Do Protestants Understand Why Jesus Had To Come?

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whatistruth

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I have a question for Protestants? Are you sure you know the fullness of understanding why Jesus had to come? I was a Baptist for 38 years and the after investigating the historical Jesus it all became clear of his coming. Yes, we all know to save sinners but that is only part of the reason. Here it is as simply as can be given:
  1. To fulfill “all” that was written in the Old Testament. If we can not see Jesus in the Old Covenant, we can not find him in the New Testament! Jesus is the conclusion of all that occured in the old.
2.To make us all adopted children of The Father!
  1. To fulfill and perfect the Davidic Kingdom and all of the features that made up the Davidic Kingdom i.e., Queen Mother, Sacraments, the keys of the Royal Steward, Todah sacrifices!
4.To restore the 12 tribes of Israel, Remember, God had sent the 12 tribes into exile as he did in the Mosaic Covenant. 10 tribes went to the North(Israel) and two tribes to the South(Judah). Jesus sends the 12 Apostles to go and gather all tribes back into his Kingdom-The Church!

Please remember the kingdom was split up with different forms of worship and different authortative scriptures. This is exactly what is occuring today in Protestantism. Jesus came to unify this Kingdom into a perfect kingdom as his heavenly Father is perfect. This was the Prayer of Jesus in John 17 to illustrate how important perfect unity was and he prayed for this the night before his death! Do we want to repeat the same mistakes Israel made in the Davidic Covenant? Our answer should be NO! how can we justify splitting up Jesus’ Kingdom here on earth-The Church after he underwent a brutal death to reunite her? If we believe the only thing required to become The New Israel is to except Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, we completely missed Jesus message from the Book of Joshua all the way to the Book of Revelation. Jesus was the Word and is the Word. He is a person and not a thing! My seperated brethern, I was like you for most of my life so I understand all of your thoughts. Please do not limit Jesus to a few proof texts in the New Testament; is he not much bigger than that?

Ego Te Amo! it means I love you all in Latin
 
Having also lived amongst evangelical protestants I think there is also a certain gross oversimplification going on in their teaching. In college with the ‘Navigators’ I was taught that Jesus had to come and die on the cross in order to pay the price for our sins. They expound on that by illustrating that God’s justice was so perfect that He couldn’t just let sinners off. A wrong was done, so SOMEBODY had to be punished. In their teaching, it was God’s creative plan that he would punish himself to satisfy his perfect justice. Thus, we can enter heaven justified.

This always puzzled me. It implies God is less merciful than mere humans can be. I have kids now and I certainly don’t have to punish myself in order to forgive my kids! IMO, this warped description does christianity great harm by making God seem mentally ill! Reading scripture SEEMS to support it until you step back and realize that God works on a scale that boggles human imagination. By coming into this world as a humble carpenter’s son and merely being who He is, he became the object and victim of our collective sinfulness. We learn at the passion that we humans, as we are, are so fallen that will will murder God Himself if He places Himself at our mercy. THAT is what breaks us. That is what makes us realize our need for forgiveness. It wasn’t GOD’S character that required Jesus to die on a cross. It was OURS.
 
whatistruth said:
I have a question for Protestants? Are you sure you know the fullness of understanding why Jesus had to come? I was a Baptist for 38 years and the after investigating the historical Jesus it all became clear of his coming. Yes, we all know to save sinners but that is only part of the reason. Here it is as simply as can be given:
  1. To fulfill “all” that was written in the Old Testament. If we can not see Jesus in the Old Covenant, we can not find him in the New Testament! Jesus is the conclusion of all that occured in the old.
2.To make us all adopted children of The Father!
  1. To fulfill and perfect the Davidic Kingdom and all of the features that made up the Davidic Kingdom i.e., Queen Mother, Sacraments, the keys of the Royal Steward, Todah sacrifices!
4.To restore the 12 tribes of Israel, Remember, God had sent the 12 tribes into exile as he did in the Mosaic Covenant. 10 tribes went to the North(Israel) and two tribes to the South(Judah). Jesus sends the 12 Apostles to go and gather all tribes back into his Kingdom-The Church!

Please remember the kingdom was split up with different forms of worship and different authortative scriptures. This is exactly what is occuring today in Protestantism. Jesus came to unify this Kingdom into a perfect kingdom as his heavenly Father is perfect. This was the Prayer of Jesus in John 17 to illustrate how important perfect unity was and he prayed for this the night before his death! Do we want to repeat the same mistakes Israel made in the Davidic Covenant? Our answer should be NO! how can we justify splitting up Jesus’ Kingdom here on earth-The Church after he underwent a brutal death to reunite her? If we believe the only thing required to become The New Israel is to except Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, we completely missed Jesus message from the Book of Joshua all the way to the Book of Revelation. Jesus was the Word and is the Word. He is a person and not a thing! My seperated brethern, I was like you for most of my life so I understand all of your thoughts. Please do not limit Jesus to a few proof texts in the New Testament; is he not much bigger than that?

Ego Te Amo! it means I love you all in Latin
Click to expand...
I’ve never seen it spelled it like this before. Very nice! 👍
 
A good and holy priest said in a homily once that it was not God’s Will for Jesus to die. His Will was that Jesus would be obedient even unto death.
Different things move different people, and I’m not entirely sure this fits into this thread, but it’s what came to me.
 
whatistruth said:
I If we believe the only thing required to become The New Israel is to except Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, we completely missed Jesus message from the Book of Joshua all the way to the Book of Revelation. Jesus was the Word and is the Word.
Click to expand...
Sometimes when you speak to someone they might admit that God even exists. And if they should admit there is a God, often they will not admit Jesus is His Son or even existed for that matter.

Accepting Jesus is a big deal for alot of people, they simply dont want to. God can be a vauge notion or ideal and that suits alot of people. But Jesus, now if Hes there, then its a completely different thing. Accepting that Jesus is who He said He is, and did what He said He did and will do what He said He will do shouldnt be a “protestant only” message.

And it is the “start” of finding out about Christ, not the end. Some people find out quicker, some take longer.
 
38 years, and you never read Strong’s Systematic Theology? or any number of systematic theologies?
  1. To fulfill and perfect the Davidic Kingdom and all of the features that made up the Davidic Kingdom i.e., Queen Mother, Sacraments, the keys of the Royal Steward, Todah sacrifices!
Click to expand...
What is your proof that Queen Mother is part of kingdom of God?

Note: I am not asking about Kingdom of Heaven. But, it would be nice to see where you find prophecy to have a queen mother in Jesus’ kingdoms. You are claiming queen mother as a fulfillment of prophecy that requires that a prophecy of a queen mother exists. ** It is the prophecy of the queen mother in Jesus’ kingdoms I am demanding**, not the fact that a queen mother existed somewhere in OT kingdoms. I will grant that some of the kings in the OT had a queen mother. But that does NOT make their prescence there a propphecy of NT fulfillment.

Please explain the difference between kingdom of heaven vs kingdom of God?
The Sermon on the Mount was delivered under the dispensation of LAW! The application is clearly addressed to those entering “the kingdom of heaven” (5:3, 10, 19, 20; 7:21). The “kingdom of heaven” is NOT the same as “the kingdom of God.” Heaven is not God and God is not heaven. The “kingdom of heaven” is a literal, physical, kingdom. We must not think of heaven as a non-literal place. Heaven is a literal, physical place wherein dwells a Man with a literal body that bears literal scars. **The “kingdom of God” is spiritual **because “God is a spirit” (John 4:24 cf. Luke 17:20-21; Rom. 14:17; 1 Cor. 15:50).
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avhughes.com/images/salvation.html

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Mary the Queen Mother In Catholicism

While I’m at it, I’ll go ahead and finish up my posts on Mariology with this one. This post follows a post on extra biblical doctrines which follows one on the ‘full of grace’ translation from Luke as support for the doctrine of the immaculate conception.

Disclaimer: I am not rejecting the ‘Queen Mother’ title or the Catholic churches teaching on Mariology. Just pointing out that it’s not biblical (at least not nearly as much as some would like to believe it is).

This was originally written as a rebuttal to the book, ‘Queen Mother’ by Edward Sri edited by Scott Hahn.

When I started entertaining the idea of converting to Catholicism, I began reading a lot of Catholic apologetics to see if their ‘apologetic’ material held water. I was very surprised to find that Catholic apologetics were excellent. However, I anticipated that my biggest stumbling block coming into the Church would be Mariology. I was right. The Catholics I met were unable to provide any good arguments in support of Mariology and what I’ve read has been thin and weak. The book Queen Mother is well written and has a lot of truth in it. However, much of it is misleading and the over all strength of the apologetic value of the book is very weak in my opinion.

I try to be as objective as possible although I am surely somewhat biased. Though, I would love nothing more than to find some strong proof for Mariology because then I could accept completely the teachings of the Church. Let me state now that I accept the Church’s teaching and submit to it’s authority (on the strength of it’s other apologetics). However, like St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bernard of Clairvaux,(1) I reject from a logical standpoint much of what is practiced in the realm of ‘Mariology’ today.

I view the issue as comparable to this metaphor: A friend of mine has a brother who says something extremely insulting to me. When I tell my friend about it, in order to protect his brother he makes an elaborate apology for why his brother meant nothing insulting at all. And while his apology in some regard seems rational and coherent… damnit I know what was said. I know that much of Mariology is somewhat historical within the Church and the teachings of it’s saints as shown in the early section of the book. But it cannot be argued that this doctrine was not a developmental belief. That is, early quotes seem to point to her as immaculate and even some (not so early) quotes seem to point to a queenship. But what the early church fathers said in no way detracted from the worship and the role of any member of the godhead. However, as we look more recently in history we some serious violations even by popes:

One can justly say that with Christ, she herself redeemed mankind.
  • Pope Benedict XV(2)
Our salvation is based upon the holy Virgin… so that if there is any hope and spiritual healing for us we receive it solely and uniquely from her.
  • Pope Pius IX(3)
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quote
Mary the Queen Mother In Catholicism

…

I have problems with virtually every aspect of Mariology. While I’m willing to ‘honor’ her as the Catholic Church claims to do, I cannot place her on the pedestal that many Catholics do and I absolutely must (by order of my conscious) utterly reject such statements as those above. I have constantly observed this happening: Popes and other authoritative sources in the Church say something bordering blasphemy about Mary (in the cases cited above I fail to see how you could call that any less than blasphemy) and well meaning theologians apologize for it. I see this happening in the book as well especially the first part. The theologians try and paint a picture of Mary that is “easier to swallow” than the one that some popes and other church sources have previously painted. “When he said Mary saves us he didn’t mean that she SAVED us. Just that she was there while Jesus saved us” that kind of reasoning… That doesn’t fly with me. Just say what you mean.

However, the purpose of this essay is to specifically refute the book “Queen Mother” and not the other issues of Mariology. And I don’t even mean to refute the entire book as I agree with some of it and it brings up interesting points. Furthermore, I don’t intend to refute the doctrine of Mary as the queen mother. I just simply want to point out that such an idea is not nearly as ‘biblical’ as the author of this book makes it seem.

Before beginning let me restate that the book is well written. Being edited by Scott Hahn and from the words themselves I think I can assume that this among the best defense there is available for the “queen mother” concept. The problem with defending false concepts is that the best available apology is still very thin & weak regardless of the scholarly level of the apologist. This book has reinforced my belief that the issue of “queen mother” is far overblown in the Church.

The book is basically broken into two sections. The first section attempts to establish the “queen mother” as a prominent and very important role in the Davidic kingdom of the Old Testament. The second half is built on the first and shows how Mary fills that role queen mother since she is the mother of Christ (the king). The second half would be much more feasible if the first half weren’t so flawed.

The oft repeated Catholic sentiment on the issue: “In Biblical times the queen was the mother and not the wife.”

Despite the book’s misleading attempts at proving such a statement, there is only ONE instance of the mother being explicitly given the title “queen mother” in the bible. Let me repeat that. Despite the book’s misleading attempts at proving such a statement, there is only ONE instance of the mother being given the explicit title “queen mother” in the bible. Try and keep that in mind throughout the remainder of the rebuttal.

Now I am by no means denying that there was a legitimate office for the matriarch of a king in ancient Israel. It is obvious that there was. The book however is misleading in regards to how important that role was. What we have painted in this book is a skewed picture of the Davidic kingdom.

Also keep in mind that when we say “queen mother”, this is just our translation for the Hebrew word “Gebirah” which can mean several different things depending on the context & English probably doesn’t really have a suitable word. The word means something like the feminine of Lord. (It means something similar to our word Queen but since this office (gebirah) can be held by both the wife of a queen and a matriarch, the word Queen is not suitable since that English word means specifically the wife of a king).(4)

The word Gebirah (translated as “queen mother”) is mentioned in connection with THREE different women in the Old Testament.
  1. Queen Tahpenes (Wife)(5)
  2. Maachah, King Asa’s grandmother(6)
  3. King Ahaziah’s mother(7)
Already we should be raising an eyebrow and asking ‘is this role so important?’ being only mentioned with three women and only one of which fitting the description of which we’re trying to fit it to? Let’s get down to specifics:
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whatistruth said:
  1. To fulfill “all” that was written in the Old Testament.
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how? like how did jesus fulfill the Mosaic Law that adulterers have to be stoned to death?
whatistruth said:
4.To restore the 12 tribes of Israel, Remember, God had sent the 12 tribes into exile as he did in the Mosaic Covenant. 10 tribes went to the North(Israel) and two tribes to the South(Judah). Jesus sends the 12 Apostles to go and gather all tribes back into his Kingdom-The Church!
Click to expand...
ok so who among you is from the tribe of Benjamin? please make more sense of what you said. how does the church correspond to the 12 tribes of israel?
 
quote
Mary the Queen Mother In Catholicism

…

Chapter 2 pg 48 says:

“In the Old Testament, gebirah is often used as a title for the mother of the king but it is never used to describe the wife of an Israelite king.”

Often? The word is used 6 total times in the entire bible!!! Of those, 2 are ambiguous (prophetic writings Jeremiah 13:18, Jeremiah 29:2) and 2 specifically speak of someone other than a mother (1 Kings 11:19, 1 Kings 15:13)!!! You can see already how the book is misleading.

He says ‘an Israelite king’ deceivingly. If ‘gebirah’ had been mentioned 95 times and 45 of those times were describing Israelite mothers of kings and the remaining 50 times were of other nations containing both mothers & wives or just wives then he may have a point. But this is not the case. We have only ONE example of this being given to a mother. So it is insignificant that it is used of a mother or grandmother EVERY time in connection with Israelite kings because there are only 2 examples! It is also insignificant that it applies only to the wives of foreigners since it is only used once. However, he takes for granted from this point on that every time it mentions gebirah it is talking about the mother. This is a glaring error and easily misleads the reader.

Let’s break it down mathematically:

Here are the three different women and their relationship to the king that are awarded the title “queen mother” or “gebirah”:
  1. Mother
  2. Grandmother
  3. Wife
We’re only interested in whether or not it’s the mother though so let’s simplify it:
  1. Mother
  2. Not Mother
  3. Not Mother
So we can see that ratio wise: 1/3 of the time it is mentioned it’s talking about mothers and 2/3 of the time it is mentioned in connection with NOT mother or someone other than the mother. So in unknown circumstances, employing the methods of probability we can safely determine that most of time, when using the word ‘gebirah’ we are talking about “Not Mother”.

Chapter 2 pg 49 says:

First, the narrative of 1 and 2 Kings views the king’s mother as having such an important role that it mentions her name while introducing almost every new monarch in Judah (all except three).

What he says is true. But it’s misleading! It is interesting that the mother’s name is usually mentioned. I am sure this does have significance. But keep in mind that none of these women are given the title ‘gebirah’ or ‘queen mother’.

On page 52 he says:

“Finally, the prophet Jeremiah tells how the queen mother possessed a throne and a crown”

Again, he is basing this on the faulty premise that the word ‘gebirah’ always means the mother of a king. The 2 times the word is used in Jeremiah are both ambiguous as to whether or not they are speaking of a mother or a wife. (He is taking for granted that it must be of a mother or grandmother) since it is speaking of Israelites but this is faulty logic as I have previously shown).

On page 54 he says:

“in this section, we turn our attention to two Old Testament passages which bear witness to the importance of the gebirah in Israel’s traditions: Isaiah 7:14 and Genesis 3:15”

This is highly misleading as neither of those passages even use the word gebirah!

So we have shown how he has been misleading concerning the word translated as “queen mother” but what about the word “queen”? Ah hah! We conveniently forgot about that word didn’t we. (He never mentions it). Remember the original Catholic proposition?

“In Biblical times the queen was the mother and not the wife.”

We’re interested in the word queen. This is a completely different word from the word misused by Mr. Sri. The Hebrew word for queen is “malkah”. This means (as our word does) the wife of a king of course. Which of these offices were more important in the culture? Judge for yourself:

Gebirah (queen mother - mother, grandmother or wife) is mentioned 6 total times

Malkah (queen - the wife of a king) is mentioned 35 times

(There’s also another word “shegal” mentioned twice abstractly in Pslams which according to Strong’s meant exclusively the wife of a king)

It is clear that ‘queen’ means the wife even in that culture.
And what of the Catholic apologetic: “They had multiple wives at that time how could you have multiple queens?” I’m not sure but apparently Solomon found a way:
Sixty queens there may be, and eighty concubines, and virgins beyond number;(
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quote
Mary the Queen Mother In Catholicism

…

Now that we have shown the faulty premise on which the rest of the book is built, I will make a few comments on the second half (New Testament) portion of his book while trying not to be too redundant. I believe that most of the second part is fairly coherent and some of it can stand on it’s own. But he repeats several misleading themes from the first section and several of the arguments in the second half can only have real significance if the first half be true.

Page 76 suggests that it is significant that Joseph is left out of the narrative with the 3 wise men. He also admits that:

‘all throughout the narrative in Matthew 1-2 Joseph is much more prominent than Mary’

and then later quotes Aragon saying

“Her mention in this moment, along with the omission of Joseph underlines that Mary is a person especially important for the narrator”

I fail to follow this logic. He claims that since the wise men found Jesus with the mother and not with the father this has some significance and proves that Mary is “especially important” for the author. Has it ever occurred to them that the Wise men may have actually found Him with Mary and Joseph wasn’t present as the text seems to imply? I fail to see how the random absence of Joseph could have any possible connection with her being the queen mother. Furthermore I find it more conclusive that Mary is decidedly less important to the author than Joseph since he is mentioned 10 times while she is only mentioned 7 times throughout the gospel of Matthew.

Pages 78-83 are devoted to proving that Jesus is from the Davidic line and has a kingly type role to play by birth. I don’t see this proving anything as I’ve already shown that the queen mother (insofar as the Bible teaches) is of marginal importance at best. I see no strong connection simply because He was of a Davidic line.

I find the arguments surrounding the woman in Revelation 12 by far the most convincing of the entire book. (I would still fail to see any real Biblical connection though aside from the teachings of the Church).

Jumping back to the first two chapters of Matthew, I wanted to make another point. The author is making the claim that the queen mother is important to Matthew. Is she really so important to him? In the genealogy of Christ, there are four women mentioned. None of them have ever been given the title “gebirah” and none of them are mothers of a king. This is strong evidence to indicate that not only was queen mother not important to Matthew, but it wasn’t important to his audience (the Jews) either.

One final point that should be noted: The office of queen mother was supposed to be a prefiguration of Mary according to Mr. Sri. Indeed, the Catholic apology for the Queen Mother title rests almost entirely on an argument derived from a prefigurational stand point (I think I just invented a new word). However, both Israelite queen mothers were known only because of the evil things they did. King Asa’s grandmother was deposed of her office for her idolatry and King Ahaziah’s gebirah murdered the entire royal family after he died. Sound like a prefiguration of Mary to you?
My conclusion is not that I reject the teaching of Mary as the queen mother, but that the concept is almost entirely extra biblical.

Sources:

1 St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s denied the Immaculate Conception (for example) www.ewtn.com/faith/Teachings/marya2.htm

2 Pope Benedict XV - Encyclical Intersodalicia 1918 AD

3 Pope Pius IX - Encyclical of February 2, 1849 AD

4 All Hebrew Language information is from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible

5 1 Kings 11:19

6 1 Kings 15:13

7 2 Kings 10:13

8 Song of Solomon 6:8
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manualman said:
are so fallen that will will murder God Himself if He places Himself at our mercy.
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Its Jesus’ fault. He never once proclaimed that he was God. What people saw hanging on that cross was a fallen rabbi. Or a prophet who went bad. Not God.
 
Daniel_Marsh said:
I will grant that some of the kings in the OT had a queen mother. But that does NOT make their prescence there a propphecy of NT fulfillment.
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Right !
Jesus is referred to as the “Son of David”.
The biological son of David is a ‘type’ for Jesus.
Solomon showed that he was the true king to follow his father David, by coming into town riding his father’s donkey. By doing this everyone knew that Solomon was the true king.
Sounds familiar doesn’t it?
Jesus did the same.
When he came into town on the donkey, EVERYONE that saw knew exactly what that meant.

Once Solomon gained his kingdom he crowned his queen.
He crowned his mother.

Why does the topology for Solomon and Jesus stop at the sonship, becoming king, and riding the donkey?

michel
 
AgnosTheist said:
ok so who among you is from the tribe of Benjamin? please make more sense of what you said. how does the church correspond to the 12 tribes of israel?
Click to expand...
The ‘lost’ tribes are lost because they intermingled with the gentiles.
For God to regather all of His kingdom, it was necessary to bring the gentiles into the fold so that all twelve tribes could be together again.

There is no pure tribe of Benjamin (or many other tribes) because they have all been intermixed with gentiles.

michel
 
AgnosTheist said:
Its Jesus’ fault. He never once proclaimed that he was God. What people saw hanging on that cross was a fallen rabbi. Or a prophet who went bad. Not God.
Click to expand...
🙂
We have a starting place…
you agree that Jesus was an actual man and the bible is historically accurate.
From where else would you know that the man Jesus was hung on a cross and died?

Let me see what I can find on Jesus’ claiming to be God.

michel
 
cazayoux said:
The ‘lost’ tribes are lost because they intermingled with the gentiles.

For God to regather all of His kingdom, it was necessary to bring the gentiles into the fold so that all twelve tribes could be together again.
Click to expand...
i dont know about that, but until the rest of the Jews start believing in Jesus then Jesus mission was a failure. And nothing short of a miracle would convince the rest of the jews.
 
AgnosTheist said:
Its Jesus’ fault. He never once proclaimed that he was God. What people saw hanging on that cross was a fallen rabbi. Or a prophet who went bad. Not God.
cazayoux;2794854:
Let me see what I can find on Jesus’ claiming to be God.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Titus 2:13, “…our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ…”
John 10:30, “I and the Father are one.”
John 17:11, “That they may be one, even as We are one.”

Isaiah 62:5, “…as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.”
Matt 9:15, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?”
God is the bridegroom. Jesus is the bridegroom. Jesus is God.

Matt 9:6-7 has Jesus forgiving a paralytic’s sins. Isn’t God the only one capable of forgiving sin?
Heb 1:6 has the Father telling the angels to worship Jesus. Isn’t God the only one deserving of worship? Rev 19:10 tells us to “worship God.” But, God tells His angels to worship Jesus. Hmm.

(thank you John Martignoni!)

michel
 
cazayoux said:
🙂
We have a starting place…
you agree that Jesus was an actual man and the bible is historically accurate.
From where else would you know that the man Jesus was hung on a cross and died?

Let me see what I can find on Jesus’ claiming to be God.

michel
Click to expand...
Yes I do believe that there was a man called Jesus that inspired the creation of Christianity. And that this man got crucified. But I dont believe in any of those miracle stories around him.
 
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