Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Islam critiqued trusts the unseen judge; holy ghost convicting the guilty?

In answer to the video "Muslims' Worst anti-Christian Polemics: Corruption of the New Testament"

As Jesus prophesized many times in the NT, the rejectors were going to be punished for their rejection. For example, he alludes to this in the parable of the King, His Son, and the Servants. The paraclete will receive revelation, will establish justice and convict the guilty. That never happened in the life of the apostles. Men will see this person, and judgement will be laid down, because the people rejected Jesus. Did the apostles ever judge the world and condemn the guilty after allegedly receiving the indwelling Paraclete at Pentecost?

Did judgement ever descend on the gentiles at the hands of the apostles? It never did. Jesus in those statements is speaking in prophetic terminology by addressing them directly as is the case of the long term prediction made in Deut18 where God addresses the ISraelite community directly, saying that a specific prophet will come to them, but the intent is for the future.

In Jesus' days, the Pharisees still awaited the fulfillement of that prophecy and questionned John, asking him if he was "that prophet". Even within the Greek writings, it is a recognized terminology to involve the audience in a long term prophecy. For example it is accepted that Jesus' second coming predictions, although explicitly spoken to the disciples and telling them that they will witness his return, was not meant for their generation.

In Jn14:26 the paraclete is also called the "holy spirit" although the early Codex Syriacus omits "holy". The scribe that redacted that particular codex wasnt writing from memory but was copying from another manuscript. This shows again the well known evolving nature of the NT text, more particularily as regards the paraclete prophecy, progressively blurred, willingly or not, with mystical and abstract concepts.

In any case, the spirit of truth and the holy spirit refer to the same thing; the spirit of God indwelling those who believe Jesus to be God's envoy. Anyone holding that correct belief, including the paraclete can be termed the spirit of truth 1Jn4:2-3.

The paraclete, filled with the spirit of truth, only acts according to God's orders Jn15,16. This parallels with the prophecy in Deut18:18 where the prophet shall only speak what he hears, a personality guided by revelation. When the group of Israelites heard God speak at Sinai, received the holy spirit and became prophets Numb11:16-30 that was a specific event that would no longer happen in the future, per their own request fearing they would die, and God accepted their request.

He decreed that the phenomenon of revelation will be a personal experience.

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