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Messianic World From A Christian Perspective

To our Christian friends! Welcome!

Messianic teachings frequently are questioned by people coming from Christian churches. 1 Peter 3:15 tells us to always be ready to provide a defense to everyone who asks and to give an account for the hope that is in us with gentleness and reverence. This article is an attempt to do just that by answering many of the common questions we receive.

Christians usually acknowledge that God required the Jews to keep many commandments in the Old Testament they like to refer to as the “Ceremonial Torah” – this being much of what is written in Leviticus, Deuteronomy and a few other places in the Torah. However, they believe the New Testament has done away with this requirement and interpret many New Testament scriptures to say as much. So, these questions naturally come up when they see Messianics keeping the Sabbath, keeping the Jewish Festivals, and avoiding pork and shellfish.

So, let’s look into this, but first, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of the Jews who were living in the first century. That is, before Yeshua came and the New Testament was written, their scriptures were only the Old Testament. So, from the Old Testament, point to a scripture that describes what one must do in order to be saved.

Well, it really never puts it that way at all. However, there are many laws with things to do and things to avoid doing. Some violations could be assuaged by offering sacrifices, some required banishment and others required executions, but it actually doesn’t seem all that clear about what one has to do or not do in order to be saved in the afterlife.

However, you would think that someone being stoned to death for violating God’s Torah is probably not a person in God’s good graces, right? This is probably not what you would call righteousness, right? This is not a saved person, is it? Well, the opposite side of that coin would be that to stay in God’s good graces, you would follow His Torah, right? That’s what you have to do in order to be saved, right?

Frankly, I wouldn’t blame the first-century Jews too much for thinking this. But is it correct? Is that what the Old Testament teaches about righteousness? Well, maybe not. Genesis 15:6 says of Abram that “he believed in יהוה (YHWH), and He reckoned it to him as righteousness” (NASB). So, the requirement is believing in יהוה and not obeying all the laws? In fact, this was said of Abram before he was circumcised in Genesis 17:11. He was an uncircumcised man when God called him righteous.

But, if this is what is required, then why is it not mentioned more often? The reason is likely that it was widely understood at the time most of the really instructional parts of the bible were written. Most of the instructions come from the five books of Moses that were written during a relatively short period in the grand scheme of history. Much of what constitutes the rest of the Old Testament was history, poetry, and prophets. And even the last of that was over 400 years before the time of Messiah. So, the people of the first century were at least 400 years removed and really more like over 1400 years removed from the instructional books of Moses.

That is a lot of time for a society to change. The people went through a great deal of time and circumstances. They conquered the Holy Land, mixed with the idol worshipers, lost ten northern tribes, were captured by, sent to, and returned from Babylon, conquered by the Greeks, and then the Romans. So, is it possible that something that was obvious to the Exodus generation had become obscured over this great expanse of time and circumstances? That is, over the centuries, the Jews lost the concept of being saved by believing in God and fell into the error that keeping all these rules was what caused their salvation. Seems plausible.

Additionally, over the centuries, the religious leaders created many new rules (i.e. laws) that they required the people to follow. They said people had to follow all these laws – God’s laws and their laws – in order to be saved. Many of their man-made laws violated the spirit of God’s Torah, and some even violated the letter of God’s Torah. It is frequently these changes and additions to God’s Torah that Yeshua and the Apostles were speaking against. They were not speaking against God’s Torah but of the erroneous man-made laws. This is a somewhat subtle point that Christians frequently miss, so they think Yeshua and the Apostles are trying to do away with all laws, both man’s laws and God’s laws. This is not so and forms one of the basic themes of Messianic interpretations of New Testament scriptures.

Actually, there are many concepts in the bible that are just simply not explained in complete detail from start to finish. For example, when Yeshua says, “If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself…”(John 14:3 NASB), that should jump off the page at you as a reference to the traditional Jewish betrothal/wedding ceremony. There are many other brief comparisons to this ancient ritual, but the bible never details all the steps involved from start to finish in any organized way in one spot. But these are known and can be easily learned to greatly understand the fuller inferences that both Yeshua and the Apostles are deliberately making.

Similarly, the concept of the blood covenant is frequently referenced and used as a teaching tool to help us understand our relationship with God. When we read that Jonathan gave David his robe (1 Sam 18:4), we should recognize this as one of the typical symbols of men who made a blood covenant with each other. However, all the symbols involved with a blood covenant are never explained in complete detail in the bible. Why not? Because it was a concept that was well understood by those who originally received this information. In fact, neither Abraham nor the Jews developed the concept of a blood covenant. It was a concept ubiquitous to all the peoples of the ancient near east.

In fact, many concepts are alluded to but not explained in great detail because they were understood by the people at that time, such as sowing seeds, reaping, shepherding, making wine, pressing olive oil, threshing grain, etc.

So, it is plausible that the reason the concept of righteousness coming from believing in יהוה is not given great lengths of scripture in the Old Testament is because it was understood by the original audience. However, we should be careful not to take a few scriptures and use them to overturn a great many other scriptures. Is that what we are trying to do with Genesis 15:6? Well, there would be a greater concern about doing this if it wasn’t for many New Testament scriptures that drive this point home.

Romans 4:3 (NAS) says, “For what does the Scripture say? “And Abraham believed G-d, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” The same thing is said in Romans 4:9 (NAS): “… Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.” In fact, Paul continues with this theme throughout Hebrews 11 and others.

Here is a brief excerpt from Hebrews 11 (NAS):

3 By faith we understand…
4 By faith Abel offered to G-d a better sacrifice…
5 By faith, Enoch was taken up…7 By faith No’akh
8 By faith Abraham…
9 By faith he lived…
11 By faith even Sarah herself received…
20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob…
21 By faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons…
22 By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the exodus…
23 By faith Moses…
24 By faith Moses…
27 By faith he left Egypt…
28 By faith he kept the Passover…
29 By faith they passed through the Red Sea…
30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down…
31 By faith Rahab…
32 And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who by faith…

Faith, FaithFaith

It has always been by faith! So why did the Jews think they could earn their salvation by doing things God told them to do? They couldn’t. And we can’t either. This was an error not stated in scripture that they fell into over the centuries (nay, millennia), and the New Testament spends considerable time trying to pull the first-century Jews out of this error. However, correcting this error doesn’t mean throwing out God’s directions to us with the throwing out of this error. He is not changing what is stated in the Old Testament. This is one of the keys to understanding the New Testament that Messianics hold, different from what most Christians believe.

In short, Christians say the New Testament changes the Old Testament, but Messianics say the New Testament explains the Old Testament further without doing away with it. It is possible to add additional explanation to something without changing the original or contradicting it. For example, I might tell you there is an office building across the street from me. And then the next day I might tell you it is a ten-story office building. And then the next day, I might tell you there is a lawyer’s office on the tenth floor. I have provided successively further explanation of the office building without changing or contradicting the earlier statements. However, if I later told you there is a doctor’s office on the eleventh floor, then I have contradicted or changed my previous statement. The question is, does the New Testament do this? Does it change what is said in the Old Testament? Christians say yes, but Messianics say no.

Click here for “Common Questions from Christianity,” a detailed look at some key New Testament scriptures where Messianic understanding differs from many traditional Christian interpretations.

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