Faith in the Third Millennium

FOOTNOTES

  1. Compare the status of St. Peter in Matthew I6:17-19 and Acts 15:7 with the claims of Paul in Romans 11:13 and 2 Cor 11:5.
  2. Pauls only quote from the words of Jesus is found in 1 Cor 11:23-25. He also refers to the sayings of Jesus in three places, namely: 1 Cor. 7:10, 9:14, and 1 Thess. 4:15.
  3. cf. PAUL, H.J. Schoeps, pg 57 - "The fact is that Paul preaches only faith in Jesus, not the faith of Jesus."
  4. Mark 12:29
  5. Jesus was a Prophet: Matthew 13:57; Mark 6:4; Luke 4:24
  6. This is stated expressly in John 14:28 -"...the Father is greater than I", and implicitly in Matthew 19:17, Mark 13:32 etc.
  7. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon, II, pg 812
  8. John 4:24 - "God is a Spirit..."
  9. The idea of God's incarnation has been defended by citing the virgin birth; Isn't God the physical father of Jesus? But this approach opens the proverbial Pandora's box. For example, many passages indicate that one proof of Jesus as Messiah is that He was descended from David's line through His father, Joseph (Luke 3:23-38, 4:22; John 1:45, 6:42). The greatness of Jesus Christ consists in His spiritual perfections and gifts which were born of God, not from the fact of a virgin birth. If His greatness depended on having no physical father, then the Jewish expectation of a Messiah descended from David remains unfulfilled, and we should give greater worship to Adam, the eldest "Son of God" (Luke 3:38) or Melchizedek (Heb.7:3) inasmuch as both were born without either father or mother.
  10. John 17:10 - "...all things that are Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine..."
  11. Matthew 12:31, 32
  12. John 12:49,5 0 - "...I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me commandant, what to say, and what to speak... I speak just as the Father has told Me." John 14:24 - "...the Word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's Who sent Me."
  13. John 14:11
  14. John 12:45 - "...he who beholds Me beholds the One Who sent Me." John 14:7,9 -"...he who has seen Me has seen the Father." etc.
  15. Genesis 9:6
  16. "The Christian concept of the Devil is a composite drawn from many disparate sources - most of them ideas and legends that originated outside the accepted Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Satan is primarily a Judaized version of Ahriman, whom ancient Persians [esp. Zoroastrians] regarded as the Prince of Darkness, the Father of lies and the source of human suffering and death - the equal but opposite, of Ohrmazd, the God of order and light... [Iranian dualism became a strong influence on the apocryphal works such as the book of Enoch. In essence these books reinterpreted scattered Old Testament verses and stories in order to fashion a Devil in the image and likeness of Ahriman... Many rabbis refused to accept the myth or the books in which it was told. Indeed, after the destruction of the Temple... the Devil has no standing in Judaism... But the Devil that Judaism rejected Christianity embraced.]" Giving the Devil His Due, Newsweek, Aug 30, 1982.
  17. 1 John 1:5
  18. John 8:32 - "...and you shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free."
  19. Matthew 5:48
  20. John 6:68, 8:51

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Author - John Roncalio. © 1983, 2003, John Roncalio.
The views expressed herein are those of the author who is solely responsible for their contents.