Protestants...a humble question of Typology

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Protestants,

I posted these scriptures on another thread, and the response was rather unsatisfying.

Deuteronomy 17:
8"If a matter arises which is too hard for you to judge, between degrees of guilt for bloodshed, between one judgment or another, or between one punishment or another, matters of controversy within your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the LORD your God chooses. 9And you shall come to the priests, the Levites, and to the judge there in those days, and inquire of them; they shall pronounce upon you the sentence of judgment. 10You shall do according to the sentence which they pronounce upon you in that place which the LORD chooses. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they order you. 11According to the sentence of the law in which they instruct you, according to the judgment which they tell you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left from the sentence which they pronounce upon you. 12Now the man who acts presumptuously and will not heed the priest who stands to minister there before the LORD your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall put away the evil from Israel. 13And all the people shall hear and fear, and no longer act presumptuously.
(…foreshadowing the Magesterium…)

Isaiah 22:
22The key of the house of David
I will lay on his shoulder;
So he shall open, and no one shall shut;
And he shall shut, and no one shall open.
(…foreshadowing Matt 16:18…)

I understand Christ as the fulfillment of the Old Testament, and I understand fulfillment to be the “making-more-full”, or rather the “bringing to completion of something which was INcomplete” of something. When I asked another Protestant (who shortly thereafter was suspended), he basically said that by eliminating these things he fulfilled them. My question, humbly asked, is does elimination = fulfillment in Protestant theology?

In Peace and Love,
RyanL
 
Being an ex-Protestant this is probably how it’s viewed: EVEN THOUGH Christ Himself says that he did not come to abolish the Law, but, to fulfill it, the reasoning that is lacking in the Old Testament (believe me when I say the Old Testament makes SOOOOOOOO much more sense as a Catholic & is so much more beautiful, too!) is that this is what God did to stay in contact with His people. It’s like using duct-tape for a leaky faucet. It was never meant to be a permanent thing. Their resoning is, “Look at how many channels the people had to go through to get to God. We don’t have that now since Jesus!!”

They really don’t believe in the Magesterium (and SOOOOOO many other things that really shine through the Bible and make it so very complete) because they think we are just distancing ourselves from God with it. OR they could just say of this passage that that was more of the law in general, not of religious matters. (Believe me, if they don’t want to see it, they wont. Always remember, “If something CAN be interpreted a certain way, it WILL be.”)

Basically, because Jesus came, we can now go directly to God, each individual. Jesus came to abolish the Old Testament ways and we don’t need to answer up to men anymore. He eliminated OT laws to fulfill God’s promises. AND, note how all of that is spelled out…it’s not like that in the NT, now then is it? Believe me, they just DON’T get the fullness of it…at least ~I~ wasn’t taught to when I was a Protestant. …Maybe the Protestants here can help you more and explain in a MUCH better way.

…Keep in mind that this is coming from somebody with a Congregationalist/Full Gospel/Christian Reformed education.
 
i’m confused. it would seem that the response is “yes, Christ fulfilled the old testament by abolishing it, but that doesn’t mean He abolished the old testament - rather, He fulfilled it (by abolishing it)!” this appears rampantly circular and simply makes no sense to me. abolish means to do away with. fulfillment means to bring-into-fullness. i can almost understand the “I-go-straight-to-Jesus” argument (since we ALL go straight to Jesus), but what happened to the priesthood, the temple, the ark of the covenant, eve, the people who pronounced God’s law on earth, vestiments, incense, holy water, SACRIFICE, passover, etc.?!? was it all some wierd cosmic joke that God would play on the jews for the 4000 years between job and Jesus? was there NO purpose? how do prots justify St. Paul’s hang-up with Malchezidek if there was to be no fulfillment, but only abolishment?

truly, i ask not to belittle, but because i just can’t comprehend…can any of our protestant brotheren help me to understand?

in Loving Peace,
RyanL
 
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RyanL:
i’m confused. it would seem that the response is “yes, Christ fulfilled the old testament by abolishing it, but that doesn’t mean He abolished the old testament - rather, He fulfilled it (by abolishing it)!” this appears rampantly circular and simply makes no sense to me. abolish means to do away with. fulfillment means to bring-into-fullness. i can almost understand the “I-go-straight-to-Jesus” argument (since we ALL go straight to Jesus), but what happened to the priesthood, the temple, the ark of the covenant, eve, the people who pronounced God’s law on earth, vestiments, incense, holy water, SACRIFICE, passover, etc.?!? was it all some wierd cosmic joke that God would play on the jews for the 4000 years between job and Jesus? was there NO purpose? how do prots justify St. Paul’s hang-up with Malchezidek if there was to be no fulfillment, but only abolishment?

truly, i ask not to belittle, but because i just can’t comprehend…can any of our protestant brotheren help me to understand?

in Loving Peace,
RyanL
Click to expand...
ALL TEMPORARY!!!

I don’t know if you’ve seen this particular anti-Catholic tract, but, there is one out there, speaking of priests, that specifically sites that Christ didn’t appoint priests, we have deacons and such, but, no priests (yes, I know, “presbyters”, but, that’s not “priests”, therefore, not in the Bible, therefore, something to do in the OT, but, not the New). Temple, for Jews & Pagans…we have church. Arc of the Covenant: Old Law/Old Ways, no longer necesary because we now have Jesus. That was the old way which failed. We now have Jesus, who doesn’t. We no longer need all those laws & such. The Arc of the Covenant really doesn’t get a lot of coverage much from what I remember. Yes, it’s good trivia to know how it was built and if you touched it you die, but, really, it’s not important. Eve. It’s her fault we’re in this mess. She’s the first to sin against God; Adam’s Wife. What about her? She’s dead…all that other stuff you mentioned…no, it wasn’t a cosmic joke, it was just the old temporary way. We have Jesus now; we don’t need any of that other ritualistic for show only stuff. Let me rephrase. It is BECAUSE Jesus came that we DON’T (acc to Prots) need that stuff, ANY of it anymore. Like I keep rehashing, temporary. Jesus didn’t say to do these things in the Gospels like God did in Exodus, did He? Look at how he spelled it out before. Surely if this was the case, He’d spell it all out again. See, it is drilled in us, almost like brainwashing, now that I look back on it, that Jesus did away with ALL of that because that is how people came to God BEFORE, this is how we come to God NOW. Especially Passover…I mean, we don’t celebrate Passover now, do we? No, because Jesus came once and for all do sacrifice Himself for our sins. It was fine then, but, not now.

Malchezidec – again, temporary. I don’t even know if such a comparison is made in Protestant circles…really, I don’t.
 
ahhhhh…

many lightbulbs. thank you very much for clearing some of that up for me.

would you have been swayed at all by the catholic understanding of the fulfillment of scriptures? if someone were to hand you a tract, or you were to stumble across a website, would the beauty and fullness of the catholic understanding have made you reconsider anything? is the “done-away-with-it” training so ingrained that few would even read all the way through something like that? i know that it wasn’t until i started studying typology that the old testament made any sense…do you honestly think protestants would listen?

in Christ,
RyanL
 
OOOOH!!! Something else I forgot to mention, is how, when Jesus says something to this Disciples/Apostles, instead of reading that that’s Him giving instructions on how to form His Church, with the priests & all, Protestants will say that that’s Him speaking to ALL Christians, so, when you point out that He gave them the power to forgive sins, they will say that that’s what EVERYBODY is called to do & such.

Ummmm, hmmmm…you know what? I’m not sure about would I have become Catholic bc of the Bible…I just always felt a strong desire to become Catholic… I was already open to consider anything regarding Catholicism, really. Some Protestants MAY find it interesting, but, I’m not sure if they would really reconsider. Some of them are just SOOOOOOO…they really can’t, for whatever reason, see it. I don’t know…
 
Hi, I suppose I am considered a Protestant, but have not personally protested anything and can only speak for myself.

I understand the history of Israel as a “dinner theater” to teach us of God. Within Israel, the prophet often lived a similar “dinner theater” to teach Israel.

As such, Israel did not receive grace through the sacrifices of animals, only the promise of grace as the animals were shadows of Christ. They could not obtain righteousness through the law, but the law painted pictures of Christ as a promise of righteousness through Christ.

So fulfillment of the law, in my mind, means the Christ looks like the pictures painted in the law.

Take a simple law: the law of blasphemy. Jesus fulfills it without breaking it, nor doing away with it. To blaspheme means to make Gods name common. In the end there will be no need for one to teach another, "for all will know Him:. Christ makes the name of God common, not by degrading the name of God, but by making all Holy.

The Nazarite had long hair (which is a disgrace on men) just as Christ bore our disgrace. He didn’t drink wine as Christ vowed at the last supper. He didn’t touch a dead body, as Christ was buried in an unused grave.

The leper shaved his head as a symbol of lost authority as the Father departed from Christ on the cross. He covered his upper lip (which is done when you pray and do not receive an answer) as Christ’s petition to have the cup removed was ignored. The leprosy itself represented sin as Christ was made to be sin for us. And when he was completely covered and white with leprosy, he was declared clean, as Christ was white when he rose from the dead. Then the leper went through the same ritual as though he were being consecrated as a priest, just as Christ was made High priest.

In this way Christ fulfills all the law, without doing away with it, and without being personally culpable for it.
 
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