The Abrahamic religions and Christ
The Abrahamic Religions and Christ
Writter: Evangelos D. Kepenes (March 7, 2021)
Τhe three major religions in the world
The aniconic Judaism (20th or 14th century BC), the "patristic Roman Christianity" (4th century) with icon worship since the 8th century and the also aniconic Islam (which is considered by its followers as the primary Religion that fell into paganism and was restored in the 7th century by Mohammad), are characterized as Abrahamic Religions, because the person of Abraham and the stories of the Old Testament played a role in their founding. All three, without having a unified expression of faith, formed close and diverse political relations.
Their characterization as "Monotheistic Religions" is misplaced, because "patristic Christianity," having Greek thought as a background, dogmatized the following as true:
Ι) The mystery of the "Triune Unit" (remaining faithful to the Pythagorean view of the "Holy Trinity").
The Pythagoreans believed that numbers were the primary ideas. The odd numbers were divine, male entities and the even numbers were female. The product of 2 × 3 is 6, which was considered to be both male and female and symbolized marriage. They believed that everything is defined by the most sacred number three (3), "Entirety and everything is defined by the number three" (Birth - Life - Death, Past - Present - Future, Length - Width - Height). They taught the occult Dissolution of the Unit into a triad or triads, thus introducing the theory of the triune Units.
"As the Pythagoreans say, entirety and everything is defined by the number three, because the end, the middle and the beginning are represented by the number of everything, which is the number three (3). That's why, having taken these concepts from nature and having accepted them as its laws, we use this number (3) during theurgic ceremonies (theurgies)." (Aristotle's On the Heavens, Book I)
ΙΙ) The incarnation of the pre-existing Son of God (remaining faithful to the mythological incarnation of the "Aeon Jesus" of the Gnostics, denying that the man Jesus was THE SON OF GOD “for that which is BEGOTTEN IN HER, is of the Holy Ghost” and paraphrasing "the Word BECAME flesh" statements that have nothing to do with the term “incarnation”.)
For more read:
https://www.thefulfillmentofpromise.com/home/gnosticism-patristic-mythological-christianity-and-the-biblical-jesus
III) The two natures of Jesus (remaining faithful to the union of Uranus and Gaia and to the model of the demigods of the ancient religion).
In the ancient world, the invented and popular sons of gods with two natures ("Men-gods"), who died and were resurrected (see Krishna, Dionysus, Mithra, etc.), were political tools in the hands of the ruling power for homogeneity and homodoxy, which in turn increased the people's willingness for self-sacrifice. The cohesion and continuity of the Roman Empire depended on a Religion and a belief in a son of a god ("Man-God"), who would satisfy the similar beliefs of its different nationalities and would become its citizens' vision for an invincible and eternal empire that is protected by its "Man-God."
Thus, the idea of the eternal Roman empire was this: "The State of Romans will not be torn down; it will remain unharmed forever, being the first to believe in the Lord Christ." (att. Ahrweiler, 2009).
This was the basic idea of the formation of the gnostic "patristic doctrine" for the incarnated, pre-existing second god-son, the man Jesus, which "triumphed" by using Mythology as a background at the expense of the biblical truth of the "heavenly Second man Jesus," who was the seed of the promise and the universal promises of God that were fulfilled in His person.
ΙV)Anthropological dyarchy. Anthropological dyarchy is a derivative of the divine dyarchy of the Gnostics and other philosophical systems, which divides man into two elements, the sensible, mortal body and the mental, immortal soul (the pre-existing one according to the Chaldeans, Plato, Philo, the Gnostics, etc.). Consequently, man is a partaker of both principles (the Good one and the Bad one), and if he escapes from the body that partakes in the bad principle, he is saved. This idea contradicts the biblical narrative, where the "soul" is the origin of life from the one life-giving God, which exists in every living creature, without the Platonized distinction of the Gnostics. According to the Hebrew Bible, "soul" does not refer to a single part of human existence, but it refers to the whole human being as an undivided, living hypostasis “and the (earthly) man became a living creature,” who in the process was subjugated by man's enemy, death “death reigned” (Gen. 2:7, Rom. 5:14-17) and was deprived of the right to eat from the tree of life. In contrast, in the Platonic knowledge of man, the death of the body is man's friend, because it allows the immortal soul to be liberated and finally return to its celestial state.
Τhe Hebrew biblical references and the anti-heretical Epiphanius contradict the Platonized Eastern belief about the immortality of the soul as it is expressed in a funeral procession [Greek: Exodiastikon] of sixteenth-century monks.
"Our God, the creator and benefactor of all creation, the one who made man from a sensible and earthly body and from a mental (immaterial) and immortal soul..." (DMITRIEVSKIJ, Opisanie 2, 547)
These positions, in combination with its typology (a characteristic of the Old Testament) and its pagan rituals, classify the "patristic version" of Christianity in the category of the ancient polytheistic mystical religions.
Religions of the book
All three Abrahamic religions are considered religions of the "BOOK" that is, submission of the "dead" carnal man to divine written laws and ordinances, although in the process all three Abrahamic religions accepted human intervention. The Jews mixed Judaism with the occult Jewish literature (traditions), the Greeks mixed Christianity with the ancient religion (Philosophy), and the Arabs mixed Islam (which is a mixture of Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and other ancient religions) with local traditional religions customs. Many before the ninth century considered Islam to be a radical Christian sect.
"After all, the Islamic world in the first eight centuries of its life was in a creative cultural dialogue with its great respected neighbor, the Orthodox Byzantium, so much so that many Muslims saw Christianity as a distorted, forged Islam, while the Orthodox saw Islam as a corrupt Christianity, which was not deeply understood." (Giannoulatos, 2000: 160-162)
The chosen people
One common denominator between Judaism and "Christianity" is the birth of nations with the designation "chosen people," which leads to the idea of God as a "National Protector," thus twisting the universality of His promises and His character.
In Judaism, the biological descendants of Abraham were the chosen people.
In "patristic Roman Christianity," the Byzantine people were the chosen people or New Israel, and Byzantium was a Christian Nation.
“However, besides the emperor, the citizen of the Byzantine state is also a genuine and faithful Christian. He believes that the state he belongs to is protected by God and enjoys His favor. This belief is expressed by Cosmas Indicopleustes in the 6th century when he states that: "The State of Romans will not be torn down; it will remain unharmed forever, being the first to believe in the Lord Christ." (att. Ahrweiler, 2009). The members of Byzantine society are law-abiding citizens of the emperor and Christians committed to their faith, they are guided by monks and clergymen, they indiscriminately go by the name of Roman or Christian (identical terms in Byzantium), whom its emperor Leo VI characteristically calls the Nation of Christians, while the Byzantine people was named the Chosen People or New Israel (Ahrweiler, 2009).”
The biblical line of promise for Islam passes through Ishmael and those who accept the religion of Islam (= submission) are called Muslim, meaning "submissive to the Most High".
Christ Is The End of the Written Law
But "Christ is the end of the law". The fulfillment of the types of the Law and the prophecies of the Old Testament by Jesus Christ (Matt. 5:17) goes beyond the "BOOK". After all, He says about the New Testament:
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” (Heb. 8:10-12)
Conclusion
Christ made "Grace" an adversary to the "Law" and the "Spirit" an adversary to the "Flesh". The newborn spiritual man, the in-Christ one, the "New Creation," is the one who will live forever and inherit. The carnal man, though he walks on the earth, is DEAD. The Abrahamic religions of the "BOOK" do not have the power to give him life, "for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life" (2 Cor. 3:6), "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Cor. 3:17).
Jesus bless you