The Messiah and the afterlife.
Posted by sk2ndrstnd on September 1, 2009
Today while we were at Lakeland, I was able to talk to a guy named Chris, who is Jewish. I mentioned that I had heard some Rabbi scholars talk about Judaism having a lack of interest in the afterlife and asked him what his views of the afterlife were. He said he didn’t believe in an afterlife. We were able to talk about that for a bit and then got on the subject of the Messiah. He was quick to point out that Jesus cannot be the Messiah since there is not worldwide peace. I talked for quite a while after that about how God shows us glimpses of what He is doing and that greater fulfillments are yet to come, and I shared with him how just as the TANACH taught us how God created Israel to be a light to the nations, David to be the king, the Temple to provide access to God, Christ is the fulfillment of all these things: He is everything Israel was supposed to be; a perfect light to the other nations, he is everything David was supposed to be, a perfect king ruling with justice and fairness, He is everything the Temple was supposed to be, perfect access to God. I also talked about how God revealed glimpses of the Trinity even in the Torah. I asked him if he thought God’s character is loving and displays love perfectly, then I asked if God is independant of creation and needs nothing from creation. Then I asked, if God is love, but has no one to express His perfect love to… and he finished the sentence, “did God need to create us?”
He then shared that he has studied Judaism and Christianity, but never actually read the books, not even the Tanach. I encouraged him to read them and told him what the New Testament was about, and told him that if I see him again on campus, I will give him a copy of the Bible that he can read for himself. Pray for Chris, that God will draw him to himself and that the cross of Christ will not be foolishness to him!
