Are modern Jews idolatrous blasphemers?

Pilgrim's Progeny · #1 (**permalink**) 08-04-2007, 05:00 PM

I ask this question in light of a recent debate over the "god" of Islam. IMO, Muslims are idoloters, even though they have a text derivitive of the OT Scriptures, because they have perverted the God of Abraham and fashioned him into an idol of their own imagination. It is blasphemous, IMO, to say they worship the same "God" as we do because, anything short of the full revelation of God is either a perversion or lacking and a idol. That means if you do not worship the Triune God you are worshiping an idol.

Following that line of reasoning could we say that modern Jews are idolaters and blaspemers because they worship "god" in ignorance and without full knowledge. Paul said that he was an blasphemer before he knew Christ, "I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service; 13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. And yet I was shown mercy, because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; 14 and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. 1 Tim 1:12-14 (NASB77). Was Paul also an idolater?

I ask this not merely for debate, but to be better equipped as a pastor as I deal with both these issues and people of the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian religions, because there are some Christians who believe we worship the same God as the Jews and Muslims.

Also, I am not asking to discuss what the term "Allah" means, we are talking about what the term represents for practicing Muslims.

Lastly, I am not asking how we relate to those of the other religions, that belongs in another forum.

Anton Bruckner · #2 (**permalink**) 08-04-2007, 05:08 PM

The answer is simply yes.

"He who does not have the Son, does not have the Father"
"Them that Hate me love death"
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do."
"Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost."
"And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:"

And not only the Jews, but all religion that do not kiss the Son as revealed in scripture are abominable blasphemers.

Contra_Mundum · #3 (**permalink**) 08-04-2007, 05:20 PM

If the god worshipped is not "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" then we'd have to say its a false god. The Jews in Jesus' day rightly looked down on the Samaritans for this: that they only received the Pentateuch as authoritative. Both their god and their faith was defective, not being willing to receive ALL the Word of God. Therefore, they worshipped (as it were) toward the true God, but defectively.

Consider a man at a white-board. He draws a line. The line is all you get to see. The line is, all by itself, reasonable, definable, and explanatory of his drawing, in a limited way. But then he adds a dimension to the drawing by adding another line, and another, etc., creating a 2 dimensional shape. The first line was "true," and it was accepted as the whole revelation at the first. But to reject the rest of the picture once it is drawn is to make a false claim about the first line: that's all there is.

There is almost no difference between a false conception of that first line, and the taking of anything "true" about the 2-dimensional picture, and forming a whole, abberant, and unrelated concept of what the picture on the white-board is by means of imagination. The latter example, once we apply the analogy to religion, we would readily identify as idolatry. So also the former. The only difference in them is that the "line" was chronologically the first part drawn.

Iconoclast · #4 (**permalink**) 08-04-2007, 06:37 PM

20But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.

21Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils.

When they do not worship the true and living God, they worship a God of their own imagination. Again in Psalm 115:

1Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake.

2Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God?

3But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.

4Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.

5They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not:

6They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not:

7They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat.

8They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.