[QUOTE=Psycho Pirate]
Hate to disillusion you, but Jesus was as “fundie” as they come.
How does this amount Biblical literalism. Matthew is just trying say that Mosaic law is still valid.
This doesn’t say anything about young earth creationism, nor is it anything said by Jesus.
Mistranslation. He doesn’t say “Hell” he says “Gehenna,” which wasn’t Hell and was not a place of eternal torment. It was a place to dispose of corpses.
What I have been told; so I don’t have the proof agruments; is that Jesus was to come twice, first as the suffering messiah, second as the conquering messiah. The Jews didn’t recognize Him the first time, because they wanted the conquering part.
That will happen when He comes next time.
None of this is in the Hebrew Bible. There is nothing in OT prophecies which state that the Messiah will suffer or die or be resurrected. The passages which are typically pointed to have no Messianic meaning in their original context. The “Suffering Servant” of Isaiah, for instance, is a poetic personification of Israel, not the Messiah.
The OT Messiah is not defined by faith but by deeds. He either fufills the prophecies or doesn’t. “Recognition” does not play a role.
I second that.
Isn’t one of those tasks arranging world peace? I should think if I could pull that one off, I’d at least make Man of the Year at Time magazine. And if I were to fly to New York and show up at the UN, nobody would hesitate to let me speak to the General Assembly, televised worldwide. As for the rest of the tasks, I’d think I could swing an entry visa into Israel after arranging world peace. They’d at least give me a crack at waving my hand and bring the Temple from heaven. As for qualifications, I can’t prove I am a descendant of David. However, the world peace thing and bringing the Temple from heaven would likely convince at least some folks. 
This may be a silly question, but how similar to the Jewish Messiah is the Antichrist, as it is taught in many churches as a part of biblical prophesy? I only ask due to the theme of ‘world peace’ as one of the signs of both. Isn’t the Antichrist supposed to head a ‘one world governement’?
Seems to me we might run into a few problems on that score…how would one tell the difference?
Do you think he’ll remember where the stepping-stones are?
The “Antichrist” figure actually owes more to Christian folklore than to scripture. The word appears only in the Epistles of John (contrary to popular belief, it is not in Revelation) and it is only used as a descriptive term for apostate Christians (probably gnostics) and as a generic term for enemies of the church. There is nothing in the Bible which says anything about an antichrist as an evil, futuristic supervillain who will take over the world. The word has become conflated in popular imagination with the “Beast” of Revelation but the Beast was the Roman Emperor contemporaneous to the date of authorship, not a prediction of a supernatural Bond villain yet to come.
So the answer to your question is that the Jewish Messiah has absolutely nothing in common with any “antichrist” as described in John’s Epistles and that there is no scriptural expectation of a one-world despot in the future but the off-scripture fantasies of an “Antichrist” which have been fabricated in various different ways do not follow any scriptural template and so if the Jewish Messiah were to actually emerge some Christians probably would call him the antichrist.
Jesus spent a lot of time with his disciples trying to convince them that he was no better than they were, and that in fact part of the reason he was on Earth was to get them to realize their own heavenly power.
For instance:
“All these things I do, you also can do, and greater things than these can you do if you had but the faith of a grain of mustard seed.”
“Pray believing you have already received, and it will be done.”
I was impressed that Jesus wasn’t there to gain a following to worship him (which is what happened), but to get humans to realize their divine selves and recognize their oneness with the father.
So, how does this relate to this thread? How do we recognize Jesus if he comes again? Not by his works, because if we listened to him and did as he bade us, we’d all be doing those works. (In fact for some time after Jesus’ death, many of the original apostles performed numerous “miracles” before the worship cult took over.)
So stop looking for Jesus to come again, be Jesus.
First, while “AntiChrist” is not a title given to either Beast of Revelation or to the Man of Sin in II Thessalonians 2, I don’t consider it an inaccurate title. The Beasts and Man of Sin are indeed AntiChrists. As is the various figures in the Book of Daniel called “the little horn” (Chs 7,8) or “the willful king” (Ch 11) - btw, if these are references to someone past such as Antiochus Epiphanes, I’d still say that personage is an AntiChrist in that he opposed the Anointed of his day- the Priesthood In particular & Israel in general.
Next, while the Sea Beast doesn’t seem to be a counterfeit Jewish Messiah (the Sea being a ref to both the Mediterranean & the Gentile world- probably Rome), the Land Beast & perhaps Paul’s II Thess 2 “Man of Sin” may well fit the bill.
Finally, to answer Stonebrow- the difference between the Messiah of the Jewish people & the AntiChrist of the Christians would be in Daniel 9:27, Matthew 24:15-16, II Thessalonians 2:4, and Revelation 11:7-8. 13:13-17- “the Abomination of Desolation”- an event which will desecrate the Temple, involve the man declaring himself divine, enforcing worship of himself. & killing devout Jewish & Christian believers, perhaps on the very grounds of the Temple. I believe the first century AD version of this event was when the High Priest Ananus in the early 60s AD had Jesus’s half-brother Jacob/James executed on the Temple grounds. This defiled the grounds, was a sign to the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem to get out, thus making the city vulnerable to civil war & later the Roman Siege.
If a presumptive Jewish Messiah were to declare himself Divine that would end any confusion on the Jewish side right there. The Jewish Messiah could never do that.
We’ll just check his National Security ID card!
I just hope that He doesn’t bring an army of angels with him, throwing non-believers into the fire with a shout of HAW HAW!
I prefer cooler temperatures, you see.