Abraham was first a Gentile

Submitted by jennifer solis (United States), Apr 21, 2008 at 18:45

Thankyou for a thought-provoking letter, dhimmi no more.

You close your letter with,

"The logical answer would be: Muslims say that they share the same God but they must be reminded that Jesus is regarded by Christians as God and the God of the Jews is an ethnic God which means they do not share the same God."

Which Jews are you talking about?

Well, again, it comes down to scripture, I would say. Abraham was a Gentile, then he believed in the Lord (Gen. 15:6) - then he was given the title of father of the Jewish race (Gen. 17:1-21).

God confirmed His covenant to Abraham's believing son, Isaac (Gen. 26:3-5), and reconfirmed it to his believing grandson, Jacob (Gen. 28:13-15; 35:11-12). The Jewish race, therefore, is spiritual in origin, descending from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, each of whome was a believer in the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ (Gen. 15:6). The twelve sons of Jacob are the Jewish patriarchs, the founders of the tribes of Israel.

That would sound presumptive to some - that they (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) were believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. The name, Jesus Christ, of course, does not appear in the Old Testament.

But remember, all of the apostles of the New Testament were "ethnic" Jews, who believed Christ was the promised Messiah of the Old Testament. Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament, was an "ethnic" Jew who also believed in Christ. Remember, these were Jews who, before Christ came in the flesh, had nothing to go on but Old Testament scripture.

The Bible looks forward to the Messiah, the Cross, in the Old Testament - and looks backward at the Cross, in the New Testament.

The sequence of Old Testament promises that guarentee the comming of Christ, beginning with the "Seed" revealed to Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:15) and continuing with the promises made to Noah (Gen. 9:26), progressively became more specific. The Messiah would come from the race of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; from the nation of Israel; from the tribe of Judah; from the family of Jesse; from the royal lineage of King David. Christ did.

Verses in the Old Testament describing the comming of Jesus Christ and the salvation He would provide are numerous - Psalm 16:10, 34:19-20 (1000 B.C.); Amos 8:9 (750 B.C.); Zechariah 9:9 (520 B.C.); Isaiah, 53 - the whole chapter (700 B.C.)

The rituals of the Old Testament Mosaic Law were a dramatic "shadow of what is to come" (Col. 2:17; Hebrews 8:5; 10:1). They were types and teaching aids portraying Christ, salvation, and fellowship with God. The Levitical priesthood's function and every individual's daily life included participation in ceremonies that depicted these tremendous doctrines. When Christ came later in the flesh, the reality fulfilled the shadows, making this heritage of rituals suddenly obsolete (Heb. 8:13).

Well, I did not mean to turn this into a Bible lesson - I didn't even mention the Divine Covenants with Israel (of the five, four are unconditional - which means dependant solely on the grace of God; one was conditional - dependant on the Jews).

But my point (finally) is that there are different catagories of Jews - "regenerate" Jews (who believed in Christ), "ethnic" Jews (descendants of Abraham), AND "regenerate ethnic" Jews (Jewish believers of the Bible, including both the Old and New Testaments). Also, of course, "ethnic" Jews who, although descended from Abraham, never believed in the God of Abraham.

Regarding your statement that I quoted, I politely must dissagree - God of the Jews was not an "ethnic" God. The Bible introduces Him as God before God later established Abraham as the father of the Jewish race. God chose Abraham - Jews were not a race that chose God.

Adam and Eve were not Jews. Neither was Noah.

So, when you look at the Bible, and based on it's scripture, in it's entirety, and compare it to the Qur'an - quite different "gods".

The Bible, Old and New Testament, teaches salvation throught faith in the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ - Zechariah 9:9; Amose 8:9; Psalm 16:10; Psalm 34:19; Isaiah 53:5; Isaih 53:12; Isaiah 64:6; Romans 6:23; Galatians 3:26; John 10:28; Romans 8:38-39; 2 Corinthians 5:21; John 3:36; Acts 16:31; there are more.

The Qur'an, from what I've learned, NEVER mentions a "Savior", a "Messiah", a "god" or even a "man" who will come (Isa. 53:11), and has come (John 3:16) and paid the ransom for all.

"For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave Himself as ransom for all." - 1 Timothy 2:5-6

So how can it be suggested that Islam was "in the tradition" of the Bible? Why? Because the Qur'an, thousands of years after Abraham, took some names out of the Bible and twisted it's record?

I don't see the logic of it.

Your question, dhimmi no more - "1. Why did the majority of the people in the Middle East convert to Islam?"

That one's got me thinking. Off the top of my head, I would say that Roman and Persian Empiricism had something to do with it - the "little people" were tired of Empiracle Rule, so they traded it for a religion that would later rule them.

Don't laugh - it's just a guess!

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".