In regards Christianity, Jesus was the real deal and the Christ that had been foretold in the Hebrew bible. However He did not fulfil all the prophecies. For example He clearly did not bring peace to the earth.
I disagree.
Jesus fulfilled all of the prophesies written about his role. He even purposely orchestrated some of the features so that they would be fulfilled as written.
Jesus said at Luke 22:37...
"For I tell you that what is written must be accomplished in me, namely, ‘He was counted with lawless ones.’ For this is being fulfilled concerning me.”
If you listen to Jewish sources, of course you will get a different story. According to their interpretation of scripture, he did not fulfill any of the Messianic prophesies. Not because he didn't fulfill them, but because he didn't do so in the way they thought he should.
Jesus gave his disciples spiritual liberation, whereas the religious leaders were expecting a powerful political leader who would liberate the Jews from the Roman yoke and re-establish God's Kingdom on earth....(with themselves in positions of authority, no doubt) Any wonder they rejected him....not to mention his repeated castigation of them as the world's worst hypocrites. (Matthew 23)
That being said He transformed Judaism into a universal religion that has provided an essential understanding for humnaity as to the nature of God and our relationship with Him.
I disagree again.
Judaism has continued to be in denial about their Messiah and even about their flawed interpretation of scripture. They still think that their relationship with Abraham is significant, but Jesus put paid to that and so did John the Baptist before him. (Matthew 3:7-10; Matthew 23:37-39) Being a fleshly Jew was no longer important once the Messiah came. It is the reason why the Jews have not had a Temple since the destruction of the last one, as God never commanded it to be rebuilt.....because it was no longer necessary.
God's promise to Abraham included all nations receiving a blessing through the sacrifice of this special agent of God who was to come through Abraham's family line, specifically through the tribe of Judah.
The Gospels are authentic in substance, under God's protection and through them conveyed all that God desired about His Revelation through Christ. However it is a theological narrative and not to be taken literally.
Much of it is literal and some of it is figurative. Once you know the Bible's overall message, the differences become clear. It is one story from Genesis to Revelation....for us, we need no other prophets or scripture. All we need to know is contained in God's word. We don't need to bridge faiths or to ignore scripture to arrive at our truth. Its all in one book.....with only one genuine faith. (Ephesians 4:5-6)
Christ appointed Peter as His successor and His primacy is recognised by the Baha'is. The Catholics are correct in that regard and subsequent Popes in the early days were very genuine and spiritual people in contrast to some subsequent Popes.
Disagree again.
Peter was entrusted with the "keys of the Kingdom" but nowhere is it said that he was above any of the other apostles as a successor to Jesus. Do you recall the argument that the apostles kept having over who among them was the greatest? Jesus told them that the greatest among them was the servant. (Luke 22:24-27)
The foundations of the heavenly Kingdom include all 12 apostles. (Revelation 21:14) None has supremacy.
Since there were no "Popes" in original Christianity, I'm afraid that Roman Catholicism and Christianity are not remotely connected and never were, according to my understanding. Protestantism is just the daughters of the same mother.....all subscribe to the same core doctrines...the ones we discarded as unchristian teachings over 100 years ago.
The same situation occurred in Judaism.....by the time Jesus arrived, it was not remotely like the faith that was given to Israel at Mount Sinai. Jewish rabbinical teachers had added so much in their interpretation of the Tanach that it no longer resembled what God taught. It did not reflect the reasonableness or spirit of the Law but turned it into nit-picking legalism.
The devil has his way of leading men to distort the truth so that lies come to be accepted as doctrines....truth comes to be viewed as lies. (1 John 5:19) He is a master deceiver....believe it or not.
However, Christianity ran into serious trouble by the fourth century when there was much bickering between the Christian leaders and schism was threatened on account of Arius. The Emperor Constantine became a Christian and presided over the first council of Nicea in 325 to resolve the dispute. Arius was essentially considered a heretic and the first draft of the Nicene creed was composed.
Christianity was in trouble long before then. By the start of the second century, the foretold apostasy began to infiltrate to undermine the truth of the gospels. By the 4th century, they were in the right state of spiritual drowsiness to accept the counterfeit Christianity offered by Constantine. Christendom was born and the rest, as they say, is history. Divisions have never been mended, and after the Reformation, "Christianity" (or what passed for it) was divided even more into the ridiculous state it is in now. This was foretold, so no surprises there.
For reasons of wisdom God chose to establish a new religion based on Muhammad's Teachings rather than simply reform Christianity. The same thing had happened with Christ. Christ didn't simply reform Judaism but established a new religion independant from it.
Jesus did not come to start a new faith....he came to clean up the old one and to teach the "lost sheep" how to worship their God acceptably. By instituting a new covenant (something foretold in their scripture) on the night before his death, Jesus dispensed with the old covenant and released them from "the curse" of the Law. (Galatians 3:10-14) He had fulfilled it just as he said.
To us, Jesus was God's last prophet and the Christian scriptures (particularly Revelation) were to take his disciples 1000 years into the future. Why would God confuse people by introducing prophets from Gentile religions when he had kept Israel screened off from what he identified as false worship? The promise to Abraham was to be carried through Isaac and Jacob, not Ishmael. Israel was the only nation with whom God made his covenant. They were the only ones under his Law.
It was the Islamic Golden Age that was arguably the most important factor in igniting the European Rennaisance. Europe then flourished with the development of arts and sciences while islam went into a slow decline. The stimulation of intellectual life led to the question of Christian orthodoxy. The Protestant movement took off as Europe was plunged into war and bloodshed with the schism from Catholicism. The unity of Christianity has never recovered despite the Catholic counter reformation.
God has never backed Christendom because she is the mirror image of Judaism. When Jesus comes as judge he will reject the majority of Christians as those he "never knew" for the simple reason that they apostatized from the truth that he taught very early in the piece. (Matthew 7:21-23) Only at "the time of the end" was God going to 'cleanse and refine' his worshippers. Those who refused the cleansing would not be given insight or understanding about anything. (Daniel 12:4; 9-10) Christendom still teaches the same old lies.
Your interpretation is interesting but far from the truth as I understand it. I do not see how anything that comes from Ishmael is even in the picture. He is clearly not the heir of the promise.
From the Protestant movement came new insights. The Great Commission or the spreading of the Gospel as instructed by Christ continued and the colonial powers forged ahead in this regard, while in the process economically exploiting the countires they colonised and converted to Christianity.
Correction...they converted them to Christendom.....not Christianity. No one is "converted" to genuine Christianity at the point of a sword.
By the nineteenth century there was a real sense of change and hope for the future. As well as a vast development of technology this century saw the growth of movements for women's rights, abolition of slavery, the establishment of democracy, racial equality along with many other important social changes. Within both Christianity and Islam there was a sense Messianic expectation. For the Muslims it was the Mahdi or return of the twelve Imam.
My brotherhood was in its infancy at the end of the 19th century...just beginning to tackle the prophesies Jesus at Matthew 24. As time went on, more and more was revealed.
The 'cleansing, whitening and refining' foretold by Daniel were processes that were going to take time and effort....but one by one, Christendom's doctrines were examined and discarded as false. We separated completely from Christendom, no longer having any beliefs in common with them.
Of course this date coincides with the birth of the Baha'i Revelation. This went unnoticed by the Millerites and the great disappointment followed.
God did move people at that time, but out of it came my brotherhood, now a united global family who all accept the truths dispensed by the ones we regard as "the faithful and discreet slave" appointed by Jesus to "feed" his household their "food at the proper time". (Matthew 24:45) That meant that we got what we needed, when we needed it, gradually revealing what God's purpose was for his people in these last days. Did we make some mistakes? Sure we did, but it was only at the right time that things were clarified. (Proverbs 4:18)
The events we see taking place since 1914 all fit in the scenario Jesus gave to identify the last days. It also fits in with the prophesies of Daniel and Revelation written over 400 years apart, yet still speaking about the same events.....leading to the "great day of God the Almighty"....Armageddon.
This is what we are prepared for. The world at large is not.
