Monat: November 2017

Jesus und Abraham

1 Nach diesen Dingen geschah das Wort Jehovas zu Abram in einem Gesicht also: Fürchte dich nicht, Abram; ich bin dir ein Schild, dein sehr großer Lohn.

2 Und Abram sprach: Herr, Jehova, was willst du mir geben? Ich gehe ja kinderlos dahin, und der Erbe meines Hauses, das ist Elieser von Damaskus.

3 Und Abram sprach: Siehe, mir hast du keinen Samen gegeben, und siehe, der Sohn meines Hauses wird mich beerben.

4 Und siehe, das Wort Jehovas geschah zu ihm also: Nicht dieser wird dich beerben, sondern der aus deinem Leibe hervorgehen wird, der wird dich beerben.

5 Und er führte ihn hinaus und sprach: Blicke doch gen Himmel und zähle die Sterne, wenn du sie zählen kannst! Und er sprach zu ihm: Also wird dein Same sein!

6 Und er glaubte Jehova; und er rechnete es ihm zur Gerechtigkeit.

In dem vorgestern zitierten Buch heißt es dazu:

This is a fascinating text. Notice right from the start that it is the “Word of Yahweh” who comes to Abraham in a vision.4 we read that the Word “brought him [Abraham] outside” to continue the conversation. This isn’t the kind of language one would expect if Abraham was hearing only a sound.

These appearances of the Word of Yahweh are the conceptual backdrop to the apostle John’s language in his gospel that Jesus was the Word. The most familiar instance is John 1:1 (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”) and John 1:14 (“And the Word became flesh and took up residence among us, and we saw his glory, glory as of the one and only from the Father, full of grace and truth”).In John 8:56, Jesus, the incarnate Word, informs his Jewish antagonists that he appeared to Abraham prior to his incarnation: “Abraham your father rejoiced that he would see my day, and he saw it and was glad.” The Jews object vehemently to this claim, whereupon Jesus utters his famous statement, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). Only Genesis 12 and 15 provide the coherent backdrop to this claim.I hope you grasp the significance of the interchange. Since the Word is clearly equated with and identified as Yahweh in Genesis 12 and 15, when the New Testament has Jesus saying “that was me,” he is claiming to be the Word of the Old Testament, who was the visible Yahweh.

This understanding is also behind some of the things Paul says about Abraham and Jesus. In Galatians 3:8 Paul says that the gospel—that God would justify the Gentile nations—was preached to Abraham. This is a clear reference to the content of the Abrahamic covenant, delivered personally and visibly by the Word.

also zu deutsch:

In Johannes 8:56 informiert Jesus, das fleischgewordene Wort, seine jüdischen Widersacher, dass er Abraham vor seiner Inkarnation erschienen ist: „Abraham, euer  Vater, freute sich, dass er meinen Tag sehen würde, und er sah ihn und war froh.“ vehement zu dieser Behauptung, worauf Jesus seine berühmte Aussage äußert: „Vor Abraham war, bin ich“ (Johannes 8,58). Nur Genesis 12 und 15 bilden den kohärenten Hintergrund dieser Behauptung.

Ich hoffe, Sie verstehen die Bedeutung des Austausches. Da das Wort in 1. Mose 12 und 15 klar als Jehovah bezeichnet und identifiziert wird, wenn Jesus im Neuen Testament sagt „das war ich“, behauptet er, das Wort des Alten Testaments zu sein, der der sichtbare Jehovah war.

Dieses Verständnis steht auch hinter einigen Dingen, die Paulus über Abraham und Jesus sagt. In Galater 3,8 sagt Paulus, dass das Evangelium – dass Gott die heidnischen Nationen rechtfertigen würde – Abraham gepredigt wurde. Dies ist ein klarer Verweis auf den Inhalt des Abrahamischen Bundes, der persönlich und sichtbar durch das Wort vermittelt wird.

 

 

Vorherwissen Gottes

In dem gestern zitierten Buch habe ich eine sehr interessante Passage zum Thema Vorherwissen gefunden:

Acknowledging God’s foreknowledge and also the genuine free will of humankind, especially with respect to the fall, raises obvious questions: Was the fall predestined? If so, how was the disobedience of Adam and Eve free? How are they truly responsible?

Since we aren’t told much in Genesis about how human freedom works in relation to divine attributes like foreknowledge, predestination, and omniscience, we need to look elsewhere in Scripture for some clarification. Let’s look at 1 Samuel 23:1–13. Note the underlining carefully.

1 Now they told David, “Look, the Philistines are fighting in Keilah and they are raiding the threshing floors.” 2 So David inquired of Yahweh, saying, “Shall I go and attack these Philistines?” And Yahweh said to David, “Go and attack the Philistines and save Keilah.” 3 But David’s men said to him, “Look, we are afraid here in Judah. How much more if we go to Keilah to the battle lines of the Philistines?” 4 So David again inquired of Yahweh, and Yahweh answered him and said, “Get up, go down to Keilah, for I am giving the Philistines into your hand.” 5 So David and his men went to Keilah and fought with the Philistines. They drove off their livestock and dealt them a heavy blow. So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah. 6 Now when Abiathar the son of Ahimelech fled to David at Keilah, he went down with an ephod in his hand. 7 When it was told to Saul that David had gone to Keilah, Saul said, “God has given him into my hand, because he has shut himself in by going into a city with two barred gates. 8 Saul then summoned all of the army for the battle, to go down to Keilah to lay a siege against David and his men. 9 When David learned that Saul was plotting evil against him, he said to Abiathar the priest, “Bring the ephod here.” 10 And David said, “O Yahweh, God of Israel, your servant has clearly heard that Saul is seeking to come to Keilah to destroy the city because of me. 11 Will the rulers of Keilah deliver me into his hand? Will Saul come down as your servant has heard? O Yahweh, God of Israel, please tell your servant!” And Yahweh said, “He will come down.”12 Then David said, “Will the rulers of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul?” And Yahweh said, “They will deliver you.” 13 So David and his men got up, about six hundred men, and went out from Keilah and wandered wherever they could go. When it was told to Saul that David had escaped from Keilah, he stopped his pursuit.

In this account, David appeals to the omniscient God to tell him about the future. In the first instance (23:1–5), David asks God whether he should go to the city of Keilah and whether he’ll successfully defeat the Philistines there. God answers in the affirmative in both cases. David goes to Keilah and indeed defeats the Philistines.

In the second section (23:6–13), David asks the Lord two questions: (1) will his nemesis Saul come to Keilah and threaten the city on account of David’s presence? And (2) will the people of Keilah turn him over to Saul to avoid Saul’s wrath? Again, God answers both questions affirmatively: “He will come down,” and “They will deliver you.”

Neither of these events that God foresaw ever actually happened. Once David hears God’s answers, he and his men leave the city. When Saul discovers this fact (v. 13), he abandons his trip to Keilah. Saul never made it to the city. The men of Keilah never turned David over to Saul.

Why is this significant? This passage clearly establishes that divine foreknowledge does not necessitate divine predestination. God foreknew what Saul would do and what the people of Keilah would do given a set of circumstances. In other words, God foreknew a possibility—but this foreknowledge did not mandate that the possibility was actually predestined to happen. The events never happened, so by definition they could not have been predestined. And yet the omniscient God did indeed foresee them. Predestination and foreknowledge are separable.

The theological point can be put this way:

That which never happens can be foreknown by God, but it is not predestined, since it never happened.

But what about things that do happen? They can obviously be foreknown, but were they predestined?

Since we have seen above that foreknowledge in itself does not necessitate predestination, all that foreknowledge truly guarantees is that something is foreknown. If God foreknows some event that happens, then he may have predestined that event. But the fact that he foreknew an event does not require its predestination if it happens. The only guarantee is that God foreknew it correctly, whether it turns out to be an actual event or a merely possible event.

Interessant, -die Stelle aus 1.Samuel habe ich bestimmt schon des öfteren gelesen, aber dabei den Schluss zu ziehen, und dies mit der Prädestination in Verbindung zu bringen, war mir nie in den Sinn gekommen. 

Eingeboren, einziggezeugt oder einzigartig ?

Beim Hauskreis letzten Donnerstag zum Thema Offenbarung, kam die Frage auf, wie es mit der Person Jesu aussehe, und in wie weit er zur „Familie Gott“ dazu gehört.

Anschließend habe ich ein sehr interessantes Buch gefunden: „About The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible“.

Hier ein sehr interessantes Zitat:

Readers of Psalm 82 often raise a specific question about Jesus. If there are other divine sons of God, what do we make of the description of Jesus as the “only begotten” son of God (John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9)? How could Jesus be the only divine son when there were others?

“Only begotten” is an unfortunately confusing translation, especially to modern ears. Not only does the translation “only begotten” seem to contradict the obvious statements in the Old Testament about other sons of God, it implies that there was a time when the Son did not exist—that he had a beginning.

The Greek word translated by this phrase is monogenes. It doesn’t mean “only begotten” in some sort of “birthing” sense. The confusion extends from an old misunderstanding of the root of the Greek word. For years monogenes was thought to have derived from two Greek terms, monos (“only”) and gennao (“to beget, bear”). Greek scholars later discovered that the second part of the word monogenes does not come from the Greek verb gennao, but rather from the noun genos (“class, kind”). The term literally means “one of a kind” or “unique” without connotation of created origin. Consequently, since Jesus is indeed identified with Yahweh and is therefore, with Yahweh, unique among the elohim that serve God, the term monogenes does not contradict the Old Testament language.

The validity of this understanding is borne out by the New Testament itself. In Hebrews 11:17, Isaac is called Abraham’s monogenes. If you know your Old Testament you know that Isaac was not the “only begotten” son of Abraham. Abraham had earlier fathered Ishmael (cf. Gen 16:15; 21:3). The term must mean that Isaac was Abraham’s unique son, for he was the son of the covenant promises. Isaac’s genealogical line would be the one through which Messiah would come. Just as Yahweh is an elohim, and no other elohim are Yahweh, so Jesus is the unique Son, and no other sons of God are like him.

Mir war bis dato nicht bekannt, dass es es heißt dass Jesus Christus einzigartig ist!

was ist der Mittelpunkt des Gottesdienstes?

Habe ich vor einigen Tagen auf idea.de gelesen:

Kleinsteinbach (idea) – In christlichen Gemeinden wird zu wenig gelehrt, worin die Grundsätze des Glaubens bestehen und warum sie wichtig sind. Das ist aber nötig, damit sich der Mensch nicht selbst zum Maßstab für sein Denken, Glauben und Fühlen macht. Diese Ansicht vertrat Pfarrer Manuel Ritsch (Dettingen am Albuch bei Ulm) auf der Herbsttagung der ChristusBewegung Baden am 14. Oktober in Kleinsteinbach (bei Karlsruhe). Wenn der Grund des Glaubens nur in einem selbst liege, werde man letztlich geistlich einsam und orientierungslos. Der Theologe kritisierte ferner, dass in vielen Gemeindegruppen zu oft lediglich über den persönlichen Glauben gesprochen werde statt über Gott: „Man redet lieber über persönliche Erfahrungen als darüber, wer Gott ist und was er tut.“ Glaubenserfahrungen dürften nicht überwertet werden. Gott wirke im Leben von Menschen. Deshalb seien Erfahrungen wichtig, aber sie blieben subjektiv, unvollständig und lieferten teilweise ein verzerrtes Bild von Gott. Ritsch: „Deshalb sind sie nicht der Maßstab, an dem wir als Menschen Gott messen können.“ Jesus Christus müsse Richter sein, über „meine Gefühle, Erfahrungen und Prägungen“.

 

Genau das ist das Problem der meisten der heutigen „Gottesdienste“ und der „religiösen Zeitschriften“: es dreht sich um allgemeine Politik, um persönliche Probleme oder Erfahrungen anstatt die Bibel und Gottes Wort in den Mittelpunkt zu rücken! So habe ich gerade zwei nach außen hin religiöse Zeitschriften vor mir, die das Thema „Geschenke“ bzw. wie kann ich „bei einer Gefahr Leben retten“ zum Aufhänger haben. Doch leider kaum wirklich Gedanken Gottes an die Menschen, sondern nur im „Schlusssatz“ der Hinweis, was Jehovah darüber denkt!

Wie viel mehr muss GOTTESdienst ein Dienst für Jehovah sein und sich alles um sein Wort und seine Meinung sein.
Wir versuchen dies, – schau doch einmal vorbei

„Der war, der ist und der sein wird“

Heute gelesen:

The One who is, who was and who is coming. This is based on God’s self-identification in Exodus 3:14, “I am who I am,” or, “I will be who I will be.” Compare MJ 13:8. In the Siddur a line from the popular Jewish hymn, Adon-˓Olam, reads: “V˒hu hayah v˒hu hoveh v˒hu yihyeh l˒tif˒arah” (“He was, and he is, and he will be, into glorious eternity”).

 

Aussprache

Zur Vorbereitung auf unser Sonntagsthema lese ich gerade ein Buch das die Hintergründe von Hiob betrachtet –  es heißt: „The Book of Job“ von C.P.Carey

Folgendes Zitat möchte ich gern mit allen Lesern teilen:

The Eternal,—יְהֹוָהYehowah. It is commonly supposed that the vowel points of this word are not its own, but borrowed from אֲדֹנָי (Adonai) Lord, the word which the Jews always substitute for it in reading, from a superstitious reverence for the Name, and a supposition that its true pronunciation is lost. And hence the LXX. render it by ὁ Κύριος, and our translators have followed them by rendering it almost invariably the Lord, distinguishing it from אֲדֹנָי (Adonai) Lord merely by the use of capital letters. Some have conjectured that יַהֲוֹה (Yahewoh), and others, that יַהֲוֶה (Yaheweh) were the ancient true pronunciations; but, after all, there is some ground for the supposition that יְהֹוָה (Yehowah) may be the true form; and indeed, the majority of proper names compounded with the word, leads to this supposition. As to the meaning of it, as our ordinary translation—the LORD is decidedly incorrect, and as the retention of the word Jehovah would convey no particular idea to the English reader, and as our word—the Eternal, expresses its meaning more nearly than any other in our language, I have thought good so to translate it. Much of the force which belongs to the word is lost in many important passages, in which the incorrect the LORD is given. I might multiply such passages, but will merely refer to these few—Ps. 102:12; 135:13; Isa. 41:4; 42:5, 6, 8; 43:11–13; 44:6–8; 45:17, 21; 51:15; 54:5; Exod. 3:13–15; 6:2, 3, 6–8; Hosea 12:5; Mal. 3:6; Ps. 90:1, 2; 91:2, 9. As to the full meaning of יְהֹוָה (Yehowah) see Rev. 1:8—“Which is, and which was, and which is to come.” See also Exod. 3:14, אֶֽהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶֽהְיֶה (eheyeh asher eheyeh)—I am that I am, i.e., I am that which I have been and shall be; in other words, an eternal and unchangeable Being.

Besonders gut gefällt mir, dass die Punkte jeweils zugefügt wurden, so dass man gut sehen kann, wie unterschiedlich die Schreibweise wäre, wenn andere Selbstlaute eingefügt werden müssten – und sogar, dass die Punktion von Adonai nur ähnlich ist, aber eben nicht genau die, die man erwartet müsste.