Christ Is Not A Goat-Herder

Certainly you have quoted the bible, but I must have missed the scriptural support for the two things I asked about. Perhaps you could help me by repeating the passages that give support to these two ideas you put forward:

1. That "goat" in the bible means "false teacher".

2. That every human being (apart, I suppose, from false teachers) is a sheep until Christ returns in judgment.

Jesus says that the goats are those who treat Him badly, and the sheep are those who treat Him well. Both groups protest, "Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty ....". Jesus answers those on His right, the sheep, "Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me." He answers those on His left, the goats, "Inasmuch as you did not do it to the least of these, you did not do it to Me." You will find that in Matthew 25.32-46. No reference there to false teachers, or to some sheep being turned into goats.

The only support I have seen from you concerning these two things in particular, does not come from the bible:

But when Jesus talks of "goats", He is not talking only about "Judas Goats", is He? Nor is He talking only of false teachers. Do all who treat the followers of Jesus badly try to infiltrate His church, like the "Judas goat" infiltrating the flock of sheep? Of course not!

And besides, what are you going to do with the clear words of Jesus in John 10.24-29, where He tells some unbelieving Jews that they are not His sheep?

24 Then the Jews surrounded Him and said to Him, "How long do You keep us in doubt? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly." 25 Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me. 26 But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you. 27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. 28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand."
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Nothing there to suggest that they were all sheep until the Second Coming! No - He says to them clearly, "You are not of My sheep."

 

Scriptuyre support

I told you how they used goats back then to lead poor sheep to thier death, just like the pharisees were doing and many of you doing.

Telling a poor sheep that there is some sheep that are goats when Jesus looked out at the people and said they were sheep without a shephard.

We are tell the world that God loved them that He sent His Son and all I hear from some calvinist that He doesn't and telling the poor sheep that God is a liar. To me those are goats leading sheep to the slaughter just like the phatrisees where.

I tell you that Jesus was talking about the pharises who were leading the poor sheep to destruction.

I cannot help you see, but those are the people who have missunderstood Pauls word just like other scripture to thier own destruction.

How goats were used back then tells me who are the goats.

There is men out there that have misunderstood the scripture to thier own destruction and trying to get others to follow.

God does want all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

You can either believe men understanding of all and be lead down a wrong path or believe God that He wants all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

You are going to continue to believe what you want, but I know who the goats are, and if they turn to Jesus, Jesus will turn that old person a goat into a His sheep a new creation.

Jesus can do more than you think just turn to Him, not men.

It takes faith, because we are not saved by grace alone, but grace through faith.

 

Sorry, Psalms 109.31, but you seem to have misunderstood me. I agree that goats were sometimes used in that way. But what I am asking you is this: Where in the bible are false teachers likened to goats?

As I said before, Jesus did not say that they were sheep without a shepherd, but that they were "like sheep having no shepherd." (The KJV says, "as sheep"). If He had meant that they were His sheep, then every person of those multitudes would have believed on Him, for in John 10.27 He says, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me."

We must preach to all that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." We are to preach to all, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved." Nowhere do we read of the apostles telling people other than Christians that they are Christ's sheep already.

If you mean John 10.26, where He says, "You are not of My sheep," I wonder where it says that He only meant the Pharisees? John 10.24 just says that they were "Jews".

Who do you mean by "those"? In the verse where those words about "their own destruction" appear, 2 Peter 3.16, they are described as "unstable people":

as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.​

Not unless you back it up with Scripture. As far as I know, out of the 145 occurences in the bible, the only places where the word "goat" or "goats" is used to mean anything other than a four-legged animal with horns, are:

"I will bring them down Like lambs to the slaughter, Like rams with male goats." (Jeremiah 51:40) ​

(There it is referring to the Chaldaeans).​

And as for you, O My flock, thus says the Lord GOD: "Behold, I shall judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and goats." (Ezekiel 34:17) (There God is talking about His flock. He has already talked about the false teachers as "shepherds" in verses 2, 7 8 and 10)

"And the male goat is the kingdom of Greece. The large horn that is between its eyes is the first king." (Daniel 8:21)

" "All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats." (Matthew 25:32)


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In every other place, the word means an actual goat (apart, perhaps, from the Song of Solomon, with its phrases such as, "Your hair is like a flock of goats.") So I ask again, "Where, in the bible, are false teachers called goats?"

Are you saying that to understand the scriptures, I must believe that "goats" means "false teachers"? If you are, then you must provide some scriptural backing. Like the Bereans, I have "searched the scriptures" to see if what you have said is true, but I cannot find it.

Now you have me really confused! You have been claiming all along that that everyone is a "sheep" until the last judgment. Now you are saying that when Jesus makes that new creation in the conversion of a sinner, He is turning a goat into a sheep.

More than I think? Yes, in the sense that He can do so much that it is impossible for a mere human mind to encompass it. But I certainly do not believe in a powerless Jesus. He is the great Creator (John 1.3) and Sustainer (Colossians 1.17) of the universe. He had power to lay down His life, and to take it up again (John 10.18). He is the Victor over death and hell (1 Corinthians 15.54-57). He build His church in such a way that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matthew 16.18). He is the "Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" of Isaiah 9.6. And so I could go on. I think you must have misunderstood something I wrote if you imagine that I believe in a Jesus of "reduced power". He is almighty.

What is the source of our faith? Ourselves? Surely not! Poor, weak sinners at best, we need God Himself to grant us faith. Paul wrote to the Christians at Philippi:

For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake. (Philippians 1:29)​

 

Sheep and goats

I never said that they were His sheep , I simply said as Jesus they were sheep.

Jesus had to talk in a way that the pharisees couldn't understand them, because they were already ready to seize Him. We all know why it wasn't His time jet though.

He couldn't just go out and call them goats but He talked in a way that the people could understand. They knew at that time what goats were used for.

Jesus greatest enemy wasn't sinners it was the teachers in that day. Just like it is today. The world needs to hear that God loved the world that He sent His Son, but the teachers even of today try to block the message of God. The stubburn goats that don't want to let the world know God's love for all men and His salvation to all men throgh Jesus that all of whosoever believes shall be saved. God does want all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

Jesus had no problem with the sheep, He had the problem with the stubburn goats the teachers of that day. Read your bible and you can see for yourself.

 

Easton's Bible Dictionary, s.v. Goat:
"This word is used metaphorically for princes or chiefs in Isa. 14:9, and in Zech. 10:3 as leaders. (Compare Jer. 50:8.)"

Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, s.v. Attud (goat):
"4. Metaphorical usage. a. Leader ... Isa. 14:9 refers metaphorically to the rulers of the earth as ... attudim."
"...Zec. 10:3 employs the same image: Yahweh, the true shepherd, cares for his flock and punishes the attudim, as the false shepherds..."

 

Apologies! You're right, and I should have done what I usually do, and looked up the occurrences of the Hebrew and Greek words for "goat", not just the English word. In my translation (that is, the translation I use - I am not learned enough to make a translation of the bible myself ), the Hebrew word is translated as "chief ones", in Jeremiah 50.8 as "rams" (indeed the KJV translates the same word as "rams" in Genesis 31.10 and 10.12), and in Zechariah 10.3 as "goatherds". Even so, your quote from the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament includes: "Yahweh, the true shepherd, cares for his flock and punishes the attudim, as the false shepherds..."

As far as the New Testament is concerned, I have looked up the various Greek words used for "goat", and I could not find any occurrence of any of them being used to mean a leader or a false shepherd.

 

Not that I'm agreeing here, but I would question:

Does not the definition of the OT transfer itself to the new as well. Thus what we understand in the OT is used in the same manner in the NT. Especially when when the audiance is taken into consideration upon whom the metaphore was used and context of that message.

Otherwise I would ask what words in the OT were defined one way but the NT redefines it to something else (even imagery)?


Like I said, I do not agree but am interested in thoughts.

 

Sorry, my mistake! But my point was that Jesus did not say they were sheep (His or anyone else's), but they were like sheep.

Do you really believe that Jesus could not, if He had wished to, call the Pharisees "goats"? He did call them "hypocrites" (Matthew 23.13), "sons of hell" (Matthew 23.15), "blind guides" (Matthew 23.16), "fools and blind" (Matthew 23.17), and said they were "full of hypocrisy and lawlessness" (Matthew 23.28), and ten times we can read His words, "Woe to you, Pharisees!" or "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees!" (And of course, those verses from Matthew 23 are talking about the time when Jesus was in Jerusalem, shortly before He was crucified).

Yes, all the world needs to hear the gospel message that whoever believes on the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved. But all sinners need to hear that message, and that includes those sinners who are false teachers. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, yet he heard the gospel, believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and was saved. The same with Saul of Tarsus and others. And there were plenty of sinners who were not teachers of any kind, and yet stubbornly refused to believe on the Saviour. In Matthew 11.20-24, Jesus pronounces woes on whole cities, not just the false teachers within those cities:

20 Then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent: 21 "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24 But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you."


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I do read my bible, and as I read it, I find that Jesus takes all kinds of sinners - those who taught wrong things, like Saul of Tarsus, those who did wrong things, like Zacchaeus and the thief on the cross, and those who had believed wrong things, like the two on the road to Emmaus, who imagined that Jesus must have failed, because their idea of Him "redeeming Israel" was getting that nation freed from the yoke of bondage to the Roman Empire. He takes sinners of all kinds and saves them. Praise His wonderful name!

 

Woe To You

Woe to the pharisees and all these things confirm that Jesus enemy was the pharisees and yes there are those just like anyone, pharisees, Jew or even goats when they turn to Jesus , He turns them into a new creation.

Even to Nicodemous He said you are a teacher and you don't know these things.

These teachers were leading poor sheep to destruction blinded by thier own doctrine of man. They couldn't see the truth by thier own veil. To this day the veil is still there and God hasn't removed it only when we turn to Jesus that the veil is removed.

Like the scripture shows He called the people out there sheep and we all know what goats was used back then for.

Don't be miss lead by false teachers.

Anyone and no one is excluded can turn to Christ and be saved, don't let what men believe even what I believe turn away from Jesus Christ your only hope for salvation.

 

I am sorry that we don't seem to be able to make ourselves understood to one another. At the moment, we just seem to be going round in circles. Before "bowing out", let me assure you that I fully agree with some of the things you have said. I agree that we must not be misled by false teachers. I agree that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only hope for salvation. I agree that we are saved by grace through faith. I am sorry if I have written anything that made you think I did not agree with those things.

 

main concern

My main concern our for those listening. I never said that you didn't believe these things.

What is important is not what we believe, what is important is Jesus and His word.

That is our faith given to us by God. If we turn away from Jesus we turn away from grace.

 

What we believe

Our belief change as we grow, so what we believe today will not be what we believe tomorrow.

It is our faith is what is important our faith which is the word of Jesus. Our faith that which is the word of God will never change it will remain the same.

Believing in Jesus is different from just belief.

We are to believe in Jesus to just believe in Him no matter what we believe.

 

wishy washy

I think it is awesome that we cannot even count on what we believe but we can believe in Jesus and count on Him.

I think it is awesome in a world of change, that there is Jesus who will never change and we can always count on.

Don't worry about what you believe, believe in Jesus.

Believe in Jesus and it is He who will open your eyes to all truth.

 

trust

Proverbs 3:
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;

6 in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight. [Or will direct your paths]

 

Like Rippon, I am having trouble understanding what you mean. The things you say seem to contradict one another. For instance, you say, "we cannot even count on what we believe", but then you say, "we can believe in Jesus and count on Him." You say, "Don't worry about what you believe," but then you say, "believe in Jesus."

Did you perhaps mean something like this? "Don't worry about what you believe about other things. The important thing is to believe in Jesus."

 

Belief

We have a lot of belief that doesn't matter it causes discord amoung the brethren what is important is faith. Believing in Jesus over our own beliefs.

Separation of just belief and believing in Jesus our faith will make what I say understandible.

Like the scripture tells us do not lean on our own understanding our beliefs that change like shifting sand, but trust in the Lord Jesus Christ our faith.

 

If Christ laid down His life "specifically for them (the sheep), how was this woman saved who clearly was NOT one of the "sheep"?

Mat 15:21 When Jesus left there, He withdrew to the area of Tyre and Sidon.
Mat 15:22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came and kept crying out, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is cruelly tormented by a demon."
Mat 15:23 Yet He did not say a word to her. So His disciples approached Him and urged Him, "Send her away because she cries out after us."
Mat 15:24 He replied, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
Mat 15:25 But she came, knelt before Him, and said, "Lord, help me!"
Mat 15:26 He answered, "It isn't right to take the children's bread and throw it to their dogs."
Mat 15:27 "Yes, Lord," she said, "yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table!"
Mat 15:28 Then Jesus replied to her, "Woman, your faith is great. Let it be done for you as you want." And from that moment her daughter was cured.

It's clear this gentile woman was a believer, and the context shows specifically that the sheep are jews. How can calvinists continue to distort the true meaning of who the sheep in Scripture are?

 

Jesus died so Goats can become Sheep.

I once was a Goat but now a Sheep!



JESUS SAVES - now that ain't ba-a-ahd at all :godisgood: