jd01 said in post 74:
That s why we are Christians and not followers of the OT.
Christians are followers of both the Old Testament and the New Testament, because both are scripture, inspired by God (2 Timothy 3:15-17).
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jd01 said in post 76:
And he taught against the OT.
Jesus in no way taught against the Old Testament per se, but confirmed that the Old Testament is true (Matthew 5:17-18, Luke 24:44-48). What Jesus contradicted in the Old Testament was the letter of the Old Covenant Mosaic law, which, while it remains true (Romans 7:12), it's just no longer in effect for people. For Jesus shows in the Sermon on the Mount how his New Covenant, Christian commandments are even stricter than the letter of the commandments of the Old Covenant Mosaic law. For the letter of the Old Covenant Mosaic law forbade murder (Matthew 5:21, Exodus 20:13), whereas Jesus' New Covenant law forbids even calling people names (Matthew 5:22). Also, the letter of the Old Covenant Mosaic law forbade adultery (Matthew 5:27, Exodus 20:14), whereas Jesus' New Covenant law forbids even looking at another woman with lust (Matthew 5:28). Also, the letter of the Old Covenant Mosaic law permitted divorce and remarriage (Matthew 5:31, Deuteronomy 24:1-2), whereas Jesus' New Covenant law forbids it (Matthew 5:32, Mark 10:11-12, Luke 16:18), except for a single exemption granted only to husbands who discover that their newlywed wife is not a virgin, but had committed fornication (Matthew 19:9).
Jesus also shows in the Sermon on the Mount that while his New Covenant, Christian law is stricter than the letter of the Old Covenant Mosaic law, at the same time it is also more merciful. For the letter of the Old Covenant Mosaic law required taking an eye for an eye (Matthew 5:38, Deuteronomy 19:21), whereas Jesus' New Covenant law requires turning the other cheek (Matthew 5:39). Also, the letter of the Old Covenant Mosaic law required hatred for one's enemies (Matthew 5:43, Deuteronomy 23:6), whereas Jesus' New Covenant law requires love for one's enemies (Matthew 5:44). Also, the letter of the Old Covenant Mosaic law, the ministration of death (2 Corinthians 3:7), required, for example, that adulterers be put to death (Leviticus 20:10), whereas Jesus showed mercy to the woman caught in adultery (John 8:4-11). And, for another example, the letter of the Old Covenant Mosaic law required that anyone who does any work on the sabbath is to be put to death (Exodus 31:14, Numbers 15:32-36), whereas Jesus allowed his disciples to work on the sabbath and said that they were guiltless (Matthew 12:1-8), just as Jesus himself worked on the sabbath (John 5:17-18).
So in obeying Jesus' New Covenant commandments (Matthew 5:19 to 7:29, John 14:15; 1 Corinthians 14:37), believers, whether Jews or Gentiles, are both more merciful and loving, and they also exceed in righteousness those who try to keep the abolished letter of the Old Covenant Mosaic law (Matthew 5:20-48, Ephesians 2:15-16, Colossians 2:14-17, Romans 7:6; 2 Corinthians 3:6-18, Hebrews 7:18-19).
jd01 said in post 76:
Under the OT genocide, mass rape and slavery are ok.
Regarding Old Testament genocide, are you thinking of 1 Samuel 15:3? If so, even babies are sinful (Psalms 58:3, Psalms 51:5, Romans 3:10), because of original sin (Romans 5:19a). And as the Creator of all babies, God has the right to decide what to do with them, even before they are born (Romans 9:11-24). Also, in Deuteronomy 5:17, "kill" meant murder (Matthew 19:18), not capital punishment (Deuteronomy 17:5-7, Romans 13:4).
Regarding mass rape, what verses are you referring to?
Regarding slavery, the Old Testament forbade the cruel treatment of slaves (Leviticus 25:43, Exodus 21:26-27) or the return of escaped slaves to their masters (Deuteronomy 23:15-16). Similarly, the New Testament commands the right treatment of slaves (Colossians 4:1), and commands slaves to obtain freedom from mortal masters if they are able to (1 Corinthians 7:21). But saved people are to remain the voluntary slaves of Jesus Christ (Romans 1:1, Romans 6:22, Revelation 1:1), who has freed them from slavery to sin (John 8:34-36), and offers them eternal life (Romans 6:22-23).
Christians need to be very wary of the idea that the Old Testament or its God (YHWH) are evil. For the person whom the Antichrist will revile is YHWH (Revelation 13:6, Daniel 11:36), whom many people mistakenly think of as being (in their words)
"the God of only the Old Testament, that cruel and hateful God who ordered people to commit genocide and kill babies (1 Samuel 15:3), while Jesus came and preached love for everyone (Matthew 5:44)". The truth is that Jesus confirmed that the God of the Old Testament, YHWH (Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Leviticus 19:18), is the same as the God of the New Testament (Mark 12:29-31), and that the Old Testament is true (Matthew 5:17-18, Luke 24:44-48). Jesus died for our sins in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy from YHWH (Isaiah 53; 1 Peter 2:24). And he rose from the dead in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy from YHWH (for example, Psalms 16:10, Acts 2:31). Jesus died to establish the New Covenant (Matthew 26:28), which YHWH had foretold in the Old Testament (Jeremiah 31:31-34). And Jesus died to bring about the defeat of Satan (Hebrews 2:14), which YHWH had foretold from even the first book of the Old Testament (Genesis 3:15).
Nonetheless, building on many people's misconceptions of YHWH as being (in their words) "the cruel God of the Old Testament", no doubt one of the Antichrist's chief blasphemies against YHWH (Revelation 13:6, Daniel 11:36) will be that YHWH is an evil god. This is one of the ancient blasphemies of Gnosticism, another being the antichrist lie that Christ isn't in the flesh (2 John 1:7). The world will be deceived into completely rejecting YHWH and worshipping Satan and the Antichrist instead (Revelation 13:4-8, Revelation 12:9). Satan could be worshipped not as "Satan", which most everyone sees as a bad name (it means "Adversary"), but as "Lucifer" (Isaiah 14:12), which means "the morning star". The Antichrist could lie and say that it's YHWH who is the true "Satan", the true "Adversary" of mankind.
Also, it's important for Christians to realize that during the Antichrist's future, literal 3.5-year worldwide reign (Revelation 13:5,7), even though the world will worship both Lucifer (the dragon, Satan) and the Antichrist (the individual-man aspect of the beast) (Revelation 13:4-8, Revelation12:9), this won't require that the Antichrist's one-world religion will say that Jesus is evil, or will turn the world against Jesus. For almost the entire world reveres Jesus, at least as being a good man. The Antichrist could confirm this basic world belief, but simply (in his words) "clarify" that while Jesus is indeed a good man, Jesus himself isn't the Christ or the Son of God (1 John 2:22). No doubt the Antichrist will also deny that Jesus died on the Cross for our sins, as this, just as believing that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God (John 20:31, John 3:36), is one of the core beliefs of the gospel by which people become saved (1 Corinthians 15:1-4).
So what the Antichrist could do is keep the idea of a good Jesus, but strip it of everything by which Jesus saves people from hell. And this wouldn't require that the Antichrist deny Jesus' second coming. Indeed, the Antichrist and his False Prophet (Revelation 19:20) could even try to employ to their own ends the Biblical prophecy of Jesus' second coming, as well as the Muslim prophecy which says that the miracle-working prophet Jesus will return bodily from heaven in the last days to bring the whole earth into the worship of the true God. For the False Prophet could claim that he is Jesus, returned to bring the whole earth into the worship of the true God. And he could perform amazing miracles (Revelation 13:13) as purported proof of his claim (compare John 3:2). This is one reason why it's so important to know when and how the real Jesus' second coming will happen (Matthew 24:29-31; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-8; 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17, Revelation 19:7 to 20:6, Zechariah 14:3-21).
Once the False Prophet by his amazing miracles has brought the world under his spell (Revelation 13:13-18, Revelation 19:20), including many Muslims and Christians who may not care much for scriptural dogma but could go wild over his signs and wonders, he could begin to (in his words) "
restore to the world the real message which was spoken by me (Jesus) at my first coming, and by the great prophet Mohammed, but which message became corrupted by power-hungry men when they copied and changed the early manuscripts of the Bible and the Koran". He could then gradually initiate the world into the Antichrist's Gnostic Luciferianism (1 John 4:3, Revelation 13:4-6), a religion which could have existed since ancient times in some "mystery" cults, and which still exists today in the highest degree of initiation of a worldwide secret society. The False Prophet could present his miraculously calling fire down from heaven (Revelation 13:13) as purported proof that Lucifer (the dragon, Satan) and the Antichrist are the true God (Revelation 13:4-8, Revelation 12:9), in an inversion of how back in Old Testament times, Elijah miraculously called fire down from heaven to prove that YHWH is the true God (1 Kings 18:37-39).
Because the Antichrist and his False Prophet (possibly masquerading as Jesus) will deny that Jesus is the Christ (1 John 2:22) and will deny that Christ is in the flesh (1 John 4:3), and because they will bring the world into the worship of Lucifer (the dragon, Satan) instead (Revelation 13:4, Revelation 12:9), they could lie and say that (the non-mortal flesh) Lucifer is the Christ, that the new name of Christ (Revelation 3:12c) is "Lucifer Christ". For just as "Lucifer" means "the morning star", so Christ is the morning star (Revelation 22:16b). Also, Christ identified himself with the serpent (John 3:14), and Lucifer is the serpent (Revelation 12:9). Also, Christ said "Ye are gods" (John 10:34), and it was the serpent who said "ye shall be as gods" (Genesis 3:5).
The truth is that Lucifer fell from his office of morning star (Isaiah 14:12) and became Satan (compare Luke 10:18). Jesus Christ has taken over the office of morning star (Revelation 22:16). And Jesus Christ identified himself with only the brass serpent on the pole in Numbers 21:8-9 (John 3:14), which typified Jesus Christ's crucifixion for our sins (John 19:16, Matthew 26:28). And in John 10:34, Jesus Christ (John 20:31) was quoting YHWH in Psalms 82:6-7, which shows that even though humans have knowledge of good and evil as gods do (Genesis 3:22), they will still die like humans (Psalms 82:7), contradicting the serpent's lie (Genesis 3:4). Nonetheless, the Antichrist could falsely say that Lucifer is the Christ and the true and beneficent God of mankind, and that the False Prophet is the miracle-working prophet Jesus (John 3:2, Acts 3:22-24), returned to point the world to the true Christ/God. The Antichrist could falsely say that he (the Antichrist) is the human/divine "Son" of Lucifer, who must be worshipped as God along with Lucifer (Revelation 13:4,8). This would be similar to how Biblical Christians now rightly worship the human/divine Jesus Christ (John 1:1,14) as God (the Son) along with God the Father (John 20:28, Hebrews 1:8).
