This is a proposed guide for the newly emerging Branch of Jesse, the Jews who are coming to the knowledge and faith in the Jewish Messiah. He was among us, is here now with us, and is yet to return to us: Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus Christ. You are one of the promised signs of the last days, in both the reestablishing of the state of Israel and the emergence of your faith in Yeshua. May God's blessing and grace rest upon you, and guide you in your quest to define what it means to be a truly Jewish believer. I hope that the following suggestions may prove to be of value to you, and a guide for reconciliation between us.
We recognize the Decalogue in the Torah:
Exodus 20 & Deuteronomy 5
1. I am the Lord, your God, whom alone you shall worship.
2. Don't set up any false gods to follow or to offer sacrifice.
3. Respect, and don't misrepresent me, or use my name for your own purposes.
4. I gave you a day off from work, enjoy it wisely and be grateful to remember Me.
5. Love and respect your parents, and treat your family right.
6. Don't choose to kill any person, nor by malice wound their spirit.
7. Love your spouse, and always respect the holy vows of marriage.
8. Don't take what belongs to another, without their consent.
9. Don't lie about other people, neither to shift blame nor for personal gain.
10. Don't envy another person's bound relationships, nor desire anyone else's wealth or possessions.
And the Commandments restated by the Master in the Gospels:
A. Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all of your heart, mind, strength and soul.
B. You must love your neighbor as yourself, including your enemies.
And those He affirmed for those who wanted to follow Him in his own time:
C. Luke 6:31, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
D. H. "Therefore, be merciful, even as your Father in Heaven is merciful."
E. Mark 10:17-27 (21) "Go sell all you have, and give to the poor, so that you will have treasure in Heaven, then come, follow me."
F. Luke 9:23, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, pick up his cross daily, and follow me."
G. Love all who belong to Christ, as He loves us, even to the point of sacrifice. "Love one another, as I have loved you."
H. Make the Jews jealous of the way kindness and compassion is shared among us, and share it also with them. "So even as you have done to one of these, the least of my brethren, so you have done to me."
According to the first Apostolic council, held in 50 AD in Jerusalem, a Gentile need not become a Jew in order to follow Christ, but he must abstain from:
1. eating meats sacrificed to idols
2. consuming blood
3. eating any animal that was strangled
4. fornication
Although they may choose to follow the customs, and become as the circumcised Jews, if they wish to try to fulfill the Law as Jesus did.
Further, one may assume, the Gentiles must at the very least continue to observe the Law of Noah, as found in Genesis, chapter 9:
1. Do not have any idols before God.
2. Do not eat from a living animal.
3. Do not steal.
4. Do not murder.
5. Do not commit sexual immorality.
6. Do not blaspheme.
7. Set up courts of Law & Justice.
But most importantly, we have the central Truth that God has given us through Moses, and which we obey by our faith in Yeshua: "I have set before you this day a choice: the Way of Death, or the Way of Life. Choose Life."
If you are a Jewish believer in Jesus as the Messiah, you may feel free to continue to observe whichever mitzvot and customs of the Torah as are meaningful to you. But at the same time, remember, just as old wine skins can not be expected to retain the new wine of the Spirit, nor does one pour a proven vintage into old jars, used for an earlier production, or the flavor of the wine will be spoiled. Rather, a fine wine must be decanted into new, clean bottles from which your guests may be served with confidence.
You must not be whitewashed versions of the Pharisees and their leaven. Rather seek to be transformed by the renewing of your minds in accord with the Kingdom of Heaven. If you choose to sink your roots into the ancient milieu when our Lord was present on Earth, look to the beginnings of the early Church, and the resources and writings that were circulated among them. You can use those to formulate your own particular brand of practice and applications. There were several versions of Hebrew Christians trying to maintain their identity among the early believers, and the teachings from these may be recycled and adapted as bottles to fit our modern times. The Didache was nearly made a part of the permanent canon, and is still useful for comparison and study.
However, your theology must need to agree and align itself to the established creeds of the Christian Church, or at least strive to avoid contradictions and schism. You may ignore the few exceptional precepts that forbid you to practice your Jewish ethnicity. And we shall assume that you will accept and acknowledge your salvation by grace through faith, and your commitment to Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of the Living God. Such is the Truth which has been revealed to us by the Holy Spirit, and given as the essential core of the faith. It is for all of us to seek to build the Kingdom of God upon that certainty as a steady rock and foundation.
We are not saved by our works, but we do works because we love God and want to please Him by our obedience. For you, as God's chosen people, your works remain as a sign of your commitment to cleave unto God alone, and to love Him with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength. And in continuing to observe the Law, you do so proclaiming that this is the obedience that the Lord has asked of you, for his pleasure. And yet, the grace and loving forgiveness of Jesus are the only source of salvation for any of us, because no one but Jesus has ever kept the Law perfectly.
After that, we must try to always be in unity by our faith in Yeshua, whether we are members of the Church as Christians or be Jews transformed by his call to grace. It doesn't matter whether you call yourself "Messianic Jews" or "Jewish Christians," so long as you recognize the creeds. You can keep your traditional point of view, and claim the promises that were made to the Patriarchs, even maintaining your own ideas regarding original sin, or the meaning of salvation, etc. Where the Church admits a variety of valid answers to theological questions, you are of course entitled to your own.
In this way, God is still keeping his promise that the Jews shall become a kingdom of priests. And many gentiles may come to you to learn from your wisdom, and find their atonement with the Lord. Perhaps, in the absence of Temple sacrifices, you may preach the efficacy of daily self examination and teshuva offered with a contrite heart, especially in light of your long delayed recognition of your calling from the Lord.
We are still waiting for the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God in history, and for the renewal of the Heavens and the Earth. No one yet is entirely certain of what that shall mean, but perhaps it may refer to the soon to come age in which our observable Heavens may become homes for humanity to live and work in space. If so, it may be our job to restore our Earth to as pristine a condition as we can make of it. We have done so much harm to the cradle of our origins, it would only be proper to try to replenish it and clean up the results of our wasteful disregard. We might even be able to redesign and restore the Garden of Eden if we want to try.
Answering objections:
The New Testament, and the people who truly know Yeshua are not antisemitic. Christians are not a replacement for Jews, and Jesus wants all of his people to follow him. From the very beginning, the Kingdom of God was a Jewish renewal movement, not a program to start a new religion. Even though He knew He would be rejected, He gave us the chance to accept Him and be the catalyst to change the world.
It is time for the brothers and sisters of Jesus to arise: 1) believe in your own Mashiach, and 2) create your own Jewish style of liturgy, and 3) follow all of the Law of Moses. The problem lies in the leaven of Pharisaical rituals and the minutiae in the Mishna and Talmud. Those distract us from seeking a personal relationship with our awesome God, and lead us to think that we can be good enough by our own efforts. Salvation is a free gift to those who choose to believe. We still fail to be truly righteous, and Jesus knows that, but He still tells us to "Go, and sin no more," so that we will really try to stand up and walk. Some of might be able to hobble slowly and unsteadily all the way home, so long as we are not burdened unnecessarily.
We need to recognize that God came to save us, and to lead us in the Kingdom, in person as a man, so that we could relate to Him. He chose to make Himself the perfect sacrifice for our sins, and thus be able to unconditionally forgive all who would believe. He did this to show how much He loves us, and to give us the sign that would prove how God approves and gave Him the authority to teach as He did. That proof was given when Jesus did the uniquely impossible, to rise again from the dead on the third day. The empty tomb is the sign of Jonah.
The crucified Christ is the faith equivalent of the serpent on a pole that Moses raised in the desert. All who keep their eyes on the cross and Jesus are protected from the serpents, the demons of Satan who wish to poison and corrupt and enslave us.
He came to save us from a much worse oppressor than any foreign army or political occupying Empire. We were waiting for the wrong thing; the wrong expectations of what HaMashiach would do. He saves us from being claimed by Satan and dragged into Hell.
The wheat appears to be ripe and the yield is bountiful, but there is a need for many harvesters. The time is near for the last great Reaping, and the division of wheat from the weeds sown among us by the enemy. It is our own commission to go out and call as many of our people as we can. They must Wake up and Believe! The Prince is coming!
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