Christian view of Abraham?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since the gospel came after Abraham, Abraham did not accept Jesus as Savior. So what is the Christian view on him?

Abraham affected the Jews and Muslims. God promised his descendants the "holy land," which is the cause of strife btw the two groups.

Because he had two sons with two different wives - one "claimed" by Jews, the other by Muslims - each side claims the land.

Christians play no "official" role in this ridiculous mess based on myths.

This belongs in a different thread. Nobody asked about the holy land.

no - same thing, genius

Christians don't really give a rat's ass about Abraham b/c he was connected to the Jews and Muslims. I'm just giving some background, honey bun.

Rats ass? Lets wait for a Christian to say that. If you're not a practicing knowledgeable Christian, your opinion is irrelevant. Judging from your lovely communication skills, my guess is you are not.

Why can't a Christian say rat's ass?

So people who say rat's ass are all atheists? That's a great generalization, genius.

So does that mean you are a practicing Christian?

hell, no

But this Christian uses it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glennon-melton/i-love-gay-people-and-christians-_b_3497785.html
I Love Gay People and I Love Christians. I Choose All.

The search tool is your friend.

[Anonymous]

God sent Jesus into the world as a way shower. When Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, the light, no ones gets to the Father except through me", what more progressive Christians believe He meant was that no one can become closer to God (Source, Love, Creator, First Mover..whatever your name for that Universal good) unless they learn to become more Christ-like. Compassion, Love, Tolerance, Charity.... Those are the qualities that Jesus exemplified. We become closer to our Source (and "heaven") by trying to be more like Him.

However, there are many, many paths to that same end goal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:God sent Jesus into the world as a way shower. When Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, the light, no ones gets to the Father except through me", what more progressive Christians believe He meant was that no one can become closer to God (Source, Love, Creator, First Mover..whatever your name for that Universal good) unless they learn to become more Christ-like. Compassion, Love, Tolerance, Charity.... Those are the qualities that Jesus exemplified. We become closer to our Source (and "heaven") by trying to be more like Him.

However, there are many, many paths to that same end goal.

but progressive Christians hope you keep coming to church and bringing your pledge money

[Anonymous]

I suspect that this thread was not begun out of a good-faith effort to understand this point of doctrine, but instead to bait Christians on the point of whether Christ is essential for salvation.

However, for those who are reading, I will try to provide a brief answer. The Old Testament points to Christ. It is, from start to finish, the story of God bringing out from the world His chosen people, the Jews, through whom He would bring the Messiah, who is Jesus Christ. The Messiah, or Savior of the World, was foretold for ages through the Jewish prophets, and Christ was actually anticipated among the Jews at the time of His birth. Read Matthew 2:1-12 to see this. The references to the coming Messiah are sprinkled all throughout the Old Testament, but see Isaiah 53 for just one excellent example of this.

What's this have to do with Abraham? All of this was foretold to Abraham, whom God chose as the patriarch of His chosen people. He promised to bless all the nations (that is, all the people) of Earth through Abraham, by bringing Christ the Savior to Earth. This is in Genesis 12.

The Bible says in Genesis 15:6 that "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." That is, God pronounced Abraham righteous because of His faith in God and God's promise. In the Old Testament, God counted faith in Him and this promises as the righteousness that provided salvation. And it wasn't just Jews to whom this salvation was available. Though the instances recorded are rare, there were Gentile believers in the God of Abraham.

In the New Testament, in Paul's letter to the Romans (Romans 4:21-24), the implications of Abraham's belief to us are spelled out, where Paul writes that Abraham was "fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised." Paul continues, "This is why 'it was credited to him as righteousness.' The words 'it was credited to him' were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead."

I guess this response isn't as short as I intended it to be, but the brief answer is that in the Old Testament, people looked ahead to the death and resurrection of Christ, and after that, mankind looks back on it. But all of it is built on faith. Please read Hebrews 11 for a more complete summation of this, but this is the great "faith chapter" of the Bible, wherein the giants of the Old Testament are shown having faith in the great promise of God and dying without seeing the promise of Christ in the flesh. But it is their faith in God fulfilling this promise that is the cause of their salvation.

Revelation 13:8 (this is New Testament) calls Christ the "lamb slain from the foundation of the world." That is, as far as God was concerned, Christ's sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection were already as good as a done deal, so their efficacy for salvation was still just as potent before the actual fact of the crucifixion and the resurrection. That is why the great prophetic statements of the Old Testament (such as Isaiah 53:5 -- "He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed") are usually written in the past tense, even though they hadn't actually occurred yet.

Basically, God knows what He is doing, and He is just. All of us will have to answer for our lives when we die, and we will be without excuse. Either we believe Him, or we don't. Romans 3:19 says that we will all answer to God, and then "every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God."

The Bible may seem like a jumble of incoherency or stupidity to those who have no faith in God. If you have no belief and want to look superior to those who do, you will surely be able to pick and choose a passage here and there that makes you feel the want you want to feel. But those who truly seek the wisdom of God (James 1:5-6) will find in the totality of Scripture a majesty, a beauty and a continuity that they will wonder at the more and more they study it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:God sent Jesus into the world as a way shower. When Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, the light, no ones gets to the Father except through me", what more progressive Christians believe He meant was that no one can become closer to God (Source, Love, Creator, First Mover..whatever your name for that Universal good) unless they learn to become more Christ-like. Compassion, Love, Tolerance, Charity.... Those are the qualities that Jesus exemplified. We become closer to our Source (and "heaven") by trying to be more like Him.

However, there are many, many paths to that same end goal.

I see this passage from John 14:6 quoted a lot, but please note that Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the LIFE." Not "light." There's a world of difference in that. We have eternal life through Him, not just enlightenment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God sent Jesus into the world as a way shower. When Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, the light, no ones gets to the Father except through me", what more progressive Christians believe He meant was that no one can become closer to God (Source, Love, Creator, First Mover..whatever your name for that Universal good) unless they learn to become more Christ-like. Compassion, Love, Tolerance, Charity.... Those are the qualities that Jesus exemplified. We become closer to our Source (and "heaven") by trying to be more like Him.

However, there are many, many paths to that same end goal.

I see this passage from John 14:6 quoted a lot, but please note that Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the LIFE." Not "light." There's a world of difference in that. We have eternal life through Him, not just enlightenment.

The reality is that we have absolutely no idea what Jesus actually said. We have accounts of what other people think He said based on what they wrote years later. (We have no evidence that Jesus ever wrote anything down.) Those accounts have been picked over and translated more times than we can even begin to know. People chose what to include and what to leave out of the Christian Bible we use today for political reasons and for control. Simple as that.

I'm not discounting the Bible. I hold it very sacred. However, there are many other sacred texts with value. I'm certainly NOT discounting the importance of Jesus Christ. I may be a progressive Christian, but I am a Christian. I believe God sent Jesus into our world to be a light. A way shower. An example of all that is good and right and sacred. His death was the ultimate act of selfless love and self-sacrifice. From that we learn of our own importance to our Creator and the power of love.

Christians who believe that everyone who does not "believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior" (I know that phrase all too well....I was raised in the Southern Baptist Church) are going to hell are missing the entire point of Christianity. I was taught from a very young age that Christians were the only ones going to heaven. Screw the people living in other countries who were raised to believe differently. Forget the people living in the middle of a rain forrest who worship nature. The Jews? All of them damned to eternal torment. Sorry, but there is nothing Christ-like about that mentality.

When the angel appeared to the Shepherd in the story of Christ's birth, he said "Fear not, for I bring you great joy which will be to ALL people". ALL people. Not just a select few who happen to sit in the front row of a Baptist Church. That type of Christianity has done more to damage humanity than any other religion on the face of the earth. The next time you hear someone rant about "radical Islam", remember that Christians have an embarrassing past as well.

It's way past time for humanity to let go of the ridiculousness of divisive religious beliefs. There are many, many paths. None of them is greater than another. Christ recognized the divinity in every single person He encountered. People who claim to follow Him should strive to do the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I suspect that this thread was not begun out of a good-faith effort to understand this point of doctrine, but instead to bait Christians on the point of whether Christ is essential for salvation.

However, for those who are reading, I will try to provide a brief answer. The Old Testament points to Christ. It is, from start to finish, the story of God bringing out from the world His chosen people, the Jews, through whom He would bring the Messiah, who is Jesus Christ. The Messiah, or Savior of the World, was foretold for ages through the Jewish prophets, and Christ was actually anticipated among the Jews at the time of His birth. Read Matthew 2:1-12 to see this. The references to the coming Messiah are sprinkled all throughout the Old Testament, but see Isaiah 53 for just one excellent example of this.

What's this have to do with Abraham? All of this was foretold to Abraham, whom God chose as the patriarch of His chosen people. He promised to bless all the nations (that is, all the people) of Earth through Abraham, by bringing Christ the Savior to Earth. This is in Genesis 12.

The Bible says in Genesis 15:6 that "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." That is, God pronounced Abraham righteous because of His faith in God and God's promise. In the Old Testament, God counted faith in Him and this promises as the righteousness that provided salvation. And it wasn't just Jews to whom this salvation was available. Though the instances recorded are rare, there were Gentile believers in the God of Abraham.

In the New Testament, in Paul's letter to the Romans (Romans 4:21-24), the implications of Abraham's belief to us are spelled out, where Paul writes that Abraham was "fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised." Paul continues, "This is why 'it was credited to him as righteousness.' The words 'it was credited to him' were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead."

I guess this response isn't as short as I intended it to be, but the brief answer is that in the Old Testament, people looked ahead to the death and resurrection of Christ, and after that, mankind looks back on it. But all of it is built on faith. Please read Hebrews 11 for a more complete summation of this, but this is the great "faith chapter" of the Bible, wherein the giants of the Old Testament are shown having faith in the great promise of God and dying without seeing the promise of Christ in the flesh. But it is their faith in God fulfilling this promise that is the cause of their salvation.

Revelation 13:8 (this is New Testament) calls Christ the "lamb slain from the foundation of the world." That is, as far as God was concerned, Christ's sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection were already as good as a done deal, so their efficacy for salvation was still just as potent before the actual fact of the crucifixion and the resurrection. That is why the great prophetic statements of the Old Testament (such as Isaiah 53:5 -- "He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed") are usually written in the past tense, even though they hadn't actually occurred yet.

Basically, God knows what He is doing, and He is just. All of us will have to answer for our lives when we die, and we will be without excuse. Either we believe Him, or we don't. Romans 3:19 says that we will all answer to God, and then "every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God."

The Bible may seem like a jumble of incoherency or stupidity to those who have no faith in God. If you have no belief and want to look superior to those who do, you will surely be able to pick and choose a passage here and there that makes you feel the want you want to feel. But those who truly seek the wisdom of God (James 1:5-6) will find in the totality of Scripture a majesty, a beauty and a continuity that they will wonder at the more and more they study it.

Where did Abraham say Jesus was to come and be His Savior, though?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So then who is exempt from the punishment of hell for not accepting Jesus as Savior in Christianity?

Are people living in rural areas who never heard of Christ still able to go to Heaven? Are people born before Christ able to avoid hell? Are people living in countries that prohibit Christians from proselytizing also able to avoid Hell?

I'm sure one of the "good Christians" on the believing in God thread can enlighten you with some religious fluff.

Why not post there? It's quite entertaining.

The OP of this thread is no doubt trolling on that thread, too. FWIW, the fluff is coming from the atheists who are making up nonsense about the Council of Nicaea, Narnia, what's in the New Testament, and various Roman Gods. It's like the atheist trolls are turning history on its head - these charmers apparently live not by science or facts, as they'd have you believe, but by warping reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suspect that this thread was not begun out of a good-faith effort to understand this point of doctrine, but instead to bait Christians on the point of whether Christ is essential for salvation.

However, for those who are reading, I will try to provide a brief answer. The Old Testament points to Christ. It is, from start to finish, the story of God bringing out from the world His chosen people, the Jews, through whom He would bring the Messiah, who is Jesus Christ. The Messiah, or Savior of the World, was foretold for ages through the Jewish prophets, and Christ was actually anticipated among the Jews at the time of His birth. Read Matthew 2:1-12 to see this. The references to the coming Messiah are sprinkled all throughout the Old Testament, but see Isaiah 53 for just one excellent example of this.

What's this have to do with Abraham? All of this was foretold to Abraham, whom God chose as the patriarch of His chosen people. He promised to bless all the nations (that is, all the people) of Earth through Abraham, by bringing Christ the Savior to Earth. This is in Genesis 12.

The Bible says in Genesis 15:6 that "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." That is, God pronounced Abraham righteous because of His faith in God and God's promise. In the Old Testament, God counted faith in Him and this promises as the righteousness that provided salvation. And it wasn't just Jews to whom this salvation was available. Though the instances recorded are rare, there were Gentile believers in the God of Abraham.

In the New Testament, in Paul's letter to the Romans (Romans 4:21-24), the implications of Abraham's belief to us are spelled out, where Paul writes that Abraham was "fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised." Paul continues, "This is why 'it was credited to him as righteousness.' The words 'it was credited to him' were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead."

I guess this response isn't as short as I intended it to be, but the brief answer is that in the Old Testament, people looked ahead to the death and resurrection of Christ, and after that, mankind looks back on it. But all of it is built on faith. Please read Hebrews 11 for a more complete summation of this, but this is the great "faith chapter" of the Bible, wherein the giants of the Old Testament are shown having faith in the great promise of God and dying without seeing the promise of Christ in the flesh. But it is their faith in God fulfilling this promise that is the cause of their salvation.

Revelation 13:8 (this is New Testament) calls Christ the "lamb slain from the foundation of the world." That is, as far as God was concerned, Christ's sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection were already as good as a done deal, so their efficacy for salvation was still just as potent before the actual fact of the crucifixion and the resurrection. That is why the great prophetic statements of the Old Testament (such as Isaiah 53:5 -- "He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed") are usually written in the past tense, even though they hadn't actually occurred yet.

Basically, God knows what He is doing, and He is just. All of us will have to answer for our lives when we die, and we will be without excuse. Either we believe Him, or we don't. Romans 3:19 says that we will all answer to God, and then "every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God."

The Bible may seem like a jumble of incoherency or stupidity to those who have no faith in God. If you have no belief and want to look superior to those who do, you will surely be able to pick and choose a passage here and there that makes you feel the want you want to feel. But those who truly seek the wisdom of God (James 1:5-6) will find in the totality of Scripture a majesty, a beauty and a continuity that they will wonder at the more and more they study it.

Where did Abraham say Jesus was to come and be His Savior, though?

Wow. PP wrote out many thoughtful paras for you, and you didn't bother to read them.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I guess I don't feel like contributing to the moderator's income by continuing to click on trolly BS like this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So then who is exempt from the punishment of hell for not accepting Jesus as Savior in Christianity?

Are people living in rural areas who never heard of Christ still able to go to Heaven? Are people born before Christ able to avoid hell? Are people living in countries that prohibit Christians from proselytizing also able to avoid Hell?

Before Jesus, people just died. Now, when the final judgement comes, people born both pre and post Jesus will stand before god. Right?

You tell me. My question isn't whether they will come before God, my question is if they can avoid hell because they did not accept Christ as Lord?

I found this - http://www.allaboutgod.com/do-i-have-to-be-baptized-to-go-to-heaven.htm

good for some entertainment - But it does answer your question.

Thank GOD! Even atheists can enter heaven.

This says one must acknowledge Jesus as savior to enter Heaven. The question was - so does mean all others, even Abraham, go to hell?

The Pope says good atheists can enter heaven - http://www.catholic.org/news/hf/faith/story.php?id=51077
So by being good, one can assume that when it's time for the day of judgment, those folks will be saying yes to Christ!

The Pope only has jurisdiction over people baptized Catholic (which would include lapsed catholics) while God has jurisdiction over everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So then who is exempt from the punishment of hell for not accepting Jesus as Savior in Christianity?

Are people living in rural areas who never heard of Christ still able to go to Heaven? Are people born before Christ able to avoid hell? Are people living in countries that prohibit Christians from proselytizing also able to avoid Hell?

Before Jesus, people just died. Now, when the final judgement comes, people born both pre and post Jesus will stand before god. Right?

You tell me. My question isn't whether they will come before God, my question is if they can avoid hell because they did not accept Christ as Lord?

I found this - http://www.allaboutgod.com/do-i-have-to-be-baptized-to-go-to-heaven.htm

good for some entertainment - But it does answer your question.

Thank GOD! Even atheists can enter heaven.

This says one must acknowledge Jesus as savior to enter Heaven. The question was - so does mean all others, even Abraham, go to hell?

The Pope says good atheists can enter heaven - http://www.catholic.org/news/hf/faith/story.php?id=51077
So by being good, one can assume that when it's time for the day of judgment, those folks will be saying yes to Christ!

The Pope only has jurisdiction over people baptized Catholic (which would include lapsed catholics) while God has jurisdiction over everyone.

And there you have it - a division btw Catholicism and other Christian sects. So who's right? If I follow the pope, I'm saved. Even my animal goes to heaven.

So where in the bible does God (everyone's god) say that all souls are saved?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God sent Jesus into the world as a way shower. When Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, the light, no ones gets to the Father except through me", what more progressive Christians believe He meant was that no one can become closer to God (Source, Love, Creator, First Mover..whatever your name for that Universal good) unless they learn to become more Christ-like. Compassion, Love, Tolerance, Charity.... Those are the qualities that Jesus exemplified. We become closer to our Source (and "heaven") by trying to be more like Him.

However, there are many, many paths to that same end goal.

I see this passage from John 14:6 quoted a lot, but please note that Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the LIFE." Not "light." There's a world of difference in that. We have eternal life through Him, not just enlightenment.

The reality is that we have absolutely no idea what Jesus actually said. We have accounts of what other people think He said based on what they wrote years later. (We have no evidence that Jesus ever wrote anything down.) Those accounts have been picked over and translated more times than we can even begin to know. People chose what to include and what to leave out of the Christian Bible we use today for political reasons and for control. Simple as that.

I'm not discounting the Bible. I hold it very sacred. However, there are many other sacred texts with value. I'm certainly NOT discounting the importance of Jesus Christ. I may be a progressive Christian, but I am a Christian. I believe God sent Jesus into our world to be a light. A way shower. An example of all that is good and right and sacred. His death was the ultimate act of selfless love and self-sacrifice. From that we learn of our own importance to our Creator and the power of love.

Christians who believe that everyone who does not "believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior" (I know that phrase all too well....I was raised in the Southern Baptist Church) are going to hell are missing the entire point of Christianity. I was taught from a very young age that Christians were the only ones going to heaven. Screw the people living in other countries who were raised to believe differently. Forget the people living in the middle of a rain forrest who worship nature. The Jews? All of them damned to eternal torment. Sorry, but there is nothing Christ-like about that mentality.

When the angel appeared to the Shepherd in the story of Christ's birth, he said "Fear not, for I bring you great joy which will be to ALL people". ALL people. Not just a select few who happen to sit in the front row of a Baptist Church. That type of Christianity has done more to damage humanity than any other religion on the face of the earth. The next time you hear someone rant about "radical Islam", remember that Christians have an embarrassing past as well.

It's way past time for humanity to let go of the ridiculousness of divisive religious beliefs. There are many, many paths. None of them is greater than another. Christ recognized the divinity in every single person He encountered. People who claim to follow Him should strive to do the same.

I see that you quoted the Bible to make a point, and then when it was pointed out that you quoted it erroneously, you threw your hands up and said, "Well who knows what he said?" There is one path, and that is Christ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So then who is exempt from the punishment of hell for not accepting Jesus as Savior in Christianity?

Are people living in rural areas who never heard of Christ still able to go to Heaven? Are people born before Christ able to avoid hell? Are people living in countries that prohibit Christians from proselytizing also able to avoid Hell?

I'm sure one of the "good Christians" on the believing in God thread can enlighten you with some religious fluff.

Why not post there? It's quite entertaining.

The OP of this thread is no doubt trolling on that thread, too. FWIW, the fluff is coming from the atheists who are making up nonsense about the Council of Nicaea, Narnia, what's in the New Testament, and various Roman Gods. It's like the atheist trolls are turning history on its head - these charmers apparently live not by science or facts, as they'd have you believe, but by warping reality.

How are historical facts (minus CS Lewis' BS) fluff?

Monolatrism is referenced in the bible. It's still in existence today. We pick and choose our idols, don't we?

How thick-headed many of you are! You love ignoring the evidence, choosing instead to take the bible as historical fact.

[Anonymous]

As another PP noted, no one living before Christ could believe in Him, obviously. However, in the OT, it talks a lot about the coming Messiah. Jews believed in that person. They just don't believe that Christ was the Messiah.

In any case, in the OT, there were a lot of people that were "chosen", and blessed by God - Abraham, David, etc... Before Christ, the way to Heaven was through following the OT laws. In the OT, there is a passage about how Elijah was sent up to Heaven without even dying - 2Kings 2:11.

What I've been taught, as a Protestant, is that Abraham is the father of all "Believers", just as the OT states (and another PP noted), that from him will come as many descendants as there are stars in heaven - these are not literal descendants, but spiritual ones.

So, as a Christian, we see Abraham as a faithful servant of God (yes, I know, he made mistakes as did every single person in the Bible, except for Christ).