The Culture of the God of Israel (Jesus)
`Not every one who is saying to me JEHOVAH , JEHOVAH, shall come into the reign of the heavens; but he who is doing the will of my Father who is in the heavens. Matt 7:21 (YLT Jehovah NT Version by Abner Cesaire)
Who will be saved?
The question of who will be saved can be answered in different ways.
For the Jews, the answer was "whoever believes that Jesus is Jehovah (), the promised Messiah who was to be incarnated as the etymology of the name Jehovah suggests. Those who did not get baptized () according to the new doctrinal addition to Judaism delivered by the Messenger John the Baptist () rejected their only chance to cure their blindness had Jesus crucified because He insinuated to them that He is Jehovah God, their King, the Holy One of Israel (). Those who rejected the baptism of John did not behave accordingly. Jehovah God is concerned about our behavior towards the culture He dictated to Moses (Luke 16:29-31).
For the Pagans or Gentiles like us, we are to assimilate the new culture that Jesus entrusted to His Apostles, as it is recorded in
Matthew 28:18-20 EMTV
(18) And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. (19) Go [therefore] and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, (20) teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen.
If we want to admit it, born as a Jew and victorious over sin as a Jew, it goes without saying that Jesus extends the prescribed culture to the Jews (which He experienced) to the rest of the world, albeit with adjustments necessitated by fulfilling that part of the Law ().
In the grand scale of things, who will be saved?
Jesus summarizes the answer in the declaration of Matthew 7:21 EMTV:
(21) "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.
The paradox is that not even Jesus is exempted from the obligation asserted in Matthew 7:21 as He declared in John 5:30 EMTV:
(30) I can of My own self do nothing. Even as I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.
If the Creator of the universe and mankind (John 1) does not have His own will but is obliged to seek to do the will pf God, why any one of us impunely would choose not to obey and live the culture set by Moses (Luke 16:29-31)?
(29) Abraham said to him, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.' (30) And he said, 'No, father Abraham; but if someone from the dead should go to them, they will repent.'
Faith and Baptism is also a component for salvation as we read in Mark 16:16 KJ3
(16) The one believing and being baptized will be saved; but the one not believing will be condemned.
Therefore, to avoid condemnation we all must get assimilated into the culture of God. Those who dismiss or reject any component of God's culture as being ruled to the Jews forfeit their salvation with such stance.
Jesus, with Christianity, brought chaos in our culture because to save us He must invade our privacy and our way of life to bring about conviction of possible wrong doings that lead to eternal death. Those of us who hear His voice and follow Him will clash with anyone who derides the faith, as Matthew 10:34-39 prophesied.
LITV
Hence the culture of Jesus Christ is enmity to the culture of the word. We ought to live a balance and check kind of life
We do not have a model of witnessing in the Scriptures (Old Testament). Jehovah God did the witnessing Himself by enabling the Jews in the diaspora and delivering them from sure death situations. We read about the great conquerors of Antiquity decreeing throughout their whole kingdom that the name Jehovah God is the true God to worship after witnessing the indescribable power of Jehovah God. We read how He compelled the prophet Jonah to go witness to the Ninevites who in the end heeded and repented. Jehovah welcomed any convert from any nation and promised them better consideration than His own chosen people.
When Jehovah became flesh, He had men doing the witnessing. He sent out the 12 to go witness to their countrymen in every town. Then He commissioned them to go witness His name all over the world. What message did the chosen missionaries take with them? If we know what the message is, then we know what message to go preach all over the world.
Many go witness an acculturated gospel to the world ... to be continued
Updated on May 24, 2018. Page in progress