Saturday, January 6, 2007

Statement of Beliefs

This is a statement of my personal beliefs. It is a work in progress as I'm certainly still learning and I will undoubtedly change my positions over time. I intend to edit this posting as necessary.

For now I'm just going to write down my basic beliefs -- I will add more details later...


May the Lord God guide me to correctly interpret His Word and may He lead me to His Truth.

Sola Scriptura ("by scripture alone")

This is one of the foundational doctrines of the Protestants reformation. (For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sola_scriptura)

I believe that the Holy Bible in it's original manuscript is the authoritative and inerrant revealed Word of God.

My beliefs may be closer to Solo Scriptura in that, although I give a great weight to the opinions of the great teachers of the Church and the great sages of Judaism, in the end I feel that it is up to the individual to interpret the Bible according to his own conscience with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

The infallibility of the Bible is of great importance to my faith in that, without the revealed word of the Holy One, I wouldn't have a basis for the rest of my beliefs. I would be limited in knowing that there is a God, but not knowing who He is.


God is One

There is one God. The Bible clearly states this in Deuteronomy 6:4.


Jesus Christ (Yeshua HaMashiach) is the Son of God and is fully human and fully divine

This is also clear in John 1:1-15 and John 20:28. I'm not sure how exactly God can be both divine and human at the same time, but that is what the Bible says so I accept it.


Jesus lived a sinless life and willingly suffered and died as the perfect atoning sacrifice and rose again as the firstborn from the dead and rules over the whole universe at the right hand of the Father.

This is the crux of the matter. (No pun intended. :-) Once again I'm not sure how this works, but Yeshua's death somehow paid the punishment due to us. The punishment for sin is death, so what happens with a sinless man is put to death? God's justice somehow demands that His death pays for other's sins. Some Jewish sages have written that the death of a righteous person can atone for many. It makes sense that the death of a infinitely righteous person will atone for an infinite number of people.

In any event, this is a pretty good deal for those who believe in Him...


The purpose of the Law (Torah) is to reveal sins not to allow people to work their way into Gods favor but is not "done away with"

I believe that the purpose of the law was never to bring people to righteousness -- in fact it does the opposite. Its purpose was to reveal sin.

May all who read this be Blessed in the Name of the Yeshua HaMashiach, my Lord and my God,
Amen

Monday, January 1, 2007

Welcome!

Welcome to my Blog!

I'm planning to use this forum to discuss matters related to Messianic Israel, the Two Houses movement, and my beliefs in general.

I hope you find some of the postings here intriguing, enlightening, and entertaining. Who knows what is to come...

Thank you for stopping by, and may God Bless you!

David