Expert: Mr. McClellan - 10/17/2006

Question

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Followup To

Question -
Hello, My question is,How do we use the old testament, since some of the teaching is so different from the New testament,Christianity came with Jesus,so the old testament can not be a christian book, do we just use parts of it, or what?.

Answer -
Hello Audrye,
The Old Testament is mostly the history of God's dealings with a group of people called Jews. They are called Jews because after the fifth century B.C. and the destruction of Jerusalem and Palestine by the Persions, most of the Hebrew people that returned to Palestine were of the tribe of Judah the name of which was shortened to Jew.
When Jesus came along in the first century, he pointed out that the Jews were completely wrong about how they had understood God. They were actually in rebellion against God rather than being faithful to him and the same is true today and it is true of anyone that does not accurately understand God so as to obey him correctly. The New Testament is mostly a commentary on how to correctly understand the teachings of the Old Testament. Jesus said that he was actually the embodyment of how God wanted people to understand him. Jesus obeyed the Law of Moses the way it should have been obeyed by the rest of the Jews but Jesus made a change in the Law because he was also the original author of the Law and had that right. The change was that people were to follow his teachings, his interpretation of the Law, and not the interpretation that they had been taught by the Jewish leaders. This is what he commanded his apostles to go and teach to the whole world and get those who believed to understand and obey. So, the Old Testament was written for our learning about how people refuse to correctly interpret and understand God and that God rejects those that will not understand him correctly and so actually obey him correctly.
Sincerely,
Mr. McClellan

Thankyou for replying to my question. I would like to ask you another question, if you don't mind.Even though the Jews went astray are they still Gods people even though they don't believe in the Trinity, and probably never will.
and what about Muslims, is it OK if they just accept Jesus as a prophet instead of Muhammad as some of them want to.
Thankyou. Audrey
Thankyou. Audrey

Answer
Hello Audrey,
No, the Jews are not God's people and they never were as most people seem to think, at least according to the New Testament writers. Let me explain. The term "Jew" is used two different ways. One way is to think of the Jews as a race of people. This is not legitimate since anyone can become a Jew. To be Jew in the correct sense is to hold to a particular belief. A true Jew is one that accurately understands and willingly obeys God. The people that claimed to be Jews in Jesus' time were not actually Jews according to what Jesus said. Jesus said that they were the children of Satan and not children of God because they did not actually believe in God since they did not correctly obey God. Later, the apostle Paul (in his letter to Christians living in Rome) said that a true Jew was a person that actually trusted God and proved it by obeying God's will the way that Abraham had done in the Old Testament. Also, since Jesus made it clear that he was the one that actually inspired the writing of the Old Testament and knew the correct understanding of it, to reject him was to reject the true God. John clearly states that Jesus was God in the form of a human. See John, chapter 1 as well as statements that Jesus made about himself in all of the Gospel accounts. Jesus said that no one could be right with God unless they trusted in him and accurately practiced his teachings. For the Islamics to say that Jesus was a prophet but that Muhammad was the greatest prophet implies that Jesus was not really a prophet at all or was, at best, a false prophet because a true prophet cannot be mistaken since everything he teaches is the word of God who cannot lie or be mistaken. In reality then, the Islamic people, all of them, deny Jesus as Lord and God and treat Muhammad as the real savior of the world. So, the truth is that the people that call themselves Jews today are not real Jews at all and the Islamic people are simply self deceived and ignorant of what the Bible says about Jesus. Neither the "Jews" nor the Islamics are acceptible to God and they are all condemned to everlasting punishmengt unless they repent and accept Jesus as their one and only Lord and prove it by obey him only. Otherwise, they are hypocrites just the vast majority of those who think that they are Chrsitians are. Virtually everyone has been and is deceived about what the real truth is but that can easily be recognized by a careful reading of the Bible.
By the way, salvation from sin does not depend on a person believing in the "trinity." There is not a single instance anywhere in the New Testament where a person was required to believe in the "Trinity" in order to receive the forgiveness of sins. Read the entire book of Acts which contains numerous accounts of people being taught and being forgiven of their sins over a period of about thirty years. The second chapter of that book contains a sermon given by the apostle Peter to a large crowd of people after which about three thousand people responded by submitted to Peter's instructions about how to become saved (forgiven of sins) by being immersed in water (baptizm according the the instructions of God, Jesus) having repented of their sins and were then forgiven. As people were forgiven of their sins according to these instructions, they were added to the body of people (the church, see Ephesians and Colossians) that were being saved. As you read the other accounts of people who were said to have been forgiven of their sins, you will see that in each instance it was the same message and the same instructions that were given to all of them. It's just that the other accounts are given in much more abbreviated form. Baptism (specifically immersion in water) was always required, in addition to belief and repentance, in ever case because true faith requires an action, or work, to make it legitimate and not just hypocrisy. The specific work, or act, of being baptized was required by Jesus in his command to his apostles shortly before he returned to Heaven as the initial act that would make a claim of faith legitimate. Baptism for any other reason than that is the wrong reason and would be an act of disobedience to the very one that people want to claim is their Lord. It is preposterous to think that you can disobey Jesus and still claim him as your Lord. And, those who teach that Baptism is not necessary for salvation are simply false teachers leading people astray of the obvious truth the same way that the religious leaders of Jesus's day were leading people astray of the truth. Jesus condemned those people and called them sons of Satan. He would do the same with regard to those that deny that baptism is "for the forgiveness of sins." In other words, to say that baptism is not necessary is equivalent to saying that faith is not necessary but that hypocrisy is required! When people use the term "faith" to mean simple mental acceptance without any action, or work, they use a definition that not only is not the definition used by the writers of the Bible when referring to true faith, they are using a definition that is exactly opposite of the true meaning and that was applied to belief in false Gods by the writers of the Bible.
Read the above explanation over several times if you have to in order to be sure that you understand it. It is absolutely critical to the correct understanding of the Bible.
If you still need clarification on this, please do not hesitate to ask me. I cannot emphasize it enough how important this is to a correct understanding of the biblical scriptures.
Sincerely,
Mr. McClellan