Jesus is Messiah

Thank you, Daley, for your rebuttals. I shall begin by refuting what you have wrote in the first round.My opponent's proof texts can be summarized as followed:1) Isaiah 40:3;2) Deuteronomy 18:15;3) Isaiah 9:6; and4) Isaiah 52-53;What I will do is list each proof text and refute them one by one to prove the exact opposite of your points. I will not respond to every single verse due to space. Please do forgive me; however, I will try my best.Deuteronomy 18:15A prophet from among you, from your brothers, like me, the Lord, your God will set up for you, you shall hearken to him.Notice the phrase, "from among you," meaning that the person is in the midst of Israel. Who was this person? None other than Joshua! For further proof, let us read on: Deuteronomy 18:18, "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee [Moses], and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him."For better understanding, a prophet is NOT someone who tells the future, rather, a prophet is someone from G-d that speaks on G-d's behalf. There are several major problems with using this as a proof text:1) Jesus chastised the people for not doing G-d's will, for turning from G-d's laws, but that is where the similarities end. The prophets of Israel justified their pronuncements on the Torah and never acted on their own authority, always according to G-d. Moreoever, by proclaiming his justification on his own authority, Jesus did not follow the path of the true prophets of Israel.2) A prophet was promised by Moses, one who would be like Moses, not greater than Moses. According to teh NT, Jesus is much greater than Moses.3) The factthat a trinitarian godhead as co-equals, one must wonder what type of godJesus is if he can only say whatever G-d tells him to say. Think about this logically, if you are a prophet from G-d, why would you be G-d?4) Deuteronomy 18:16 ends with the phrase in which Moses quotes the Israelites sayings at Mt. Sinai, "Let me not continue to hear the voice of teh L-rd my G-d, and let me not see this great fire any more, so that I will not die." In the New Testament it is written that Jesus was G-d manifest in the flesh, and that he came to live among the people, and that he spoke with them all the time. How, then, could this passage point to Jesus as the prophet while contradicting itself in that the people did not die as a result of his living in their midst?5) The New Testament, in which it is claimed that Jesus is the manifestation of the prophet that is foretold in Deuteronomy 18:15-18 notes, "...every soul, which will not hear taht prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people." (Acts 3:23 ) This has not happened. Most of the world's population is not Christian and does not listen to Jesus, let alone know him. They have not been destroyed. If this is referring to the Jewish people, Has this really happened to the jewish people? After all, the Jews are alive andwell today, and are more successful now than ever! 6) Jesus failed the litmus test.According to the same chapter, it gives us a litmust test. This litmust test gives us a key to note if a person claiming to be a prophet is really a prophet. Deuteronomy 18:20, a prophet who presumes to speak in G-d's name something that he was not commanded and/or speaks in the name of other gods, is a false prophet who is to be punished with the death penalty.What about Jesus? Does he pass this test? In Matthew 16:28, Jesus declares the following: "Verily I say unto you,There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. Guess what? This prophecy was not fulfilled! The generation Jesus addressed died 1900 years ago!Is there more? Yes! Matthew 12:38-40 declares, "Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we should see a sign from thee. But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.This was not fulfilled if we read everything literal! Jesus was "in the heart of the earth" for no more than 36 hours. According to Luke, Jesus died Friday and "rose" Sunday before dawn. When the women reached his tomb, he was already gone. According to Matthew, Jesus remained in the tomb from Friday afternoon until Saturday evening at nightfall--a total of some 26 hours! (Matthew 28:1) | Conclusion |If Jesus was a prophet, he was a false prophet! Therefore, the verse my opponent cited reinforces my beliefs! Reference for this work: http://www.messiahtruth.com...; Isaiah 52-54The suffering servant as defined in earlier passages is the Nation of Israel. Simply put, Isaiah 53 is a messianic prophecy that foretells the world's reaction to the Messianic redemption. Take, for example, the following verse: (1) Who would believe what we have heard! For whom has the arm of God been revealed!In this verse, the leaders of the world are stunned at the news of Israel's salvation. "The arm of God" denotes a redemption of the Jewish people. In this opening verse, world leaders are shocked at the incredible news of Israel’s salvation: “Who would believe what we have heard!” (2) He formerly grew like a sapling or a root from dry ground; he had neither form nor beauty. We saw him, but without a desirable appearance.This is pure alegory here and it brings forth imagery of a tree that strugles to grow in dry earth. This is a metaphor for the Jewish people. A young sappling in dry ground appears that it will die. The Jews have always been a small nation and have been threatened with extinction. In this verse, teh author describes Israel's miraculous return from exile. Remember, in my opening arguments I referred to the fact that gathering the Jews back to Israel is a task of the Messiah. I want to skip to Isaiah 53:5 and verses that denote a "crucifixion" of the messiah. (5) He was wounded as a result of our transgressions, and crushed as a result of our iniquities. The chastisement upon him was for our benefit; and through his wounds we were healed.In this verse, we see the humbled world leaders confess the Jewish suffereing occured as a direct result of "our iniquities" (i.e., anti-semitism).Isaiah 53:5 is mistranslated. The verse does not say, “He was wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities,” which could convey the vicarious suffering ascribed to Jesus. Rather, the proper translation is: “He was wounded because of our transgressions, and crushed because of our iniquities.” This conveys that the Servant suffered as a result of the sinfulness of others – not the opposite as Christians contend – that the Servant suffered to atone for the sins of others. Indeed, the idea of a substitutionary sacrifice directly contradicts the basic clear Old Testament teaching that God promises forgiveness to all who sincerely return to Him; thus there is no need for the Messiah to atone for others (Isaiah 55:6-7, Jeremiah 36:3, Ezekiel chapters 18 and 33, Hoseah 14:1-3, Jonah 3:6-10, Proverbs 16:6, Daniel 4:27, 2-Chronicles 7:14).Answer for yourself: Why would God send a messiah to atone for sin, if he could already atone for that sin without blood? I challenge my opponent to find ONE Old Testament reference that speaks of blood being necessary for forgiveness.http://www.aish.com...I am out of room.