Lol, as you will have found out by this time tomorrow (probably sooner), I'm afraid you've set off one more pet peeve landmine with this thread, Arsenios.
That despair aside, lol, here is a question for you to consider in light of the following passage.
John 5:
1. After this there
was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2. Now there
is at Jerusalem
by the sheep market a pool, which
is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda,
having five porches.
3. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.
4. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he
had.
If such was the case, then John may not have written this book some forty years later, for if I am not mistaken, the Romans had basically destroyed anything of any importance in Jerusalem around 70AD.
If such was the case, would John have written "Now there
is at Jerusalem
by the sheep market a pool, which
is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda,
having five porches"?
Further, John appears to be writing when Israel's hope was still very much on the table and in their land - John 1:
10. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
11. He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
12. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
13. Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
14. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
The sense of verse 12 is - but as many
- of His Own - as received Him.
Compare verse 12 and 13, with John 3:
1. There was
a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:
2. The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.
3. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
4. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?
5. Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
John is not new, in light of the later, Pauline revelation, information - the issue here in John is
Israel's New Covenant.
9. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be?
10. Jesus answered and said unto him,
Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?
And guess what this here, that follows, is:
11. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.
12. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
13. And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.
Verse 13 is in the sense of - no man hath ascended up to heaven, that he might see these things as I alone have. But he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven - He has - I Am the Christ.
He is reminding the man about what King David had described. He is basically telling the man - I Am the Lord David saw the LORD say unto his Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, Till I make thine enemies thy footstool.
Anyway, I'll leave you to the small moment of peace this thread has left. I'll leave you to your further consideration of these things
