Since
the title of this paper comes in the form of a question, I want
to remove all suspense and answer the question up front. Is
a postmissionary, truly Messianic Judaism possible? The answer
is absolutely, categorically, incontrovertibly, without question
or equivocation, NO. As stated (in Gentile terms) by Oswald
Smith, “The church that does not evangelize will fossilize,”
and once we lose the missionary burden and spirit and passion
– which, inevitably, begins with one’s own people
– we lose an essential aspect of the heart of the Lord
and an essential component of our faith. This is certainly an
extremely critical question!
Obviously,
both the title and subject of this paper are inspired by the
watershed volume of Dr. Mark Kinzer, Postmissionary Messianic
Judaism: Redefining Christian Engagement with the Jewish People2,
a volume that has received considerable attention in the Messianic
Jewish community, especially in academic circles.3
All of us are indebted to Dr. Kinzer for his careful scholarship
and for the many important issues he raises, some of which challenged
me personally, forcing me to look again at some familiar texts
and to ask myself some searching questions. Certainly, there
are many topics that he has put on the table in a clear and
reasoned way that demand our attention, most specifically, the
question of the problem of assimilation for Jewish believers
and the proposed solution of a strict bilateral ecclesiology.
On the other hand, in the midst of 300 pages of often nuanced
and sophisticated arguments, it is somewhat shocking to arrive
at two of the book’s main conclusions: first, that Jewish
believers should embrace Orthodox Judaism; and second, that
our witness of Yeshua to our own people should henceforth “be
rendered in a postmissionary mode.”
Kinzer
explains the second point as follows: “. . . the Jewish
ekklesia will, as the UMJC definition states, ‘bear witness
to Yeshua within the people of Israel.’ The Jewish ekklesia
will not hide its light under a bushel. Its Yeshua-faith and
its Judaism are not two separated realities but one integrated
whole. Its Yeshua faith will affect every dimension of its life,
including its participation in the wider Jewish world. However,
its witness to Yeshua will be rendered in a postmissionary mode.”
What
does exactly does this mean? “First, the Jewish ekklesia
will realize that it must first receive the testimony borne
by the wider Jewish community to the God of Israel before
it is fit to bear its own witness. It must hear before it
can speak. It must learn before it can teach. What it receives,
hears, and learns will affect the substance – and not
just the form – of what it gives, says, and teaches.
Second, the Jewish ekklesia bears witness to the One already
present in Israel’s midst. It does not need to make
him present; it only needs to point other Jews to his intimate
proximity. The Jewish ekklesia bears witness to the One who
sums up Israel’s true identity and destiny, who lives
within Israel and directs its way, who constitutes the hidden
center of its tradition and way of life. In the words of Joseph
Rabinowitz, it bears witness to ‘Yeshua achinu’
– Yeshua our Brother, who like Joseph, rules over the
Gentiles while providing for the welfare of his own family
who do not recognize him. For the Jewish ekklesia, all Judaism
is Messianic Judaism because all Judaism is Messiah’s
Judaism. Third, the Jewish ekklesia bears witness discreetly,
sensitively, and with restraint. It is always aware of the
painful wounds of the past and seeks to bear witness to Yeshua
in a way that brings him honor from among his own.”4
In
all candor, and with due respect for Dr. Kinzer’s scholarship
and personal commitment to the Lord, these suggestions are outrageous
and must be categorically rejected, with the exception of several
phrases with which, I trust, we would all agree. That is to
say, would any of us argue that we should be insensitive
when witnessing to our people? And would any of us differ with
the concept that Yeshua “sums up Israel’s true identity
and destiny”? Putting these small disclaimers aside, however,
I reiterate: These suggestions are outrageous and must be categorically
rejected.
The
rest of this paper will be devoted to articulating my response
to Dr. Kinzer’s “postmissionary” proposal.
For the moment, I want to add my own comments to the statements
just quoted: “First, the Jewish ekklesia will realize
that it must first receive the testimony borne by the wider
Jewish community to the God of Israel before it is fit to bear
its own witness.” Translation: Before we can share our
faith, we who are commissioned by Yeshua and empowered by His
Spirit to be His witnesses must first receive the testimony
of a diverse Jewish community that continues to reject Jesus
as Messiah and considers our belief in Him to be completely
idolatrous. “It must hear before it can speak. It must
learn before it can teach.” Translation: We must learn
from those who, for the most part, have not spent a second meditating
on the glorious truths of the New Covenant Scriptures and instead,
for the most part, have spent their time immersed in the traditions
of man. They, who Paul tells us are enemies of the gospel on
our account, are now our teachers, and we their students. “What
it receives, hears, and learns will affect the substance –
and not just the form – of what it gives, says, and teaches.”
Translation: As we listen carefully to the rabbinic authorities,
we will learn that our view of the Messiah is not in harmony
with the rabbinic view, that our view of the authority of the
Torah is not in harmony with the rabbinic view, that our view
of God is not in harmony with the rabbinic view, that our view
of salvation and atonement is not in harmony with the rabbinic
view, that our view of the inspiration of the New Testament
is not in harmony with the rabbinic view, that our view of oneness
with our Gentile brothers and sisters is not in harmony with
the rabbinic view, and that if we do not submit ourselves fully
to rabbinic authority we can make no real claim to legitimate
Judaism. So, if we listen and learn well, we will no longer
have our faith!
“Second,
the Jewish ekklesia bears witness to the One already present
in Israel’s midst. It does not need to make him present;
it only needs to point other Jews to his intimate proximity.”
Translation: The prophets who spoke of God abandoning our people
because of our sins were actually mistaken, since God never
abandons His people Israel. And Yeshua Himself was mistaken
in claiming that there would be tangible judgment on His generation
for their rejection of Him along with His real absence from
their midst until they recognized Him as Messianic King.
“Third,
the Jewish ekklesia bears witness discreetly, sensitively, and
with restraint.” Translation: Forget about the bold and
fearless proclamation of Yeshua the Messiah in the Book of Acts;
forget about Paul’s counsel that his answer to both Jews
and Greeks was the undiluted message of Messiah crucified (yes,
forget about the fact that, in the words of one prominent evangelist,
“the power is in the proclamation”); forget about
Yeshua’s promises that we would be put out of the synagogue
for our faith and that we would be persecuted by our own people
for our association with Him. It’s time for a new and
better method, one that emphasizes being accepted by the very
community which the Scriptures tell us would often reject us,
a method that to a great extent bypasses the reproach of the
cross. “It is always aware of the painful wounds of the
past and seeks to bear witness to Yeshua in a way that brings
him honor from among his own.” Translation: From here
on, we assume that every Jew we meet – even the most secular,
anti-traditional, detached-from-his or her-roots Jew –
is keenly aware of the painful wounds of “Christian”
anti-Semitism and will not respond to a compassionate and clear
call to repentance, will not respond to the convicting power
of the Spirit, will not respond to the power of the gospel,
and will not respond to the glorious testimony of the Son of
God (although this is how many of us – including the presenter
of this paper – came to the Lord). Such is the way of
postmissionary Messianic Judaism. (And I have not even mentioned
the fact that Dr. Kinzer wants the Christian Church at large
to adopt a similar approach in terms of restraining its witness
to the Jewish people, a suggestion that would literally damn
multitudes of our people.)
I
suspect that some of you may be a little uncomfortable at this
point, thinking that my “translation” is over the
top. Rather, what is over the top is the thesis being put forth
by Dr. Kinzer and others, and it calls for a strong and unambiguous
response. Anything less than that allows us to entertain concepts
that, in my opinion, fly in the face of key biblical truths,
most centrally, that our people are lost without explicit faith
in Yeshua and that it is our sacred mission to be unapologetic
witnesses for Him, to them.
While
reading Postmissionary Messianic Judaism, I found myself
going back and forth in a spirited internal debate over many
of Dr. Kinzer’s important points, but his conclusions
brought me to Tevye’s famous breaking point in Fiddler
on the Roof, “There is no other hand!” To reiterate
once again: He is asking us to negotiate that which is non-negotiable,
and I say this as someone who is close to a good number of rabbis,
including the ultra-Orthodox.
To
be sure, my hundreds of hours of dialogue and discussion with
the rabbinic community – especially, Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox
rabbis – have produced in me a profound respect for traditional
Judaism, an appreciation for the beauty and spirituality of
many of our traditions, and a pained conflict in my heart over
the lostness of these people for whom I deeply care. To me,
traditional Judaism is the most beautiful and comprehensive
religion made by man, yet it remains so near and yet so far.
Even
more personally, most of us as Jewish believers have loved ones
who have died without a profession of faith in Yeshua –
my own dear father falls in that category – and we all
hold out hope that somehow, someway, through last minute divine
intervention, we will see these loved ones in the world to come.
Yet we cannot change our theology to make a way when Scripture
makes no explicit way.
For
several years now, I have had a weekly dialogue by phone with
an ultra-Orthodox rabbi from Lakewood, New Jersey, sometimes
studying Talmud and New Testament together, other times just
talking about our respective views on various subjects. (I should
note that this rabbi is a rare Tanakh expert in his very frum
community, since the great majority are not as fluent in Bible
as in rabbinic traditions.) We even covenanted to pray regularly
for one another with the following words: “God, I pray
for Y- and for myself that you would give us the courage to
follow You and Your truth wherever it leads, regardless of the
cost or consequences, whether by life or by death.” Our
love and respect for each other is deep, and yet we both recognize
that the distinctives of our beliefs are mutually exclusive
– this would be the case even if I were a card-carrying,
Hashivenu-belonging, orthopractic, Torah-observant, Messianic
Jew – and that to accept the other’s faith would
mean the fundamental repudiation of our own. We hold to two
different systems of authority and live with two different spiritual
orientations, and despite the massive areas of commonality and
solidarity we share, we are in two different religious camps
with a great divide between us.
I
am, quite obviously, sensitive to the emotional issues involved
in this discussion, I am sensitive to the theological issues
involved (most prominently, the pervasive influence of supersessionism
in Christian thought and practice), I am sensitive to the intellectual
issues involved (specifically, with regard to traditional Jewish
thought and praxis), and, having spent many years speaking to
the Church about the horrors of so-called “Christian”
anti-Semitism, I am sensitive to the historical issues involved
as well. The scriptural testimony, however, is absolutely clear,
and that must be our final guide.
My
response will emphasize five main points: First, that our calling
as Jews in general and as Messianic Jews in particular requires
us to be active witnesses; second, that the Jewish rejection
of Yeshua today is integrally related to our forefather’s
rejection of Moses, the prophets, and the Messiah Himself; third,
that the New Covenant documents make abundantly clear that our
people are lost without explicit faith in Yeshua as Messiah;
fourth, that the overwhelming emphasis of the New Covenant documents
is YESHUA rather than Judaism; and fifth, that the path to postmissionary
Messianic Judaism is the path to the negation of the true Messianic
faith.
To
begin, then, I have stated that our calling as Jews in general
and as Messianic Jews in particular requires us to be active
witnesses. As stated by Christopher J. H. Wright in his important
new volume, The Mission of God, “As Luke 24:45-47
indicates, Jesus entrusted to the church a mission that is directly
rooted in his own identity, passion and victory as the crucified
and risen Messiah. Jesus immediately followed this text with
the words, ‘You are witnesses’ – a mandate
repeated in Acts 1:8, ‘You will be my witnesses.’
It is almost certain that Luke intends us to hear in this an
echo of the same words spoken by YHWH to Israel in Isaiah 43:10-12.”5
The
text in Isaiah begins and ends with these words: “You
are my witnesses,” declares the LORD . . . You are my
witnesses,” declares the LORD, “that I am God.”
What
is the lesson we can learn from this? Before the time of Yeshua,
the people of Israel were called to be witnesses of the
one true God to the nations, declaring His glories to the
world. Once Messiah came, the Jewish disciples were called to
be witnesses of the Messiah to the rest of their Jewish
people, as well as to the rest of the world, as stated
in the texts from Luke and Acts just referenced, “This
is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the
dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins
will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:46-48). “But
you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and
you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and
Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
This
understanding is also reflected in Paul’s famous words
in Rom 1:16, words which, I suspect, are not shouted from the
rooftops of postmissionary, Messianic Jewish congregations:
“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power
of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for
the Jew, then for the Gentile.” And let us not forget
the Lord’s words to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus:
“Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to
you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you
have seen of me and what I will show you” (Acts 26:16).
Romans 1:16 reflects Paul’s role as a witness.
My
point, then, is quite simple: As Jews, we are called
to be witnesses of the one true God to the nations, and as Messianic
Jews, we are called to be witnesses of the Messiah to our
own Jewish people as well as to the nations. Can anyone doubt
for a minute that this was the self-understanding of the Jewish
believers in Acts? Can anyone doubt that they saw themselves
as the God-chosen remnant, calling their ignorant and/or unbelieving
nation to repentance and faith? No amount of historical, theological,
or ecclesiastical developments can alter this reality, and without
the witness of Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus, our people
will remain ignorant of their Messiah. And, speaking directly
to my fellow Jewish believers, if we cease to be intentional,
deliberate, and unashamed witnesses of our God and Messiah to
Israel and the nations, we fall short our calling as Jews
and as Messianics.
Furthermore,
the reason the Spirit was given in Acts was so that we could
be witnesses, and regardless of one’s pneumatology, there
can be no doubt that the primary purpose of the giving of the
Spirit, according to Luke-Acts, was to empower us to be witnesses.
This means that postmissionary, Messianic Jewish congregations
are quenching and/or limiting the Spirit’s purpose and
power. Stated more bluntly, to be postmissionary is to fail
to work fully with the Holy Spirit’s intentions and, at
times, even to work against the Spirit’s intentions. (Note,
in passing, that there are roughly sixty references to the Holy
Spirit in Acts as compared with only seventeen references to
nomos, law, and some of those latter references occur
in contexts speaking of the Torah’s witness to the Messiah.
Note also that the name Moses occurs 19x in Acts while Iesous
is found 69x and christos is found 25x.)
This
fundamental point of our calling to be witnesses could be developed
at length, but since it is so self-evident, based on a straightforward
reading of the New Testament texts, and since it will be further
reinforced by the points that follow, I will move on.
Point
number two: The Jewish rejection of Yeshua today is integrally
related to our forefather’s rejection of Moses, the prophets,
and the Messiah Himself. Dr. Kinzer and others would argue that
the Church’s departure from its Jewish roots, coupled
with its historical sins against the Jewish people, have rendered
its witness to Israel ineffective at best and destructive at
worst, since acceptance of the Church’s message would
mean Jewish assimilation and, with that, the abandonment of
Israel’s unique calling. Furthermore, it is alleged, God
has providentially preserved our people through rabbinic Judaism,
and therefore traditional Judaism must be affirmed as valid.
As stated in Postmissionary Messianic Judaism, “Our
thesis – the legitimacy, value, and importance of rabbinic
Judaism – remains intact. That thesis is crucial. If rabbinic
Judaism is not valid, then no Judaism is valid.”6
Now,
I am sorely tempted to focus on this thesis, but that is not
the primary purpose of this paper. Suffice it to say that if
rabbinic Judaism is “legitimate” – and I say
this with, perhaps, more respect for rabbinic Judaism than many
Messianic Jews would have – it must be taken on its own
terms, and those terms include: 1) the supremacy of torah
she-be-al-peh, the Oral Law, both in biblical and halakhic
interpretation, calling for immersion in the Talmud and Law
Codes; 2) the rightful authority of the rabbis, both
past and present, meaning that it is not for our us to pick
and choose which aspects of rabbinic Judaism to keep and which
to discard; 3) the rejection of God’s tri-unity, most
particularly, the rejection of the deity of the Son, and the
rejection of any type of “salvation” experience
through faith in Yeshua’s death and resurrection.
I
remind you that in the early days of Hasidic Judaism, the Hasidim
were subjected to excommunication primarily because of halakhic
deviations, while the Karaites to this day are rejected as legitimate
practitioners of Judaism because of their rejection of the oral
traditions. And, according to the well-known pronouncement of
the Agudath HaRabbonim in 1997:
The
Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada (Agudath
Harabonim) hereby declares: Reform and Conservative are not
Judaism at all. Their adherents are Jews, according to the
Jewish Law, but their religion is not Judaism.
The Agudath Harabonim has always been on guard against any
attempt to alter, misrepresent, or distort the Halacha (Jewish
Law) as transmitted in the written and oral law, given by
G-d through Moses on Sinai. It has, therefore, rejected recognition
of Reform and Conservative movements as Judaism, or their
clergy as Rabbis. It has publicly rebuffed the claim of “three
wings of Judaism”. There is only one Judaism: Torah
Judaism. The Reform and Conservative are not Judaism at all,
but another religion.7
Not
only, then, are some Messianic Jews deceiving themselves by
thinking that they can openly maintain their New Covenant faith
and at the same time be received by Orthodox rabbis, but they
are deceiving themselves by thinking that Orthodox Judaism is
fully valid in God’s sight. If it is, then Messianic Judaism
is not – and I have yet to meet an Orthodox rabbi who
would dispute this point, let alone recognize the legitimacy
of a Messianic Jewish “rabbi.”
Volume
5 of my series on Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus
– the final volume, thank God – is devoted to traditional
Jewish objections, focusing on the Oral Law, and so I refer
those interested in a further critique of rabbinic Judaism to
that volume when it is published.8
For
now, I will return to my second point, namely, that the Jewish
rejection of Yeshua today is integrally related to our forefather’s
rejection of Moses, the prophets, and the Messiah Himself. That
is to say, before there was such a thing as “Christian”
anti-Semitism, before there was such as thing as supersessionism,
even before there was such a thing as rabbinic Judaism, our
people had been consistently guilty of rejecting the Torah and
the prophets – this is testified to by the historical
record of the Tanakh, the words of the prophets, and the words
of the psalmists – and Yeshua’s rejection by our
people in the New Testament (at the least, on a corporate, leadership
level) is traced directly to this pattern. As Stephen said
to the Sanhedrin, not to some godless mob on the street:
“You
stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You
are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!
Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They
even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous
One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him – you
who have received the law that was put into effect through
angels but have not obeyed it.” (Acts 7:51-53)
This
is in harmony with Yeshua’s own words to the scribes and
Pharisees in Matthew 23:29-39 (and note v. 32: “Fill up,
then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers!”), and
it is consistent with the messages of the apostles in Acts,
right to the closing verses:
The
Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your forefathers when he said
through Isaiah the prophet: “Go to this people and say,
‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you
will be ever seeing but never perceiving.’ For this
people]s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with
their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they
might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand
with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’”
Therefore I want you to know that God’s salvation has
been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen! (Acts 28:26b-28)
It
is clear, then, that our Messianic Jewish forebears in Acts
saw our people’s rejection of Yeshua as part of our historical
pattern of disobedience, and the fact that the good news was
now being embraced instead by the Gentiles (see, e.g., Acts
13:46-48) was further evidence of divine judgment on our nation.
This stark reality that Jewish loss meant Gentile gain was not
candy-coated into something redemptive for Israel, as it is
in Postmissionary Messianic Judaism (we’ll return
to this, below); rather, it was a national tragedy.
You
might say, “Fine and good. I accept your perspective in
terms of the Jewish rejection of Jesus in New Testament times,
but that was before Christianity broke away from its roots and
presented a distorted message to our nation. Surely, our people’s
ongoing rejection of Jesus is primarily due to Christianity’s
failure.”
Really?
On what empirical information is this argument based? When and
where did our people suddenly become compliant to the truth
of the gospel as long as it was presented in culturally and
religiously relevant terms? And why is it when an extremely
religious Jewish person comes to faith in Yeshua, he or she
is all the more violently persecuted by family and friends –
no matter how “Jewish” a lifestyle he or she continues
to live?
You
say, “But you’re missing the whole point. The religious
Jewish community doesn’t really know who Yeshua is because
His image has been so distorted by the Church. That’s
the reason for persecution and rejection.”
Needless
to say, as readers of my book Our Hands Are Stained with
Blood9 know only too well, I am painfully aware
of the fact that the Church has often driven Jewish people away
from Jesus rather than drawn Jewish people to Him, and I am
encouraged by the gradual rise of a more sensitive, biblically-rooted
witness from the Church to Israel. And, to a certain extent,
I agree with the points just stated. But it is a complete non
sequitur to argue that because of Gentile “Christian”
anti-Semitism Messianic Jews should enter into a postmissionary
mode with our people, as if we should no longer actively give
our people needed medicine because others gave them poison.
How does this follow? And how does it follow that the sin of
“Christian” anti-Semitism now changes the essential
nature of our people? If our leaders rejected Yeshua when there
was no question about His Jewishness or the Jewishness of His
followers, if we were put out of synagogues before the “Gentilization”
of the Church, why do we think that now, after more than 1,900
years, that will mystically change – in the absence of
a strong, missionary mentality? Have our people been further
hardened by the faulty witness of much of the Church? Without
a doubt. But a postmissionary, muted witness will hardly bring
them closer to God.
Bear
in mind that rabbinic Judaism teaches that the closer you get
to Sinai, the purer the revelation and the higher the spiritual
state of the people, as stated classically in the Talmud, “If
the former generation was like angels, we are like men; if they
were like men, we are like donkeys” (b. Shabbat 112b).
Yet the generation of the Tannaim, the contemporaries of Yeshua
and His emissaries, is the generation so soundly rebuked in
the New Testament writings. Rabbinic Judaism could not possibly
countenance that that generation could have been guilty
of missing the Messiah.
Consider
also the spiritual state of our people today: A maximum of 10%
worldwide are observant, in America, we have a disproportionately
high percentage of Jewish atheists (8.3% compared to a national
average of 5.2%, including 0% of African Americans), the government
of Israel is riddled with corruption, Israeli young people are
caught up with drugs and sex like most of the Western world
(remember that Israeli women in the army are allowed two free
abortions), and those who most virulently oppose Messianic Jewish
congregations are the ultra-Orthodox. Is this the fault of “Christian”
anti-Semitism, or is this part of our people’s fallen
nature, a nature shared with the rest of humanity? Isn’t
this a manifestation of our historical failure to submit to
God’s laws and listen to His prophets?
I
believe that Paul for his part (as we will see shortly) would
attribute our people’s ongoing rejection of Yeshua to
divine hardening because of our past sins, and this leads directly
to my third point, namely, that the New Covenant documents make
abundantly clear that our people are lost without explicit faith
in Yeshua as Messiah.
Dr.
Kinzer has written that, “. . . we must be able to affirm
that Yeshua abides in the midst of the Jewish people and its
religious tradition, despite that tradition’s apparent
refusal to accept his claims.” Indeed, he claims that,
“Paradoxically, the Jewish no to Yeshua becomes a sign
of his presence in Israel rather than of his absence.”10
May
I read that again? “Paradoxically, the Jewish no to Yeshua
becomes a sign of his presence in Israel rather than of his
absence.” Really? I doubt that Jeremiah in his day or
Paul in his would have taken much comfort in such a proposal.
Remember
first the just cited words of Yeshua, Stephen, and Paul in the
Gospels and Acts, excoriating our people – especially
the leadership, including the Pharisees – for rejecting
the Prince of Life. Yet this “Jewish no,” which
receives such harsh rebuke, “becomes a sign of [Yeshua’s]
presence in Israel rather than of his absence”? This “Jewish
no,” which causes Yeshua to weep in agony in Luke 19 and
causes Paul to shake off the dust of his feet in Acts, “becomes
a sign of [Yeshua’s] presence in Israel rather than of
his absence”? Absolutely not! The Lord’s words,
“You will not see Me again” (see Matt 23:37-39)
speak of His absence, not presence, and they are the direct
result of this very same “Jewish no.”
At
the risk of being too simplistic, let me remind you of just
a small portion of the New Testament witness. Luke 7:30 states,
“But the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God’s
purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by
John.” According to Luke, the “Jewish no”
was tantamount to a rejection of God’s purpose for themselves,
and that was before many of these same people rejected Yeshua,
both in His death and resurrection, making that “no”
all the more emphatic.
Let’s
look in John’s Gospel. There Jesus said, “‘For
judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will
see and those who see will become blind.’ Some Pharisees
who were with him heard him say this and asked, ‘What?
Are we blind too?’ Jesus said, ‘If you were blind,
you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can
see, your guilt remains.’’” (John 9:39-41)
What
was the cause of this spiritual blindness? The New Testament
authors pointed back to Isaiah’s prophecy about divine
hardening: “Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous
signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him.
This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet . . . .”
(John 12:37-38a; and notice the vivid language in v. 40: “He
has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts”!)
Dr.
Kinzer, however, has an answer for this too: “Thus God
has caused a partial hardening to come upon nonremnant Israel
so that he might accomplish his purpose for Israel and the nations.”11
So, we are told first that the Jewish rejection of the Messiah
– which is everywhere in the Scriptures equated with a
rejection of God Himself – becomes a sign of His presence
among the very people who rejected Him, and then we are told
that this hardening of heart, which was the explicit result
of divine judgment, is actually God’s means for accomplishing
His purpose among those very same people – and, I might
add, according to Dr. Kinzer, it is a redemptive purpose for
Israel at that. So, no is yes and judgment is blessing and absence
is presence and hardening is redemptive. Are we actually supposed
to embrace this?
John
follows his quotation of Isaiah 6:9-10 with this comment: “Yet
at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him.
But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith
for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved
praise from men more than praise from God” (John 12:42-43).
It appears that he did not share Dr. Kinzer’s optimistic
assessment!
How
did Paul assess the spiritual condition of his people? His words
are unambiguous, and it is only through the most tenuous exegesis
– really, tendentious exegesis – of these texts
that the force of his words can be denied. He begins by stating,
“I speak the truth in Messiah – I am not lying,
my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit – I have
great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could
wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Messiah for
the sake of my brothers, those of my own race.” (Rom 9:1-3)
So deep was his pain that he goes out of his way to say, “I
am not exaggerating!”, likening his grief to that of the
prophet Jeremiah who witnessed the devastation of his nation
(see Jer 15:18, “Why is my pain unending and my wound
grievous and incurable?”) If possible, Paul, like Moses,
would be cut off for the sake of his people, so conscious was
he of their lostness. And, if I may interject, this is a good
test of our own hearts: Do we too carry that pain for our people?
Are we grieved that the very ones who were chosen by God to
be His covenant people are the ones most associated with Yeshua’s
rejection? If Dr. Kinzer and his colleagues were correct, there
would be little need for such grief. In fact, rather than anguish
for the fathers (or, grandfathers) of rabbinic Judaism, Paul
should have had admiration.
Listen
carefully to his words:
What then shall we say? That the
Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained
it, a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who pursued
a law of righteousness, has not attained it. Why not? Because
they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They
stumbled over the “stumbling stone.” (Rom 9:30-32)
Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the
Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about
them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not
based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness
that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they
did not submit to God’s righteousness. (Rom 10:1-3)
What then? What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain,
but the elect did. The others were hardened, as it is written:
“God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they
could not see and ears so that they could not hear, to this
very day.”
And David says: “May their table become a snare and
a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them. May
their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs
be bent forever.” (Rom 11:7-10)
. . . some of the branches have been broken off . . . . They
were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith.
Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare
the natural branches, he will not spare you either. Consider
therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to
those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue
in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. And
if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in,
for God is able to graft them in again. (Rom 11:17, 20-23)
To
summarize: Paul’s heart was broken because his people,
as a nation, had not embraced the Messiah, an unspeakable spiritual
tragedy. Israel had not attained the righteousness
for which it sought, stumbling over Yeshua, the divine stumblingblock,
and thus he prays for his people to be saved. (Not to be a rocket
scientist here, but if you are praying for someone to be saved,
that implies that they are lost.) Their zeal for God is not
based on knowledge, they sought to establish their own righteousness,
not submitting to God’s righteousness (this is sounding
pretty serious), thereby not attaining the very thing for which
it earnestly sought, and becoming objects of divine hardening.
(Am I somehow to believe that Paul would have a different assessment
of full-blown, Talmudic Judaism?)
Now,
remember Dr. Kinzer’s positive description of the divine
hardening, a hardening that he interprets to be only partial
on the nation (rejecting the predominant interpretation that
the “hardening in part” means that “the remnant
is not hardened,” and understanding it instead to mean
that the whole nation is only partially hardened). He wrote,
“Thus God has caused a partial hardening to come upon
nonremnant Israel so that he might accomplish his purpose for
Israel and the nations.” Not only do John’s words
(John 12:37-43) speak against this, as noted above, but Paul’s
words in Romans 11:7-10, speak again this. The hardening on
“nonremnant Israel” is hardly partial and certainly
not positive. Listen again to some of these words:
God
gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so that they could not
see and ears so that they could not hear, to this very day.
May their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block
and a retribution for them. May their eyes be darkened so
they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever.
Words
like these – especially David’s imprecations –
were spoken over God’s enemies, and yet they are quoted
here with reference to Israel’s hardening. There is nothing
partial or positive in these words! The result of this hardening,
then, is that the unbelieving branches were broken and cut off
and became subject to God’s sternness.
Thankfully,
we know the end of this story:
Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full
number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will
be saved, as it is written:
“The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness
away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I
take away their sins.” (Rom 11:25b-26)
But
let us not understate the lost, spiritual condition of our people
– despite the zeal of many religious Jews – let
us not forget that the Israel which will be saved is the same
Israel that has been hardened (and, is therefore not saved at
present), and let us not ignore Paul’s words in Rom 11:28:
“As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on
your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are
loved on account of the patriarchs.”
Are
we now to sit at the feet of those who are enemies on account
of our faith in Yeshua, those who still have not submitted themselves
to God’s righteousness through faith in Messiah’s
shed blood, those who are still cut off, and embrace their form
of Judaism, becoming their students? Anyone needing an example
of a redundant question need look no further.
To
this day, our people still have the words of the Torah, and
to this day, Yeshua’s words speak to them: “But
do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser
is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses,
you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do
not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what
I say?” (John 5:45-47) Truly believing in Moses means
truly believing in Yeshua, while, conversely, rejection of Yeshua
is proof of the rejection of Moses. Paul affirms this too: “Even
to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts.
But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away”
(2 Cor 3:15-16). As expressed in 1 John: “Who is a liar
at all, if not the person who denies that Yeshua is the Messiah?
Such a person is an anti-Messiah — he is denying the Father
and the Son. Everyone who denies the Son is also without the
Father, but the person who acknowledges the Son has the Father
as well.” (1 John 2:22-23, JNT)
You
might say, “But how can you possibly state that religious
Jews, who are staunch monotheists, are not part of the godly
remnant? In the times of the Tanakh, the ones who came under
judgment were idolaters, not monotheists.”
True
enough, but idolatry was largely eradicated from our people
by the Babylonian exile, and still, a far worse, more prolonged
exile befell our people over the last twenty centuries because
of our rejection of the Messiah. And the principle opposition
to Yeshua came from the religious establishment, often from
those whose traditions made void the Word of God, yet it can
be argued that that these were the very traditions that laid
the foundation for incipient rabbinic Judaism. And Paul was
able to write that the very people who were zealous for God
had now been hardened and cut off.
To
repeat: The New Covenant documents make abundantly clear that
our people are lost without explicit faith in Yeshua as Messiah.
Does that mean that there is no spiritual light among our people?
Certainly not. There is spiritual light and truth in the midst
of all people, how much more those who preserved and passed
on the Scriptures. But to acknowledge that is a far cry from
emulating the spirituality of rabbinic Judaism and entering
into a postmissionary mode.
My
fourth point is that, the overwhelming emphasis of the New Covenant
documents is YESHUA rather than Judaism, and thus Dr. Kinzer’s
argument, “If rabbinic Judaism is not valid, then no Judaism
is valid,” is hardly relevant. The question to be asked
is not, “Which Judaism is valid?” Rather, the question
to be asked is, “Who is Yeshua?”
It
has sometimes been noted that Paul’s statements about
the Law are misunderstood because we fail to remember that he
was writing to Gentiles rather than Jews, but this observation
overlooks something even more important: No normal Pharisee
or rabbinic Jew would ever say the things that Paul says about
the Law, regardless of who his audience was, nor would he say
such things about “Judaism.”
Remember Paul’s words in Galatians 1, the only time in
the New Testament that the Greek word for “Judaism”
is found.
For
you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how
intensely I persecuted the congregation of God and tried to
destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of
my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of
my fathers. But when God, who set me apart from birth and
called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me
so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult
any man, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were
apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia
and later returned to Damascus. (Gal 1:13-17)
Now,
Dr. David Stern has famously rendered the Greek word Ioudâsmos
with “[traditional] Judaism,” certainly a noble
attempt to avoid the typical “Judaism vs. Christianity”
dichotomy. Nonetheless, for Paul, the contrast was between his
former life “in Judaism” and his new life in the
Messiah. Henceforth, being a Pharisee was quite secondary.
Before
reiterating this, let me quote W. S. Campbell, writing in the
Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, who notes that,
“The term [Judaism] appears to describe the Jewish way
of life as a whole as it is distinct from that of other religions.”
Now, Ignatius was certainly wrong when he wrote that, “It
is absurd to say ‘Jesus Christ’ and to practice
Judaism” (Epistle to the Magnesians 10:3), and it is against
such misunderstandings that Dr. Stern’s rendering of “[traditional]
Judaism” makes sense. But, to repeat, the contrast was
clear: Once Paul’s whole emphasis was placed on advancing
in Judaism; now his whole emphasis was placed on knowing Messiah.
What
traditional Jew could ever write these words?
Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators
of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who
worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Messiah Jesus,
and who put no confidence in the flesh – though I myself
have reasons for such confidence.
If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in
the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of
the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of
Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting
the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.
But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the
sake of Messiah. What is more, I consider everything a loss
compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Messiah Jesus
my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider
them rubbish, that I may gain Messiah and be found in him,
not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law,
but that which is through faith in Messiah – the righteousness
that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Messiah
and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing
in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so,
somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Phil
3:2-11)
For
Paul, to be in the Messiah was to be seated in heavenly places
(Eph 2:1-7; Col 3:1-4), to have died to sin and to have entered
into newness of life (Rom 6:5-11), to “serve in the new
way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code”
(Rom 7:6). What traditional Jew could possibly write, “May
I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus the Messiah,
through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the
world. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything;
what counts is a new creation” (Gal 6:14-15)?
Listen
again to Paul’s words – and they have nothing to
do with the question of New Covenant, Spirit-directed, Messianic
Jewish orthopraxy, which can certainly be debated, but rather
with the question of emphasis – and ask yourself again,
What traditional Jew could ever write such words? And why should
we enter into a postmissionary mode with those who do not understand
and embrace these words, words that they desperately need to
understand and embrace?
He
has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant –
not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills,
but the Spirit gives life.
Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved
in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites
could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its
glory, fading though it was, will not the ministry of the
Spirit be even more glorious? If the ministry that condemns
men is glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that
brings righteousness! For what was glorious has no glory now
in comparison with the surpassing glory. And if what was fading
away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that
which lasts! (2 Cor 3:6-11)
For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened
by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the
likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned
sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements
of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according
to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. (Rom 8:3-4)
This
is not the way of Pharisaic (or, rabbinic) Judaism, and there
is very little intersection between language such as this and
the language of the Talmud.13 Study some tractates
of the Mishnah, beginning with Berachot (rather than just perusing
the ever-popular Pirkei Avot), and then dive into the Talmud
Bavli and work your way through a tractate like Bava Metsia,
which is often used for introductory study, then read passages
like the Sermon on the Mount and Romans 8, and tell me that
these are not two different spiritual and religious emphases.
It
is true that, according to Acts 21, there were tens of thousands
of Jewish believers in Yeshua who were zealous for the Torah,
some of whom were certainly Pharisees, and they saw no contradiction
between their faith in the Messiah and their observance of Torah.
Again, the question of New Covenant, Messianic Jewish orthopraxy
is a subject in itself. But they understood that Yeshua defined
their Jewishness rather than their Jewishness defining Him (something,
I’m afraid to say, has happened to some of the Messianic
Jewish movement).
That’s
why Hebrews reminded them that, “We have an altar from
which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to
eat” (Heb 13:10), also pointing to the fading glory of
the system of sacrifice and priesthood current in their day:
If
perfection could have been attained through the Levitical
priesthood (for on the basis of it the law was given to the
people), why was there still need for another priest to come
– one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order
of Aaron? For when there is a change of the priesthood, there
must also be a change of the law (Heb 7:11-12).
The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and
useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope
is introduced, by which we draw near to God (Heb 7:18-19).
. . . Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant
(Heb 7:22).
. . . the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs
as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the
old one, and it is founded on better promises (Heb 8:6).
By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the
first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon
disappear (Heb 8:13).
. . . the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able
to clear the conscience of the worshiper. They are only a
matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings –
external regulations applying until the time of the new order
(Heb 9:9b-10).
The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming
– not the realities themselves (Heb 10:1a).
First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings
and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased
with them” (although the law required them to be made).
9 Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.”
He sets aside the first to establish the second (Heb 10:8-9).
. . . we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the
blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through
the curtain (Heb 10:19-20a).
I
ask you again: What traditional Jew would write words like this?
Little wonder, then, that the destruction of the Temple, which
was such a terrible blow for traditional Judaism, was not such
a blow for the Messianic Jews, who had already found a better
way – and it was not the way of Pharisaic, and then incipient
rabbinic Judaism, a Judaism that, according to Dr. Ray Pritz,
was rejected by the Nazoreans as well.14 (The Nazoreans,
it will be recalled, were probably the most “orthodox”
Messianic Jews of antiquity in terms of holding to the basics
of the New Covenant faith.)
Let
there be no mistake about all this: Our hope, our life, the
essence of who we are, is defined by our relationship to Yeshua,
from which our Jewishness draws its definition, and He is the
pearl of great price. Finding Him overshadows everything else
we have, we are, and we ever could be.
It
is because of the radical nature of this glorious new faith,
a prophetic faith that threatened the establishment, that Yeshua
warned His disciples that “they will hand you over to
the local councils and flog you in their synagogues” (Matt
10:17). He also said that “they will put you out of the
synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you
will think he is offering a service to God” (John 16:3).
Why would some Jewish leaders do such things? In harmony with
what we have been stating in terms of the union between Yeshua
and His Father, “They will do such things because they
have not known the Father or me” (John 16:4). All this,
however was a cause for rejoicing (see Matt 5:10-12), which
is why, after being flogged and ordered not to speak anymore
in the name of Jesus, Acts 5:41-42 records, “The apostles
left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted
worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in
the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped
teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.”
Identification with our people was not the primary issue; knowing
Messiah and making Him known was what consumed these believers.
And
this leads to my fifth and final point, namely, that the path
to postmissionary Messianic Judaism is the path to the negation
of the true Messianic faith. In my early years in the Lord,
I was often subjected to the emotional argument that my ancestors
died rather than believe in Jesus, and yet I willfully accepted
Him. How could I do such a thing? Today, I can hear Peter and
the apostles saying to our postmissionary friends, “We
were beaten and flogged and rejected and maligned by our people
because of our testimony of Yeshua, and with one voice we said
to our leaders, ‘Judge for yourselves whether it is right
in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot
help speaking about what we have seen and heard.’ (Acts
4:19-20) We had to speak! We could do no other.
“When
we were put in prison and commanded to be silent, the angel
of the Lord delivered us and said to us, ‘Go, stand in
the temple courts and tell the people the full message of this
new life’ (Acts 5:20) – and we did, without shrinking
back. And when the high priest and Sanhedrin said to us, ‘We
gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,’ saying,
‘Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and
are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood,’
we replied, ‘We must obey God rather than men! The God
of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead – whom you had
killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him to his own
right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance
and forgiveness of sins to Israel. We are witnesses of these
things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those
who obey him’ (Acts 5:28-32). We explicitly disobeyed
Gamaliel and the national leadership, rejoicing when we were
counted worthy to suffer reproach for our Messiah, and not counting
our own lives dear. In fact, some of us, like Stephen, were
killed because we were trying to be witnesses rather than trying
to save our lives.
“Yet
you want to be accepted by the people who rejected us. You want
to be embraced by the system that helped shed our Savior’s
blood. You want to be restrained in your witness while we were
bursting with a message of repentance and forgiveness. Could
it be that you are simply (and subtly) trying to save your own
lives? (See Matt 10:37-40) Could it be that you are unconsciously
trying to avoid the offense of the cross? (See Gal 6:12) Could
it be that you have forgotten that ‘everyone who wants
to live a godly life in Messiah Jesus will be persecuted’
(2 Tim 3:12)? Have you forgotten Yeshua’s own words, that
‘A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above
his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher,
and the servant like his master. If the head of the house has
been called Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household!’
(Matt 10:24-25) There was a reason that our Master instructed
us, ‘When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another.
I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the
cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.’ (Matt 10:23).
Yet you think you have found a better way?”
For
years I have quoted the searching words of the Methodist leader
W. E. Sangster, “How shall I feel at the judgment, if
multitudes of missed opportunities pass before me in full review,
and all my excuses prove to be disguises of my cowardice and
pride?” 15 How shall we feel if multitudes
of missed opportunities pass before us in full review
and all our excuses prove to be the result of a too-sophisticated
theology that missed the forest for the trees, a theology fueled
by our efforts to be accepted by man more than by God?
Dan
Harman once said, “So long as Jesus was misunderstood
He was followed by the crowd. When they came to really understand
Him, they crucified Him.” 16 This will also
be our experience with the traditional Jewish community. They
will accept us only to the point that they misunderstand what
we really believe (unless, of course, we change our beliefs
so radically that they are no longer biblical). Once they understand
us, they will put us out again. Why then make such an effort
to be accepted?
And
yet there is more. For years now, I have received emails and
calls from distraught spouses, family members, and friends of
former Messianic Jews who had now denied Yeshua and become traditional
Jews. And a common denominator in their lives was that they
became fascinated with Judaism, which then redefined Yeshua
– first stripping Him of His deity, then stripping Him
of His distinctives, and then, ultimately, leading to the outright
denial of His Messiahship. And now, Dr. Kinzer has added another
element to his call to embrace rabbinic Judaism: He has called
for us to enter into a postmissionary mode with our people,
and with a heavy heart I can only say that to do so would mean
the end of a truly Messianic Jewish faith, and as, postmissionary
Messianics (certainly an oxymoron!), if we tried to save our
lives – meaning, tried to become accepted by the Jewish
community at the price of a watered-down witness – we
would, as a result, lose our real lives. Indeed, in the words
of Dawson Trotman, we are “born to reproduce,” and
when we cease to reproduce, we cease to fulfill our birthright.
I
am, therefore, afraid that postmissionary Messianic Judaism
will prove to be the beginning of the road to apostasy for many
Jewish (and even Gentile) believers, the beginning of the road
to spiritual confusion for many more, and, generally speaking,
the beginning of the road to the shriveling up and dying up
of true “Messianic Judaism” for many congregations.
Ironically, if the postmissionary strategy is followed (and
I’m confident it will not be on a wide scale), it would
relegate all Jewish outreach to Gentile believers, leading to
the very assimilation that Dr. Kinzer so fears. (I can assure
you that if not for the witness of loving Gentiles, I would
have died in my sins decades ago, and I can equally assure you
that had these Gentiles sought to point me to rabbinic Judaism
rather than to Jesus, I would not have turned away from my decadent
life.)
Had
not Dr. Kinzer been so bold as to entitle his book Postmissionary
Messianic Judaism, I would not have been so bold in my
response. But in the sight of God, I could do no less, and our
Jewish people deserve nothing less. Will you join me in affirming
your wholehearted commitment to be an unapologetic, unashamed,
missionary-minded Messianic Jew (or Gentile), regardless of
the cost or consequence? Can we do anything less?
No
one likes shame or rejection, and no one desires to be cast
out by his or her very own family. But that is why the New Testament
writings continually call us to be unashamed in our witness,
recognizing the intense pressure we have to face. I leave you,
then, with this exhortation from Hebrews.
The
high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy
Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside
the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate
to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then,
go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.
For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking
for the city that is to come (Heb 13:11-14).
1
Because this paper was prepared for public presentation, I have
kept footnotes and academic discussion to an absolute minimum.
In another context, I hope to provide the scholarly apparatus
to support all the main lines of discussion included in this
paper.
2
Mark S. Kinzer, Postmissionary Messianic Judaism: Redefining
Christian Engagement with the Jewish People (Grand Rapids:
Brazos, 2005)
3
Witness the discussion in Kesher, 20 (Winter/Spring
2006), 4-64, and Mishkan 48 (2006), 3-72.
4
Postmissionary Messianic Judaism, 304-305.
5
Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking
the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity
Press), 66.
6
Postmissionary Messianic Judaism, 260. Note that the
Scripture Index to this volume includes references to 1-2 Maccabbees,
1 Enoch, Jubilees, and Rabbinic Literature, but not the Church
Fathers.
7
http://www.orthodoxrabbis.org/halachic_ruling.htm
8
Michael L. Brown, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus:
Volume 5, Traditional Jewish Objections (forthcoming).
9
Michael L. Brown, Our Hands Are Stained with Blood: The
Tragic Story of the “Church” and the Jewish People
(Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image, 1992).
10
Postmissionary Messianic Judaism, 217, 226.
11
Ibid., 126.
12
Judaism,” in Gerald F. Hawthorne and Ralph P. Martin,
eds., Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers Grove,
IL: InterVarsity, 1993; electronic edition).
13
See my 1988 paper, “The Place of Rabbinic Tradition in
Messianic Judaism,” for more on this; the paper is available
at http://www.realmessiah.com/tradition.htm.
14
Ray A. Pritz, Nazarene Jewish Christianity: From the End
of the New Testament Period Until Its Disappearance in the Fourth
Century (Jerusalem/Leiden: Magnes/Brill, 1988).
15
I first discovered this quote in Leonard Ravenhill’s classic
volume, Why Revival Tarries (Minneapolis: Bethany,
1962).
16
I do not have the original source of this quote.