Why the Jewish protest against Jesus being the Messiah is so ludicrous.
The Jews hated Jesus because he was not loyal to the Jewish traditions, even though they had been corrupted, and even though those leaders who represented the keeping of the Law did not actually keep it. They charged Jesus with failing to fulfill the Messianic prophecy of deliverance from Jewish oppression, from dying without performing this duty, with being viewed as Divine when inspired Scripture had indicated that "God is not a man."
In reality, the claim that God is not a man had nothing to do with Trinitarian or Christological debate--rather, it was a simple statement against Pantheism, which confused the Creator with His own Creation. It was a statement, plainly, that God could not be restricted to the finite realm which He had Himself created.
Certainly, God could appear as a Man, as even theophanies are portrayed in the Bible. God appeared in the form of angels, which appeared in human form to the Prophets. So, the protest against Jesus' Deity is a false misdirection of what the Scriptures had actually indicated. Jesus never has been claimed to be Deity strictly reduced to the appearance of finite Creation. Instead, it was said of Jesus that he was both Divine and human--not God confused with Creation, as in Pantheism.
Finally, the Jews themselves knew that God had offered them a binary choice, to properly live by His Law or fail to live by it and thus annul the covenant God had made with them. The failure of Jesus to establish an immediate Kingdom of God in Israel was the result of a broken covenant, and not the failure of Messiah to set up a Kingdom when conditions allow it.
The Jews hated Jesus because he was not loyal to the Jewish traditions, even though they had been corrupted, and even though those leaders who represented the keeping of the Law did not actually keep it. They charged Jesus with failing to fulfill the Messianic prophecy of deliverance from Jewish oppression, from dying without performing this duty, with being viewed as Divine when inspired Scripture had indicated that "God is not a man."
In reality, the claim that God is not a man had nothing to do with Trinitarian or Christological debate--rather, it was a simple statement against Pantheism, which confused the Creator with His own Creation. It was a statement, plainly, that God could not be restricted to the finite realm which He had Himself created.
Certainly, God could appear as a Man, as even theophanies are portrayed in the Bible. God appeared in the form of angels, which appeared in human form to the Prophets. So, the protest against Jesus' Deity is a false misdirection of what the Scriptures had actually indicated. Jesus never has been claimed to be Deity strictly reduced to the appearance of finite Creation. Instead, it was said of Jesus that he was both Divine and human--not God confused with Creation, as in Pantheism.
Finally, the Jews themselves knew that God had offered them a binary choice, to properly live by His Law or fail to live by it and thus annul the covenant God had made with them. The failure of Jesus to establish an immediate Kingdom of God in Israel was the result of a broken covenant, and not the failure of Messiah to set up a Kingdom when conditions allow it.
