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Israel, the Servant of God

Redemptionsong

Well-Known Member
A leader inspires others to repent. While I'm not one who takes the Rebbe to be the messiah, but one fo the things that he did was start a movement that brought a significant number of people back to observance and identifying with Jewish law. That's what the messiah will do.
Law may help to bring about peace but it doesn't provide a man with eternal life.
 

Redemptionsong

Well-Known Member
As for calling good evil and evil good, Isaiah 5:18-20 reports on those who drag iniquity and sin, using falsehood, are the perpetuators of such methods. That would be like saying the more I sin, the greater grace I receive (Romans 5:20). The more you sin, the further one is from God. If one is born again, born of God, they cannot sin (1 John 3:9), and they have already repented, turned away from sin, if "his seed abides in him". Now if one grows from the tare seed, the gospel of grace/lawlessness, of course, they are among the wicked/lawless (Matthew 13:41), who have only the furnace of fire to look forward too (Matthew 13:49-50). As for error, the indoctrination of men, well that kind of comes from adopting the same abominations used in worshipping the gods of the heads of the beast of Revelation 17, of which Rome was the 5th through 8th head, and the Roman church is the mother of the other harlot churches, whose foundational doctrine is rooted on moves and decrees made by the Pontifex Maximus of the pagan and Roman churches, the Roman emperor, Constantine, the 7th head of the beast of Revelation 17. The 7th head of the beast whose mark precludes one from the first resurrection (Revelation 20:4). Like mentioned in Matthew 13:20-23, one can hear the message of the "kingdom", yet they have not understood, and therefore produce no good fruit. Ask yourself, what is the "kingdom", and note according to Matthew 13:11-13, they will hear but not understand.

Isaiah 5:18-20 Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit, and wickedness as with cart ropes, 19to those who say, "Let God hurry; let him hasten his work so we may see it. The plan of the Holy One of Israel- let it approach, let it come into view, so we may know it." 20 Woe to those who call evil good and
good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
The kingdom of God comes to earth with the Messiah.

When Jesus appeared as the 'anointed David', the servant of God, he was not recognised by the Jewish religious authorities. This was not the man they expected to be King of the Jews.

Many Gentiles, on the other hand, do see the coming of Jesus Christ as the appearance of the 'Holy One'. The witnesses to Jesus' resurrection, and subsequent ascension to heaven, were justified in their belief by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This baptism continues to be a personal, and communal, evidence of Jesus' majesty even to this day.

The point about the coming of the Holy Spirit, foreshadowed in the festival of Shavuot, is that it brings a person into the immediate presence of God's Spirit. The Spirit that fills a person is the Spirit of Christ, the righteousness of God. So, living by grace is not lawlessness! It is living according to the righteous fulfilment of the law - the Spirit of love. Grace is not lawlessness. Fulfilment of the law is not the same as abolition of the law.
 

Redemptionsong

Well-Known Member
God has given us a soul and promised us eternal life already.
So all men are given eternal life, without regard to how their lives have been led?

Surely, if God is the source of life, one must exist in God, or in his kingdom, to have eternal life.
 

rosends

Well-Known Member
So all men are given eternal life, without regard to how their lives have been led?
No, you should read two things -- one is the introduction to Pirkei Avot, and the other is Perk Chelek. Having a soul means there is potential for eternal life (though exactly the quality of that life is changeable, person to person).
Surely, if God is the source of life, one must exist in God, or in his kingdom, to have eternal life.
So you don't believe, for example (and I'm just confirming) that one can spend eternity in Hell?
 

Redemptionsong

Well-Known Member
No, you should read two things -- one is the introduction to Pirkei Avot, and the other is Perk Chelek. Having a soul means there is potential for eternal life (though exactly the quality of that life is changeable, person to person).

So you don't believe, for example (and I'm just confirming) that one can spend eternity in Hell?
I would say that an eternity in hell, in the absence of God, was eternal death.
 

Redemptionsong

Well-Known Member
Then you are defining "life" as it relates to the soul, differently from how I understand it.
Psalm 66:8,9. 'O bless our God, ye people, and make the voice of his praise to be heard:
Which holdeth [putteth] our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved'
.

I believe that God is the giver of life. He must also be able to take life away. Does Jeremiah not prophesy, 'Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I set before you the way of life, and the way of death' [Jeremiah 21:8]?
 

rosends

Well-Known Member
Psalm 66:8,9. 'O bless our God, ye people, and make the voice of his praise to be heard:
Which holdeth [putteth] our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved'
.

I believe that God is the giver of life. He must also be able to take life away. Does Jeremiah not prophesy, 'Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I set before you the way of life, and the way of death' [Jeremiah 21:8]?
Um, Psalms 66:0 reads
"who has granted us life,
and has not let our feet slip."

or if you prefer, "Who kept our souls alive and did not let our foot falter."

If you think that 66 is about a soul and not a person (often accounted as a "soul") then you will have some confusion in the rest of the Psalm.


And as for Jeremiah, if you read Jer 21:9, the matter is made pretty clear. The concept of life and death is about the body:
"die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; but whoever leaves and goes over to the Chaldeans who are besieging you shall live; he shall at least gain his life."
 

Redemptionsong

Well-Known Member
Um, Psalms 66:0 reads
"who has granted us life,
and has not let our feet slip."

or if you prefer, "Who kept our souls alive and did not let our foot falter."

If you think that 66 is about a soul and not a person (often accounted as a "soul") then you will have some confusion in the rest of the Psalm.


And as for Jeremiah, if you read Jer 21:9, the matter is made pretty clear. The concept of life and death is about the body:
"die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; but whoever leaves and goes over to the Chaldeans who are besieging you shall live; he shall at least gain his life."
In these cases the soul is alive in the body, but the life is given by God (the Spirit). If you look at Jonah 2, then the soul is in the grave (sheol) and only after prayer is the soul and body, united as one, spewed up on dry land.
 

rosends

Well-Known Member
In these cases the soul is alive in the body, but the life is given by God (the Spirit). If you look at Jonah 2, then the soul is in the grave (sheol) and only after prayer is the soul and body, united as one, spewed up on dry land.
No, in Jonah 2, the body is in a fish. After prayer, the body is spit out onto dry land.
 

Redemptionsong

Well-Known Member
No, the body was alive or else it would not have been able to pray (verse 1).
Then you are wrong about the soul needing the body to be alive! There is no question that the text says that Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish for three days and nights, whilst his soul was in the grave. What is sheol, if not the place of the dead?
 

2ndpillar

Well-Known Member
The kingdom of God comes to earth with the Messiah.

When Jesus appeared as the 'anointed David', the servant of God, he was not recognised by the Jewish religious authorities. This was not the man they expected to be King of the Jews.

Many Gentiles, on the other hand, do see the coming of Jesus Christ as the appearance of the 'Holy One'. The witnesses to Jesus' resurrection, and subsequent ascension to heaven, were justified in their belief by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This baptism continues to be a personal, and communal, evidence of Jesus' majesty even to this day.

The point about the coming of the Holy Spirit, foreshadowed in the festival of Shavuot, is that it brings a person into the immediate presence of God's Spirit. The Spirit that fills a person is the Spirit of Christ, the righteousness of God. So, living by grace is not lawlessness! It is living according to the righteous fulfilment of the law - the Spirit of love. Grace is not lawlessness. Fulfilment of the law is not the same as abolition of the law.

There are two kingdoms, the kingdom which was manifested when Yeshua told his disciples go to the lost sheep of Israel, to heal the sick, raise the dead, to show that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, whereas it was power and spirit displayed by the disciples. The kingdom of God, whereas Judah and Ephraim/Israel will be joined and live on the land given to Jacob (Ezekiel 37), under the kingship of David, is behind the door, and has not been fulfilled (Matthew 24:29:31). Per Jeremiah 16:16, "I am going to send for many fishermen" to fish for Israel, the lost sheep of Israel, and later will send out hunters of men for them, to bring them to their own land, but first make them pay doubly for their iniquity, which is what Judah, the Jews, have been paying (Hosea 5), such as 6 million Jews lost in WWII, but the lost tribes of Israel, who Yeshua sent disciples to preach the kingdom, have not been restored to their own land with a new heart and spirit, whereas they will keep my ordinances (Ezekiel 36:24-29). There is no "majesty" of the "Christian" community. The US government's Roman Catholic leadership is behind the killing of the innocent unborn. That will lead to judgment for the whole country, or in words of Jeremiah 16:18, "I will first doubly repay their iniquity, and their sin. At the time the lost tribes are gathered out of the nations (Ezekiel 36:24), the nations/Gentiles will come and say, "Our fathers have inherited nothing but falsehood" (Jeremiah 16:19).

New American Standard Bible Jeremiah 16:16
“Behold, I am going to send for many fishermen,” declares the LORD, “and they will fish for them; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain and every hill and from the clefts of the rocks.

Keep in mind that Shavuot is the 16th of May 2021, and Pentecost is the 23rd of May 2021. The two are not the same. The Council of Nicaea purposefully changed the date of the last supper, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, to a date corresponding to the Feast of Astarte (Easter), the queen of heaven, which is not the date of Passover, or the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which offsets your Pentecost date to be contingent on a pagan festival. These are the kind of abominations which will result in a double repay for Israel's iniquity. (Jeremiah 16:18).
 
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rosends

Well-Known Member
Then you are wrong about the soul needing the body to be alive! There is no question that the text says that Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish for three days and nights, whilst his soul was in the grave. What is sheol, if not the place of the dead?
She'ol is a pit (like shachat). Deciding that it means more is interpretation. And deciding that in the belly of the great fish, Jonah was dead and was suffering in a grave is unsupported by the text.

And I never said that the soul needs the body to be alive. In fact, I said that the sould continues to be alive after death. You then limited this to in the presence of God and the soul in Hell is suffering from eternal death. Don't impute that definition to me.

If you are going to take the use of a particular Hebrew word and decide it means "soul" in a metaphysical sense every time it is used, you are going to run into trouble throughout the biblical text (starting in Gen 46). The word often (if not usually) is used to refer to a living being, not a soul. In Jonah's case, he was alive and praying and then was spit out. By the way, a soul isn't in a grave. A body is.
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
She'ol is a pit (like shachat). Deciding that it means more is interpretation. And deciding that in the belly of the great fish, Jonah was dead and was suffering in a grave is unsupported by the text.

And I never said that the soul needs the body to be alive. In fact, I said that the sould continues to be alive after death. You then limited this to in the presence of God and the soul in Hell is suffering from eternal death. Don't impute that definition to me.

If you are going to take the use of a particular Hebrew word and decide it means "soul" in a metaphysical sense every time it is used, you are going to run into trouble throughout the biblical text (starting in Gen 46). The word often (if not usually) is used to refer to a living being, not a soul. In Jonah's case, he was alive and praying and then was spit out. By the way, a soul isn't in a grave. A body is.
As well, the use of 'soul' as 'person' is still standard in some languages. In English of course we can call people 'souls' - maybe it sounds slightly poetic and/or archaic, but we understand that we're not talking about an essence without a body. When I was learning Romanian I learnt that is it extremely common to use 'soul' to mean 'person', so I'm not sure where confusion comes from as I thought this is well understood :shrug:
 

Harel13

Am Yisrael Chai
Staff member
Premium Member
Then you are wrong about the soul needing the body to be alive! There is no question that the text says that Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish for three days and nights, whilst his soul was in the grave. What is sheol, if not the place of the dead?
How would Jonah have been able to pray dead? It says in Psalm 115: "The dead cannot praise the LORD, nor any who go down into silence."
 

Redemptionsong

Well-Known Member
She'ol is a pit (like shachat). Deciding that it means more is interpretation. And deciding that in the belly of the great fish, Jonah was dead and was suffering in a grave is unsupported by the text.

And I never said that the soul needs the body to be alive. In fact, I said that the sould continues to be alive after death. You then limited this to in the presence of God and the soul in Hell is suffering from eternal death. Don't impute that definition to me.

If you are going to take the use of a particular Hebrew word and decide it means "soul" in a metaphysical sense every time it is used, you are going to run into trouble throughout the biblical text (starting in Gen 46). The word often (if not usually) is used to refer to a living being, not a soul. In Jonah's case, he was alive and praying and then was spit out. By the way, a soul isn't in a grave. A body is.
How would Jonah have been able to pray dead? It says in Psalm 115: "The dead cannot praise the LORD, nor any who go down into silence."
I'm aware that the word 'soul' is used differently in different contexts.

The use, and meaning, of the word 'sheol' is crucial to understanding what happened to Jonah. From my research, the word 'sheol' is ALWAYS, without any exceptions, used as a place of the departed dead. Can you show me otherwise?

What you are both proposing is that Jonah was thrown overboard and swallowed by a fish, in which he remained alive for three days and nights. That not only sounds impossible, it also makes a nonsense of his being made a sacrifice by the other sailors. Why throw him overboard if a life is not required to calm the storm? Did God just want to give Jonah a good soaking?
 

Redemptionsong

Well-Known Member
How would Jonah have been able to pray dead? It says in Psalm 115: "The dead cannot praise the LORD, nor any who go down into silence."
I could respond to this by quoting Psalm 16:10. 'For thou wilt not leave my soul in sheol; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.'
 
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