The God of Jesus, the God of the Old Testament

a reply to: DISRAELI

Claiming i haven't read the passage because i diaagree with your analysis only reinforces what im saying...

Almost every christian uses this tactic... Claiming said person is "twisting" things...

Its obvious what hes saying...

a reply to: Akragon
If you succeed in making a passage mean the exact opposite of what it says, then you must expect to be accused of not reading it.
You have been caught out in an egregious misinterpretation based on a serious failure of understanding.

a reply to: DISRAELI

So first you completely dismiss my question, basically claiming its not worth an answer... then im twisting it... and haven't even read it...

nifty...

In the passages before this one he is speaking to someone who is trying to trick him, asking who a person belongs to if they have more then one marriage in this life...

his answer...

29 Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.

30 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.

31 But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying,

32 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

His conclusion... The god of this world has power over you in this world, but not in the next... The God of the dead owns this world... And God is NOT the God of the dead, but the God of the living....

God has power over the spirit... and the God of this world is God of the flesh... which is why he needs blood to keep him happy....

Again, its pretty simple IF one understands Jesus...

a reply to: Akragon

Yep. I have to agree! It's clear as day.

3226 And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?

27 He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.

Here, Jesus clearly contradicts "I AM", even challenges him!

Paul either never heard what Jesus said, didn't get the memo or didn't believe it, because Paul definitely believed that Jesus was the god of the dead!

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

originally posted by: Akragon
have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying,

32 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

There are two things wrong with your analysis.
Firstly, you are still not taking in the significance of the fact that the people trying to "trick" him are Sadducees, who deny the possibility of resurrection.
Their question is a typical "trolling" technique which would be easily recognisable on this forum.
They are trying to suggest that belief in the resurrection leads to absurd results.
So when Jesus has dealt with the immediate question, he follows up with a line of argument demonstrating the truth of the resurrection from the text which he quotes. The true conclusion of the argument is found in Luke; "because all live in Him".

The other fault which I suspect, reading your version of the cited passage, is that you're mistaken about the function of that question mark.
You may have been misled by the absence of quotation marks in the Authorised Version.
That question mark actually belongs to the question "Have you not read?"
In a modern translation with modern punctuation, it comes out as;
Have you not read what was said... "I am the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob" ?
The statement "I am the God of Abraham" is not a question, and he is not denying it.
On the contrary, he is taking it as the starting-point of his whole case, as I outlined earlier;
Stage 1; God is the God of Abraham
Stage2; But God is not the God of the dead;
Stage 3; Therefore Abraham cannot be amongst the dead.
So there must be a resurrection after all, QED.

The whole line of argument DEPENDS UPON identifying God as the God of Abraham

originally posted by: windword
Here, Jesus clearly contradicts "I AM", even challenges him!

I won't repeat the full analysis i gave to Akragon, which you can read, but you are making the same mistake by taking the comment out of context.
He is not saying "You err because you think God is the God of Abraham".
He is saying "You err because you deny the resurrection, and the fact that God is the God of Abraham proves that you are wrong about the resurrection".

Don't just read isolated snippets.
Read the whole thing.

a reply to: DISRAELI

I have read the whole thing, many time.

But, I think that Jesus is also saying that the idea of a physical resurrection is absurd. He tells them that the resurrected are not given in marriage, but are like angels.

The implications of Jesus saying that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive, through resurrection, is that, then so are all the others.

a reply to: windword
For that matter, Paul's argument was that the resurrection body would be a different kind of body. No conflict there.
The point is that Jesus in this passage is refuting people who deny any kind of resurrection.

a reply to: DISRAELI

I believe what Jesus is saying is that, for those "who are born in the spirit" and "know God, there is no death. I don't think that Jesus was buying into the popular ideology of the resurrection of the physical body at some point in the future, after some kind of long deep sleep, or "death in christ"

Paul's idea of "pie in the sky" mass resurrection and rapture is just as absurd as the Sadducee's claim of a wife having multiple husbands in heaven.

a reply to: windword
It seems to me that both Jesus and Paul are talking about a third option, viz. a future but non-physical resurrection.
However, we are in danger of wandering away from the central issue, which is that the whole line of argument rests upon and necessitates identifying God as the God of Abraham,

a reply to: DISRAELI

The thing is, there is more than one interpretation of just who the "God of Abraham" is/was. There was then, when Jesus was arguing with Pharisees and Sadducee, as there is now as we argue among ourselves.

Personally, I don't believe the "One True God" shows up in person in the Old Testament at all.

a reply to: DISRAELI

So when Jesus has dealt with the immediate question, he follows up with a line of argument demonstrating the truth of the resurrection from the text which he quotes. The true conclusion of the argument is found in Luke; "because all live in Him".

Which may be true, but like many of Jesus' teachings there is a double meaning to what he said...

He is saying specifically "this god they worshipped is not God"... which is also what Jmdewey was saying, the OT was administered by angels, which is proven by the event on Mt. Sinai... This so called God in the burning bush was an "angel of the lord" which was turned into God a few verses later...

This can also be shown by the event with Abraham... He was about to sacrifice his son to this so called God, but before he could an angel stopped him... Angels do not go against God... they are his servants... The only explanation is that this was not Gods command, but a false God posing as the true Creator...

Jesus says the god of Abraham, Jacob, and Isaac is not God, but the God of the dead... Which can also be referenced in John 6...

It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.

46 Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father. (Jesus ONLY)

47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.

48 I am that bread of life.

49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.

50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.

SO once again as I've said previously... They did not know God before Jesus

Even the Fathers of these people "ate mana in the wilderness" and they're DEAD...

Jesus is the Path... His words are spirit and life... Without which no one can know God... OR has known God

Before Jesus came they knew a False God, an angel posing as the Father of Creation...

A tyrant who wanted blood and destruction... A Jealous, envious, Wrathful False god...

And NOT the Father Of Jesus

a reply to: Akragon

Before Jesus came they knew a False God, an angel posing as the Father of Creation...

They knew stories that had been written hundreds of years earlier that was something consistent during a period where the country was crushed by constant warfare from the time of Alexander the Great, on.
Stories set in a long ago past where there were gods who were in the world, though the true god would not be seen until the Last Day, when men and gods and demons and angels would be judged.

a reply to: windword
However Jesus hmself, as shown by the references quoted in the OP< was identifying his own God with the God of Abraham.
I know no evidemce that the Jews of the time made any distinction between the God they had always worshipped and the God who created the world.

a reply to: DISRAELI

The gnostics did though, and they do predate Christ...

originally posted by: Akragon
Jesus says the god of Abraham, Jacob, and Isaac is not God, but the God of the dead...

That is the exact opposite of what he says.
He is saying that the God of Abraham is NOT the God of the dead.
This is leading to the conclusion that Abraham cannot be among the dead, he must be among the living.
This is not just my personal interpretation; any commentary on the gospels will tell you exactly the same thing about this passage.

It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.

This is a very goood example of one of the headings in the OP; "He quotes prophecies of the Old Testament God as the prophecies of his own God".
The prophet who provided that quotation is obviously talking about the God he knew, the God of the Old Testament.
Jesus cannot apply it to himself without identifying his own God with the same God, the God of the prophets and the rest of the Old Testament.
The very fact that he makes quotations of this kind is proving my point.

He is not offering a completely new God.
He is offering continuity, a better understanding of the God they know already, and his hearers understand him in just the same way.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Why do you keep saying "completely new God"... when they did not know the true creator in the first place?

a reply to: Akragon
I use the phrase as a label for what you're trying to say.

a reply to: DISRAELI

IF they didn't know said "true God" in the first place, how is it a "completely new God"?

a reply to: Akragon
So we are now disputing about the most appropriate label for what Jesus is not doing?
Ah well, you can call it anything you like.
It's more important, from my viewpoint, to establish what Jesus IS doing, viz. offering a better understanding of the God they worship already