Nothing but the truthMay 19th, 2010 I have a friend named Alan who is a Jewish believer in Yeshua (Jesus). After he became a believer some years ago, he went to Israel and lived for about a year with a Lebovich family. He told me he remembers one of the men in the family making this statement: “You don’t want to read the New Testament to much or you’ll start to believe it!” What an ironic statement. The gentlemen was warning Alan – warning him that the New Testament can lull him to a false truth just by reading it. What is more logical, however, than that reading the Gospel can lead to belief in Yeshua as Messiah because its claims are genuine and true? I would go one step further however. I suggest to you, dear reader, that the fact that the New Testament is true is what makes the Tanakh (the Hebrew Scriptures or “Old Testament”) true. If Yeshua was not the Messiah as he and his disciples claimed; if he did not die on the cross for our sins and was not raised on the third day; if faith in him is not the way to eternal life, then the Tanakh is false and is not to be followed or believed in. The Tanakh promised a righteous servant who would be as one accursed, cut off from his people and killed – one who would be an asham (a guilt offering) for our sins though he was sinless, and through whom he would share his victory by giving eternal life (see Isaiah 53:1-12). Furthermore, the Tanakh promised a B’rit Hadashah – a New Covenant – that would not be like the covenant he made on Mount Sinai. This is a new covenant in which God’s laws would be written on our hearts and by which our sins would be remembered no more (see Jeremiah 31:31-34). Not only that, but this Messiah would come to his temple (Malachi 3:1). Yeshua fulfilled these promises and they could only be fulfilled by him. There are many other promises of Messiah that were fulfilled by him and him alone. And so God’s promises are fulfilled and we can see his faithfulness in keeping his word in Tanakh and the trustworthiness of the promises of Tanakh. Meanwhile the rabbis continue to deal with an Old Covenant that no longer is binding. How could it be? There is no temple in which to fulfill all the Levitical laws, a good third of the laws of Torah. There is no way given in Tanakh by which we might have atonement for our sins, since the temple has been destroyed. Instead, they have added and subtracted to the laws God gave Israel, something that they were warned not to do. Although there is much that is beautiful in rabbinic traditions, the truth of the matter is that they by and large make the truths of Scriptures into not-truths. They nullify God’s law and God’s promises in favour of their own traditions. This is why Yeshua said in the Gospel of John 5:45-47,
If the Tanakh is true, then the B’rit Hadashah is true. If the B’rit Hadashah is false, then so is the Tanakh. Read the whole of Scripture for yourself and you will see that it speaks the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And that is why if you read the B’rit Hadashah enough, you may very well come to believe it! Contributed by Daniel Muller, General Director of New Covenant Forum. Posted in Jesus and Jews, Jewish Tradition, Jews and Jesus, Messiah in the Tanach, Talmud vs. Tanakh, Uncategorized | No Comments » The Gospel Message: Telling it like it is!May 17th, 2010
This report was dated the summer of 1963. The Gospel Preachers worked for an organization called the South African Jews Society. These people understood that Gospel Proclamation is not a right to be earned – it is a responsibility to be discharged. Love does not keep silent – love is audible, seen, and courageous. We all are afraid of being vulnerable, of rejection, of being labeled as religious bigots. A Rabbi once claimed that those who tell Jews the Gospel are no better than Spiritual Nazis. Some shun these discomforts in the name of love. Too many of us keep silent in the face of our obligation to have an audible love that speaks of God’s salvation in Messiah. Silence cares more about self and your own sensibilities than another’s salvation. I say that it is a badge of honor to bear the reproach of Messiah. Scripture says: For Zion’s sake I will not be silent Get up on a high mountain and say – Behold your God! In Canada we have economic stability, universal health care, powerful neighbors, and low crime. But in Canada the public square is naked – people of religious conviction are marginalized. The public religion is pluralism. The status quo is worshiped. Religious tolerance has deteriorated into a shrill insistence that anyone who challenges another’s belief is intolerant. There is little patience in Canada for the concept of absolute truth, yet high praise for the blurring of distinction. Pluralism should mean that we recognize the rights of people to believe differently. We can co-exist peacefully and still debate religious ideals and values. In Canada, we have decided to tolerate what God has decided not to tolerate – for our own sake, not for His. This kind of conformity counteracts the message of the Gospel and the preaching of the Gospel and I believe that God’s people need to counter it. Missionary work among the Jewish people is something that brings workers into confrontation with the Jewish people and with Jewish culture. We are told: “You can’t be Jewish and believe in Jesus,” “You are destroying Jewish values,” “You are finishing what Hitler started”. It is easy to marginalize direct evangelism in Canada by claiming that it is inappropriate, offensive, and insensitive to our mindset. If there were a better way to evangelize we would do it, but the direct approach is the most honorable, is transparent and is the way of integrity. The direct method keeps us honest and honours the message. I don’t consider myself an offensive person, but I am a Jew for Jesus. That says it all. And that offends people. All who labor for the gospel among my people need friends. A friend is more than someone who will send money or lend a hand or stand up for you. A friend is more than someone who will nurse you in sickness. A friend is more than a comrade or a companion or one with a shared interest. A friend says, “Do you see what I see?” Do you see the same truth? Do you care about the same truth? Friends stand side by side and look ahead and their eyes are fixed on the same truth. The condition of friendship is that you want something else. Friendship must be about something. We need friends to care with us that the Gospel is for the Jews! Contributed by Andrew Barron, Director of Jews for Jesus Canada Posted in Evangelism, Goyim for God, Jesus and Jews, Jews and Jesus, This, That, The Other Thing, Uncategorized | No Comments » Rashi and a lying GodMay 11th, 2010 The title of this article might seem a bit incendiary. I certainly hope it grabbed your attention, but the purpose of this article is not to be incendiary, but to highlight a concern of mine. You see, I believe that God is a promise keeper, not a promise breaker. I also believe that if the highly acclaimed medieval scholar, Rabbi Sh’lomo ben Yitzhak (better known as Rashi) were alive today to be asked, he would say the same thing. Nevertheless, in the midst of his concerted efforts to shut down Christian attempts to make the Messiahship of Yeshua (Jesus) known in his day, Rashi creates an interpretation that would make God out to be a promise breaker to his covenant people Israel. The passage under consideration is Isaiah 53, a passage in the Tanakh (Hebrew Scriptures) that I think everyone should check out for themselves. Here it is:
If you look in the Talmud you will see that those ancient rabbis who wrote of these verses understood the passage to refer to the person of Messiah. They had no problem at the time with the picture of a suffering servant Messiah. In fact, there was an understanding in the 1st Century that there were two pictures of Messiah in the Tanakh: the victorious king Messiah (ben David), and the suffering servant Messiah (ben Yoseph). The similarity between this prophetic description and the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Yeshua are mind-boggling and hard to ignore without some wilfulness. It was enough of a problem in the mind of Rashi, that he came up with an interpretation that made hash of the passage’s grammar, and went against the traditions of the elders. Rashi interpreted the passage in such a way that the suffering servant became, not Messiah, but the nation of Israel. To this day, many rabbis and religious Jews will use this interpretation as a polemic against the claims that Messiah Yeshua fulfilled this prophecy. In Rashi’s day, this interpretation was by no means universal, however it became very popular. It appeared to be a very convenient response to the claims Christians made. There is one major flaw with this argument however. It makes God out to be a liar! God, speaking through his servant Moses to the nation of Israel in Deuteronomy 28, tells them that if they would be obedient he would bless the nation, but if they were disobedient he would curse them – bring calamity upon them and spit them out of the land he had given them: the Promised Land. Now God kept his promise and eventually exiled both the Northern and Southern kingdoms, in their turn, because of their disobedience. One might consider the fact that in rejecting the Messiah when he came, they were again punished – the temple destroyed in 70 AD and the people disbursed for 2,000 years. But in Isaiah 53:11 we see that the servant spoken of in the passage is a righteous one, yet “we esteemed him stricken by God and afflicted. (v. 4)” Here is a righteous servant being afflicted, wounded, crushed, killed. If this is the nation of Israel, as Rashi claimed, then God has broken his promise with it. He becomes a liar. God is not a liar however. God shows himself time and time again to be a promise keeper. Furthermore, when was Israel ever righteous as a nation? Throughout the Tanakh, we see the tendency of the people of Israel to turn away from the Lord, and they were punished accordingly. I’m not trying to knock Israel, but to point out that even Israel with the Law and the Prophets were not able to keep on the right track – to be righteous servants. How much less likely is it that the other nations of the world can do any better? The point of the Gospel – the reason the Messiah was afflicted and destroyed, and yet able to see the light of day (to be resurrected) – is that we are incapable of being righteous on our own, and more than Israel was. We need a saviour! And so God the promise keeper, in keeping with his promise through Isaiah, came in the form of man to be the suffering servant Messiah, Yeshua. Think about it, and tell us what you think! Contributed by Daniel Muller, General Director of New Covenant Forum. Posted in Jesus and Jews, Jewish Tradition, Jews and Jesus, Messiah in the Tanach | No Comments » |
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