Was OT YHWH really SATAN? – Part
2
Posted Oct 26/2018
Hi Friend! As you can see my young friend is using a
source that I don’t recognize, but asking and answering the classical questions
that Tomas Jefferson popularized about the O.T. God vs. Jesus.
Thanks for the follow-up – I was wondering if you sent what I
wrote to him (or her) and if they responded to the scripture passages I shared
with them.
I cannot tell from the below whether they ever even READ them,
much less PRAYED over them.
But after reading the email below—where he copy/pasted some
slides from some teacher somewhere – I did a search and found the source on YouTube.
After reviewing much of the material from That YouTube Source
(“YS” in the below), I became concerned that your young friend might have been
harmed by those anti-biblical teachings.
It was shocking to me how little attention the teacher gave
to the actual words of Jesus and His disciples. So many of the mistakes made
in those teachings could have been avoided by simply listening respectfully to
what Jesus and his students taught about the Hebrew bible and the events and
teachings contained in the OT.
Your friend—in their honest search for knowing the Father—will
need to decide NOW whether they trust
Jesus or trust YS, as to what the OT teaches. They will have to decide whether Jesus was a failure as a
teacher of the disciples, or whether the writers of the New Testament taught
the truth that Jesus had passed on to them.
There is no other option – if Jesus says that His Father was the
God of the Exodus, and YS says that Satan was the God of the Exodus, then you
friend will have to decide whether YS knows more than Jesus (and therefore
Jesus was either deluded or in league with Satan himself), or whether YS is
just dead wrong.
No amount of complaining about the plagues or about fire from
heaven or whatever can divert this question. Where is faith to be placed?—in the New Testament writings (the
teachings of Jesus) or the interpretations of one modern human… myself
included.
Before I comment on the email contents, let me point out two
MAJOR ethical issues that MUST BE ADDRESSED FIRST:
Jesus
said explicitly: “Do
not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgement.”
In other words, things may not be what they seem. The command is
to dig deeper and discover the truth. The surface of the text is to be
reflected on, submitted to, and placed into the overall teachings of God.
A great example of this is Jesus’ use of a ‘contradiction’ in
Matt 22.41ff—
Now while the Pharisees were gathered
together, Jesus asked them a question, 42 saying,
“What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The
son of David.” 43 He
said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord,
saying,
“ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my
right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet” ’?
45 If then
David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” 46 And
no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask
him any more questions.
Only by accepting this at face value—as a ‘problem’—and then
reflecting upon HOW IT COULD BE THE CASE, can one discover the truth that Jesus
was pointing to – the divine nature or divine authority of the Messiah.
If we ONLY use appearances (like much of YS’s arguments are
based on), we would also have to believe
Jesus to be a liar, and to ‘change his mind’ (unlike the Father),
to use curses, and to speak under oath:
Liar |
Jesus answered him, ‘I have spoken openly to the world; I
always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come
together, and I spoke nothing in
secret’ (John 18:20) |
With many such parables He was speaking the word to them, so
far as they were able to hear it; and He did not speak to them without a
parable; but He was explaining
everything privately to His own disciples. (Mark 4.33f); And He was saying to them, “To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get
everything bin parables (Mark 4.11) |
Liar |
You judge according to the flesh—I judge no one. (John 18:15) |
Jesus said ‘For judgment I came into this would.” (John 9.39) |
Changing
His mind (and Liar) |
So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that
your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no one works in
secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself
to the world.” For not even his brothers believed in him. Jesus said to them,
“My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. …. You go up to the
feast. I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.” After
saying this, he remained in Galilee. |
But after ahis brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also
went up, not publicly but in private. (one verse later!) |
Speaking
under Oath |
“But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him,
“I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the
Son of God. (Matthew 26:62f) … And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the
Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of
heaven.” (Mark 14.62) |
‘I put you under solemn oath before the living God to
tell us if’ (ἐξορκίζω σε
κατὰ τοῦ θεοῦ
τοῦ ζῶντος ἵνα
ἡμῖν εἴπῃς εἰ) …
The Markan question becomes a demand for information under an imposed
solemn oath. Though different language is used, it is probably right to
contrast the oath imposed on Jesus with the oaths volunteered by Peter in vv.
72 and 74, the one evoking the truth and the other masking a lie” [HI:NIGTC]… “He
stands up to signal that he is taking personal control of the investigation,
and demands a response under oath” [NICNT] |
Using
Curses (and saying the disciples could do so!) |
Jesus
Curses the Fig Tree On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was
hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he
could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for
it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit
from you again.” And his disciples heard it. … The
Lesson from the Withered Fig Tree 20 As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig
tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed
has withered.” And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. (Mark
11.12-14 with 11.20-22)… When the disciples saw it, they marveled,
saying, “How did the fig tree wither at once?” And Jesus answered them,
“Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done
to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and
thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. And whatever you ask in prayer, you
will receive, if you have faith.” (Matt 21.20-22) |
The
Final Judgment 31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the
angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. … Then he will say
to those on his left, ‘Depart from me,
you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
(Matt 25.1, 41) |
See what I mean?
I could make slides out of these and slander Jesus—just like
many of the YS slides do about Yahweh.
You have to dig deeper and seek the Lord’s truth. Not just ‘what
it looks like’ (generally out of context, by the way!)
The
SECOND PRINCIPLE is just as important – allow the accused to offer THEIR side.
The book of proverbs has this dead-on observation (18.17):
The one who states
his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.
“Comes (see 18:3) vividly
represents the defendant stepping forward to present his defense And cross-examines
him (wahaqaro) means, “to probe” in a purely cognitive and analytical
examination and testing70 and connotes that the search is diligent, penetrating
and difficult of something hidden and difficult to find (cf. 23:30; 25:2, 27;
28:11).” [NICOT, in loc]
“The implication is that the
one who has the first word may seem to be in the right, but one should listen
to the story of the other side—a second opinion, so to speak” [WBC]
In other words, you have to let the accused speak up and defend
himself. It is unfair and misleading to just present one side of a dispute.
So, when somebody faults the ‘theologians’ from presenting an
explanation or defense or cross-examining of the witness (the interpretation of
the biblical texts), they are being unfair to the accused (in this case, Yahweh
of the OT).
I cannot tell from the snippet of the email you sent HOW MUCH OF
WHAT YS TEACHES has influenced your friend, so I am going to have to cover most
of the major un-biblical (or even ‘anti-biblical’) errors there. I hope your
friend will forgive me for all the detail (or hopefully delight in it—smile!).
With that in background, let’s dive into the fundamental errors
of the YS.
[Just for my convenience, I am going to switch to the 2nd
person singular (“you”) below, to show that this is just a conversation between
two students of the Word of God. I hope he (or she) will not think me too
presumptuous in doing so.]
==================================
=============================================
The fundamental error made by YS is failing to accept the
teachings of Jesus and the NT on the nature of the Old Testament.
As
students trying to know the Father better, we must align OUR BELIEFS about the
scriptures with JESUS teachings (either in the gospels or through his
student-emissaries).
When YS says that the OT is not ‘errant’ but contains the voice
of Satan in many, many passages, he/she is 180 degrees in opposition to Jesus
and the disciples.
We can see this by asking the New Testament what it teaches:
Did
Jesus trust and use the OT as being truthful and accurate (even in passages
ascribed to YHWH), or did he think it should be ‘broken up’ into God-given and
Satan-given parts?
John 10:34
Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are
gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture
cannot be broken— |
Psalm 82:6
-- I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; |
Who did
Jesus think gave the 10 Commandments (the NT God or Satan)?
Matthew 15:04 ‑ For God commanded,
‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother
must surely die.’ |
Exodus 20:12 ‑“Honor
your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the
Lord your God is giving you.; Exodus 21:17 ‑“Whoever
curses his father or his mother shall be put to death. |
Is only PART of the OT ‘breathed out by the NT god’ or ALL of it?
2 Timothy 3.16 -- All Scripture is breathed out
by God and profitable for teaching, for
reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of
God may be complete, equipped for every good work. |
Note: The only scripture generally available at the time of this
writing was the OLD TESTAMENT. |
Was ANY
prophecy in the OT produced by ANYONE other than the Holy Spirit?
2 Peter 1.19ff: -- And we have the prophetic
word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a
lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises
in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture
comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no
prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men
spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy
Spirit |
Note: The prophecies were given THROUGH people,
FROM the NT God, and as DIRECTED / IMPELLED by the Holy Spirit. |
In
fact, were the predictions of the Messiah’s sufferings produced by Satan or by
the pre-Incarnate Christ himself?
1 Peter 1:11 -- inquiring what person or time the Spirit
of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and
the subsequent glories. |
Note: Because of the unity of the persons in
the Trinity, prophecy can be ascribed to either God the Father, God the Son
(the pre-incarnate Christ) or God the Holy Spirit. |
Psalms
2 and 110 are by David and refer to the Son of YHWH—the messiah—as ‘breaking the nations with a rod of iron’
and calling on the nations to ‘Do homage
to the Son, that He not be angry and you perish—for His wrath may soon be
kindled’. 110 refers to the submission
of enemies at his feet and the ‘shattering
of kings in the day of His wrath”. Do the NT teachers believe Satan wrote
this or the NT God of Jesus?
Jesus speaking: |
Mark
12:36 ‑ David himself, in the Holy Spirit,
declared, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I
put your enemies under your feet.” ’ |
Jesus speaking: |
Matthew
22:43 ‑ He
said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, |
Peter and the disciples: |
Acts
04:24–26 ‑
And when they heard this, they lifted their voices to God with one accord and said, “O Lord, it is You who MADE THE HEAVEN
AND THE EARTH AND THE SEA, AND ALL THAT IS IN THEM, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit,
“ ‘Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of
the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the
Lord and against his Anointed’— |
Author of Hebrews: |
Hebrews 10:13 ‑waiting from
that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. |
Isaiah
6 is referred to several times in the NT. It speaks a word of judgment on
Israel, saying ‘make their hearts dull… so they will not be healed’. Do the NT
teachers believe Satan wrote this or the NT God of Jesus through Isaiah?
Jesus speaking: |
Luke
08:10 ‑
he said, “To you it has been
given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in
parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not
understand.’ |
Jesus speaking: |
Mark
04:11 ‑And
He was saying to them, “To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of
God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, so that
“ ‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not
understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.’ ” |
Jesus speaking: |
Matthew
13:14–15 ‑
Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that
says: “ ‘ “You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will
indeed see but never perceive.” For this people’s heart has grown dull, and
with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest
they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with
their heart and turn, and I
would heal them.’ |
Paul the Apostle |
Acts
28:25f -- The Holy Spirit rightly spoke through Isaiah the
prophet to your fathers, saying, ‑ ‘GO TO THIS
PEOPLE AND SAY |
John the Apostle |
John
12:38 ‑
so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be
fulfilled: “Lord, who
has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been
revealed?” “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see
with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal
them.” Isaiah said these things
because he saw his glory and spoke of him. |
Jesus and the NT authors cite, reference or allude to at least
200 OT passages—without once expressing a doubt about God’s authorship or
expressing some belief that Satan authored them.
They ABSOLUTELY TRUST, quote, and reference passages
in:
·
all the books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy),
·
all of the historical
books (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles),
·
all of the poetical
books (Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes),
·
all the Major prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel), and
·
most of the longer Minor
Prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk,
and Zephaniah).
They LIVED the reality that ‘all scripture was
God-breathed’. They submitted to it, delighted in it, accepted it—even the
‘hard passages’ we will look at below. They found it to be beautiful in
character—connecting the OT YHWH with the NT God of Jesus and the disciples:
1 Peter 3:10–12 ‑ For “Whoever desires to love life and see
good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking
deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and
pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer.
But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” |
Psalm 34:12–16 ‑What man is there who desires life and
loves many days, that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil and your
lips from speaking deceit. Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and
pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry. The
face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them
from the earth. |
The hypocrisy that Jesus called out against often
was likewise found in the OT prophecies of Isaiah—ascribed to the God of
Jesus/NT:
Mark 07:06–7 ‑And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah
prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “ ‘This people honors me
with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ Neglecting the commandment of
God, you hold to the tradition of men". |
Isaiah 29:13 (LXX) ‑And the Lord said: “Because this people
draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts
are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men, |
The promises of YHWH to David are ascribed to the NT
God, with David being called a prophet pointing to the resurrection of Christ:
Peter speaking: |
Acts 02:30ff
-- And so, because he was a prophet and knew that GOD HAD SWORN TO HIM WITH AN OATH TO SEAT one OF HIS
DESCENDANTS ON HIS THRONE, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that HE WAS NEITHER ABANDONED TO
HADES, NOR DID His flesh SUFFER DECAY ‑For David did not ascend into the
heavens, but he himself says, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” ’ |
The Word of God – the OT scriptures from YHWH – was food for life, eternal power, and the
source of the New Birth:
Matthew 04:04 ‑
But [Jesus] answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall
not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” |
Deuteronomy 8:3 ‑And
he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not
know… that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but
man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord (YHWH). |
1 Peter 1:23–25 ‑ For you have been born
again not of seed which is
perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring
word of God. For “All flesh is
like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and
the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you. |
Isaiah 40:6–8 --‑ voice says, “Cry!” And I
said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the
flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of
the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the
flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. |
[The reader should stop here and face these verses before the
Father – do you accept the teachings of the New Testament about the inspiration
of the ENTIRE Old Testament scriptures?
– Jesus and the NT authors DID – do you trust THEM or your own (or YS’)
opinions more?
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You
may have already seen the errors that trip YS up (so skip this if you already
have), but here are two fundamental ones.
First, YS misunderstands the beautiful text of 2 Timothy 2:15 (a
challenge to both of us!), getting thrown off by the older translation in the
KJV or NKJV:
“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who
does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
YS somehow believes that we are supposed to ‘divide’ the Word of
Truth into two pieces: the ‘real’ word of truth, and the word of Satan/error.
But that just doesn’t fit the text. If you divide the WORD of TRUTH, you just
get two pieces of WORD OF TRUTH. It did NOT say ‘divide the word of truth AND
error’!
There’s no ‘word of error/Satan’ IN THE “WORD OF TRUTH’—that would
make the phrase ‘word of Truth’ false or meaningless.
And modern translations do a better job with the word translated
‘divide’ there:
·
Do your best
to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be
ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. (ESV)
·
Be diligent
to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be
ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. (NASB95)
The ‘divide’ word (ortho-tomeo) means literally ‘cut straight’
although that meaning had more or less disappeared by NT times.
Modern lexicons give:
·
to give accurate instruction—‘to
teach correctly, to expound rightly (Louw-Nida)
·
guide the word of truth along a straight path (like a road that goes straight to its goal), without being
turned aside by wordy debates or impious talk 2 Ti 2:15. (BAGD)
·
the metaphor
may be derived not from road making (τέμνειν
ὁδόν), but from the
mason’s cutting stones fair and straight to fit into their places in a building
(M-M)
In none of those meanings is there a hint of ‘splitting into
diverse components’.
The second slip-up by YS
in their attitude toward the Word of the Living God is by over-extending the
injunction to ‘test the spirits’ in 1 John 4.1:
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see
whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world”.
(ESV)
YS asserts that this means we are supposed to ‘test the
scriptures’ to judge whether their teachings are of God or of Satan. But this
WAY over-reaching the limited text here.
We have already seen that there IS no ‘word of Satan’ in the
OT—according to Jesus, the disciples, and the author of this passage in 1st
John.
And 1st John explicitly tells us HOW TO TEST the
SPIRITS in the new few verses:
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether
they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus
Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not
confess Jesus is not from God.
That’s pretty simple—the test is strictly about whether Jesus
Christ was incarnate or not! Nothing about ‘Jesus being the image of the
Father’ or ‘fire from heaven’ or ‘oath taking’! This was about false prophets
of John’s day who denied the incarnation.
It is just twisting scripture to make it say anything more than
that—e.g., judge OT passages by some unstated criteria.
That’s the ONLY passage on ‘testing spirits’ we have. Paul says to
‘test any prophets in the church services’ (1 Cor 14:29-32) and has a
spirit-test in 1 Cor 12.3:
“Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit
of God says, “Jesus is accursed”; and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by
the Holy Spirit.”
Again, very limited—nothing at all about judging the Word of God
that gave us new birth, and which was trusted and taught by Jesus and the
disciples.
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So,
let’s start with that—
Next
we will look at the ‘controversial’ passages YS mentions and ‘search the
scriptures’ to see who Jesus and his apostles thought gave the law, spoke to
Moses, did the Exodus plagues, etc.
And
then we will show the massive alignment of OT ethics and NT ethics (including
Jesus and OT YHWH), and then try to ‘listen to the text and facts’ about the
passages (or beliefs about those passages—more the case) that disturb people
(especially the ones you mention).
So,
more later—but you have to wrestle with
this ‘can I trust Jesus when he tells me to trust
the Hebrew Bible He used, taught, submitted to, and interpreted His life/mission
by’…