An inheritance with Israel -- Berkowitz

Michelangelo's Ezekiel

Lest there be any doubt about how the new relationship between Gentile believers and the covenanted children of Israel, let us turn to Ezekiel 47. Here the prophet looks far ahead of his own time, and even of our present age. He prophecies concerning the coming Messianic age, when Yeshua will be seated on the throne of David in Jerusalem. This will also be the time, according to Ezekiel, when the final land inheritance is divided among the people of Israel.

However, we see in Ezekiel 47:21-23 that there will be others desiring to live among the people of Israel. These are Gentile believers. The Lord at that time will instruct Israel with the following word regarding the distribution of the inheritance:

    "You are to distribute this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. You are to allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the aliens who have settled among you and who have children. You are to consider them as native-born Israelites; along with you are to be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. In whatever tribe the alien settles, there you are to give them his inheritance," declares the sovereign Lord.

Do you see what God is teaching here? He's instructing the Israelites regarding the relationship with those who have come to live among them. They are so grafted in that they are to be considered native-born Israelites, with full rights of inheritance. One thing this implies for our study is that if non-Jewish believers may be entitled to a parcel of land among the people of Israel and the Messianic Kingdom, surely they can be permitted to enjoy the blessings of the Torah among the people of Israel right now!

Source:  Berkowitz, A. and D. (2000). An inheritance with Israel. Torah Rediscovered. FFOZ, Inc.

Knowing Jesus

I have just been reading Jacob Fronczak's book Yeshua Matters, a book that describes his journey in discovering the historical Jesus.

He writes:

Christians generally understand that they should be like Jesus Christ, but most of us don't know enough about Jesus to make this aspect of discipleship a daily reality in our lives.

There is no Christianity without Jesus Christ. He is at the centre of everything we believe in. He is our connection with God. We literally worship and adore him.

But we hardly know anything about him.

But how can we be like someone we don't know anything about?

Think about it for a while, and even scarier questions begin to emerge. What if Jesus isn't anything like what most of us think?

What if the real Jesus doesn't look anything like the stained glass windows and children's book illustrations? Even worse – what if we're not really following his teachings? What if Jesus wouldn't agree with either of our political parties' platforms? What if the core of his message is different then we think it is? What if we think we are doing a great job following him but in reality we would have been kicked out of the upper room?

What if we have lost a really pivotal idea of who Jesus is?

Pick up any popular book on American Christianity and you'll read about problems. The church has problems. Christianity has problems. We aren't functioning correctly. In some way, we're broken; we're sick. People are leaving churches, youth aren't keeping their faith into their college years, pastors are suffering from burnout, and church doors are closing all over the country.

Some of our churches are experiencing great numerical success, but statisticians like George Barna remind us that even as the majority of Americans claim to have had a conversion experience, and even some churches experience huge growth, only a tiny fraction of professed believers are truly committed to the faith, and most churches are struggling. If anything, the Western church appears to be shrinking. We're getting weaker, smaller. Slowly but surely, we're circling the drain.

Spare me the Bible verses about the narrow path if you find. I have read the New Testament, in the New Testament Church wasn't sick or dying. It grew exponentially. It rocked its world. It set in motion a movement that now encompasses the globe. Why don't we generally see that kind of movement in the church down the street?

Every book I have read has a different solution. Maybe we don't love hard enough. Maybe we don't pray hard enough. Maybe we don't evangelise enough. Maybe we haven't fully grasped God's grace. May be we're not satisfied enough involved. Maybe we're not committed to making disciples. Maybe we have failed to engage the culture. Maybe we have forgotten what our mission is. In short, these are all problems. But what is the source of these problems? Why aren't we doing all those things?

To me these problems sound like symptoms. The church at large hasn't found the real root of the issue, the real disease. Not yet.

I have been going to church for longer than I can remember. I have wondered, along with everyone else, what the problem is. Why doesn't our church looked like Acts 2 or 1 Corinthians 13 or Philippians 4? Why aren't church attendees becomingconverts and why aren't converts becoming disciples? Why do people in in church complain so much? Why do they leave at the drop of a hat? What's with the backbiting and shallowness? Where is the depth? Where is the passion? Where is the commitment? Where is the community? Where is the Love?

As committed Christians, we are so close to the answer. We are on the cusp of it. We are standing on the solution, and we don't even know it. We sing about it and church and hear about it from the pulpit.

The solution is Jesus, and the problem is that we have lost sight of who Jesus is.

Not only that, we have lost sight of so much of what Jesus came to do, of what Jesus' core message was, and even to whom Jesus' message was originally delivered.

In place of the real, living Jesus, we have substituted a theological formula, a set of beliefs, a litany of dogma. We have substituted the apostles' Creed for the teachings of the apostles. We have substituted the Nicene Creed for the person of Christ. I am not saying that beliefs are bad – they are good, they are necessary, and Christians cannot afford to be slouches when it comes to theology – but theology and beliefs are no substitute for a real relationship with a real person, the real historical Jesus.

The only solution to Christianity's problem, the only cure for her illness, is to bring back a personal, intimate knowledge of Christ, to really encounter him, to meet him afresh, to get to know him as the first Christians did. We have to know Jesus better. If necessary, we have to sacrifice everything else in order to know Jesus better.

There is no other solution. There is no way to sustain a Christianity that is not fully, completely centred on the historical person of Jesus Christ, and there is no way to centre our lives on Jesus Christ if we don't take the time and effort to know Jesus as well as we possibly can.

Jesus is all we have – our only connection with the father. If we get one thing right, it had better be Jesus.

"On Christ, the solid rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand."

If you are a disciple of Christ, then wherever your spiritual journey takes you from here, it must be informed by an accurate conception of Jesus. The picture of Jesus in your mind must match the real historical person of Jesus. In this chaotic world of full of differing and contradictory beliefs about Jesus, you cannot afford to be any less than crystal clear on the identity of Jesus of Nazareth.

Today, thanks to the efforts of centuries of biblical scholarship, we know that Jesus was a practising Jew. We know that our faith is built on nothing less than the blood and righteousness of a Jewish rabbi from a backwater town in Israel.

And I think this matters. Yeshua matters. The fact that Jesus was a practising Jew matters. It changes how we see him, how we here his teachings, how we follow him. It changes how we see ourselves and how we see his people, the Jewish people. It changes how we live and how we do church. It changes our message. Or at least it should.

Pages 143-146.

Dwight Pryor: Unity Not Uniformity

Finally, Supersessionism suffers from what I would call an unfortunate reductionism in the distinction between Jew and Gentile.  This is based mostly on a misapplication of a passage from Paul's letter to the Church in Galatia.

Paul states tha tin Messiah there is "neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, free or slave" (Galatians 3:28).  This statement was written in a polemical setting and a particular context, in which some were arguing that Gentiles who have faith in the Messiah are not in fact part of covenant Israel:  and to become part of the covenant people they must become proselytes to Judaism, i.e., be circumcised.  The Apostle Paul counters:  To the contrary, because of what God has accomplished in Messiah, in fact believing Gentiles are co-heirs, fellow sharers, and part of Isrel's commonwealth.  They are in full covenant standing.

When you take this text to say that Messiah has abolished all distinction between Jew and Gentile you are violating the witness of Scripture.  Paul continues to make this distinction in his letters -- because the distinction between Jews and Gentile was established by God Himself.

Moses states it poetically:  When God allotted the portions of the earth to the sons of Adam, He did so in rleationship to the sons of Israel, (Deuteronomy 32:8).  Through Abraham God intended a mutuality of blessing between Jew and Gentile.  For there to be a blessing, there must be distinction, an 'other' that is to be blessed.

The point is that from Paul's perspective the division between Jew and Gentile has been removed in Messiah -- the divisiveness -- but not the distinction.  That will continue not only in the Church, but even unto the final fulfillment of Scripture.  When we come to the consummation of all things, Revelation records that in the New Jerusalem the gates will be named after the Tribes of Israel,  and to Jerusalem will come the kings of the Gentiles, bearing their gifts, their glory (Revelations 21:12, 24).

God intended from the beginning for the nations to find their blessing through His covenant people Israel.   Of course Jesus fulfills that promise in large measure. But fulfilment is more than a discharge of duty; it is filling-full of a relationship. In such a 'filling-full' can occur again.  Even his Jesus fulfilled the commandment to love God and love your neighbour, so we too must the phone. Everytime engage in loving and kind it is one to another we are fulfilling the Torah.

When therefore we reduce or abolish the God-given distinction between Jew and Gentile, between Israel and the nations, we engage in a kind of forced uniformity, whereas the Bible speaks of unity.

There is a difference between unity and uniformity. In Galatia there were those (whomever they were) saying that the only way Gentiles could become part of the covenant people was to become Jews, i.e., be circumcised. Ironically the church went to the opposite extreme, claiming that the only way Jews could become part of the new covenant people (the Church) was to cease being a Jew and in effect becoming a Gentile. Jewishness no longer had a relevance; in fact it was an obstacle to true faith.

The problem we face is twofold: as Protestants, invariably our faith t and ends to be individualistically focused and other-worldly oriented. The Hebraic point of view by contrast tends to speak of corporate faithfulness, with a this-world orientation.

As I sat at the same time ago, questions are keenly interested in "going up" -- in getting people up and out of this world. People often ask me when the rapture is going to occur. My response was: "I don't know. But this I know: While you are so concerned about going up, God is passionate about coming down!"

Look at this from right to left from the beginning, in Genesis, to the end, in Revelation, God is coming down. And at the end, the New Jerusalem, is it going up? No, it is coming down. God is perenially in pursuit of a people.  According to the apostle Paul, we Gentiles have experienced the mercies of God in order that we could be joined to that people and and His covenant story in the earth.  And that story from beginning to end involves Israel.

When all things are said and done, in the final consummating act of God's creation, the chief player will not be the church, nor will it be the nations. It will be Israel.  Through Israel, God says, "I will show myself wholly to the nations" (Ezekiel 36:23). And together the nations shall stream up to Jerusalem -- for blessing, fellowship and the fullness of worship of God who will take up permanent habitation in Zion.

When the Son of Man comes, he returns not to London, impressive as it is, nor to New York. He returns to Jerusalem.  To there the nations will go up. There the fullness of God's intended mutuality of blessing Jew and Gentile will be consummated. For too long the Church has tried to expropriate the blessings to itself apart from Israel.

Sometimes Israel itself, as Abraham Heschel said, is a messenger who has forgotten the message. I'm not speaking today about the spiritual state of a particular Jew. Nor am I speaking about the merits of the current administration of the State of Israel. I'm talking about God -- the God who has a purpose for a covenant people, and who in His sovereign will and freedom of choice elected to identify His name forever with the Jewish people.

We who worship the living and true God, we who have been brought near to him through Messiah's sacrifice, surely we must never suggest that God has rejected the Jews, replaced Israel or revoked the Torah. As Paul insists, "God forbid!"

Source: Pryor, D (7 February 2007). A different God? An edited and amended transcript of a lecture given at Salters Hall London. Pages 14-17.

Faith in the Old Testament

The idea of faith is threaded throughout the OT.

The OT concept of faith is broader than the commonly held idea of faith. The commonly held idea is a a mental or cognitive assent to a belief.

The Hebrew word for "Emunah" is often better translated as Faithfulness of which the majority definition of "faith" is but a subset.

Thus in Hebraic thought, if you have faith, you act a certain way. And if you acted in a certain way, you are exhibiting faith.

This doesn't mean that the Hebraic view eliminated the cognitive assent since the idea of having the law written on your heart is clearly an allusion to an inward state, which should result in outward obedience.

Thus there is no clash between Paul and James regarding faith and works. They are both likely to be dealing with the corruption of the idea of emunah by an over-emphasis of the Greek understanding of faith.

E P Sanders argues that the widely held idea that 1st Century Rabbinic Judaism is based on a false premise of justification by works is incorrect. If true, then we have made a misjudgement that has far reaching consequences on our understanding of Pauline thought.

Instead of viewing Paul as the Hellenised Jew who reformed Judaism by recasting the mode by which justification is achieved, how would we view Paul's writings if we thought of him merely as a Rabbi who believed his Messiah had come?

"Who is a Jew?" Revisited

My home group has been studying the Book of Galatians for over a year and a half now. Its a book that can be easily misunderstood. Most misunderstand the question that Paul is trying to answer. He isn't trying to answer a dilemma between Law and Grace. Paul is trying to answer the question: Who is a Jew?

I've finally found a succinct summary of the position I have been developing on Christian Identity. It turns out that Spurlock from Bereans Online has already beaten me to it and saved me a lot of time:

• Eph 2:1-10 Gentiles become a part of Israel by grace and faith.
• Eph 2:11-12 Are no longer Gentiles. Not "commonwealth" but citizenship enjoying the full rights and benefits of any other member of Israel.
• Eph 2:13 Ex-Gentiles have been brought near
• Eph 2:14-16 The dividing well having been removed by Christ. Spurlock refers to the "18 measures." What are they?
• Eph 2:17-21 Peace not just between God and Mankind but also peace within the house of God.
• Eph 3:1-6 Thus the ex-Gentiles are part of the same body, fellow heirs with the incumbent members and partakers of the same promises.

One king, One people, One Torah: Echad. The fulfilment of John 17:16-22.

If this is true, then even more questions arise, here's one or two:

1. If all believers are to obey the Torah, then what are we to do with 1 Corinthians 7:17-24?
2. Should all Christians be making Aliyah?
3. Where should Christians then stand on the Middle Eastern peace process?

For further reading:  who_is_a_jew.pdf (bethimmanuel.org)

Stephen Sizer in Christchurch

Stephen Sizer

I attended a "dialogue" between Richard Neville and Stephen Sizer at Laidlaw College in Christchurch New Zealand last night.

They were brought together to debate what the future of Israel might be in the "Last Days" from a biblical perspective.

Stephen Sizer is the Vicar of Christ Church Anglican Church in England.  He is well-known as a proponent of peace in the Middle East and his stiff criticism of Israeli treatment of Arabs has positioned him in many eyes as an enemy of the Israeli people.

Richard Neville is a linguist and an expert on biblical Hebrew and Greek.  He is a senior lecturer at Laidlaw.  Although not an expert in Biblical Eschatology, he was asked to bring an opposing view in this dialog.  The dialog had been held a few days before in Auckland.

Sizer alleged that Christian Zionists such as John Hagee and Tim La Haye were expecting an Armageddon and their warmongering was likely to bring it about. He argued that Christian Zionism treated the Jews as God's special, chosen people.  Financial and miltary support for Israel was fueled by this misguided idea.  This support allowed Israel to build an apartheid state, maintain its Wall which was "officially" built for security reasons and to continue its occupation of Palestine.  In Sizer's view, God intended only to build one People of God and that entry into this People was by faith and not by physical birth.  The Church is Israel.  Consequently the Jews were no longer relevant as a special people and should be treated the same as any other (heathen) nation or people group.  Although the land had been given to Abraham, possession of it was dependent on their faithfulness to God.  Their lack of faithfulness meant that they had forfeited their right to it.  The geo-political land of Israel on this earth had served its purpose and was no longer relevant.  For Christians, their home was heaven above, not an earthly one.  Since the Jews are just another heathen people group then Christians should treat the Jews and the Palestinians even-handedly, expecting them to adhere to standards of justice and respect human rights just as much as any other race or nation.

Neville reviewed Ezekiel's oracles relating to a glorious and triumphant restoration of Israel.  This had fuelled Israel's expectation of a Messiah who would restore Israel to autonomy as a Nation belonging to God.  It was difficult to maintain from the passage that this restoration was merely allegorical or spiritual in nature.  A physical restoration was what was in Ezekiel's view.  These prophecies have not been physically fulfilled.  What Ezekiel had in mind has yet to come into being.  Some authors have claimed that such a view was held by only a small extremist minority of scholars and theologians.  Neville produced a lengthy list of respected evangelical and Catholic scholars who endorsed the idea that a physical restoration of Israel had been prophecied.  He quoted N T Wright who admitted that his opinion that only a spiritual restoration of Israel was described, is a minority one. 

Sizer felt that Ezekiel's prophecy had already been fulfilled in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah but Neville pointed out that this restoration was hardly the glorious and triumphant restoration described by Ezekiel.  In fact, those who were old enough to recall the original Temple wept when they saw the comparatively humble second temple.  Sizer admitted that as far as whether or not the modern state of Israel was a fulfilment of biblical prophecy, he was "agnostic", which I guess is a high-brow way of saying "I don't know."  In his view, a genuine fulfilment would result in an Israel with a much higher set of ethics and more compassionate behaviour in respect of its neighbours.  Sizer then pointed out that Ezekiel also foretold that sacrifices would be carried out at the restored temple. Do we really want to restore temple sacrifices? Hebrews clearly says that they had ended with Jesus' sacrifice.

Neville thought that if Sizer's issue was his objection to Israel's alleged unjust behaviour toward Palestinians, then he should focus on the question of how one people should treat another rather than debating Christian identity.  I agree.

I also agree with Sizer's view that Christians are citizens of Israel.  However, Sizer then concludes that the Jews are irrelevant.  Yet in the book of Romans, Paul clearly says that this is not so (Romans 11:1).  Paul says though their part of the branch has been broken from the Olive Tree, their calling and gifting is irrevocable (Romans 11:29).  The branch can be grafted back in (Romans 11:23-24). 

Sizer's claim that Israel has built an apartheid state undermines his credibility.  Arabs willingly serve in the Israeli armed forces, Arabs take part in all strata of Israeli society, even serving in parliament and the judiciary.  When an Arab family was evicted from their home in East Jerusalem because a returning Jewish refugee could show bona fide ownership papers for the house, she made a commitment on camera that she would attend an Israeli university, train as a lawyer to seek redress.  She could never hope to do this in a real apartheid state. 

He doubts that the Security Wall was indeed built to maintain security.  Again he need merely look at the numbers of people dying because of suicide bombings before and after the wall had been completed to see how effective the Wall was in preserving life.  Yes, the Wall creates hardship.  But better to be alive and facing difficulty than mourning another death.

He concedes that there is a small minority comprised of extremists that wish to end the occupation by terrorism.  Unfortunately that position doesn't stand scrutiny with the majority of Arabs living on the West Bank and Gaza approving the use of deadly force to destroy Israel.  In 2010, a terrorist machine-gunned 19 teenagers in a Jewish school, 8 were killed.  The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 84% of Gaza and West Bank inhabitants approved of the attack.  In the same poll 64% approved of Hamas' random rocket attacks and 75% agreed that their leaders should cease negotiating with the Israelis. 

Although billed as a biblical and theology dialogue I was disappointed that Sizer was able to use it as an opportunity to make his political allegations against Israel without anyone having the opportunity to rebut them.  To his credit, Neville restricted his material to the biblical and theological issue.  I suppose the Q&A session was an opportunity for someone in the audience to rebut Sizer's political points but the process chosen by Stephen Graham prevented this from occurring.  The audience were invited to submit questions during an intermission and then they were to be summarised and representative questions were going to be addressed by Sizer and Neville.  No questions relating to Sizer's allegations against Israel were addressed.

Sizer has in some way become embittered by what he has observed of Israeli conduct.  It has jaundiced his view of Israel and he seems no longer able to objectively evaluate Middle Eastern events.

Laidlaw should be applauded for bringing Sizer to New Zealand but they could do better by allowing a more open Q&A discussion period that allowed questions to be taken directly from the floor.  If they had, justice would have been a bit more apparent.

Charity and giving extends the Kingdom of God

Julian the Apostate, the Emperor of Rome

Free markets, individual enterprise, personal responsibility are all good things. Capitalism is a great system that has served mankind well. We owe a considerable amount of our progress to its ability to allocate resources efficiently. In God's economy, there is a fail-safe against Capitalism's principal systemic weakness: wealth tends to concentrate amongst an elite minority. That failsafe is giving. When we give and lend to others in need, with no judgement  attached (Exodus 22:25; Leviticus 25:35) then we bless our neighbours and its power reveals an aspect of the kingdom of God and indeed an aspect of his heart that Capitalism cannot. Mercy has a magnetic quality that draws people to God.

Psalm 116:5–7 (NKJV)
Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; Yes, our God is merciful.
The LORD preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me.
Return to your rest, O my soul, For the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.

When it applied to those yet to profess their allegiance to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,  it was a major influence on Roman society as it encountered the Early church at a time when it was indistinguishable from Judaism:

The impact of this ministry of mercy upon pagans is revealed in the observation of one of Christianity’s worst enemies, the apostate Emperor Julian (332–63). In his day Julian was finding it more difficult than he had expected to put new life into the traditional Roman religion. He wanted to set aside Christianity and bring back the ancient faith, but he saw clearly the drawing power of Christian love in practice: “Atheism (i.e. Christian faith) has been specially advanced through the loving service rendered to strangers, and through their care for the burial of the dead. It is a scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a beggar, and that the godless Galileans care not only for their own poor but for ours as well; while those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render them.”

Shelley, B. L. (1995). Church history in plain language (Updated 2nd ed.) (35–36). Dallas, Tex.: Word Pub.

Hebraic Time v Greek Time

I was given a copy of a chapter from Boman's "Greek Thought and Hebraic Thought."

According to Boman in Greek thought, time stretches out on a line, with the future stretching out before you and the past extending behind you.  The point on which you stand is the present.

In Hebraic thought only the past and the present exist.  The future does not yet exist.  Anything we do is in the present and it shapes the future.

If true, how does this affect our views about predestination?

Who are the Sons of Abraham?

There has been much debate over who are the People of God, the Israel of God, the Sons of Abraham, the Seed of Abraham.

In my view, after many centuries, the People of the World had largely lost their understanding of God and His ways. Israel came into being when a Gentile, Abraham, decided to follow God by faith and became the first member of God’s people.  They were to be called Abraham’s Seed or the Sons of Abraham. 

These people were to become a “blessing” to all the other people of the world. The nature of this blessing is described as being a light to draw all the people of the world back to God. God intended that this nation would eventually encompass all ethnicities as more people came back into covenant fellowship with God. As time passed, God’s people came to be known as Israel. 

Their numbers grew predominantly through natural breeding and as a small number of Gentiles joined their ranks. As further time passed, birth and the signs of the Covenant became “identity markers” that demonstrated membership in this People.   The idea that faith and obedience as the key factor for admission into the People of God, faded  in the People's memory.  

For many, outward tradition had often displaced internal faith and personal engagement with God. Thus the prophets began to speak about “circumcised hearts.” Over time, with Israel being overrun repeatedly by invaders, the fear of assimilation and loss of national identity made many take aggressive action to ward against these dangers. This included, focusing inwardly to preserve the Torah and their national customs; putting up social barriers to prevent social interaction with Gentiles; not developing a missionary theology; and in some quarters, even teaching that the Torah is not for Gentiles.
 
In the conventional Christian view of the Sons of Abraham, 

1. Only the Church are the legitimate Sons of Abraham because it alone is based on faith (Gal 3.7). 
2. Thus the promises to Israel are inherited by the Church (Rom 8.16). 
3. However the Abrahamic (Gen 12), Mosaic (Exo 20) and Davidic Covenants (2 Sa 16) have been replaced by the New Covenant (Jer 31.31).   
4. Under this new covenant, the written Torah has been replaced by a Torah of the Spirit, that is only written upon the heart. (eg. Rom 8.12ff)
5. Any observance of the Torah is obeying the letter of the law and is a reversion to legalism (2 Co 3.4); and undoes the work of Christ (Gal 2.21), who brings into an age of Spirit and Truth (Joh 4.24) versus the prior age of legalism and mindless tradition (Col 2.8).

Replacement Theology is based on these ideas.  It is the notion that Believers in Jesus Christ as the Messiah have replaced the People of Israel as the People of God. Adherents to Replacement Theology hold to the view that the unfulfilled biblical promises made to Israel are now inherited by the Church. The People of Israel and the idea of the State of Israel are no longer relevant in God’s future plans, claiming that all of the world is God’s. 

An alternative view may be fashioned from what I have gleaned from my First Century Hebraic studies:

1. Abraham is the first of many Gentiles who form the People of God by answering His call on their lives with faith and obedience. 
2. His Covenant is the first of several covenants between God and Abraham's Seed.
3. Each covenant has commandments, as well as consequential blessings and curses depending on obedience or disobedience. 
4. Each covenant is between God and Israel
5. Each covenant is enduring and eternal.
6. Each covenant was an expansion of the one preceding it. 
7. No covenant abrogated its predecessor. 
8. Each time Israel fell into disobedience, the covenant was renewed (eg Exo 20 cf Exo 34).
9. The text translated as “new covenant” in Jer 31 could also be translated as “renewed covenant.” 
10. Entry into the People of God has always been based on faith. The OT has always deplored outward obedience in the absence of an inward love of God (Deu 30.6). Such a perspective is not an NT innovation (Col 2.11).
11. The people of God were always to be a nation of kingly priests (Exo 19.6 and 1 Pe 2.9).
12. New entrants to the People of God were to be treated impartially and they were to observe the same Torah as they (Lev 19).  After several generations, these "Aliens" would be indistinguishable from the incumbent believers.
13. The manifestation of the Holy Spirit demonstrated that the traditions of the Jews were false and that God had returned to first principles (Gal 3.5).
14. Circumcision of the flesh was not the means by which Gentiles entered Israel but by faith just as Abraham, the Gentile, had done in the past (Rom 2.29-29; Gal 3.6ff). Thus Circumcision was not a sign of entry (but an act of obedience following entry.

Thus in this formulation, all the covenants that are applicable to the conventional People of Israel are applicable to the People of God as defined here. 

Conclusion

The People of God, are those who respond positively to God's call with faith and obedience. Taking Race into consideration is a red herring. The Seed of Abraham are those who God credits with Righteousness. The Seed of Abraham are the People of God or Israel. Membership of this Nation is based on faith and obedience not race or ethnicity. The culture of these people is shaped by the Bible which sets out God's ways for living. Obedience to the Bible and its commandments is not "legalism" but an act of faith.

Under this formulation, gone are the gymnastics required to figure out which covenants are applicable to "Gentile" believers.  The People of God were all at one time "Gentiles."  For a Gentile is by definition a non-believer.  The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has no grandchildren.

Nicodemus and being "Born Again"

 

Christ crucified between the Virgin and Nicodemus - Michelangelo
(in the Louvre)

I was interested to hear last night at our bible study that there are some distinctly Jewish connotations to the phrase "born again."

Apparently there are six ways one can be born again in Judaism and Jewish culture.  Only the last four were available to Nicodemus:

1. When Gentiles were converted to Judaism, they were said to be "born again."
2. When a man was crowned king, he was said to be "born again."
3. When a Jewish boy becomes bar mitzvah at the age of thirteen, he is said to be "born again."
4. When a Jewish man married, he was said to be "born again."  One of the rules for a member of the Sanhedrin was that he must be married, and Nicodemus was a member of the Sanhedrin, so he was "born again" a second time when he married.
5. When a Jew was ordained a rabbi, he was "born again."
6. Nicodemus was "born again" a fourth time when he became the head of a rabbinical school (the term "a teacher of Israel" is the title for the head of a rabbinical school, John 3:10).

Nicodemus had experienced all the rebirths possible to him as a Jew. But in his interview with Jesus, he was being told that something was lacking in his life. (Source:  "Teaching like Jesus" by La Verne Tolbert, quoting Fruchtenbaum's "Nicodemus, a rabbi's quest."

Logos: Judaism and Christianity Collection

I think understanding Jewish perspectives on law would give considerable insight into Jesus' teaching and also on his comments and debates with the Scribes, Lawyers and other religious authorities of the day.  It would also put to rest the misunderstanding that has arisen over time that Jewish law, both written and oral, are somehow mutually exclusive from Grace as we understand it as Christians.

Without understanding this perspective, passages such as Mat 5.17 and his teaching that we should obey the Rabbis because they "sit in the seat of Moses," are problematic.

For me, exploring these Jewish perspectives has really broadened my understanding and given depth to my investigation into such questions as to who is Israel, who is a Jew, what is legalism, and what is the New Covenant.  The answers to which I have found to be quite influential on one's hermeneutical thought.

I'm glad to see that Logos has gradually built up its resources from Jewish writers who can bring this rich perspective to us believers with a Gentile background.  Prominent amongst these authors is David Flusser. 

He was a professor of Early Christianity and Judaism of the Second Temple Period at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 

Flusser was a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and received the Israel Prize in 1980, for his contributions to the study of Jewish history.  Lawrence Schiffman, chairman of the Skirball department of Hebrew and Judaic studies at New York University, credited him with pioneering "the modern study of Christianity in the state of Israel in a scholarly context".

Flusser was a devout Orthodox Jew who applied his skills in Torah and Talmud to the study of ancient Greek, Roman and Arabic texts, as well as the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He scrutinized the ancient Jewish and Christian texts for evidence of the Jewish roots of Christianity. While critically distinguishing the historical Jesus from the visionary portrayal in the Gospels and other Christian writings, Flusser saw Jesus as an authentic Jew, misunderstood by his followers.

David Satran, a professor of comparative religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said, "Dr. Flusser was rather remarkable in his strong insistence that not only was Jesus a Jew from birth to death, but that Jesus did nothing that could be interpreted as a revolt or questioning of the basic principles of the Judaism at the time."  Personally, Flusser viewed Jesus as a tsadik with keen spiritual insight and a "high self-awareness" that near-contemporaries similarly expressed, such as Hillel in the Talmud and the "Teacher of Righteousness" in certain Dead Sea Scrolls.

Flusser pursued his research at a time when many Jews blamed Christianity for Nazism. During the trial, the Gestapo officer Adolf Eichmann refused to take an oath on the New Testament, insisting he would only swear "in the name of God." Flusser commented in an editorial in the Jerusalem Post: "I do not know who is the God in whose name Eichmann swore, but I am certain that it is neither the God of Israel nor the God of the Christian church. It should now become clear to the strongest Jewish opponents of Christianity that Christianity per se imposes limitations, and that the greatest crime against our people was not committed in the name of the Christian faith".

Flusser published over 1,000 articles in Hebrew, German, English, and other languages. The results of his many academic writings can be found in his book, Jesus (1965), whose augmented second edition The Sage from Galilee (1998) was updated to incorporate his later research and views on Jesus.[1]
 
When Logos released the Judaism and Christianity Collection on pre-pub pricing, and I noticed that Flusser's works were a significant proportion of the collection, then I could hardly refuse to put in an order. I've already read Jesus (1965) as a hard copy but look forward to reading the other two titles, "Judaism and the Origins of Christianity" and "Judaism of the Second Temple Period."

I'm unfamiliar with the other authors so it will be interesting to see what they have to say.

[1] Source:  Wikipedia.

The 3 Giants

In deciding to become Torah observant, especially in an OT sense of the phrase, I've come to identify at least three theological Giants that require overcoming (i.e. developing defensible answers for):

1. What is Legalism, and how is Torah observance not Legalism?


2. Who is a Jew, and what implications does the answer to this question have on me as a Christian?


3. What to do with the Oral Traditions such as Halachah, the Midrashic writings and the Talmudic writings?

Immanuel Kant agrees with Zwirnor

Although he finds it absurd, Immanuel Kant also concludes that Christians must be Jews after following the same logic as Zwirner. This was sent by Anne:

I am reading The God of Israel and Christian Theology by R.Kendall Soulen and found an interesting quote from Immanuel Kant (1793). Kant arguing for an 'enlightenment' understanding of religion, believes that Christianity's retaining the history of the Jews as an essential part of its doctrine, is absurd. He is quoted from his book p. 153 Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone. While the intention of the quote is in support of Kant's argument, I think it is interesting in light of your comments about the Rabbi's (of Burbank?) understanding of Christian/Jew.

" [The] procedure {of appealing to the Jewish Scriptures}, wisely adopted by the first propagators of the teaching of Christ in order to achieve its introduction among the people,is taken as part of the religion itself, valid for all times and peoples, with the result that one is obliged to believe that every Christian must be a Jew whose Messiah has come. "(,italics in original )

Another thinker from another time and another place, and choosing another paradigm, has come to a very similar conclusion to that one which we are considering. Food for thought.

Indeed.

Who is a Gentile?

I mentioned in a previous blog that I was reading the "Rabbi from Burbank" by Isidor Zwirn and Bob Owen.

His story, in many respects, is a poignant one: After being rejected by his fellow Jews for becoming a Christian, he found it difficult to be understood by Christians as well.

One of the problems he found was that Christians would not, could not accept that they were not Gentiles.

"The church people of any denomination I had occasion to meet were all courteous and respectful to me... ...When I appealed to them to search out and discover their own biblical roots in Abraham and Judaism, my words fell upon deaf ears. I tried to tell the Christians that they were not goyim as defined by the Jews, a somewhat derisive term that means "heathen" or "pagan," but they would not hear me and continued to refer to themselves as Gentiles." [1]

Christians are Jews too?! Through the spirit of adoption, through the teaching on being grafted in, through being considered as Sons of God, Paul teaches that we are all a part of the Seed of Abraham. Thus we too inherit the Promises.

[1] Zwirn, R I and Owen, B (1987). The Rabbi from Burbank. Tyndale House Publishers. Illinois. Page 77.

See also Carpe Deo: "Who is a Jew?" Revisited (carpe-deo.blogspot.com)

Objections to Torah Observance: "The Torah is for Israel" Part 2

Photo by Asafantman

The bible is clear that the Torah and its commandments are part of the Covenant between God and the people of Israel at Mt Sinai through Abraham, Mose and David.

Does that mean that the Torah is only for those who are ethnically Jews or who have become Jews by virtue of a circumcision or conversion to Judaism?

According to the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, the admissability of non-Jews (or Gentiles) was discussed at length and the minimum observance necessary to ensure that they would not be rejected out of hand was determined. The Apostles reasoned that this would allow Gentiles to enter the Synagogue where "Moses" (or the Torah) would be taught to them. The Book of Acts goes on to tell the story of Paul as he established new churches with mixed Jewish and Gentile membership.

The Epistles address some of the theological controversies that arose as the new believers sought to reconcile traditional interpretations of the Torah in the new light of Christ. And what do these Epistles say regarding the status of Gentile believers?

Clearly they recognise that Gentile believers are:

1. Children of God through the Spirit of Adoption (Romans 8.15)


2. Counted as the "Seed of Abraham" (Galatians 3.29)


3. Joint Heirs of the Promises given to Moses, Abraham and David (Romans 8.17).


4. That the Gentiles and the (Torah Observant) Jews are to become One New Man under Christ (Ephesians 2.11-22).