WHO IS GOD? Christianity's Serious Error - with Rabbi Michael Skobac

About 270 years ago, Count Potocki was one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in all of Poland. He owned vast estates, and he and his wife were devout Catholics and supporters of the Jesuit order. They had only one child, a son, whose name was Valentin, and he was raised in the church and groomed for eventual entry into the priesthood. At 16, he was sent to a Catholic seminary in Paris, and it was around this time that he began having questions about Christianity, and also met Jewish people for the first time in his life. The story of how he eventually traveled to Amsterdam and converted to Judaism is both fascinating and inspiring. He became named Avraham ben Avraham, Abraham son of Abraham, and he devoted himself to seriously studying and practicing the Torah and Judaism. Eventually, he moved back to his hometown in Vilna, which at that point in time was in Poland. His parents, of course, were shocked by his transformation, but when the king and the higher church authorities discovered what had transpired, Abraham was imprisoned. There he strongly resisted all of the attempts to get him to return to the church, and when all of these efforts failed, he was sentenced to be burned alive. On the second day of the holiday of Shavuot, in the year 1749, Avraham ben Avraham was tied to the stake in the town square, and the pyre was lit, and as the flames began to engulf him, he was reciting Shema Yisrael, HaShem Elokeinu HaShem Echad. Hear, O Israel, HaShem, which means the name, it's one of the words we use instead of saying the actual name of God. In English, it's often written as the Lord, but by convention we often say Shema Yisrael HaShem Elokeinu, HaShem is our God, HaShem is one, and he kept on repeating that God is one until he took his last breath. After the Torah's primary declaration of faith, which we just read, which is in Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4, Hear, O Israel, HaShem is our God, HaShem is one, the very next verse says, And you shall love HaShem your God with all your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your resources. Avraham ben Avraham, the holy convert, loved the Almighty with all of his soul, and he lovingly returned his soul to God to sanctify the holy name of God. Why did he give up his life? Don't Christians believe in God? They do believe that God created the world. So what's the problem? Last week we explored the biblical concept and definition of the Messiah, and it was very clear why Jesus failed to meet the biblical criteria of who the Messiah would be. But Christians don't only believe that Jesus was the Messiah. They insist that he is God, that Jesus created the world, and that we are to worship him as God. Christians will insist that they believe in one God, but they claim that God is comprised of three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They don't believe that Jesus is the Son of God and subordinate to God. Many people will say, Christians don't really believe Jesus is God. They only believe he's the Son of God. That's not what Christians believe. They really see him not so much as the Son of God, but as God the Son. They see Jesus as the Creator incarnated as a human being. But they see the man, Jesus, as fully divine and totally one with the Father. Christian theologians insist that the doctrine of the Trinity, which is this Trinitarian understanding of God, is a divine mystery. But for our purposes, we simply want to focus on their belief that Jesus is God. So in truth, who really is God? It's important to understand that our understanding of God in our Bible does not speak about God as an abstract theological concept. The focus of the Hebrew Scriptures is on how God actually revealed himself experientially to the nation of Israel. It's not so much philosophy, it's experience. Let's go back to the beginning here. God first appears to Moses at the famous incident of the burning bush. God called out to Moses from the bush that was burning, but was not being consumed, and told Moses that he was to return to lead the nation out of Egypt. And Moses then asked God a very strange question. Moses wanted to know what to say to the people if they ask him, what is God's name? Now, we would imagine that if God just told you you're going to go down and tell the children of Israel, I'm taking you out of Egypt, the people probably are going to want to know other things other than what's God's name. Like how is he going to do it? It's an amazing thing. We've been here 210 years, and no one ever escaped from Egypt, and you, Moses, were sent by God to take us out of Egypt? How is that going to happen? If they were going to be incredulous about anything, it would have been about what Moses was telling them was going to happen. But Moses doesn't say to God, what should I tell them if they say, how am I going to do it? Moses says, what am I going to say to them if they ask me your name? It's not really such a strange question. In Hebrew, a name conveys someone's essence. It's not just something that's conventional. Our English names don't need too much, Bob, Joe. But in Hebrew, names have meaning. The name describes the essence of someone. So when the people will ask Moses, what is God's name? What they're really asking is, what is God's identity? Who is this God that you're talking about, Moses? We want to know about him. So God tells Moses to tell the people the following. If they ask for my name, he'll tell them, I shall be what I shall be. Now that's a strange kind of name, but it's describing exactly how the people will come to know who God is. When God says, I shall be what I shall be, basically what God is saying is, if you want to know who I am, you'll see. I'll be what I will be. God is saying to them, you will experience me on the stage of history. If you really want me to explain who I am, I'm not going to give you a philosophical treatise about the nature of God. God says, you will see exactly who I am. You will experience me. I will be what I will be. We know that throughout the ten plagues that God brought upon Egypt, God says in scripture that through these miraculous signs, we will know that God controls all of nature, and we will know that he is the Lord. This is why God says he's bringing these plagues upon Egypt, to demonstrate, to make it clear that he is the Lord. And when the nation of Israel is liberated from Egypt, and they arrive at Mount Sinai seven weeks later, and God reveals the spirit special commandments that will be engraved on stone tablets, the first of these ten commandments, God doesn't just say, I am God. He doesn't say, I am God who created heaven and earth, because no one experienced the creation of heaven and earth. God says, I am the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt from the house of slavery. They experienced this, and that's how God introduces himself. God ties himself to this historical event that they went through. They experienced these ten plagues in Egypt. They walked through the Red Sea that split. They knew exactly who they were dealing with, when God says, I am the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt from the house of slavery. Again, God ties himself to a historical experience, the seminal experiences of the people of Israel's encounter with God. We're not just the ten plagues in Egypt, and the miraculous splitting of the Sea of Reeds, but it was when they heard God speaking at Mount Sinai. Deuteronomy chapter four recapitulates this awesome experience, and in verses nine and ten, Moses says the following, only beware for yourself, and greatly beware for your soul, lest you forget the things your eyes have beheld, and lest you remove them from your heart all the days of your life, and you shall make them known to your children and your children's children. The day that you stood before Hashem your God at Horeb, Horeb is another name from Mount Sinai, when Hashem said to me, gather the people to me, and I shall let them hear my words, so that they shall learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and they shall teach their children. Again, God is emphasizing here the importance of remembering everything that this generation had seen, and everything they heard at Mount Sinai, and the importance of transmitting this to their children. Not again giving their children abstract philosophical ideas about the nature of God. No, transmitting the experiences they had, and in verse thirty-five of the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy, Moses repeats for emphasis, he says, you have been shown in order to know that Hashem, he is the God in heaven above, and on the earth below there is none other. We're not asked to have blind faith in some deity. We're told here that God showed us, he made it clear to us through demonstrations that were experienced, that he is real. This is the emphasis over and over again in the scriptures. And the Bible comes back over and over to focus on the national historical experiences of Israel as the foundation of our knowledge of God. And this is why the generation of the Exodus are constantly told to teach these experiences to their children. God emphasizes the importance of this generation that actually experienced all these things. Make sure you teach this to your children. And this is why our three main holidays, the three pilgrim festivals, focus on these experiences. Passover focuses on the Exodus from Egypt, the Ten Plagues, the miraculous Exodus. Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, focuses on the experience of receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. And Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, focuses on the forty years in the desert where we lived a miraculous existence. We were fed manna every day from heaven. We had a miraculous well that traveled around with us. We had clouds of glory. We had fire that went before us. Our shoes did not basically wither away. And the entire experience, we're told, was incredibly supernatural. It was a spiritual boot camp for the Jewish people. How did they get to know God intimately? By this kind of experiential process that God put them through, that God took them through. That's how they came to know God. The first of the Ten Commandments that were recorded on those stone tablets is the primacy of recognizing the God that we met in history. But the next of these commandments, the second one, God warns us, Lo yehiye lecha Elohim achirim al ponai. There shall not be to you the gods of others in my presence. Some translate this as there shall not be to you other gods in my presence. This is not referring to the belief in deities of others instead of the Creator. It's not talking in here, in this second commandment, that you shouldn't worship something other than God, something instead of God. It's saying al ponai, in my presence, God is saying that even if you believe in me, even if you believe in the Creator, if you also, in addition, worship anything or anyone else alongside of the Creator, that is idolatry. This is what the Torah is teaching us here. That attaching anything to the worship of God, including anything, to the worship of the Creator is idolatry. And again, God tells us that he showed us who he was through our national experiences and therefore any deity or any understanding of God that was not revealed to our ancestors is not God. There are hundreds of prohibitions in the Torah. The only one that God says he detests, he abhors, is idolatry. Many of our prophets compare idolatry to adultery. Worshiping anything or anyone other than the Creator of all existence is likened to marital infidelity. And that's why God hates it so much. It's one thing if you don't put the cap on the toothpaste. It's one thing if you don't put up the toilet seat. It's a very different thing if you have an affair. And that's what God is saying here. If you eat pork, okay, you have violated God's will. If you violate the Sabbath, you've done something wrong. If you worship idols, you're betraying God. You're not being faithful. And that's why idolatry is a form of adultery which God says he detests. And because our national experience is so central to our knowledge of God, idolatry in the Torah is repeatedly defined as the worship of any God you did not know and that your fathers did not know. You'll see this, for example, in the 13th chapter of Deuteronomy. I believe it repeats it three or four times. And many other places in the Bible, it specifically attaches to the prohibition of idolatry. It says, God's that you and your fathers did not know, meaning it wasn't part of your national experience. Any God we did not meet at Mount Sinai, that's idolatry. In the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy, which again reviews the revelation at Mount Sinai, Moses warns us in that chapter twice, in verses 12 and verse 15, to remember that we did not see any physical form when God revealed himself to us at Mount Sinai. We only heard a voice. God is making it very clear. He has no form. We should not conceive of him as having any physical form. He warns us twice, the Torah, which is so sparing with its words to have to repeat in the same chapter twice. You can see how important this is. God wants us to remember our experience at Mount Sinai because that is the definition of God. We have to remember that not one, not one of the three million people who stood at Mount Sinai ever reported or ever told their children that God appeared to them at Mount Sinai in the form of a human being or in any other form, or that God appeared to them as a trinity. No one at Mount Sinai gave that kind of report. Having revealed himself to the nation of Israel, God appointed them to have a vital historical mission, and that is to serve as his witnesses in the world, witnesses to his reality to the nations of the world. Isaiah twice refers to Israel as a light to the nations, and in his book, chapter 43, verse 10, God says of Israel, you are my witnesses and my servant whom I have chosen so that you will know and believe in me and understand that I am he before me. No power was created, nor will there be after me. God is speaking about our connection to him and that we are witnesses to his existence. And then the Bible tells us one day our testimony is going to bear fruit and our mission is going to be successful. Isaiah tells us that one day the nations of the world will come to our light, and the prophet Zechariah forecasts in chapter 8, verse 22, many peoples and mighty nations will come to seek out the Lord. People are going to be trying to find God. In those days, Zechariah says, it will happen that ten men of all the different languages of the nations will take hold. They will take hold of the corner of a garment of a Jewish man, saying, let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you. We need to pay attention to what is being said here. People are going to be seeking God. And where are they going to go? They are going to go to the Jewish people, because they realize that it is our understanding of God that is the correct one. And the most serious theological error of Christianity was to identify Jesus with God. To mistakenly believe that he was the Messiah is not a terrible crime and doesn't violate any biblical laws. To mistakenly believe that Jesus was the Messiah is just a mistake. It's an error. But to worship Jesus as God crosses over a grave biblical prohibition. While Christians insist that the Messiah is God, the prophet Isaiah in his 11th chapter clearly tells us that the Messiah would be someone who fears God. Isaiah makes it very clear that this Messiah will be someone who fears God, not that he will be God. If God really intended to appear on the earth one day as a human being, why would scripture insist twice that God is not a man? And yet the scripture tells us twice. In the book of Numbers, in the book of 1 Samuel, God is not a man. Now in the Christian Bible, Jesus never claimed to be God. On the contrary, in the Synoptic Gospels, they tell of a ruler who came to Jesus and said, good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? No one is good except one, and that is God. And if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments. The truth is that none of Jesus' disciples who were all Jewish worshipped him as God. None of his followers worshipped him as God. And in the 2nd century, the last remnants of the Jewish followers of Jesus, known as Ebionites and Nazarenes, did not view Jesus as divine. When did things change? How did things go south? So the most important figure in the history of Christianity is a Jewish man, at least according to most accounts, a Jewish man, original name was Shaul. Saul ultimately became known as Paul from the city of Tarsus. And unlike the actual disciples of Jesus, Paul never met Jesus, never met him. He claimed that Jesus appeared to him in a vision and appointed him to be the apostle to the Gentiles. We know that Jesus' original movement was entirely Jewish, and he actually instructed his followers not to spread his message to the Gentiles. Jesus said, I've only come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But Paul claims that Jesus appointed him as an apostle to the Gentiles. Paul did not missionize in Israel. He traveled extensively in the Greco-Roman world of Syria, Turkey, Greece and other places in Asia Minor. We know that most of Jesus' Jewish followers were in Jerusalem. And when the Romans destroyed the city of Jerusalem in the year 70 of the Common Era, many of Jesus' disciples were killed and the rest scattered. Paul, on the other hand, was extremely successful and the churches that he planted grew and spread. By the second century, Paul's Gentile church movement totally eclipsed the small remnant of the original Jewish followers of Jesus. Most of the books in the Christian Bible were written by Paul or his protégés. Now Paul never went so far as to actually refer to Jesus as God. He doesn't quite go that far, although he does speak of Jesus in very elevated terms as a pre-existent being who serves essentially as an intermediary leading people to God. Paul's theological epistles in many ways went over the heads of his non-Jewish readers. To get an idea about who these people were, you have to understand who is this Gentile world that Paul is operating in during the first century of the Common Era, what that world was like. I want to share a passage that was written by Professor Bart Ehrman and he tells the story of an unusual person who was born in the first century in the Roman Empire and whose life was described by his later followers as totally miraculous. Before he was born, his mother had a visitor from heaven who informed her that her son would not be a normal human being, a normal mortal, he would actually be divine. His birth was accompanied by unusual divine signs in the heavens. As an adult, he left his home to travel and to preach. He told people not to be so concerned about their earthly lives and material things, rather they should focus on spiritual and the eternal realm. He gathered a number of followers who became convinced that he was no ordinary human being, but that he was actually the son of God. And he did many miracles to confirm their belief. He healed the sick, he cast out demons and he raised the dead. At the end of his life, he aroused opposition among the Roman ruling authorities and was put on trial. They executed him, but they could not kill his soul. He ascended to heaven and continues to live there to this day. And to prove that he lived on, he appeared again to at least one of his doubting followers who became convinced that he remained with us even until now. Later, some of his followers wrote books about him. Who was this great miracle-working son of God? His name was Apollonius from a town called Tyana. He was a pagan philosopher who worshipped many Roman gods. And his followers thought that he was immortal. And we have a book written about him by a later devotee named Philostratus. And he says that the accounts that he wrote about Apollonius were based largely on eyewitness testimony, including a companion of Apollonius himself. Now this story of a character, a person, an actual person from the first century who was seen as God was not unusual. Many figures in the ancient Greco-Roman world were deified and were considered as gods. So it's totally unsurprising that at some point by the second century, the dominant Gentile church began to view Jesus as divine. Now there are many other factors that may have led to the eventual deification of Jesus. But much is speculative. For Judaism, however, the verdict is clear. Jesus was a created being who depended on God for the very breath in his nostrils. Jesus most certainly did not create the universe and our ancestors did not have a revelation of Jesus at Mount Sinai. For us, it's starkly clear that Jesus was not God and that it is a tremendous error of the greatest magnitude to worship this first century Jewish person as God.