of good works.

The first thing to note is that no one dies before his or her time. To say that someone could die before his or her time assumes that God is not sovereign, is not in charge, and if He is not sovereign then He is not God. Those who died with a proper relationship with God are now in His presence and will be for all eternity. Those who did not die with a proper relationship with God are now where they decided to go, a final destination of eternal separation from God. God provided them every possible change to have a relationship with Him:

“He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:26-28).

Innocence at the time of death does not mean innocence as far as sin is concerned. If a person lives their whole lives proving by thought, deed and word that they want nothing to do with God then when they die God would not force them to spend all eternity with Him because that is not what they chose, it is not what they wanted. No one who died without Christ would have come to Him if they had had one more day, one more year, or one more decade. The innocent death equals heaven equation is the reverse side of the Zen Buddhist Kamikaze mentality of the terrorists who believe that they will get to heaven if they die in Holy War-Salvation by death alone.

We live our lives with one foot in the grave and the other foot on a banana peel. Death is not a friend, death is a curse. Eternal life is a guarantee for all, but let us be sure where we will spend eternity.

This tragedy is a wake up call for Christians to share the truth and for the seekers to ask the tough questions and get to work on finalizing their search. Many people do not regularly think about life, death, eternal life or God. This recent event has many people wondering and asking.
In order to question God we ask, why do bad things happen to good people? The answer is another question, why do good things happen to bad people? Can a truly good person only be concerned about themselves or other good people?

True LifeJesus said,

“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son'” (John 3:15-18).

“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me'” (John 14:6).

“Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age'” (Matthew 28:18-20).

John wrote, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1st John 5:13).

To those who have accepted the Gospel, John did not say, so that you may worry or wonder or guess but that you may know. He also did not say might have or could have or try to have or think you have but have eternal life.

We recognize that there are various social and theological issues that could be expanded on and continually discussed. This is why at the beginning of this article we referred to this writing as very basic because we wanted to touch briefly upon a number of very timely topics and hope that we have accomplished our goal.

“‘You are My witnesses,’ says the Lord, ‘And My servantwhom I have chosen, That you may know and believe Me,

And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no

God formed, Nor shall there be after Me.'”
Isaiah 43:10

“The Lost Tomb of Jesus”, part 9 of 10

Erudite Elucidators?:
John Dominic Crossan is the co-founder and former co-chair of “The Jesus Seminar.” He makes his obligatory appearance in the documentary in order to make one statement: crossan5b15d-6521024

“If the bones of Jesus were to be found in an ossuary in Jerusalem tomorrow. Without doubt, let’s say they are definitely agreed to be the bones of Jesus. Would that destroy Christian faith? It certainly would not destroy my Christian faith. I leave what happens to bodies up to God.”

[He emphasized the word “my”]

Note that on June 26, 2000 ABC aired “Peter Jennings Reporting: The Search for Jesus” in which John Dominic Crossan stated that crucifixion was feared because it “was not simply that it made you suffer a lot. It meant that you didn’t get buried. That’s what made it one of the supreme Roman penalties-lack of burial.” Crossan believes that Jesus’ body was simply thrown in the city dump and was eaten by wild dogs.

Firstly, let us note that the problem with this statement is lack of evidence. Moreover, the evidence we do have on this subject proves him wrong and proves the Bible right. In 1968 the remains of a crucified man named Yhohnn (or Yohann) Yehohanan were found in an ossuary at Giv’at ha-Mivtar in Jerusalem. This find proved many details of the biblical account including a large nail imbedded through the heel bone and still embedded into a piece the wood, broken shin bones and burial in a family grave.

yhohnnyehohananyohannyehohananjesuscrucifixion-9703771

jesus_crucifixion-2442887

In 2000 John Dominic Crossan’s expertise informed us that crucifixion victims did not get buried. In 2007 Crossan’s expertise informed us that Jesus may have been buried and may be found. It would appear that the only thing that could challenge Crossan’s faith would be if the New Testament were to be taken in a literal, traditional, orthodox manner and if he would consider other historical and archeological evidence.

Another expert who seems to be up for anything is James Tabor of whom Ben Witherington comments thusly:

“What should we make of James Tabor’s being co-opted into this project? You will remember his book which came out last year The Jesus Dynasty. In that book he had quite a good deal to say about the Talpiot Tomb, and about Panthera being the father of Jesus, and about Jesus being buried in Galilee, and of course nothing about a ossuary which claims that Joseph is the father of Jesus.”1

tabor-4400603

While it is certainly difficult to discern a person’s mood and unacceptable to determine the motive of their heart; James Tabor appeared to be almost capricious or belittling at times:

“When He’s first buried it’s in a temporary tomb. And later, unless He somehow magically disappears and goes to heaven, which is a position of Christian faith, but if you’re gonna be historical and realistic, uh, He, He was put in a, would be put in a permanent place.”

The very cornerstone of the Christian faith is referred to as magical; well, we have been told worse. Notice his preconceived notion; “historical” and “realistic” does not allow the magical. You may say “Rightly so,” but do keep in mind that he is presenting us with an a priori commitment to naturalism/materialism. Unless it has been proven that naturalism/materialism is absolute we cannot simply dismiss the “magical.” It is a false dichotomy to juxtapose “historical” and “realistic” on the one hand and “magical” aka miraculous or supernatural on the other whilst asserting that never the twain shall meet.

He also states,

“Tell you something very interesting, there’re two genealogies of Jesus. Everybody reads the formal genealogy of Joseph_but the other genealogy is imbedded in Luke, people don’t notice it much, it’s Luke chapter three, you gotta turn a few pages.”

Who would have thunk it? Apparently, in two thousand years only James Tabor and a handful of people have noticed the genealogy in Luke. This reminds me of the author who wrote, “in a little-known passage of the Bible, the credit for killing Goliath is actually given to somebody completely different – David’s champion Elhanan”-“little known”?

We seem to be dealing with experts for whom any non-New Testament theory de jour will do.

‹ “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”, part 8 of 10 up

Is the Bible Skeptical About Miracles? – Show Yourselves

In this segment we will consider instances in which people were healed of some malady and were told to go to people who would have known of their malady so that they may see that they had been miraculously healed.

Legion: the Gadarene DemoniacIn Mark chapter 5 (and Luke 8:27-39 and Matthew 8:28-34) Jesus had traveled to the country of the Gadarenes which is opposite Galilee. Jesus is confronted by two demon possessed men one of whom is known as Legion (“for we are many”). This is quite a tragic story:

Legion made “his dwelling among the tombs; and no one could bind him, not even with chains, because he had often been bound with shackles and chains. And the chains had been pulled apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces; neither could anyone tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones (v. 3-5).

This was an extreme case of demonic possession. Jesus exorcized him and when He went to leave Legion (the now ex-Legion) “begged Him that he might be with Him. However, Jesus did not permit him, but said to him, ‘Go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you'” (v. 18-19).

jesusgadarenedemoniac-5989056
Blind From Birth
In John chapter 9 Jesus encounters “a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?'” (v. 1-2).
As we saw in the last segment, this is odd and fallacious theology as Jesus explains, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him (v. 3). And how could the man have sinned in order to have been born blind? He either sinned in the womb or he was a Hindu or Buddhist. Apparently, there was a non-biblical concept of a baby being able to sin in the womb.

Jesus heals him and sends him to “wash in the pool of Siloam,” Jesus had placed mud mixed with saliva on his eyes.

“So he went and washed, and came back seeing.Therefore the neighbors and those who previously had seen that he was blind said, ‘Is not this he who sat and begged?’Some said, ‘This is he.’ Others said, ‘He is like him.’He said, ‘I am he.’Therefore they said to him, ‘How were your eyes opened?’He answered and said, ‘A Man called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed, and I received sight.”Then they said to him, ‘Where is He?’He said, ‘I do not know'” (v. 7-12).

Note that he was seen by those who knew that he was blind and that some, in quite a natural response, questioned whether it was really him, “He is like him.”

Next:

“They brought him who formerly was blind to the Pharisees. Now it was a Sabbath when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also asked him again how he had received his sight. He said to them, ‘He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.’Therefore some of the Pharisees said, ‘This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.’Others said, ‘How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?’ And there was a division among them” (v. 13-16).

This goes to who the dead, dry as dust, heart of “religion”-they are more concerned about administrating laws than praising God for healing a blind man.

jesushealsablindman-3716505Thus:

17 They said to the blind man again, ‘What do you say about Him because He opened your eyes?’ He said, ‘He is a prophet.’But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind and received his sight, until they called the parents of him who had received his sight. And they asked them, saying, ‘Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?’His parents answered them and said, ‘We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know. He is of age; ask him. He will speak for himself.’ His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, ‘He is of age; ask him.’So they again called the man who was blind, and said to him, ‘Give God the glory! We know that this Man is a sinner.’He answered and said, ‘Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see'” (v. 17-25).

This is fascinating and quite logical: those who did not know him did not believe that he had been healed. Quite logically, they called for his parents to ask them whether he had been born blind and how he now sees. Their answer is likewise quite logical: they knew he was blind and that he now sees but nothing about what happened in between so why not ask him.His answer is the same he knew that he was blind and that he now sees but nothing about how the change occurred. It is almost as if the man and his parents are to deny the fact of the change from blindness to sight because they cannot provide a scientific account. Yet, they could care less-they are just happy that the man can see. This reminds me of complaining about the poor design of a Panda’s “thumb” while the Panda is saying, “Let’s see you try to strip thousands of bamboo leaves from branches. I’m doing just fine, Mr. Opposable.”

A disputation ensues between the Pharisees and the ex-blind man, and he is basically excommunicated. Finally, we get a glimpse into the point of this parabolic action as Jesus moves from physical blind/sightedness to spiritual blind/sightedness:

“Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He had found him, He said to him, ‘Do you believe in the Son of God?’
He answered and said, ‘Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?’And Jesus said to him, ‘You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you.’Then he said, ‘Lord, I believe!’ And he worshiped Him.And Jesus said, ‘For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.’Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, ‘Are we blind also?’Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains'” (v. 35-41).

The LeperIn Matthew 8:1-4 (also Luke 5:12-14) we find a leper engaging Jesus.

The “leper came and worshiped Him, saying, ‘Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.’Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him, saying, ‘I am willing; be cleansed.’ Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, ‘See that you tell no one; but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.'”

The priests would have been acquainted with the leper since it was they who would have diagnosed him. They would have followed a systematic process of diagnosis and quarantine which had been in place for millennia (see Leviticus chapter 13).

These are some of the examples of people who knew the demon possessed men, their own son and a diagnosed leper and witnessed the change in them.