Part 2

Israel served and fulfilled God’s purpose in bringing forth the savior to the world. Salvation was of the Jews. Out of Yeshua’s death a new wineskin was birthed. A new community of faith, a new race of people was brought forth composed of both Jews and Gentiles anointed and commissioned by God to carry the gospel to the nations.

These men and women were not fashioned after the likeness of the first Adam who sinned and brought condemnation to the world but after the second Adam, who prevailed over death and established righteousness and peace to all who believe.

God intended this new community of faith to be co-laborers together, to accomplish the purpose of bringing the gospel to all the nations of the earth.

At the same time Paul wanted to impress upon the Gentile not to forget where they came from and who they were grafted into. In reaching out to the gentiles they were not to forget the people who brought them in. This was part of their calling, to extend love, mercy and grace to their Jewish brethren, the very people who showed mercy to them. Romans 11:25,26, 30-32 As wonderful as God’s plan was, the Gentile believer did not fulfill their calling. History testifies to this. This ancient schism and this middle wall of division between Jew and Gentile was still not bridged. This deepest of all divisions, the one between Israel and the Church, worked its way into this new family of the redeemed, finding even more poisonous expression within this new community of faith. While at the cross of Yeshua, complete reconciliation was accomplished, we have not yet experienced the fullness of this reconciliation between Jewish and Gentile believers. Quote, from Our hands are stained with blood. The purpose of the cross was not only to reconcile man to God but also to reconcile man to man, in particular the Jew and Gentile. Somehow the enemy found a way into this new community of faith and continued to perpetuate this hostility between Jew and Gentile.

And now with the emergence of the Messianic movement in our generation there is a new accusation being voiced by some in the Christian community that we are seeking to re-erect this middle wall of partition because we choose to maintain our identity as Jews and express our faith in a Jewish way. According to them we are going back and living under the law. Those Gentile believers who raise this concern within the Church about Messianic Jews are actually the ones guilty of trying to re-build this wall. For they would have the Jewish believer enter into the body of the Messiah if they will conform to Gentile customs and ways and give up their Jewishness. Members of no other culture are spoken to in this way, only Jews. Their idea of Paul’s statement that the Messiah has made us both one is that this “One new man “is Gentile! And not Jew and Gentile! How did this happen?

The Body of Messiah has undergone such a tremendous transformation over the centuries that most believers today are so removed from what Paul was teaching in these verses that the Church does not even realize that the origin of their roots are Jewish anymore. The basic problem throughout history is that after 70 AD many of the early Gentile leaders in the body chose to separate themselves from their Jewish roots. Christianity today for the most part began their understanding of Church history in the second and third century after it had become a predominantly Gentile movement. As a result they lost the history of the first one hundred years and the necessary understanding of their Jewish roots. Many difficult Hebraic phrases, terms and even theological issues can be understood only by investigating the original Jewish roots of this first century community.

Another point of confusion in the church is vs. 15 – By abolishing in his flesh the enmity, which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances…

There are those who believe that when the Messiah died on the cross the law was abolished and this verse and others are used to support this teaching. This verse was poorly translated. Read in JNT
If it was not the law that caused this enmity than what was it? There were four things that were at the root of this hostility between Jew and Gentile and it still exists today. These four elements are also at the root of anti-Semitism.

Gentile envy of the special status accorded by God to Israel in the Torah
Jewish pride at being chosen by God to be a light and witness to the nations
Gentile resentment of this pride
Mutual dislike of each others customs. This is a common cause of friction between cultures, but in this case, Jewish customs are different. They did not merely evolve; rather they were the Jewish peoples response to the Torah with its commands and ordinances.

A more accurate translation of the scripture is not that the enmity was the law and it was abolished but destroying in his own body the enmity occasioned by the Torah, with its commands set forth in the form of ordinances. This enmity was destroyed in the Messiah’s body when he died for all sinners, Jew and Gentiles alike.

God has removed this middle wall of division between Jew and Gentile. It is many within the body of Messiah that are seeking to rebuild the wall and alienate the Jewish and Gentile believer. As long as the Jew and Gentile remains unreconciled and resists the path of self denial and promotes self preservation rather than love and unity, there will always be division throughout the body of Messiah.
God wants unity not uniformity. The root of all division within the Church today is hidden in the ancient soil of hostility that still exists between Jew and Gentile, between Israel and the nations. A parallel of this is found in Deut. 32:8?

Was it not the Lord who prayed that we may all be one even as He and the Father are one. Did He not call us to be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me?

As with most problems true and lasting solutions will only come when we deal with the root issue.

The combination of Jewish pride and self-preservation on the one hand combined with Gentile insecurity, jealousy and arrogance on the other, has given rise to Jewish exclusiveness and Gentile replacement mentality which claims they are the only true Israel. This in turn has deepened the root of this division and torn the very fabric of this one new man that God intended for the world to see.
Until there is unity and oneness of both Jew and Gentile at the grass roots level of the Body of Messiah we will remain shallow and have only limited power.

The time has come for both Jew and Gentile to humble themselves and repent of their respective attitudes. The Messianic Jewish believer must repent of pride and self-sufficiency and not seek to hold on to their traditions and customs as a basis to express their identity. Our true identity is found in the Messiah alone.

There is nothing wrong with honoring the traditions and customs of our faith but not as a replacement of our relationship with God nor for the purpose of seeking right favor with God. Our highest calling is to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul and strength and to be a light to the nations and a witness to the faithfulness of God.

The time has come for the Gentile believer to humble themselves and repent of the anti-Semitism that has been allowed to continue in the Church. To repent of the arrogance that the Church has replaced Israel and to recognize and confess that God has not cut off the natural branches, Israel. God is not finished with the Jews. Rather God has kept them until the end of this age so that He may display both His mercy and awesome power as He restores them to the land of promise. The Church today can no longer ignore the miracle of Israel’s re-birth and the regathering of the people back to the land.

The Gentile Church must repent of its prideful arrogance born of insecurity and jealousy and accept with love, mercy, and gratitude that the prodigal son is returning home. The Church should not be like the older brother who was jealous of his brother. The Church needs to heed the words of Paul in Romans 11. Do not be arrogant towards the branches nor be ignorant of this mystery. Romans 11:18,25

These four suggest that at some point in the early history of the Church, a foreign concept of the law crept into the body of believers. We must always remember that in Paul’s day, the Tenach (which consisted of all the Torah, the prophets, and all the other Old Testament writings were the only scripture the believer’s had.

When the Church of the second century began to drift away from its Jewish roots, four extremely important misconceptions developed concerning the law of God, due largely to the influence of Greek philosophy and other pagan ideas.

The Greeks had only one word for law which tended towards the negative and lacked the ability to convey the depth of the Jewish concept of the Torah. To the Hebrew mind the primary purpose of the Torah is to instruct humanity as to how to hit the mark in life as opposed to committing sin, which is to miss the mark.
Because the Greek language had only one term for law, whether speaking of the law of God, the law of sin, the law of the spirit of life, or the law of Messiah, it was difficult to determine which law was being addressed in the New Covenant. The word law in Hebrew is Torah. Torah is the feminine noun from the root yarah. The word yarah means to throw, to shoot, to cast, as in the casting of lots, or the shooting of arrows. It means to point out, to show. It means to direct, teach, instruct. A moreh in Hebrew is a teacher, or one, who throws, points out, directs, instructs. The word Torah or law simply means instruction. It instructs man how to live in an ethical and moral way before God and his fellow man. Torah is instruction that if followed, will enrich ones life. If ignored it will diminish ones life. Take hold of instruction (torah) do not let go…
The second misconception is that the law and grace are opposites and that Torah was replaced by the age of grace. John 1:17 is often used. “For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth were realized through Yeshua the Messiah.” As if to say there was no grace in the time of Moses and the prophets. Once we understand the Torah from a Jewish perspective as instruction from God, this misconception is exposed.
The third misconception is that New Testament believers have a “better covenant” than God’s law. The passage from the book of Hebrews in its context is discussing the sacrificial system and how the Messiah’s sacrifice was better than the blood of goats and animals.
The fourth misconception is that if a believer is led by the Holy Spirit he is not under the law of God. The phrase under the law is a poor translation. It means that we are no longer under the legalistic observance of the law.

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written and / or assembled by Cal Goldberg, Messianic Leader, Beth Shechinah