Comment:

It is absolutely impossible to have a firstborn son formed from the womb of his mother, Zion, which is Yisrael, and an only born son which is jesus. If jesus is the only born son, then he is the firstborn, and what has been said about Yisrael is a lie; however, the word firstborn implies that Yisrael has a mother which bore him; there is nothing spiritual about that fact. It is so sad that you people keep propagating lies. The God of the New Testament is not the same as the God of The Old Testament; they are two different deities. Here is just one clue as to who Jesus really is; What does the thief come to do? To steal, kill, and destroy. “Behold, I come like a thief.” Rev.16:15. Didn’t he just give you advance notice that he is coming to steal, kill, and destroy? Christianity is out of its mind; all of you have abandoned all logic.

Question:

Do you have a question? I am having a hard time finding a question here. Let me respond to your comments. I believe that your problem with the scripture her is coming from misunderstanding the language/grammar of the Greek. For example, you see a contradiction between John 10 (the thief comes only to steal, to kill, and to destroy) and Revelation 16:15 (Behold, I come like a thief). The grammatic subtlety you seem to be missing is that in Revelation 16:15 Jesus is using a simile. He did NOT say “I came as a thief.” He said “I came like a thief.” It is reasonable to ask in what sense did Jesus come “like a thief.” What is the connotation of the simile? Jesus came “like a thief” in the sense that he will come at a time which is completely unexpected. The context of the scripture makes this clear. “Behold I come like a thief! Blessed is he who is still awake and keeps his clothes with him, so thathe may not go naked and be shamefully exposed.” Clearly, Jesus is not calling himself a thief!!! He is explaining the nature of his coming in judgement. So, Jesus is definitely NOT saying that he is coming to steal, kill or destroy. He is telling people to be prepared. You are misunderstanding of the language/grammar/idiom in the original language.

Similarly, your apparent contradiction about the first born arises from a misunderstanding of the meaning of the writer. In this case, the mistake is not a misunderstanding of the grammar used. It comes from not knowing some important information about Near Eastern culture in ancient times. In ancient Jewish culture, as well as other Near Eastern cultures as well, the phrase “first born” generally meant literally the first one to be born, but it also had the connotation of the preeminent one. In Near Eastern culture, the first born son inherited a double portion from his father, and also became the presumptive head of the household. Because of the importance, culturally, of being “first born,” the phrase came to mean preeminence in a more general sense. The “first born” of a kingdom was the ruler of that kingdom. A biblical example of this more general meaning of the phrase “first born” is found in Colossians 1:15 where it says of Jesus that he is the “firstborn over all creation.” Scholars will agree that this means that Jesus is the preeminent one over all creation, not that he is the first one to be born of creation. The context of Colossians 1:15-16 requires this interpretation.

Getting to what you see as a contradiction, Jesus is the “first born” of Zion in that he is the king of Israel. As the Messiah, he is the firstborn/preeminent ruler of Zion, which is a biblical word to represent spiritual Israel. Jesus was the first born son of Mary in a different sense. He was literally the first son born to Mary. For this reason, he was the head of the family when Joseph died. However, the use of first born of Jesus as the son of Mary is idiomatically different than saying he is firstborn of Zion. You seem to misunderstand this distinction, which leads to you finding what you see to be a contradiction. According to the scripture, Jesus is three things. He is the firstborn over Israel. He is the first son born to Mary, and he is God’s “only begotten son.” The Greek in John 1:18 is monogeneis. The meaning here is something like this. Jesus is the unique son. There is no other “Son” of God in the sense that Jesus is the Son of God. Galatians 3:26 says of Christians, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. In this sense, God has many “sons,” but he only has one only-begotten Son of God. The passages about Jesus being the first-born son of Israel, the first born son of Mary and the only Son of God do not contradict if we simply understand the meaning each time in its context.

You say that the God of the New Testament is not the same as the God of the Old Testament. Of course, you are entitled to your opinion, but I am convinced that if we understand both the Old and the New Testament, we will get the unmistakable sense that they are both talking about one God. There is no doubt at all that Jesus and his apostles were talking about the God of the Old Testament. You may believe that Jesus or Peter or Paul were mistaken, but you cannot reasonably claim that the New Testament writers would have agreed with you. Of course, you are not the only person to reach the conclusion that the God of the Old and New Testaments are different, and I respect your opinion. I suggest you consider reading my book “From Shadow to Reality” which is on precisely this topic. It is available at www.ipibooks.com. I hope this helps.

John Oakes