Fulfillment of Prophecy in the New Testament

[VoidoftheSun]

A basic difference between Baha'is and Christians is that Christians follow Jesus teachings and Baha'is follow Baha'u'llah's teaching, which contradict the teachings of Jesus.

Which is the equivalent to a Christian asking a Jew if Jesus' teachings contradict Moses'.

 

[Trailblazer]

The gospel of Jesus has been abrogated according to Baha'i.

No, as I have told you, the gospel of Jesus will never be abrogated because it is part of the eternal religion of God so it can never be abrogated.

It is the Christian Dispensation that has been abrogated, according to Baha'i beliefs:

Dispensation

1. the divine ordering of the affairs of the world.
2. an appointment, arrangement, or favor, as by God.
3. a divinely appointed order or age:

e.g. the old Mosaic, or Jewish, dispensation; the new gospel, or Christian, dispensation.

Definition of dispensation | Dictionary.com

 

[Brian2]

What happens when a human as just one self, which everyone of us, gets born and then says, you are all wrong in your groups? Yet some of the expressions in those groups are correct?

Would you say a human who believed in none of that information studied self human spiritual concepts their own self wrong? And I bet a lot of you would and claim, but you are not arguing using our previously stated information.

So first of all I would say, okay, when I got told the Jesus story as a story I thought it evil...and said who would want to believe in a Father God who would sacrifice a baby to adult life in early age death and claim it a Holy Act.

God knows what is best even if we find it hard to understand the reasoning behind it at times. Jesus did not want to suffer and die but trusted in His Father and wanted to do as He wanted Him to do for the sake of everyone.

 

[Brian2]

And even if they were there and wrote those stories that does not mean the stories are true stories.
Stories are not proof that anything in the stories are true.

Nothing in the resurrection stories is verifiable by any witnesses that are outside the story itself.
Thus the bodily resurrection is a faith-based belief, not a fact-based belief.

Moreover, there are no verifiable facts regarding the life is Jesus, all we have are the gospel stories.
By contrast, we have actual facts surrounding the life of Baha'u'llah.

And all this from a Baha'i who is supposed to believe the Bible.
That is the fruit of Baha'u'llah. That is how Baha'u'llah has glorified Jesus. Baha'is deny the gospel and the truth of the gospel.

 

[rational experiences]

God knows what is best even if we find it hard to understand the reasoning behind it at times. Jesus did not want to suffer and die but trusted in His Father and wanted to do as He wanted Him to do for the sake of everyone.

Are you Jesus, or do you have connections to the mind psyche and lived life bio body of the male who suffered crown of thorns and radiation body flogging?

No should be your answer, for you claim in natural life review after the fact that you talked on his behalf.

I lived an attack crown of thorns similar brain burning prickling effect, which then allowed me to hear his male life recorded history as he lived.....he did not say he believed in sacrifice, the male who existed afterwards made that claim that he was glad that he was still safe and congratulated our brother on advising him to take action to save his own self.

How it is reasoned.Why did Jesus ask "Why am I forsaken?"

 

[Brian2]

Yes it does. Why say otherwise?

The word of God is where we get most of our knowledge about God. The New Covenant then offers knowledge about God and offers a personal knowing of God from our experience of Him and from His Spirit in us. His word also tells us that we will know what He wants and cause us to walk in His ordinances and statutes.

Ezek 36:26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to carefully observe My ordinances. 28Then you will live in the land that I gave your forefathers; you will be My people, and I will be your God.…
Jer 31:34 No longer will they teach their neighbour, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

Really? Says who? The text refers to the Torah. Not parts of it. Not it "in spirit." This confirms all the earlier statements that the Torah is perfect and complete and we are bound to follow it for all generations. Jer and Ezek both indicate that after the nature of people change, they will follow the Torah, its laws and ordinances.

Yes, God changes our nature and causes us to follow the Torah, it's laws and ordinances. This new nature is what Jesus and the NT described as being born again or born of God.
I do disagree however that the ordinances and statutes of the Law of Moses are what is spoken of. It is what the whole of God's word tells us about God and what He wants. This is more simple than the 613 Mitzvot of the Mosaic Law.
Micah 6:7 Would the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8He has shown you, O mankind, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
The Law of Moses was not around till Moses came along and people still did what God wanted. With a New Covenant the same is true, we are changed in nature and have God's Spirit and know God and want to do what is right.
The word of God is eternal but the Mosaic Law is till the time that one accepts the New Covenant of God. Olam does not necessarily mean "eternal"............the Law of Moses is the Law for a particular Covenant. Times and places change and so laws change even if they are based on the same principles of Love and Holiness and justice and mercy,,,,,,,,,,,,,and knowing God is to know what He does not want us to do and what He wants us to do.

All Isaiah 6 says is that some people are deserving of punishment so either they are so far gone that they cannot or will not hear the exhortation to repent, or that God makes them too stubborn to repent because once their punishment is decreed, they must be punished and can't escape it by repenting (like Pharaoh in Egypt).

Isaiah seems to be told by God to cause this deafness and blindness so that the people do not repent and be healed. It is a commission that brings judgement by God. Jesus also spoke in parables for the same reason, so that people would not understand and turn to Him and be forgiven. (Mark 4:12) Jesus came to judge people as well as gain forgiveness for them.

 

[Brian2]

Which is the equivalent to a Christian asking a Jew if Jesus' teachings contradict Moses'.

Yes I guess so. But of course Jesus teachings are meant to be different to the teachings of Moses to an extent because Moses brought one Covenant and Jesus brought the New Covenant which is prophesied about in the Hebrew scriptures. The New Covenant is everlasting and is for Jews and for Gentiles.
Nothing of Baha'u'llah and his teachings is prophesied about anywhere in the Bible.

 

[VoidoftheSun]

Yes I guess so. But of course Jesus teachings are meant to be different to the teachings of Moses to an extent because Moses brought one Covenant and Jesus brought the New Covenant which is prophesied about in the Hebrew scriptures. The New Covenant is everlasting and is for Jews and for Gentiles.
Nothing of Baha'u'llah and his teachings is prophesied about anywhere in the Bible.

There are no prophecies of Jesus in the Tanakh, period.

 

[Brian2]

No, as I have told you, the gospel of Jesus will never be abrogated because it is part of the eternal religion of God so it can never be abrogated.

It is the Christian Dispensation that has been abrogated, according to Baha'i beliefs:

Dispensation

1. the divine ordering of the affairs of the world.
2. an appointment, arrangement, or favor, as by God.
3. a divinely appointed order or age:

e.g. the old Mosaic, or Jewish, dispensation; the new gospel, or Christian, dispensation.

Definition of dispensation | Dictionary.com

Just as I said, the gospel of Jesus, which is the Christian dispensation, has been abrogated. Baha'u'llah has taken over. Good bye Jesus, it has been and still is good to hear what you had to teach us about morality but forget about the gospel stuff, we now have Baha'u'llah.

 

[Trailblazer]

And all this from a Baha'i who is supposed to believe the Bible. Baha'is deny the gospel and the truth of the gospel.

And all this from is from Christians who are supposed to believe the Bible.
I guess some Christians also deny the truth of the gospel because they deny the resurrection as you understand it.

What many liberal theologians believe about Jesus' death

Many liberal and some mainline Christian leaders believe that Jesus died during the crucifixion, did not resurrect himself, and was not bodily resurrected by God. At his death, his mind ceased to function and his body started the decomposition process. Returning to life a day and a half later would have been quite impossible. The story of having been wrapped in linen and anointed with myrrh seems to have been copied from the story of the death of Osiris -- the Egyptian God of the earth, vegetation and grain. The legend that he visited the underworld between his death and resurrection was simply copied from common Pagan themes of surrounding cultures. One example again was Osiris. "With his original association to agriculture, his death and resurrection were seen as symbolic of the annual death and re-growth of the crops and the yearly flooding of the Nile." 1

They also believe that Paul regarded the resurrection to be an act of God in which Jesus was a passive recipient of God's power. Paul did not mention the empty tomb, the visit by a woman or women, the stone, the angel/angels/man/men at the tomb, and reunion of Jesus with his followers in his resuscitated body. Rather, he believed that Jesus was taken up into heaven in a spirit body. It was only later, from about 70 to 110 CE when the four canonic Gospels were written, that the Christians believed that Jesus rose from the grave in his original body, and by his own power.

Later, perhaps after Paul's death, there was great disappointment within the Christian communities because Jesus had not returned as expected. They diverted their focus of attention away from Jesus' second coming. They studied his life and death more intensely. Legends without a historical basis were created by the early church; these included the empty tomb and described Jesus returning in his original body to eat and talk with his followers.

In previous centuries, almost all Christians believed in miracles as described in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). These included creation, the story of Adam and Eve, a talking serpent, the great flood of Noah, the drying up of the Red/Reed sea, a prophet riding on a talking ***, the sun stopping in the sky, etc. From the Christian Scriptures (New Testament), they believed in the virgin birth, the Christmas star, angels appearing to the shepherds, Jesus healing the sick, etc. Many, perhaps most, liberal Christians now believe that these stories are not to be interpreted literally as real events. Their faith has not been damaged by losing faith in the reality of these events. A growing number of liberals are now taking the final step by interpreting the stories of Jesus' resurrection and his appearances to his followers and to Paul as other than real events. Retired bishop John Shelby Spong commented:

"I do admit that for Christians to enter this subject honestly is to invite great anxiety. It is to walk the razor's edge, to run the risk of cutting the final cord still binding many to the faith of their mothers and fathers. But the price for refusing to enter this consideration is for me even higher. The inability to question reveals that one has no confidence that one's belief system will survive such an inquiry. That is a tacit recognition that on unconscious levels, one's faith has already died. If one seeks to protect God from truth or new insights, then God has surely already died." 3

http://www.religioustolerance.org/resur_lt.htm

 

[Trailblazer]

That is the fruit of Baha'u'llah. That is how Baha'u'llah has glorified Jesus.

No, this is how Baha'u'llah glorified Jesus:

“Know thou that when the Son of Man yielded up His breath to God, the whole creation wept with a great weeping. By sacrificing Himself, however, a fresh capacity was infused into all created things. Its evidences, as witnessed in all the peoples of the earth, are now manifest before thee. The deepest wisdom which the sages have uttered, the profoundest learning which any mind hath unfolded, the arts which the ablest hands have produced, the influence exerted by the most potent of rulers, are but manifestations of the quickening power released by His transcendent, His all-pervasive, and resplendent Spirit.

We testify that when He came into the world, He shed the splendor of His glory upon all created things. Through Him the leper recovered from the leprosy of perversity and ignorance. Through Him, the unchaste and wayward were healed. Through His power, born of Almighty God, the eyes of the blind were opened, and the soul of the sinner sanctified.

Leprosy may be interpreted as any veil that interveneth between man and the recognition of the Lord, his God. Whoso alloweth himself to be shut out from Him is indeed a leper, who shall not be remembered in the Kingdom of God, the Mighty, the All-Praised. We bear witness that through the power of the Word of God every leper was cleansed, every sickness was healed, every human infirmity was banished. He it is Who purified the world. Blessed is the man who, with a face beaming with light, hath turned towards Him.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 85-86

 

[Brian2]

So a perfect law that is stated as an eternal law can change. OK then.

God's word is perfect but God says different things at different times even though God does not change.
We know that the word translated "eternal" does not necessarily mean eternal.

If I say "Americans in 1800 were under the Constitution, and Americans who moved to Russia in 1801 and then their descendants moved back in 1955 are under the Constitution" why assume that the two uses of the technical word "Constitution" refer to anything other than the same thing? Would you assume that it refers to a replacement?

Same country but different era and the constitution may have changed or been amended, as it has 27 times I hear.

 

[Trailblazer]

Nothing of Baha'u'llah and his teachings is prophesied about anywhere in the Bible.

Why would the teachings of Baha'u'llah be in the Bible?
Are the teachings of Jesus in the Old Testament?

The Coming of Baha'u'llah was prophesied in the Bible, all throughout the OT and NT.
Actual evidence on the ground cannot be denied, except by Christians.

William Sears, Thief in the Night

 

[Trailblazer]

Just as I said, the gospel of Jesus, which is the Christian dispensation, has been abrogated. Baha'u'llah has taken over. Good bye Jesus, it has been and still is good to hear what you had to teach us about morality but forget about the gospel stuff, we now have Baha'u'llah.

No, the gospel of Jesus has not been abrogated, only the Dispensation of Jesus has been abrogated....

That means by an arrangement of God the divine ordering of the affairs of the world is now according to the Revelation of Baha'u'llah, not according to the gospel of Jesus.

Of course, the Coming of Baha'u'llah was prophesied by Jesus, so it is not as if Jesus ever said the gospels would apply for all of time.

John 16:12-14 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

 

[Trailblazer]

God's word is perfect but God says different things at different times even though God does not change.

Then why do Christians say that God could not ever say anything again after the NT was written?

 

[Brian2]

And all this from is from Christians who are supposed to believe the Bible.
I guess some Christians also deny the truth of the gospel because they deny the resurrection as you understand it.

Yes many Christians deny the truth of parts of the Bible, and I am probably in that lot. It does not always stop us from being Christian. It depends what we deny.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

Acts 2:26... my body also will rest in hope, 27 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, you will not let your holy one see decay.

I doubt that Jesus came back to life too. But, I don't doubt that the New Testament teaches that he did. Baha'i have to deny any verse that implies that Jesus did come back to life and any verse that implies that it is him, Jesus, that is coming back. Baha'is need his body dead and gone. His Spirit they can deal with. His flesh and bone body, they can't.

Even with their belief in evolution, they still have to believe that God made something that was not alive into something that was alive. Why is it so hard for them to think that God could bring something that had died back to life? Why is it so hard for them to think that God could create a different, glorified type of body? Because they don't need nor want any of those things to be true. They believe in other things. Unfortunately, they also pretend to believe in the New Testament. So when their beliefs don't match up with the NT? It is the NT that is wrong... but usually because foolish people have misinterpreted it. That way they can still claim that the NT is true... but only true in how they interpret it.

I can read those same passages and not see that the flesh is required in their understanding. Notice the body will rest because we do not abandon Christ, just because Jesus was laid to rest in the flesh, we will not let 'Christ' (holy one) see decay in Spirit.

1 Corinthians 15:44 "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body."

Regards Tony

 

[Brian2]

Then why do Christians say that God could not ever say anything again after the NT was written?

God speaks today but does not deny what He has said in the past.
With the law of Moses God said it was olam, a word that could be translated as everlasting or eternal or could be translated as lasting for an indefinite period of time or something else that is not necessarily eternal. The Jews want an eternal Mosaic law even though they know that laws change for different circumstances and times. What does not change is God and how He wants us to act, in love.
God has said in the OT that there is a New Covenant that He would give to the Jews which is eternal and which covers all changed circumstances and times and which involves complete forgiveness but it seems they like the old Covenant and the time specific Laws that go along with it instead of the New one.
And yes the New Covenant that Jesus brought in, the gospel, is eternal and will not be replaced by any other covenant from someone who pretends to be the return of Jesus.

 

[Brian2]

No, the gospel of Jesus has not been abrogated, only the Dispensation of Jesus has been abrogated....

That means by an arrangement of God the divine ordering of the affairs of the world is now according to the Revelation of Baha'u'llah, not according to the gospel of Jesus.

Of course, the Coming of Baha'u'llah was prophesied by Jesus, so it is not as if Jesus ever said the gospels would apply for all of time.

One second you say that the gospel has not been abrogated and then the next you seem to deny that the gospel is still in force. Hmmm. I don't get it.
But the gospel of Jesus, the New Covenant, does apply for all time. That is what the OT says and is what is implied by Jesus in calling His gospel a Covenant,,,,,,,,,,,,,ie the New Covenant. It is also stated more explicitly in the other parts of the NT.

John 16:12-14 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

Yes that part of John is all you have to claim as prophecy about Baha'u'llah,,,,,,,,,,and I think Muhammad claims that also for himself.
Yet I have shown you frpm the same part of John's gospel that the Spirit of Truth is promised to the disciples of Jesus day and I have shown you that the Spirit of Truth is the Holy Spirit. This means that the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples of Jesus day at Pentecost was the coming of the Spirit of Truth to them.

 

[Brian2]

Why would the teachings of Baha'u'llah be in the Bible?
Are the teachings of Jesus in the Old Testament?

I said they are not prophesied about. The Messiah and the New Covenant are prophesied in the OT.

The Coming of Baha'u'llah was prophesied in the Bible, all throughout the OT and NT.
Actual evidence on the ground cannot be denied, except by Christians.

William Sears, Thief in the Night

Point to any prophecy that William Sears uses and I'm sure it can be shown what Baha'i claims about it is not true.