D
DL82
Guest
The whole Bible, Old and New Testaments, is regarded as the Word of God by Catholics and by all Christians. Does this mean that all of it is perfect?
It seems that many of the prophecies of the coming Messiah in the Old Testament, though pointing towards Jesus Christ, are deficient in some way because they fall short of His full mission. For example, the Jewish people were expecting a military leader, an earthly king, someone who was full of God’s power, but still only human, someone who would kill the sinners and save only the people of Israel.
Although parts of these prophecies seem to have been neglected, e.g. Isaiah talks about the messiah as a light to the gentiles, and Jeremiah about a new covenant written on our hearts, the prophecies seem incomplete, or at least very obscure.
Is this because the human writers just couldn’t take in the full majesty of God’s revelation? Did God deliberately not tell them the whole story? Why, for example, does the Old Testament not explicitly say ‘the Messiah will share God’s divinity’? Or, ‘his kingdom won’t be an earthly kingdom’?
It’s as if the Jewish people were expecting $100, and God wrote them a cheque for $1,000,000 instead. It’s easy to forget what you were planning to do with the original $100, and make your small plans more important than the big gift.
Why didn’t God prepare them more to raise their minds to expect the full gift that He was going to give?
It seems that many of the prophecies of the coming Messiah in the Old Testament, though pointing towards Jesus Christ, are deficient in some way because they fall short of His full mission. For example, the Jewish people were expecting a military leader, an earthly king, someone who was full of God’s power, but still only human, someone who would kill the sinners and save only the people of Israel.
Although parts of these prophecies seem to have been neglected, e.g. Isaiah talks about the messiah as a light to the gentiles, and Jeremiah about a new covenant written on our hearts, the prophecies seem incomplete, or at least very obscure.
Is this because the human writers just couldn’t take in the full majesty of God’s revelation? Did God deliberately not tell them the whole story? Why, for example, does the Old Testament not explicitly say ‘the Messiah will share God’s divinity’? Or, ‘his kingdom won’t be an earthly kingdom’?
It’s as if the Jewish people were expecting $100, and God wrote them a cheque for $1,000,000 instead. It’s easy to forget what you were planning to do with the original $100, and make your small plans more important than the big gift.
Why didn’t God prepare them more to raise their minds to expect the full gift that He was going to give?
