Is the “Israel of God” a What or a Who?

August 28, 2018August 28, 2018 Leave a comment

Don’t forget to look for the publishing of my newest book, “Parashot Drashim- A Commentary on the Weekly Torah Readings for Both Jews and Gentiles” due out in September.

If you would prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

“Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation. Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule—to the Israel of God.”

This is the ending of the letter Shaul (Paul) wrote to the Messianic community he had started in Galatia. His letter was written for a specific purpose, which has been terribly misunderstood, pretty much since the time he wrote it. It has been used as a polemic against circumcision, as well as justification that Torah observance is just for the Jewish people.

The worst usage of this line has been by Replacement Theologists, who claim that “Christians” are now the Chosen people of God, who rejected the Jewish people as his because they rejected his son.

Poppycock. But that is for another time.

I always found this one line to be very confusing, and have tried to figure out what he could have possibly meant by writing that. I am glad to say that finally, after having read this particular letter too many times to count, a revelation came to me recently about what it could mean.

That’s one of the best things about reading the Bible over and over: suddenly, one day what you couldn’t understand for years will be made clear to you. I like to think that this happens when God thinks you are ready for it.

So, nu? What’s the big revelation? I’ll let you in on it…Shaul wasn’t talking about a who; he was talking about a what!

Let’s go back to the reason for writing this letter. The members of this congregation were being “Judaized”, meaning the Gentile converts to Judaism were being told they had to undergo B’rit Milah (circumcision) in order to be saved. This was under the system called “Legalism”, which was being proliferated by Believing Jews who were infiltrating the new Messianic communities composed of Gentile Believers. Shaul was never against obedience to the Torah; he was against this legalistic approach to it.

Let’s stop here for a moment to make sure we’re all on the same page. Legalism was the belief that no one could be “saved”, i.e. found to be righteous in God’s eyes, unless they obeyed the Torah commands. Under legalism, faith is secondary to performance. Shaul’s constant battle against Legalism is why he has been so misunderstood. Shaul never said not to obey the Torah at all, he said not to obey the Torah as the means to become righteous.

This letter was to get the Galatians back on track by obeying the Torah as a result of faithful obedience and not resulting from a system of performance-related salvation. That’s why he said being circumcised was useless to them if they were doing it to be legalistically obedient. He never said they shouldn’t be circumcised, just that they shouldn’t do it as a means of gaining salvation.

I always have known there was a battle going on in Galatia; the new Believing Gentiles were wrestling with legalism vs. faith. I understood that this dynamic was the reason Shaul contacted them. And my revelation came when I suddenly remembered what “Israel” means. We are told this in Genesis 32:29 (taken from the Soncino issue of the Chumash)-

And he said: ‘Thy name shall be called no more Jacob but Israel; for thou hast striven with God and with men, and hast prevailed.”

The comment notes in the Chumash state that the name “Jacob” meant “the Supplanter,” who prevails over others by deceit. “Israel,” on the other hand, is said to be a title of victory, probably “a Champion of God.” The children of Israel, the Israelites, are Contenders for the Divine, conquering by strength from Above.

Remembering what “Israel” means I realized why Shaul called the Galatians “the Israel of God”: he was identifying them as ones battling with both men and God. They were being wrestled with by men who wanted them to be legalistic in their actions, and with God who wanted them to show faithful acceptance and not try to earn their salvation through performance. The Galatians were just like Jacob: on the one side they had to deal with men (as Jacob had to deal with Esau) and on the other side they had to deal with faith in God (Jacob wrestling with the angel, representing his faith in God to save him from Esau.)

The “Israel of God” could be used to describe each of us as we struggle with our faith in God and Messiah Yeshua against worldly pleasures and our naturally sinful tendencies and desires. Christians also wrestle with the (usual) teaching that the Torah is only for Jews against the faithful obedience that God has required of all who worship him.

To the Replacement Theologists out there, sorry; the “Israel of God” is not meant to be Christians. It isn’t really who someone is, it is what condition someone (or some people) are suffering through. And that condition is wrestling with our iniquity and with God’s will for our lives. Obedience to Torah is only one form of this battle between flesh and spirit, which was the message Shaul was addressing to the Galatians.

As we wrestle with our salvation, being pulled between earthly desires and spiritual fulfillment, we also go through that same “Israel” experience the Galatians did. Let us fight the good fight so that we, too, can be the “Israel of God”- one who has conquered by strength from above.

Expectation is Everything

April 21, 2017April 21, 2017 Leave a comment

I was in the Sales field for about 15 years, between 1992 and 2007, and the title of today’s message is one of the most important lessons I learned about being able to have a successful sales career.

I am sure all of you reading this have found the most disappointing purchases you have ever made were the ones where what you got wasn’t anything at all like what you expected. That can be the fault of the salesperson, or yourself, or both- neither one really explaining or listening to the other, and ending up having an unrealistic expectation.

This same thing has happened with Yeshua and the Jewish people, which started in the First Century and is still present, today.

The Tanakh (Old Covenant) has very explicit expectations of what the Messiah will do. He will regather Israel (Ezekiel 38:16), He will restore the Temple service (Jeremiah 33:18), He will end wickedness and heresy (Zephaniah 3:13), He will reestablish the religious courts (Isaiah 2:2-4), and He will be a son of David. With these, and the many other Messianic prophecies found in Tanakh, the Jewish people’s expectations for their Messiah, taught to them by their leaders, was for a political savior who would immediately restore the Davidic kingdom, and that it would be just like it was in David’s and Solomon’s times.

And when you think about it, that expectation wasn’t really all that far-fetched. So, looking back, it is understandable (isn’t it?) that the Jewish people would have rejected Yeshua as their Messiah when He walked the earth because many of the biblical expectations were not met: there was still sin and heresy (in fact, at that time the Jewish political and judicial systems were probably the most corrupt ones we’ve ever had), the Ten tribes were still in the Diaspora, Temple service had not been interrupted (so He couldn’t reinstate it), and He died! Duh! How could this guy be the Messiah and have an eternal kingship if he’s dead?

These unmet expectations are the reason so many Jews back then rejected Yeshua as their Messiah, and even to this day they are the basis for still rejecting Jesus as Messiah. When you add to that the last two Millennia of the treatment Jews have received at the hands of the “followers of Jesus Christ”, well, it’s no wonder we don’t want anything to do with this Jesus guy. After all, isn’t Jesus the reason for the Crusades, which resulted in thousands of Jews being slaughtered when they didn’t convert? And wasn’t Jesus the reason for the expulsion of Jews from Spain and her territories, not to mention the torture and murder of thousands of Jews during the 300 hundred years (or so) of the Inquisition? And isn’t Jesus the guy the Nazi’s said was on their side?- the belt buckle of the Nazi uniform had the words, “Gott mit uns” (God is with us) engraved on them. Oh, and let’s not forget the Replacement Theologists who say that God, Himself, has rejected the Jewish people (because they rejected Jesus) and that the Born-Again Christians are now God’s Chosen people.

Taken altogether- unmet expectations, wrongful teachings, mistreatment, bigotry, persecution- is it any wonder the Jewish people have nearly universally rejected as their Messiah this blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Aryan image of the Jesus Christ we know today?

So…how do we get around this misunderstanding (and it is a misunderstanding) about who Yeshua is? We start by realizing, within Judaism and Christianity, that what we know today as Christianity, and who we think Jesus Christ is, is wrong. First off, Jesus did not create Christianity: Constantine did, at the Council of Nicene in the Third Century. Without going into an entire history lesson on what happened, let’s simply state that as more and more Gentiles (who were Pagans at that time) were accepting Yeshua (He wasn’t called Jesus until many, many years later) and, thereby, converting to Judaism, all the restrictions of the Torah were too much for them at the start. In Acts (15:29) there were only 4 absolute “Must Stop Now” restrictions, but when you read the entire passage it is clear that the Elders expected these new converts to learn how to obey the entire Torah as they continued to attend the synagogues. But with the continuing rebellion of the Jewish community against Roman rule, being identified as a “Jew” was becoming more intolerable than being a follower of Yeshua, so those Gentiles who were converting started doing less “Jewish” stuff. As early as the First Century, what was now being called Christianity began to actively separate itself from the Tree of Life it had been grafted into. They changed the Shabbat, they ridiculed and insulted Judaic practices, and by the time Rome accepted Christianity as an approved religion, it had lost most of it’s attachment to Judaism. Then Constantine created Christmas and Easter as a means to make Christianity more “fun” and further separate it from the Holy Days God defined for us.

That is why today Christianity is not anything like what Christ preached or taught. We need to approach Jews with this information to destroy the expectation that by accepting Jesus you have to reject Judaism. That is what Jews expect they have to do if they want to accept Jesus as their Messiah, and it is simply not true.

Once we kill that first expectation of having to reject Judaism, we can then start to kill the next expectation, which is that Jesus taught against Torah. We need to educate people, both Jews and Christians, regarding the false teaching that Yeshua rejected Torah: that is a lie from the pit of Sheol! He not only taught to obey Torah, but He did so by teaching us the deeper meaning of it so we could live it more completely! And Shaul (Paul), John, Matthew and the rest of the gang all lived and taught obedience to Torah. Not as the means of salvation, which was the understanding of Torah then, but as a means of showing God our faithful belief that what He says to do is what is best for us, and to demonstrate our love and thanks to Him through obedience to His word.

If you have gotten this far, having overcome thousands of years of wrong teaching and bigotry, now you have a chance to show how these expectations, which have resulted in such a massive rejection of Yeshua, are unreasonable. The prophecies were often dual-prophecies, meaning there was a current interpretation, and a future one, as well. For instance, an argument against Isaiah 53 is that it was talking about Israel as a nation then and there, which could historically be shown, but it was also talking about Yeshua, which wouldn’t happen until far in the future. The expectations that the Jewish people had, and have, of Messiah were based on misunderstanding, not to mention the political and social pressures against accepting Him (back then) due to the corrupt individuals who would lose their power and standing if He had been universally accepted.

Today I can see the spirit of God moving- the regathering of Israel, the Hebraic Roots and Messianic Jewish movements gaining momentum, and the world getting worse and worse- all these point to the Acharit HaYamim (End Days) getting closer and closer. And that means we are getting closer to the return of Yeshua ha Maschiach! Therefore, let’s educate in a way that edifies people, removing the unrealistic and improper expectations, showing the truth about who Yeshua is and what He teaches, and thereby making it possible for all people to hear the real Good News with unclogged ears and seeing eyes.

Parashah V’Yechi (and he lived) Genesis 47:28 – 50:26

January 13, 2017 Leave a comment

We come to the end of Genesis, when Jacob blesses the two sons of Joseph, essentially adopting them into his family, and then blessing all his sons. He is carried back to the burial cave of his fathers and buried there. Then Joseph also dies and is embalmed.

The biblical account of the burial place for the three Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is in Hebron. This is an Arab-controlled area, with a very small, completely surrounded Jewish section. Many Orthodox Jews will have Shabbat services in the cave at Machpelah (Hebron) that is accepted as the actual burial place for the Patriarchs.

However, Joseph is supposedly buried in Shechem. In fact, there is a Tomb of Joseph building in Shechem, which is totally off-limits to anyone Jewish.

Here is the “welcome” sign as you enter Shechem:

So, two of the most important and holy of all Jewish locations in the land of Israel are off-limits to Jews. Yes, they can go to Hebron, but it is a dangerous route to travel, in both directions.

This is not a political blog, it is a ministry, but part of what ministry is, at least to me, is to tell the truth about the world and the spiritual battles that are occurring, every day, within it. One of these battles is that the Church is supposed to be grafted into the state (both spiritual and political) of Israel. It does NOT replace it!! Believers are supposed to be supportive of Israel and the Jewish people because they are God’s chosen Priests, and you don’t double-cross your priest.

The Arab world has stated, over and over, that it’s only desire for the Jewish nation is that it be totally destroyed- not a very friendly “How do you do” campaign slogan. They have lied about their “rights” to the land they have occupied (yes, they occupied these lands AFTER the nation of Israel made the land economically desirable); they have planted trees because that gives them ownership, even though the trees they planted are the only thing on the mountainsides they planted them on. There are thousands of trees, olive trees (which only need to be reaped once a year, otherwise there is nothing you need to do to them with regards to care-taking) all over the “disputed” West Bank, which is the Jordan Valley Rift area. The shanty towns that Israel is accused of causing are actually Arab creations because the Arabs have nowhere else to go- their own country will not allow them back in.

In Shechem there are bare, cinder-block buildings we would call “Projects” that house Arabs wanting to enter Israel but are not allowed- by the Arabs- to do so. And- they are not allowed back into Syria, either. In truth, none of them really want to go back to Syria…I mean, would you? So, Jewish people are kept out of Shechem, and the Arab people in Shechem are kept in there.

Truth be told, those Arabs that do live and work in Israel have no problem with the Jewish people, and the Jewish people, the Israelites, have no problem with any Arab who wants to live and work with them, so long as you don’t try to kill me. The Arabs that work in Israel have the same pay, same benefits, and same opportunities as the Israelites- can we say that in America when it comes to minorities?

The Jewish people only want to live in peace, and be left alone. The Arab political powers want them destroyed. This is an age-old, sibling rivalry that goes back to Abraham. God tells Hagar that Ishmael with be a wild ass of a man, with his hand against his brothers and his brothers hands against him (Genesis 16:12), and we can see that has been true since then. History shows us that the Arab world has been nothing more than one political assassination after another, with family against family and people against people. The “Palestinian People” have nothing to do with Palestine- they are North Syrians, nomads, who used to take their herds and feed them on the hills of the Jordan Rift, then go back to Syria when the grass was gone. If you travel along that road you can still see the Arab shepherds along the way with their goats and sheep. It wasn’t until Israel became a nation and started to clear out the mosquito infested swamps, irrigate the land and make it a viable farming community that suddenly now, this is “historically” land that these “Palestinian” peoples owned, and Israel was invading their territory!

Horse-apples!

The only “Palestinians” that have “historically” lived there were the Jews. The North Syrians were dubbed with that title as a propaganda program by Yasser Arafat; and it was as good as anything that Joseph Goebbels could have come up with. Both Arafat and Goebbels had the same goal- to bring the world against, and ultimately destroy, the Jewish people, whose only “crime” was wanting to live peaceably on their own land.

One day we will have complete access, safe and open to all, to the burial places of our Patriarchs. This will come about because, when you read the bible, you know how it will all end. It would be nice if the Arabs would just get off their hate wagon. Isn’t it about time that ISIS and ISIL and all the other terrorists in the world leave Israel alone and concentrate on taking care of their own people; you know, not abuse and rape their own women, not kill themselves, not attack innocent men, women and children in countries that take them in only to try and help them?

The world has never really been a nice place for people- Adam and Eve had it made, but they blew it, and not just for themselves but for everyone. Now we live in a world that is cursed and fallen, and it is only going to get worse. It seems all this week I have been on an apocalyptic bent, but with all that is happening, natural and man-made disasters everywhere, how can I not see the end coming? How can anyone not see the end coming?

Keep reading the bible, keep praying to God for peace in our time- we know how things will end, we just don’t know when, so praying for the peace of Jerusalem and peace in our time is fine. It isn’t against God’s plan, it is just asking for a reprieve for the time being.

If you call yourself a “Believer”, say you have been “Born Again” and profess to worship God- the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob- then you MUST support and help the Jewish people. There’s no real choice about it: God said that is what you are to do, and Shaul (Paul) also says that we need to be one new man (Ephesians 2:15), meaning that the Jewish people and Christians need to worship the one Messiah, Yeshua (Jesus) and work together. Christians are grafted in, and when you graft a branch onto the tree the branch now belongs to that tree, not the other way around.

So draw from the root of the tree to which you have been grafted in, do not denounce it, do not ignore it and do not work against it- you will only be killing yourself.

What is “Jewish stuff?”

September 19, 2016 Leave a comment

Have you noticed all the Halloween decorations in the department stores? Pretty soon the candy sales will be all over the place, and before the first little kid tries on his costume, they will be putting up Christmas lights along Main Street. Everyone is getting ready for something that is still a month away.

Yet, how many Gentiles realize we are in one of the most Holy of all periods, right now? These are the 40 days before Yom Kippur, and starting on the evening of October 2, Erev Rosh Hashannah (the eve of New Year) we will begin the 10 Days of Awe, when the Jewish people are supposed to introspectively review their commitment to God and to realize how close to (or how far from) meeting what God wants of them.

On the evening of October 11 we begin Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when we fast and pray all day for forgiveness for our sins, which we humbly and constantly remind ourselves we have committed against God. We are praying that He will move from the Throne of Judgment to the Mercy Seat, and inscribe us in the Book of Life.

As a Messianic Jew I am often asked by Christians why I fast, since Jesus (Yeshua is His real name) died for our sins. My answer is very simple. It is as complete an answer as I believe anyone can give, and as complete an answer as anyone who worships God should accept. My answer is, “Because God said we should.”

I fast because God said I should. Not because Yeshua died for the sins I have committed (which He did), not because I am not fully forgiven by God (which I am), and not for the sake of honoring and communing with my Jewish brothers and sisters (which I do): it is because God commands us to do this.

Leviticus 23, and other parts of the Torah, specify that on this day we are to afflict our souls, which nearly everyone agrees means to fast. I do it because I am Jewish and it is what Jews do, but I do not do it because it is “Jewish stuff”: God gave the Torah to the Jews not for them only, but for them to bring to everyone else!

Christianity has been teaching that the Torah is for Jews, but that is a wrongful teaching- the Torah is for everyone. What is being called “Jewish stuff” is really “God-fearing stuff” and anyone (more correctly, everyone) who professes to believe in God is supposed to do it.

The bible is absolutely crystal clear- the Jews are God’s chosen people, chosen to be priests to the world (Exodus 19:6; 1 Peter 2:9) and to represent Him to everyone else. A Priest is not the only one who serves God, is he? No- the Priest is the spiritual leader of the community who acts as intercessor between the people and God. That is the function of the priest. So, to do what God commanded us to do is not just worshipful, or God-fearing, or even holy (although it is all of those things, too): to obey God’s Torah is so much more than just being “Jewish.”

I have had many Gentile’s come to me over the years and tell me how proud they are that somewhere in their family history they have recently discovered a Jewish Grandparent or a Jewish ancestor. They are so happy to be “real” Jews.

I think they want to be Jewish for all the wrong reasons.

If you want to be Jewish, then do what a Jewish person is supposed to do- honor the Torah by obeying it. Honor God by obeying His commandments without trying to box this one in and shut that one out. Don’t be what I call a “Buffet Believer“, picking and choosing whatever commandments you like, rejecting the rest and using Yeshua as your excuse for disobeying God!

If you don’t feel comfortable identifying with Judaism, then obey the commandments because that’s what Jesus did. How many Christians wear that silly bracelet with the “WWJD?” on it, but don’t do anything that Jesus would’ve done? He would’ve fasted on Yom Kippur, you betcha!

The term, “Jewish stuff” is a demonic slur created by the Replacement Theologists who are, in truth, the Synagogue of Satan Yeshua talks about in Revelations 3:9. They want to be Jews but reject the one thing that identifies Jews as Jews- obeying the Torah.

Hey, listen up! GOD HAS NO RELIGION! He has rules for worshiping Him, and rules for treating each other, and that is what He gave to the people who were descendants of the one man God chose to represent Him to the world, Abraham. It is only by geographical and linguistic relationship that we call those who follow the Torah, “Jews.”

Shakespeare said, “What’s in a name?”; to paraphrase the rest, “That which we call a “Jew” by any other name, would still follow Torah.”

Don’t be concerned with what your religion tells you about how to worship God; you must read God’s word on your own to learn what He wants from you. Then do it to the best of your ability.

Yeshua’s death did not free us from Torah- it freed us from the results of our failure to follow Torah perfectly. His sacrificial death was never a means to avoid Torah- His life, His teachings, His very existence is all about Torah: Yeshua is the Living Torah!

Forget Jewish; forget Christian; forget religious titles and canon. These things are useless to The Lord; all He wants is for you to do what He said to do so that you can live with Him eternally.

Jewish or Jesus: Why Not Have Both?

February 12, 2015 Leave a comment

In the Seventies, the big spiritual saying was, “I found it!”, meaning (of course) Jesus. There was also at that time a big resurrection (no pun intended) of Messianic Judaism, which has continued to grow. At that time, being Jewish, not caring, but still having been brought up being taught Jesus is a Jew-hater that started a new religion and Jews are Christ-killers, my response to “I’ve found it!” was: “I’m Jewish- I never lost it!”

That’s true, in a sense- you can only lose what you once had. I never had my Messiah, I never had the understanding about who Jesus was (Jesus Christ is not a name- we’ll get to that in a moment) and I never really had even a chance of getting to know the truth about the New Covenant writings because they were an anathema, forbidden and any thoughts about even wondering who Jesus is was traitorous!

About “Jesus Christ”: Yeshua ben Yosef was the name Jesus was given, lived with, and was called by all who knew Him or heard of Him for the first century or two since His birth. Yeshua is Hebrew and means, essentially, the salvation of God, or God’s salvation (ben Yosef is ‘son of Joseph’.) When the B’rit Chadashah (Good News) books about Yeshua were being written, except for Mattitayu (Matthew) which was most likely written in Hebrew (some scholars say), the other New Covenant writings were in Greek, the language of the world back then. There is no Greek word for Yeshua, since both culturally and religiously there was no Greek reference for God’s salvation, or for Messiah (Anointed One.) So, they did what we usually do when we have a word with no translation- we use a transliteration, a word that sounds like the meaning. For the Greeks, Yeshua sounded like a Greek man’s name, Jesu. As for Maschiach (Messiah/ anointed one) they used Cristos. That was a method of rubbing oil on a shield to keep the leather supple. When Jesu Cristos was Latinized, it became Jesus Christ. So, the etymology of “Jesus Christ” is a Latinized translation of a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew name/title Yeshua Ha Mashiach.

Before Yeshua was born, the Septuagint was written. This was a Greek translation of the Tanakh and was distributed throughout the Diaspora for the Jews living there. As with Yeshua’s name, there were many words and ideas that had no relationship with Greek culture or religion, so the authors created a kind of Greek-Hebrew language. If you ask Greek speakers who read the Septuagint, they will tell you that there are words that have absolutely no meaning in the Greek language. Shaul (Paul) used some of these terms when writing his letters to the Messianic Congregations (there were no churches in the First Century CE) that he established. I think that is why some of his writings have been historically misunderstood, and used as a polemic against the Jewish people. And as such, have created the subtle but conscious anti-Semitic interpretations in the New Covenant.

Jesus was Jewish, He lived a Jewish lifestyle (more so than anyone ever did, and especially much more than any Jew I have ever known!) and when He was resurrected, He didn’t come back from the dead as a Christian. He also didn’t preach anything, not one thing, different from or against the Torah. If you read the Gospels you will see that His teachings defined the true meaning of the Torah. In Mattitayu 5:17 He insists that He did not come to change the law, but fulfill it. The anti-Semitic usage over the centuries of that statement has been to tell Christians that having fulfilled the Law, it was done away with. NOT!!! In First Century Rabbi-speak, to fulfill the law meant to interpret it correctly. Read the New Covenant writings- Yeshua tells us how to follow the Torah, not how to ignore it.

Think about this for a minute: Yochanan (John) tells us in His Gospel that there was the Word (i.e., Torah) and that the Word became flesh (i.e., Yeshua), and Yeshua tells us that a house divided against itself cannot stand but that His Kingdom will stand forever, so….if Yeshua is the Living Torah, and His kingdom will stand forever, and a house divided against itself cannot stand, then for Yeshua to say anything against the Torah is a house divided against itself (since He is teaching contrary to who and what He is) and thereby, based on His own words, His kingdom will not last forever. If that is so, then when He said His kingdom will last forever, He lied. And, if Yeshua lied, He isn’t the sinless Lamb of God, His resurrection must be false and we have no salvation.

Ergo: if you believe that Yeshua did away with Torah, then you have no salvation.

This seems like a good argument for a Jewish person to use against believing in Yeshua except for one thing: it is a false argument based on a false assumption. Yeshua did not lie because He did not teach against the Torah; in fact, He upheld every Torah commandment as necessary. He worshipped Adonai, and He did the will of Adonai. The same is true about Shaul- even though his writings are a little convoluted. However, when you carefully dissect what he says (he talks like a real Jew!) he is always upholding the Torah as a valid set of rules and laws. He talks about the future often, and when the New Covenant writings talk about the future they often foretell the end of Torah, which is no different than what we read in the Torah, itself. The End Days (Acharit HaYamim) will see a new heaven and a new earth, and a new temple with God living amongst us (read Ezekiel.) I don’t think anyone can actually say what rules or laws we will be living with: Jeremiah 31:31 (THE New Covenant) says that God will change our hearts, and Joel tells us the same, so what will happen is that (according to the Tanakh) we will have hearts of flesh and the Torah will be written on them. In other words, we will also be living Torahs. If you are a living Torah, do you still need a written Torah to tell you how to act?

I don’t think anyone can tell us what it will be like after all is done. But the important thing is that we are on our way, and not only are we getting closer to the end, we are picking up speed!

If you aren’t right with God, better get a move on. If you are Jewish, better take a new look at this Yeshua guy. Forget the Westernized, blue-eyed, blonde-haired Aryan Jesus of the Christian right-wingers, and ignore (I know it’s hard, but you have to try) the bigotry from both the Jewish and Christian worlds about Jews believing in Yeshua and still being Jewish, and make up your own mind. The Jews say you can’t be Jewish if you believe in Jesus, and the Christians say if you believe in Jesus you have to stop being Jewish. Weird! They finally agree on something, and it is the absolutely wrong thing to believe.

Listen: there is nothing more Jewish than believing in the Messiah, and the truth is Yeshua is the Messiah God promised us throughout the Tanakh. He is the Jewish Saviour to the Jewish people, who has made it possible for Gentiles to be saved, as well. In the time Yeshua lived and afterwards (for about 200 years), when a Gentile was “saved” by accepting Yeshua as their Messiah, they were becoming Jewish simply because that was all they could be. There were only Jews and Pagans: accepting Yeshua meant they were adopting a Jewish way of life. Nowadays, the Christian world says that if you want to be “saved” by accepting Yeshua, you have to stop being Jewish!

OY! Dey’s all Meshuggah!

Look, it’s simple: God said He would send a Messiah and Yeshua is that Messiah. Don’t take my word for it, and don’t accept anything anyone else tells you. Read the Tanakh so you know what to expect, then read the Gospels to see it come to fruition. Forget the other New Covenant books for awhile- stick to the Gospels until you decide yea or nay about Yeshua. If you decide nay, it’s your right to make that choice- you will regret it. If you decide yea about Yeshua, then before you read further in the Bible, pray to God (not to Yeshua- He isn’t God the Father and He is the means to your salvation, not the giver of it. That has always been, and still is, only God the Father) and confess your acceptance that you are a sinner, that you are unable to overcome your sinful nature, and that you wish to accept the salvation offered by God through the sacrificial death that Yeshua underwent. Accept Yeshua as your Messiah, and ask that God send to you the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit, to guide you in doing T’Shuvah (turning from your sin) so you can do what God told His people to do: “Be thou holy, for I am holy” (that’s all Old Covenant stuff, Folks!)

Then wait for it. The Apostles waited 50 days for the Ruach, I waited about 3 months after accepting Yeshua before I received the Spirit. Once you have the Spirit to guide your understanding, hit the rest of the New Covenant.

You can see my testimony here: http://www.jacobshope.com/pages/video3.php

If you are Christian and you have been raised believing in Jesus Christ as the Messiah, you probably should review this, too. I know many, many Christians who ‘believe’ for no other reason than they have been told they believe. Their belief is not heartfelt- it is rote. And they easily and completely accept the lies the “Church” has told them: they only need to be good people to go to heaven, that they have the spirit of God in them because they could correctly answer a few questions, and that they are the new Chosen people since the Jews rejected Christ so God has rejected the Jews. And the BIG one: the Torah is just for Jews because Jesus did away with it and when you follow Jesus you don’t have to follow the Torah.

All lies, all misdirected teachings over millennia, all from the Enemy of God, and sending all who accept those lies blindly into the pit of Sheol.

Make up your own mind. I like “The Matrix” Trilogy- have you seen it? The Oracle constantly tells Neo (the Messiah) that he needs to make up his own mind about what he is, and Morpheus (sort of a John the Baptist figure) tells someone who says to him, “Not everyone believes as you do” that “My faith doesn’t require you to believe.” That’s powerful- we don’t need others to believe something for us to believe it. You shouldn’t accept anything as truth except what you, yourself, have found to be true.

Jewish or Jesus? Here’s the truth- they are both the same! Now go and verify it for yourself.

Self-Absorbed Salvation

October 16, 2014 Leave a comment

When we become saved, are we better off? Let’s see: saved=Eternal joy; not saved=Eternal suffering. I would say being saved is better off, wouldn’t you?

When we become saved, do we treat people better than we used to? Being saved should produce good fruit, we should be treating others as we would have them treat us, fruits of the Spirit should be growing within us …yeah, I think it’s safe to say we will be better to people when we are saved, don’t you?

But, when we are saved , does that make us better people?

There are some who treat the Jewish people as reprobate, and say they are rejected by God because they rejected His son. These are called Replacement Theologists. They think that they are the “Israel of God”, as Shaul put it at the end of Galatians (what was he thinking when he wrote that? I don’t know!) They say they are the “real” Jewish people, the true Israel.

They think they are better than real Jews because they are saved.

I don’t know what Bible they read, but it isn’t the one that God gave Moses, that has the writings of the Prophets, or the one that the Talmudim of Yeshua wrote, or the one with the letters that Shaul sent to the Messianic Congregations he started throughout Asia. I just don’t know how they can think, for a moment, that God lied to the Jewish people when He said they are the apple of His eye, that He will never (note: N-E-V-E-R) forget or forsake them. That unless the heavens above and seas below are measured they will not stop being His people.

But, despite all that God said, these Replacement Theologists think that the Jews are rejected and that they, the Born Again Christians, are better than the Jews. And not just better on Earth, but better in God’s eyes, too.

In Romans, Shaul wrote to the Gentiles warning them against bragging about their salvation and becoming proud and arrogant. He reminded them that if God was willing to lop off a natural branch to graft them in, how much more will He be willing to lop off a branch that never belonged! And how much easier will the natural branch be able to be grafted back in, which is the plan. And when God makes a plan, He sticks to it, and it gets done.

We need to remember that we are all sinners, and no matter what particular sin you do the most, from telling lies, to murder, to adultery, to homosexuality, to stealing, to refusing to celebrate the festivals, to being unforgiving, to …well, the list goes on and on, doesn’t it? The point is that no matter whether or not you are “saved”, you are no better a person than anyone else.

Yeshua warned His Talmudim (Disciples) not to “lord it over each other, as the Gentiles do” but that whomever wants to be the greatest must be the least. If you want to know how a truly saved person should be, he or she should be humble.

Before I was saved, I was a sinner who rationalized my sins; now, I am a sinner who regrets my sins. And because I have asked God’s forgiveness, and accepted the sacrificial death of Yeshua, who I acknowledge as my/the Messiah, I am “saved” from the spiritual consequences of my sinfulness. By the way, note that I am saved from the spiritual consequences- sin still causes injury and will always have serious consequences in the natural world.

Replacement Theology is a lie from the pit of Sheol. All I can say about it is this: in the vision (revelation) given to Yochanan when he was on Patmos Yeshua warned against the Synagogue of Satan. In the Greek, synagogue doesn’t mean a Jewish place of worship. That is a modern meaning. The word refers to a gathering, or collection. You could have a synagogue of chairs, of rocks, or a synagogue of people with a common purpose. The pagan temples were synagogues. So, a “Synagogue of Satan”, in First Century terminology, meant a group of people who were of Satan. Yeshua also went on to define who these people are: they are people who say they are Jews but are not.

Gee, that sounds like the exact definition of Replacement Theologists- people claiming to be Jews who aren’t Jews.

Whether you are a Replacement Theologist or a Gentile who has been grafted in and appreciates God’s wonderful gift of Grace that He made available to you, unless your blood is Jewish blood passed down from your parents and grandparents, you are an adopted son or daughter of Abraham. You are a member of the Family of God, if you will, but an adopted one. The Jews are God’s chosen people- not chosen because they are better, but because they are no better. In fact, in some ways, they are worse. Throughout our history we have been stiff-necked, we have rejected God over and over, and the ultimate rejection is, truthfully, that congregationally (pardon the pun) we have rejected our own Messiah. And, to make it even more embarrassing, the Gentiles have welcomed Him. Doesn’t sound like anything to brag about to me. But we are still God’s chosen- He is absolutely clear, with no chance of mistake, and repeated throughout His Word, He reminds us that despite how stupid we have been and still are, despite how stubborn, despite how foolish, and despite how adulterous we have been over the Millennia, He will always accept us back when we do T’Shuvah and just as God always has been, is, and always will be, we (Jewish people) have been, are, and always will be God’s chosen people.

Chosen not because we are better, but chosen because of one man’s faithfulness, and the faithfulness of many others after him, and the continued faithfulness of the Messianic community within Judaism. And the faithfulness of the “mainstream” Jewish people- don’t think that not accepting Messiah Yeshua means that all Jews are faithless. Most are just ignorant of the truth because they have been taught that Yeshua is not the Messiah. They are just what Yeshua called them- lost sheep. But they have not lost their faith in God or His promise of a Messiah- they faithfully wait. They just don’t realize, yet, His true identity.

Being saved should make us better to other people, but it doesn’t make us better than other people. And it certainly doesn’t make you a “Jew” if you are saved.

Be appreciative for God’s plan of salvation, partake in it wholly and joyfully, and help others to find their way back to God through Messiah Yeshua. But never, never, never think you are better than anyone because you are saved. You, I, all of us- we are still sinners, and being saved makes us no better than anyone else in the world.

It just makes us saved.