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Debating Bible Basics Duncan Heaster  

 


5-8 Christianity and the Kabbala

 

Biblical Christianity and the Kabbala are not compatible. The New Testament is full of warnings about the danger posed by Jewish philosophy- and those warnings must be taken seriously. Here are some questions for those who claim that the Kabbala and Christianity are compatible:

- Is the New Testament the inspired word of God as much as the Old Testament?

- Is it true that salvation is only in the name of Jesus (Acts 4:12), and Jesus is the unique, only way to God as He claimed (John 14:6)?

- The New Testament emphasizes the name of Jesus Christ, and the believers openly associated themselves with it. Why then do followers of Kabbala not use the name of Jesus Christ?

- Did Jesus die, remain unconscious in the grave, and then resurrect in a bodily form after three days? This is the central belief of Christianity, and it is incompatible with the Kabbala.

- Why are followers of the Kabbala not baptized into Jesus Christ as commanded by Him (Mark 16:16)?

- Is the Torah [the law of Moses] still in force?

- If so, how can followers of the Kabbala understand New Testament passages which teach that the Law is inadequate and has ended? "But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles" (Gal. 4:19). "There is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness (for the law made nothing perfect)" (Heb. 7:18,19). "Jesus became the surety of a better covenant" (Heb. 7:22). "But now has he [Jesus] obtained a more excellent service, as he is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted upon better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. For finding fault with them, He said: Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah- not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt... In that He said: A new covenant, He has made the first redundant" (Hebrews 8:6-9,13).

- Is the new covenant in Christ superior to the old covenant given to Moses? The New Testament says it is.

- Why does Kabbala emphasize the Law and not Jesus Christ? "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for a sin offering, condemned sin, in the flesh" (Romans 8:3).

- The Law was in order to bring men unto Christ: "The law became our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor" (Gal. 3:24,25). Why doesn't the Kabbala lead us to Jesus Christ? Instead, it keeps us focused upon the Law.

- "Salvation is of the Jews" only in that Jesus was Jewish, the seed of Abraham. But ethnic differences between Jew and Gentile are not important for those baptized into Christ (Gal. 3:27-29).

 


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