Faith is the Determinant

Submitted by M. Tovey (United States), Jun 14, 2010 at 18:25

It is interesting that you try to start with supposed commonalties, but then as quickly as you can jump to the controversies, upon which you base your entire series of premises against scriptural Christianity. I will not fault you for that, for it is the natural thing to do. Were there a truth in the Quran about Jesus Christ, then it would be easy to make an association as you would have me do, but sanctification requires reliance upon the blood sacrifice as Abraham honored with Isaac, and through successive generation of the Jewish people until Jesus Christ. From the moment of His crucifixion, the shadow of the type of sanctification that was the process of the Old Testament to the New Covenant of His blood sacrifice for the sins of the world was made plain for those who believed in Him in faith.

You are not the only one who now differentiates, or downright contradicts the fact of the resurrection. There are some that falsely claim Christianity for themselves that do the same; for faith is required, even as the witnesses are repudiated after they died for that very faith. Such was Stephen, whom, as you have so eloquently stated, was put to death by Saul of Tarsus. Resurrection, as a matter of faith and fact, gives true Christianity its basis for everything that Jesus Christ preached. You state that you are ready to believe if some solid historical evidence can be provided for its actuality. Even as the Roman soldiers were paid off for lying about their failed attempts to keep the body sealed in the tomb, those lies are with us today. If those who were witnesses of the actual moment were not willing then to admit the truth of it then, is there a real possibility of someone in this day, without the necessary requisite faith, of believing something as astounding as true Christians believe? That is for you to answer.

As to the historians of the time, such as Josephus and others, not mentioning the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, think about it. They are the ones, who thinking they were victors over Jesus Christ in putting him to death, that started their plots to cover it up and tried to erase the memory of it all. We can see how that turned out. May be if they had not made such a fuss over it and did not murder hundreds of thousands of believers until the time of Constantine, there might have been some chance; but not really. Men did not control this, only Jesus Christ through His obedience to the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit had, and still has, control.

Now, about the supposed manipulated Gospels, many did try to insert a false notion of what they did not understand; that the power of the Holy Spirit was and is in control of the scriptures. Have you not heard of the synoptic versions, versus the non, that the Gospel of John has parts the others do not? Only John heard the whisperings of Jesus Christ, the others being representative of other aspects of Jesus Christ's message. If they intended to provide manmade corroboration of the Gospels, the human tendency would have been to make them all alike.

Now, you ask again about the resurrection, of our insistence of its validity and necessity to our faith, You are correct, that it is necessary and valid to have such belief; for without it, then the religiosity of any other belief system would be all that is required to feel good. But, religiosity will never get anyone to heaven, especially not the Heaven Jesus Christ has promised.

John 6:60) Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, "This is an hard saying; who can hear it?" 61) When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, He said unto them, "Does this offend you? 62) What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? 63) It is the spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. 64) But there are some of you that believe not." For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.

I will leave Ahmadinejad to speak for himself; and to own up to what he has said. But true, there are not only Jews in Iran, but I would suspect there are true Christians. Think about that, that if Islam were the only way in an Islamic country, why would there be any residual presence of Christianity under the persecution of dhimmitude, except that the Holy Spirit is able to present His truth in a place where the truth of the Gospel is maligned, just as Jesus Christ is maligned by those who do not want to believe. As I mentioned before, I have Iranian acquaintances, some Muslim, some Christian, and my associations with them are cordial at minimum; and special for those who share our bond with Jesus Christ. Those that have relationship with Jesus Christ have their reward in eternity, and those who prefer to think as you do have their reward also.

You mention Daniel, but you neglect that the Revelation is the Apocalypse of Daniel, written by John in a way that cannot be altered by the Constantinians. Of that, were your faith as the mustard seed spoken of by Jesus Christ, you would know that they could never alter the WORD of the LORD in any circumstance.

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