Me and my mom were talking about this last night, and we couldn't agree on a good answer. Thanks for your help! God Bless you!
2007-01-10 08:42:23 · 35 answers · asked by wormwoodkid 3 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Offence Taken!
Heaven is not a Christians only place.
Jews were being allowed into the gates of heaven long before Jesus Christ roamed the earth.
If I read you correctly, you believe only those folks who are born again will be going to heaven.
Does that mean all of the Christians who have been believers from the beggining are going to hell because they aren't born again?
We Jews have a different concept of hell than you do.
We will not be going there on your terms.
2007-01-10 08:52:33 · answer #1 · answered by Mike A F 3 · 6⤊ 0⤋
Well, you would first have to settle the issue of why are they the chosen ones? Technically, we've ALL descended from the same female, but the Israelite nation can be traced back to Eve as per History recorded in the Bible. He chose their nation as one through which he would show his awesome power and through them he would send his Son. Of course, follow their patterns throughout the Old Testament; they were always rebelling then repenting, on and on...
When Jesus came he said that he came unto the Jews first, then unto the Gentiles. A related account is in Matthew 15:24. Even then, many of the more "prominent" Jews did not accept him. It was those who knew they needed him who followed. When he died for everyone, it s kind of weird to think that now many of his chosen people don't even accept him, but I know Israel is always his chosen people, so who knows what is to come in the future...
2007-01-10 08:58:24 · answer #2 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Funny how each different religion or sect thinks they are the ones who have it right and everybody else is incorrect. "We are the chosen ones... blah blah blah...."
Taken to the extreme, this is where we get most terrorists. Muslim extremists think they will get plenty of virgins in heaven for smashing planes into buildings and killing non-believers. Christian extremists think they will earn brownie points with God for blowing up abortion clinics or for beating gays to death. Not too long ago another Christian extremist got everybody riled up in Germany and gave rise to the Nazi party and the holocaust. And before that we had the Spanish Inquisition that brought torture and murder to thousands. All in the name of "God."
Your statement that Jews are not born again therefore they go to hell reflects this one-sided arrogance inherent in most religious beliefs. Personally I feel that any religion that believes there is only one true way is flawed. God (or whatever your name is for the benevolent ever-present overmind of the Universe) is bigger than our puny human minds can comprehend and I think if there is such a thing as Divine, unconditional love, that means it does not matter if you do this or that or the other. Unconditional means NO CONDITIONS including being "born again" or whatever. And by the way claiming Jesus as your personal savior and being "born again" is a human invention and is based on only one possible interpretation of certain parts of the Bible. There are other ways to interpret all of that.
There are many different roads that all lead to the top of the mountain.
Meditate on that and try to have compassion for your fellow human regardless of any difference in their beliefs. Jesus was a pretty cool cat. Nothing like the @ssholes running around today judging everybody and condemning them while they proclaim to be followers of Christ. It's about Love. It's not about the details.
2007-01-10 08:58:28 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
God said they were God's Chosen people. Jews aren't necessarily non-believers, Mesianic Jews are believers in Christ. If you read revelation it says that the Jews will be the first to enter the kingdom in the Rapture, then Gentiles.
Your right, it seems kind of weird, but those that are truly the chosen ones are those who accept Jesus, In hebrews it talks about how there is no way for a Jew to get into heaven without following and accepting Christ. There is an exact number that will be believing coming from the tribe of Judah in Revelation also, that believe in Jesus.
2007-01-10 08:47:50 · answer #4 · answered by catchingfreak51 3 · 1⤊ 2⤋
Maybe Christianity isn't the whole truth after all.
Judaism isn't about saying that we're the ONLY ones. It never has been. Chosen is about our specific relationship with the divine. According to the texts, G-d had convenants with the Egyptians and Assyrians as well.
Please quit trying to read your ways of looking at the world into our texts. It's not applicable.
2007-01-10 09:09:25 · answer #5 · answered by The angels have the phone box. 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No Phoenix, she's referring to the fact that even the Christian bible says the Jews are the chosen ones. It doesn't make much sense - either they are God's chosen people or they are going to hell, not both.
In my opinion, if there is a God He probably would accept Jews like He has asked us to.
But there are certainly some out there that would say they are going to hell specifically because they haven't accepted Jesus. I guess those people think that either that was just a figure of speech, or they *were* the chosen ones, or else being a chosen one is not enough.
2007-01-10 08:45:13 · answer #6 · answered by ? 4 · 3⤊ 2⤋
I think you first need to ask the question, chosen for WHAT? God chose the Jews for a specific purpose, it was his plan to bless all families of the earth through them. It was a spiritual calling, a call to mission.
He made a covenant with them to establish a special relationship with them, to be their God if they would obey his laws. He would bless them greatly and all other people on earth would see their special relationship and learn about God and come to worship the god of the Jews. Israel would become a kind of utopia, a heaven on earth. Messiah would come and establish his kingdom on earth and usher in the Messianic age.
Very little of that ever happened because God's promises were conditional on them behaving as his chosen people, but as a nation they broke the covenant. So instead of enjoying the blessings that God promised them if they were faithful, they got the curses that God had also promised them if they broke their end of the deal. Instead of being a light to the gentiles and pointing the nations to God, they took his name in vain by misrepresenting him. God sent the Assyrians to punish Israel, and the Babylonians to punish Judah. But through the prophets he told them that this would be temporary and he preserved a remnant which returned after the Babylonian exile.
Eventually God sent them the Messiah. Some of them accepted him, but most rejected him and the religious leaders got him killed by the Romans. Jesus wept because of this, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing" (Matt 23:37).
The Talmud records that for the 40 years before the temple was destroyed, that is, starting the year Jesus was put to death, God showed his displeasure for the Jewish nation by giving them signs. On the day of Atonement, "the lot ['For the Lord'] did not come up in the right hand; nor did the crimson-colored strap become white; nor did the western most light shine; and the doors of the Hekel [Temple] would open by themselves"
http://www3.telus.net/public/kstam/en/te...
Like Jonah's warning to Nineveh, this was a warning to the Jewish nation to repent, but they did not, and instead persecuted Jesus' followers, putting some of them to death, and so in 70CE God let the Romans destroy Jerusalem and the temple and exile the Jews.
As for their status as chosen people, the promises are still open to them. If they will repent and return to God. he can graft them back into the vine of his chosen people again, but so far they have not done so as a nation. Individuals amongst them have, but not the people as a nation.
And as for going to hell, God is not keen on sending anyone to hell and i think he will let a lot more people into heaven than some Christians seem to think. At the end of the day, what God wants is people who worship him in spirit and in truth, he is not so interested in religious labels (John 4:19-24; 10:16).
2007-01-10 12:00:14 · answer #7 · answered by Beng T 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
God had a plan to bring the Messiah into the world to save us from our sins. He choose Abraham to be the Father of the Jewish nation through which would be born the Messiah. The reason he chose Abraham was because Abraham's faith pleased God and he was respected by others for his faith. "Chosen people" means the line he chose for Jesus' ancestry.
2007-01-10 09:59:06 · answer #8 · answered by Freedom 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
See, if you werent so ignorant, you'd understand.....
You, as a born again Christian, are really following the Jewish religion which was pirated from Jews and "improved upon" by adding the story of Jesus and making God from Angry Jealous God to All Loving God. This is why your Bible calls Jews the Chosen People - they were the chosen people. Christians are just muddling up their Book.
2007-01-10 08:48:05 · answer #9 · answered by YDoncha_Blowme 6 · 3⤊ 3⤋
Well, the Christians were originally Jews. it wasn't until after Jesus' death that the people went against the person who Jesus left in charge after his death and started considering themselves Christians instead of Jews.(It also wasn't until after Jesus' death that people started to think of Jesus as God or the son of God. Jesus never mentioned the idea of being God or the son of God in the Bible.)
2007-01-10 08:56:49 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋