Now as followers of this blog, to the extent they exist, would know, I do not believe in the divinity of Jesus. G-d made it pretty clear that He is One G-d. What is often considered the holiest prayer in the Torah, the Shema, states: G-d is ONE. Three-In-One or some variation thereof does not qualify.
However, I have come to a renewed appreciation of the fact that Jesus at least on some things was one perceptive cookie, whatever else he was. Read his imprecations against the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew. That was true then, and it still is. Rabbinical Judaism is directly descended from the Pharisees of that day. Every single attempt at moral renewal in overall society in recent centuries was led by Christians. Very very few of them were led by religious Jews.
Who cares if you or society as a whole winds up in moral perdition? Not many Rabbinical Jews, apparently. G-d and the Commandments are their property, didn't you know? If you are not a Jew, G-D (and His law) IS NOT OPEN TO YOU. Go take a long ride off a short pier, Goy.
Not only that, but legit ethnically-Jewish practitioners of Judaism who are not Rabbinical Jews, like the Karaite Jews, are not considered to be Jews at all by most Rabbinical Jews. And what is the signifying characteristic of Rabbinical Judaism? The reliance on rabbis, to the point where their word is considered nearly equal or actually equal to the words of G-d in the Torah. The Karaites are exactly the opposite, which is why Rabbinical Jews don't consider them Jews.
“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven."
~Matthew 23:8-9
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to."
~Matthew 23:13
Never has a single Rabbinical Jew ever responded to my interest in Judaism other than negatively. Matthew 23:13 was true in the First Century and still is.
Christians, whatever my doctrinal differences with them, actually do care if EVERYONE gets on the right path. The idea of a Christian saying to a sincere inquirer, "your interest in Christianity is not sincere, go away" is ludicrous on its face. It is nothing if not a universal religion. The color of your skin doesn't matter. The language you speak doesn't matter. They want you on the team. They believe, as I also do, that G-d is no respecter of persons. G-d doesn't think better of you because of your ethnicity. The special status of the Jews was to achieve an end, to be the bearer of G-d's Light and Word to the world. But then Christians, not Jews, did that. If there had been no Christians, the overwhelming majority of the world would only have heard of the Ten Commandments through comparative religion classes in colleges. If that.
I cannot agree with what Christians think is the means of salvation, of coming to G-d, but I could not agree with them more that G-d's message is for -
E V E R Y B O D Y .
Not just a special few, not just for one ethnic group. Now not everyone will accept the message of the Tanakh, but everyone is the intended recipient. No one is beyond the pale of G-d's mercy just because they were born into the wrong ethnic group or culture.
“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
“‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
“The first,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did."
~Matthew 21:28-32
Another of Jesus' criticisms of the scribes and pharisees, and spot on. Now I believe that believing in the divinity of Jesus is idolatry, and I also know that many Christians would say that not believing in it, I am going to hell. Idolatry is indeed bad, it is one of the most frequently criticized sins of the entire Tanakh, what Christians call the Old Testament. Believing in the divinity of any created being definitely qualifies.
Despite this, do I believe that Christians who otherwise sincerely keep the Commandments especially the Ten Commandments and do what is right are eligible to enter the Kingdom of the Righteous if such will exist?
ABSOLUTELY. Why? Because while they may not say exactly the right thing or believe exactly the right thing, a righteous Christian in fact does what is right. Like the first son, a righteous Christian walks the walk even if his facts aren't exactly straight or his mouth isn't saying exactly the right words. Someone who, on the other hand, says "yes" to G-d but isn't actually righteous in his conduct, his "yes" is useless.
Surely G-d wishes us to spread knowledge of right and wrong and His Laws, not keep them to ourselves. Surely such an act is both righteous and kind. But if we left it to the Rabbinical Jews, keeping it to themselves is exactly what would have happened. Who has done the most to spread knowledge of G-d's Laws, even if sometimes they incorrectly say they have been superseded? Christians. Why is there a Bible in homes all over the world, even if they are not read? Because of Christianity.
So I think that while G-d definitely does not like idolatry, He does like Christians. I don't even hold it against them that they think I am going to hell, I know the Lord and I know that I know. Why is it that everywhere Christian civilization has held sway, it has tended to advance and advance significantly? What does G-d say about those who keep His ways? He will bless them and protect them. In the Tanakh, every single time the Jews were conquered, it was attributed to them becoming immoral and losing G-d's favor. When the Jews regained their freedom and succeeded, it was attributed to the revival of the sincerity of their faith. Well on average they have been doing rather poorly for the last 2000 years. To what should we attribute THAT? According to the same logic that is present throughout the Tanakh, they do NOT have the Lord's favor. Christians, at least until they lost control of "Christendom," DID and the proof of that is that they succeeded beyond any peoples on this Earth.
Now some would say that the idea that G-d blesses and protects those who love and obey Him in sincerity is a fossil of Iron Age thinking. Well the Tanakh absolutely repeatedly says it is true, and I believe what it says, whether it is "modern" thinking or not. While this does not limit G-d's freedom of action to act otherwise (which the Book of Job would seem to indicate it does not,) on the whole the Tanakh upholds the idea that the righteous who love G-d are generally both blessed and protected. Those who are not righteous and don't love G-d are not. They are cursed.
Some people regard the idea of America becoming a Christian Nationalist nation appalling. I don't, even though I am not a Christian. Why? I want children to be taught morality. I want them to not be taught perversion. I want a country where people will never again be persecuted or run out of business because they won't bend the knee to the secular doctrines. I want to live in a country where law and order are considered to be good things, not oppression. Christians are the only group that can actually potentially make this better America come about. If they don't, then get used to an America where the official doctrines are Woke corporate communism, atheism, corruption, slavery, lies, and moral deviancy. I would not be very happy about America becoming such, but we are well on the way to it.
Christians, whatever I think about their religion's idolatrous tendencies and their habit of using grace as a cover for lack of obedience, are the only ones who can save us from that (G-d willing and with His help.)
So we better hope, all of us, that America becomes a more Christian nation because if it doesn't, we're all screwed.
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