And so we gave our lives...

February 6, 2012

implicitly-absurd:

wisdomofscripture:

Great to know!

Sorry guys, this will be my reblogging hour today :L

This is one of the main things I’ve never understood about Christianity. When I was much, much younger (I was raised Christian), I wanted to read the part of the Bible with all the prophecies that everyone talks about, I found the idea of it fascinating.

But it turns out these are the kinds of prophecies they were talking about. The first “prophecy”, in Isaiah, is about giving Ahaz a sign (whether he wants one or not) that his people will not be defeated by their enemies. If this was actually referring to Jesus, the sign came hundreds of years too late. Then, Isaiah impregnated a heretofore virgin, who bore a son, who appears to be the son Isaiah’s prophecy refers to. (Isaiah 8:1-4).

Micah 5:2 refers to “one who will rule over Israel”, something which Jesus never did. This implies that it’s referring to a different birth in Bethlehem. Now, I’m sure your response will be something along the lines of “But he will rule over the whole world, including Israel, after the Second Coming!”, or “It’s referring to heavenly rule, which he’s doing right now at his Father’s right hand!”. We don’t need to get into that kind of theological discussion, so I’ll concede that either of those could fulfill the prophecy. HOWEVER, if we make that assumption, then this is a useless prophecy. We can’t verify it without first believing that Jesus is the son of God and that he ascended into Heaven (which convinces no one except those who already believe), or we have to wait for the Second Coming, which means it still hasn’t been fulfilled, and might not ever.

The verse from Hosea is “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son”. In context, this is clearly God referring to Israel as his child, and how he called Israel out of slavery in Egypt. If we pretend that this actually is a reference to a future event, rather than a past one, this still doesn’t make a lot of sense considering the various gospels’ disagreement over what happened to Jesus immediately after his birth.

I’m not going to go through every single one, but that’s the first three supposedly-fulfilled prophecies, which don’t seem to me to say anything of worth. If I’m missing something, do let me know, but this looks like whoever made the chart is just grasping at straws.

1. Isaiah 7.

That a child would be born of a virgin and called Immanuel is clearly a prophecy of the birth of Jesus (Matt. 1:23) which means that ultimately all enemies of God’s chosen will not prevail.

Of course Ahaz was looking for a sign about the threat of Syria and Ephraim to Israel. God proceeds to tell Ahaz that those kingdoms will soon be laid waste even “before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.”

Two prophecies in one, both of which were accurate.

2. Micah 5

Yes, it is clearly referring to Christ’s millennial reign after the tribulation.

It says in the next verse that “he shall give them up until the time..” That time when Israel is done being the jealous nation and God raises up the 144,000 missionaries the “remnant of Jacob” as they are referred to in verse 7. So this does not mean that this prophecy is referring to a different birth as you say.

Is it a useless prophecy? No. I assume you subscribe to the verification of logical positivism. (which is in itself a dogma of unverified absolute principles founded on the idea of man.) What makes a prophecy useful? I would say that it is useful if it can convey knowledge to the receptors. What knowledge does this convey? That there will be a messiah (they already knew this) who will be born in Bethlehem (something that can be and was synthetically verified [so I hope that satisfies some of the Vienna Circle within you]) that he will give up Israel until the fullness of time (a warning to Israel to heed this prophecy and recognise the Messiah by the multitude of useful prophecy) that one day this Messiah will rule the whole Earth and there shall be peace (will be eschatologically verified [you don’t like that? deal with it, just because we can’t verify something yet doesn’t make it literally insignificant]) that The remnant of Jacob will rise up and be among the nations and that in anger and wrath His vengeance will be revealed on the nations that didn’t obey (another warning). What is not useful about that? Whether true or false is another debate, but if that is true, I would like to know about it.

3. Hosea 11

It has two meanings and is an analogy. Hosea may not have known he was talking about the Messiah but he was.

I don’t know whether it is common for God to refer to Israel as “my son”, though. Or for Israel to call Israel “him”. I suppose I need to read more scripture from this ear. So I think there could be a lot of confusion as to which way you read both of those instances and them together.

I am sure though, that this passage could have only meant to be about Israel’s history to the Jews, but now that we know the story of Christ, it has an increased meaning to us.

As Israel found salvation out of Egypt as a nation, so do we all as believers.