| JESUS-YESHUA:
WHO IS HE?*
Jesus - Yeshua.
Rabbi? Prophet? Healer? Deliverer? Savior? Messiah?
Son of God?
Jesus - Yeshua.
Deceiver? Apostate? Magician? Rebel? Traitor? Liar?
Accursed of God?
Jesus - Yeshua. Who is this man?
Two thousand years have
come and gone, but the question remains the same: Is Jesus of Nazareth
the Jewish Messiah, the Savior of the world? If he is, then let’s
follow him, for we have no other way. If he’s not, let’s
expose him, for only the truth will set us free.
* * *
Although the world is
full of religions, the controversy surrounding the Messiahship of
Jesus is unique, because both those who accept Jesus and those who
reject him base their beliefs on one and the same Book. Jews who
follow Jesus say: “He must be the Messiah. He fulfilled all
the prophecies of the Bible.” Jews who don’t follow
Jesus say: “He can’t be the Messiah. He fulfilled none
of the prophecies of the Bible.”
Who’s right?
From one Book, the Hebrew
Scriptures, have come two faiths. One faith says: We’d rather
die than confess the name of Jesus. The other faith says:
We’d rather die than deny the name of Jesus. One
faith says: There are two Messiahs who will only come once. The
other faith says: There is one Messiah but he will come twice.
“So how can I know the
truth?”
Simple. Only one of these
two faiths is based on the power of God while the other has been
built on the traditions of men. There really is quite a difference!
And the God of the patriarchs, the God of the exodus, the God of
the prophets, is the God of the Messiah, and He has made things
plain in His Word. If you seek Him with all your heart, then the
Scriptures will be “a light to our path and a lamp to our
feet” (Psa 119:105). His Word is sure. He cannot lie.
* * *
Once I was speaking to an ultra-orthodox rabbi
about the Messiahship of Jesus. He didn’t want to hear my
opinions (and I can’t blame him for that!). He didn’t
care about what anybody else had to say. He just wanted to go
back to the original sources. “Let’s go back to the
Talmud,” he said. “That’s where we can find
the truth.”
I think my answer surprised
him. “Why should I go back to the Talmud,” I said, “when
I can go all the way back to the New Testament?” To my
surprise, he didn’t argue.
You see, many Jewish
people today are told that Judaism alone is the real religion of
the Bible, and that “Christianity” is a much later,
predominantly Gentile religion. And yet statements such as these,
intimidating as they may sound, are simply not true.
Here are the facts:
Traditional Judaism as we know it today is not so much the religion
of Moses and the prophets as it is the religion of the rabbis who
lived and taught over 1500 years later. Instead of being the religion
of sacrifice and blood atonement as prescribed by the Torah, it
is a religion without sacrifice and blood atonement, in spite of
the Torah. It may shock you to know this, but some of Judaism’s
most sacred books did not even exist before the late Middle
Ages. Christopher Columbus had already discovered America before
the Code of Jewish Law used by Orthodox Jews today reached its final
form. And the traditions keep on growing to this very day.
As for the Messianic
Jewish faith, the Jewish faith that believes in Yeshua the Messiah,
the facts are as follows: The sole authority for faith and practice
is the Bible, consisting of the Old and New Covenants. Rather than
the New Covenant being a late Gentile book, all it’s authors,
save one, were Jews, Jews who lived in the days before
the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE. Many other traditions
and customs added in the following centuries by the church have
had nothing to do with the Bible and therefore have absolutely no
connection with the Messianic Jewish faith. Although some people
may call them “biblical” or “Christian,”
they are totally devoid of scriptural authority.
The writers of the New
Covenant were Jews who recognized that Messiah had come to atone
for the sins of his people. They based their beliefs on the Hebrew
Scriptures, and on the Hebrew Scriptures alone. And so, when Yeshua
died and rose from the dead in accordance with key prophecies in
those very Scriptures, they had all the confirmation they could
ever want that he indeed was the promised Messiah. If he had not
fulfilled those essential prophecies then they would not have followed
him. They recognized him because he did the work Messiah had to
do.
Then why didn’t
the other Jewish leaders of the day acknowledge that Yeshua was
in fact the Messiah? The answer again is simple: They weren’t
looking for him. They were looking for another. The Messiah of the
rabbis only partly resembled the Messiah of the Bible. And yet the
thing they longed for most was the very thing they missed, for
Messiah had come to save them from their sins.
So in 30 CE, as Yeshua
“approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and
said, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would
bring you peace -- but now it is hidden from your eyes. For you
did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.’”
(Luke 19:41-42) Forty years later Jerusalem was destroyed, and tens
of thousands of her inhabitants were dead.
“But wait one
second,” you say. “Weren’t these rabbis the very
ones who studied the Torah day and night? And weren’t these
the men who were responsible for some of the most beautiful prayers
and teachings that were ever written? How did it happen, then, that
some of the most scrupulous and zealous Jews who ever lived missed
the Messiah?” It is to this question that we now must turn.
* * *
Substitution.
There is no more important concept in
the Hebrew Bible than this if we are to understand God’s holy
love for us.
Substitution.
It is the key that unlocks the door to
our redemption. And it is the rock that makes men stumble. It
alone can fully explain why Yeshua’s own people missed him,
and it alone can open their eyes again.
Substitution. Without this word Yeshua’s
death is a farce.
The rabbis of the Talmud discussed how to be
made right with God, especially in the absence of blood sacrifices.
They said, “For certain sins, the Day of Atonement alone
is sufficient,” while for other sins they argued, “There
must be repentance as well.” For more serious offenses they
claimed that only the Day, plus repentance, plus
suffering would do the trick, while for the worst sins of all
they taught, “The only hope for forgiveness is in the Day
of Atonement and death!”
And yet they missed
the point of the Day, and they missed the point of the blood. They
failed to grasp the lesson that was before their eyes.
Day after day, the Sadducees
offered their sacrifices at the Temple. Thousands upon thousands
of animals were slain, and gallons of blood were poured out on the
altar. Lambs and goats and rams and calves were offered up to a
holy God. Yet the people could not see.
The Pharisees studied
the Torah day and night. They added new regulations to old laws,
and they developed the most detailed system of ritual purity that
the world has ever known. They taught that study of the
Law was more loved by God than even the offerings themselves. Yet
they failed to see the heart of the matter. They failed to grasp
the fundamental meaning of it all.
For it was not the blood
of bulls that God wanted for Himself; it was not the fat of rams
that He desired. It was not a people of mere ritual purity that
He sought; He did not require a new code that would keep men clean.
No. He wanted a substitute, a righteous lamb who would bear His
people’s sins. He wanted a spotless sacrifice who would purify
the people within.
Over and over again,
a thousand times ten thousand, the offerings were brought before
the altar. And over and over again, in numbers too great to count,
their innocent blood was spilled. And over and over again, the message
of God was crying out: “A substitute must come! A substitute
must come!”
* * *
The Jewish people of Yeshua’s day were
all looking for a Savior. Some hoped for a mighty military Leader,
while others looked for a Deliverer from the sky. Some looked
for a holy Priest, while others looked for a Teacher of Righteousness.
Yet no one was looking for a Crucified Messiah. And no one was
looking for the Lamb of God. They had forgotten that the righteous
Servant of the Lord was himself to be an ’asham
-- an offering for sin (Isaiah 53:10). And they had forgotten
father Abraham’s words that God would provide the
lamb for the burnt offering (Genesis 22:8).
Yes, there were some
rabbis who claimed that every sacrifice was accepted on
the basis of Abraham’s offering up of Isaac. And they claimed
that in the Passover rite, when God “saw the blood”
(Exodus 12), He was looking at the sacrifice of Isaac and not
at the blood of the lamb.
Yet Isaac was not
offered, and his blood was never shed. And it was God Himself
Who provided the sacrifice that saved the life of Abraham’s
son.
It was Messiah
who suffered and died, and it is by his wounds that we
are healed (Isaiah 53:5). It was he who was led as a lamb to the
slaughter, and it was he who bore our sins (Isaiah 53:7, 12 and
Leviticus 16:22).
Oh yes, there were Jewish
teachers who believed that the suffering of the righteous could
bring atonement to the world. Yet when the truly Righteous One suffered
and died, they said that it was for naught.
* * *
Our rabbis tell us that when Messiah comes,
he will establish peace on earth. When the real Savior comes,
he will even bring change to the physical world. But a Savior
who changes the physical world without first changing us is really
no savior at all. And a Messiah who establishes peace on earth
without first establishing peace in our hearts is really no Messiah
at all.
Messiah had
to die. Messiah had to take our place. There was no other
way. No other substitute was found. No one else could pay the price.
Nothing else could heal our wounds, for sin required death.
Yeshua paid
the price. It was his death that brought us life. He
alone was the Substitute for a sinful human race, and he
alone can offer us redemption.
* * *
The traditional Judaism of our day has its
roots in the religion of the Pharisees, a small group of dedicated
Jews who banded together over two thousand years ago. These were
the men who would not eat with ceremonially unwashed hands, the
men so famous for their attention to detail. These were the men
who even tithed on insignificant crops, and who studied every
jot and tittle of God’s Law.
Yet many of these men
were the ones who missed Yeshua when he came. They did not see the
forest for the trees.
For it is not ritual
observance that makes a man clean within, and it is not attention
to an outer system of laws that brings us to God. And no matter
how much we try to love Him and please Him, our efforts are polluted
with sin. We are members of a fallen race. Only a new heart will
do.
Yet this is the truth
these zealous men missed, since in their passion for obedience to
every letter of the Law they did not fully grasp the spirit of the
One Who gave it. And as the Pharisees went, so have the Jewish people
gone.
Traditional Judaism
as we know it today was formulated by the heirs of those who rejected
Yeshua. It is a religion which stands against faith in him,
a system which ignores his life, disregards his death, and denies
his resurrection. It downplays the supernatural, life-transforming
power of the Spirit of God. That’s why traditional Jews throughout
the ages have stumbled over the person of Yeshua. But in the beginning
it was not so.
Most Jewish teachers
before Yeshua emphasized the miraculous and believed in
the power of God’s testimony from heaven. But when the followers
of Yeshua had so many healings and prophetic words, many said, “We
don’t depend on a miracle!”
Many of the Jews of
Yeshua’s day were looking for a Deliverer who would come miraculously,
as with the clouds of heaven. Yet when Yeshua said, “I have
come down from heaven, and I will come again in the clouds of heaven,”
many said, “Not so! Our Messiah will be a teacher of the Law,
a rabbi like ourselves!”
They had the prayers,
they had the laws, they had the covenant tradition -- how did our
forefathers miss it? The answer again is simple. They truly had
a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge (Romans 10:2). They
did not attain what they sought after, for they stumbled over the
grace of God.
Messiah had come to
make them well, yet they said in reply, “We’re not sick!”
* * *
But not all of our forefathers missed it. The
writer of almost half of the New Covenant Scriptures was himself
a Pharisee, born of the tribe of Benjamin. And the Book of Acts
records “how many myriads of Jews” there were who
believed and were zealous for the Torah (Acts 21:20). In fact,
“a great many of the [Jewish] priests were obedient to the
faith” (Acts 6:7), and even today in our country and throughout
the world, there are multiplied scores of thousands of
Jews who believe and confess, “Yeshua is the Messiah! Yeshua
is Lord!”
This, then, is the biblical,
Jewish faith, the Jewish faith that is truly Messianic. And this
is the faith that will bring the world back to God, the faith that
will cause the nations to believe. And Yeshua is the One who will
establish justice in the earth, “and the coastlands shall
[and do!] wait for His law” (Isaiah 42:4). At this very hour,
in every continent on the globe, countless millions of people who
used to be godless now worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
-- through Jesus (Yeshua!) -- the Messiah and Lord. He is the only
Way.
It is true that the
Messiah’s mission to Israel appeared to have failed, and the
Hebrew Scriptures tell us that he even said to the Lord, “I
have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and
for nothing.” But the Lord responded to him: “It is
too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes
of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also
make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation
to the ends of the earth” (Isa 49:4, 6). Yes, Israel too shall
believe, just as the nations of the world have put their trust in
the Messiah, the Son of God.
* * *
The Talmud teaches that for the last forty
years before the Temple was destroyed, God did not accept the
sacrifices of the Day of Atonement (Yoma 39). Year after year,
for the life of one whole generation, the Lord was saying, “No.”
You see, God had provided
one Sacrifice for all, a final Atonement for the sins of mankind.
God had provided the Lamb. And it was forty years before the
Temple was destroyed that Yeshua offered his life. From that
day to this, God has been saying “No” to His people.
“No more of your sacrifices, no more of your
prayers, no more of your works. I have provided the Way.”
Yet to all who have
ears to hear, God has been saying: “Yes, you may come! Yes,
you can know Me! Yes, I will cleanse you from all your sin! Believe
in the One I have sent. Messiah Yeshua has come.”
* * *
The spiritual leaders of our people who tell
us that we can not know God are wrong. They are only saying, “I
don’t know Him personally, so how can you? I’ve studied
for years and I’m still learning. How can you be so sure?”
Once again, our answer
is simple and clear. Messiah Yeshua has made God known. He has revealed
the Father to us. And through his blood we have been brought back
to God.
Tradition will not save us.
Opinions will not set us free.
Messiah has ransomed our souls from the
Pit.
Let all his Jewish people come!
*Copyright © Michael L. Brown, 1987, 2005
Dr. Michael L. Brown
ICN Ministries
PO Box 1446
Harrisburg, NC 28075
704-782-3760
e-mail: ministry@icnministries.org
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