*****************The First and the Last*******************
In today's modern age of liberal humanism and New Age pantheism Jesus Christ is recognized by the vast majority of secular intellectuals as but another great man among many equals. To them Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Moses, Krishna, and even Gandhi exist side by side as great spiritual leaders who presented to the world a message that was, by and large, similar in content and equal in truth. They consider Jesus to have been a moral philosopher and prophet who inspired many people, but whose teachings were quickly corrupted by men who led the early Christian Church.
The Bible as we have it today is considered by them to be a far-from-perfect record of what Jesus said and did. The Jesus of the Bible preaches repentance in the face of an angry God and He teaches intolerance to other faiths by saying that the only way to God is through Him. Today, our most popular spiritual leaders teach that everyone goes to heaven and that God is never angry. In today's mindset of "democracy of truth" there can't possibly be only one single true religion, because that just wouldn't be fair for the majority. The Bible records Jesus as saying, "small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it," but for our liberal spiritual geniuses today that can't possibly be true. They have decided that there are many paths to spiritual truth, as Gandhi said, "Religions are different roads converging upon the same point." There are many more instances in the Bible where the words of Jesus Christ contradict the conventional wisdom of today's spiritual leaders, but because deep down they know that He was indeed the most important man to ever walk the face of the earth they always try to put His life in a positive light. For this reason they believe that the sayings of Jesus which contradict their own were never really said by Jesus, but were written down later and attributed to Him by people who sought to fulfill their own agenda.
Most troubling for today's secular religious scholars, New Age gurus and liberal spiritual leaders are the passages in the Bible which record the fact that Jesus claimed to be the long-awaited Messiah of Israel and, more profoundly, the passages in which Jesus clearly claims to be God. For a scholar to be accepted in today's secular, materialistic world, he or she must agree that these two possibilities are in fact impossible. Either Jesus never made those claims, or He did and those claims were false.
If the latter is true then the bubble is burst, and Jesus can no longer be viewed as a great teacher, a positive spiritual leader or as a great prophet along the lines of Moses and Mohammed. If Jesus made false claims of Himself then He was either a liar or a lunatic.
That is why many secular religious scholars now try to make the case that Jesus never made any claims to be the Messiah and that He certainly never claimed to be God. John Dominic Crossan, called by Amazon.com "the leading contemporary scholar on the historical Jesus," arrives at that conclusion. For him, Jesus was a simple social activist who never even dreamed of being the Messiah. Karen Armstrong is another celebrated secular scholar and in her book A History of God she states (p.xviii) that to her satisfaction "...biblical scholars had proved that Jesus had never claimed to be divine." Of course the correct statement here would be that "secular materialistic liberal scholars believe that Jesus never claimed to be divine." If you are a biblical scholar then all you have to do is go to Revelation 1:8,17-18, 22:13 for biblical proof that Jesus did claim to be God. (Click here for more biblical reasons for believing Jesus was God). Again, the Bible is clear that Jesus claimed to be God, the question is- Is the Bible correct? Did Jesus really make these claims?
The Bible
The Christian Bible is composed of two parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament focuses on God's dealings with the nation of Israel and also is primarily focused on prophecy. The main thrust of it's prophetic aspect is the promise of a future Messiah who would redeem all mankind and one day lead Israel as their King.
The Old Testament is also the Bible of the Jews. It is their Holy Scriptures which they call the Tanakh. The ancient Hebrew texts which make up the Tanakh are the same texts used in the Christian Old Testament. English Christian translations of these texts are virtually identical to English Jewish translations.
In the late 1940s the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves near the Dead Sea in Israel. These scrolls were ancient copies of the Hebrew scriptures. It is now understood that they were placed in these caves prior to 70 AD when Roman armies conquered Israel, expelled the Jews and destroyed their temple. These scrolls have survived intact for almost 2000 years due to the dry climate of the area and because they were carefully sealed in clay jars. This immense collection of scrolls contains copies which at least partially represent every book of the Old Testament except for Esther. Prior to their discovery the oldest Old Testament manuscript was the Ben Asher Codex which dated to about 1008 AD. Now we have manuscripts which predate the birth of Jesus Christ and which verify the authenticity and accuracy of our modern copies of the Old Testament. Contrary to common opinion the Bible has not been written, changed, added to and then rewritten again over the centuries. It has remained the same. Now with this fact in mind follow along as we explore some Old Testament and New Testament passages which deal with God and the Messiah.
Revelation
The book of Revelation was written by a man who identifies himself as John. He was the favorite disciple of Jesus. This book is the record of a vision which was given to John of what would take place in the world prior to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. This vision culminates and ties together the rest of the end-times prophecies that are found in the Bible through prophets such as Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Joel, etc, as well as the Apostle Paul and the words of Jesus when He was on this earth. Without Revelation it would be hard to make sense of all the predictions.
The book begins with a short introduction by John which ends with "Amen" in verse 6. Then John quotes a few scriptures by saying, "Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen." (1:7) The fact that he will come with the clouds was known to John by Jesus' words in Matthew 24:30 and the "pierced" part is also referred to in Zechariah 12:10 which we will get to later. John continues with a message from God Almighty in verse 8, "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."
John recorded this in Greek and although the English translation reads "Alpha and Omega" John wrote the capital letters and . They are two capital letters, not words, and they are the first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet. Revelation 1:8 would be more properly represented as,
" 'I am the and the ,' says the Lord God..."
1500 years prior to this vision God called out a man named Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. God spoke to Moses through a burning bush and gave Moses his instructions. When Moses asked for God's name God simply told him "I Am who I Am... tell the Israelites that I Am has sent you." (Exodus 3:14) These words became the basis for God's written name of "Yahweh" which in Hebrew is unpronouncable and means simply "The Existing One." God's words to Moses of "I Am" are essentially the same as His claim to John as being the the one "who is, who was, and who is to come..."
When John's vision begins he hears the voice of Jesus. When he turns around to see Him he falls to his feet as though dead. But then Jesus places his right hand on John and says, "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!" (1:17-18). With these words Jesus Christ is claiming to be God, as well as claiming to be Jesus of Nazareth, the man who was put to death and then resurrected.
This claim is repeated and made even more clear at the very end of Revelation (22:12-13) when Jesus says, "Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." In Revelation1:8 the "Lord God Almighty" claims to be the Alpha and the Omega, and here we see Jesus Christ making that same claim.
Now, from the very last chapter of the very last book of the Bible we go to the very first chapter of the very first book of the Bible. Below is Genesis 1:1 as written in original Hebrew and as translated into English word for word. It is a passage holy to Christians, Jews and even Muslims, a passage which was, according to the Bible, dictated by God to Moses about 3500 years ago.
Hebrew is read from right to left, and this text says (roughly), "In beginning created God (***) the heavens and the earth." The two letter word which appears after "God" is untranslated. This is because it is not a word. It is simply two letters, an Aleph and a Tov. These letters are the first and the last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. With that in mind it seems that perhaps this verse should be translated, "In beginning created God (the Aleph and the Tov) the heavens and the earth," or with English grammar,
"In the beginning God (the Aleph and the Tov) created the heavens and the earth."
In Genesis it appears that God begins by making a subtle claim of being "the Beginning and the End" and in Revelation He ends by repeating that claim much more clearly.
Now back to Revelation 1:7, as John wrote, "Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen." As I related previously this passage is very similar to one written by the Old Testament prophet Zechariah, in 12:10,
"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son."
This is an Old Testament prophecy which Christians accept as pertaining to the Messiah, fulfilled by Jesus Christ through His death on the cross and to be ultimately fulfilled at the Second Coming when the world sees Jesus returning on the clouds. Remember that Zechariah was a prophet who wrote down his prophecies about 500 years before Jesus' birth, and that the words he wrote have been carefully guarded and preserved over the centuries by Jews and Christians alike. Perhaps there is even a fragment of a Dead Sea Scroll which contains this same passage.
For the Christian, the above passage is obviously Messianic in nature, but for the Jew, Jesus was an imposter who claimed to be the Messiah and was not. For the Jew His death meant nothing and they have always believed that His body was stolen and that Christians are completely deceived. For the Jew the above passage is in no way, shape or form Messianic in its intent. Here is the Jewish interpretation of Zechariah 12:10, an interpretation that comes from the exact same Hebrew source, the Masoretic text,
"But I will fill the House of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem with a spirit of pity and compassion; and they shall lament to Me about those who are slain, wailing over them as over a favorite son and showing bitter grief as over a first-born." Jewish Publication Society, © 1985.
Do you notice the subtle yet serious difference in interpretation?
Now let us examine the original Hebrew text which both Christians and Jews use as the source for these different interpretations. Start with verse (10) and read right to left.
"Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him;
and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him.
So shall it be! Amen.
'I am the Alpha and the Omega,' says the Lord God,
'who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.' "
Revelation 1:7-8
"You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the Son of God: or else
a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him
and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.
But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher.
He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity |
