Messianic Teachings for Christians
When a Christian begins to hear the teaching of Torah and compares it with their previous church teaching, they move toward being Messianic. They also have the tendency to get excited about their faith and, at the same time, irritated that they did not hear the same teaching in their church. These new Messianics have long-standing questions answered and experience a true sense of understanding about God and themselves. However, as they progress and learn that the Law of Moses has not been cancelled and that the New Covenant did not replace the Old Covenant, they find themselves amid chaos and scorn. While they are seeking out God and desiring to know His ways, their family and friends’ initial reaction to this new adventure is to react as though they are being betrayed. Their pastor will tend to think that their former church attendee has “fallen from the faith.”
All of this will be confirmed by beginning to keep Sabbath, not eating bacon or shrimp anymore, and a heightened interest in Passover and Tabernacles. Their Christian friends will believe they have gone off the deep end and gotten involved with a cult. They may even accuse them of trying to be saved by keeping commandments and “becoming Jewish.” Their mothers will reaffirm their love despite being convinced that they are going crazy. She will try to entice them back into the faith by extra decorations and a big Christmas family party. If the new Messianic has long-term Christian parents, they may even re-evaluate their wills. If the new Messianic is coming from a Jewish home, their parents will say the “Kaddish” (mourner’s prayer) at the synagogue and consider them dead.
You would think that the average Christian would applaud and encourage their friend or family member for wanting to know more about the Bible and strengthen their faith. But this is not true if they speak of the Commandments of God in an honorable way. The fact is the average Christian does not really know what the Bible says. They only know what their preacher and their previous teachers in the church have said. They have heard all the “basics” of the Christian faith including:
Jesus did away with the Law and we do not do that Old Testament stuff.
Jesus replaced the Old Testament with the New Testament.
Jesus changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday
There is nothing wrong with eating pork and shellfish. God gave Peter a vision and told him to eat “unclean” animals.
Jesus was the final sacrifice so we do not do the temple stuff anymore.
Christians get saved by faith; Old Testament saints were saved by keeping the Law. Jews who do not accept Jesus are not saved.
The Gentile church has replaced Israel. The nation of Israel has been brought back only to fulfill the Tribulation prophecies.
The Old Testament is just history and source material for Sunday School lessons only.
Christians keep the Ten Commandments but do not have to do the fourth commandment of Sabbath. Besides you can make any day a sabbath. But still do not do that on Saturday since it makes others think you are trying to be Jewish.
The Church will be raptured before the Tribulation. The Jews will be killed.
Catholics believe the Church, Mary and Jesus are the priorities of the faith, in that order.
Protestants believe the Bible, Jesus, and the Church are the priorities of the faith in that order.
I admit this list is oversimplified. I am sure there are many church brethren who would dispute this observation, but I can assure you I have heard these very words from the mouths of Catholics, Protestants, and every Christian denomination, including independent believers. My point is simple and self-evident.
When a new Messianic believer begins to gain a better understanding of the Bible, including the Torah, the prophecies of the Messiah, and the promises that God has made that remain to be fulfilled, there is obvious conflict with tradition and culture.
These new Messianic believers are dealing with a conflict with their paradigm. A paradigm is defined as “a typical example or pattern of something; a model.”
Christians have been given a set of precepts and patterns (a model) explaining the Bible. They are in a paradigm of culture and tradition. Messianics on the other hand have set that paradigm to the side and are searching for themselves what the Bible says and seeking spiritual guidance from God directly.
Messianics soon discover some other “basics” of the faith:
Yeshua (the Hebrew name of Jesus) did not abolish, do away with, or annul any Commandment in the Law. He came to fulfill and teach it.
The two greatest Commandments are to love God and your neighbor. “On this the whole Law hangs.”
God’s Commandments were given to all peoples, tribes, and tongues from the native born (Israel), to the alien, and to the stranger who believes in the God of Creation and Israel. Obeying the commandments leads to blessings, disobeying leads to curses. Obeying the Commandments is how we love God! Transgressing the Commandments is sin.
Before God, there is neither Jew or Gentile. You are either a believer or you are not. Salvation is by faith but then you obey God to love Him.
There is no “Old Covenant.” There are seven Covenants of God. They are the Adamic, the Noahic, the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, the Davidic, the New Covenant, and the Covenant of Peace. Collectively they are referred to as the Salt Covenant. The Messiah brought us the New Covenant, and the Covenant of Peace will be established with the Messiah returns to establish His Kingdom.
At no time has God replaced any previous covenant with any follow-on covenant. All the previous covenants are still in effect with specific signs to understand their permanency. The Bible explicitly states that the covenant made with Moses and Israel, including the Law and Prophets, cannot pass away until Heaven and Earth pass away as stated by the Messiah.
Sabbath is still here (the last day of the week) and is a sign between all the believers of the God of Israel remembering the three great works of God: Creation, Redemption, and Restoration. Restoration is still yet future. Sabbath will be in the future.
God’s definition of what is food is still in effect. Only clean animals may be “koshered” (made fit and proper) to be food.
Yeshua was not the “end” of sacrifices. He was the goal of the sacrificial system to illustrate the one sacrifice brought by God – the Lamb of God. It is the only sacrifice that passes you from “death to life.” The other sacrifices illustrate how to show thanksgiving, how to make amends, and how to express regret for failing to do the right thing. Yeshua’s sacrifice remains in effect for all eternity for all of mankind.
Israel has never been cast off from God. Israel has been punished by God many times but there has always been a “Remnant” kept by God. Gentiles who believe in the Messiah are grafted into the Olive Tree called Israel. All believers are part of the commonwealth of Israel. However, not all of Israel are the Remnant. The modern church of today was founded by church fathers who did not want to be part of Israel.
The Bible is defined as the Torah, the Prophets, the Other Writings, the Gospels, the Letters, and the Apocalypse. The term “Old Testament” is a misnomer when compared with the New Covenant.
The rapture of the church is a false expectation. The resurrection and rapture of those still alive comes after the Great Tribulation and prior to the Wrath of God. I believe it is modeled after the Egyptian Exodus and referred to as a “Greater Exodus.”
If you are Christian and still reading, at this moment you can see the incredible contrast that awaits a new Messianic believer. You can also see why the average Christian is perplexed by the differences.
Many new Messianics also have resentment toward their previous church teachers. They feel they were taught lies and the whole truth was kept from them. They are right, but they also need to understand that their teachers did not make these decisions. It did not originate with them. Those decisions were made long ago by the church fathers and their teachers are a product of those decisions, just as we all have been.
Breaking the paradigm of church and replacement theology is not an easy task, because it is spiritual in nature and it requires the work of the Holy Spirit for a person to be given eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to understand.
At the heart of church paradigm is the prophecy for the New Covenant. Here is good example how a Messianic can see past the paradigm. Let us examine the prophecy directly.
“Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,”
Jeremiah 31:31
Who was the New Covenant made with? Who does it belong to? Answer: Both houses of Israel. It was not purposed to the Gentile nations and it is not separate from Israel.
“not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.
Jeremiah 31:32
The covenant that God made with Israel at Mt. Sinai was fraught with error with Israel. They made a golden calf and continued to mumble and grumble against the Lord. The did not make the covenant with full faith while the Lord did make the covenant with them forever. The conditions for the covenant dealt with blessing and curse. God absolutely declared Himself to be their God and they as His people.
“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put my law within them and on their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Jeremiah 31:33
Again, the covenant is made with Israel and those who join with the God of Israel. Instead of His Commandments being etched in stone, He wrote them on the tablets of the heart. The Commandments did not change; they were not modified and none were annulled. The Good News of the Messiah (His redemption and resurrection) came forth in the New Covenant. As Paul taught, the Gospel is to the Jew first and also the Greek.
“They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.”
Jeremiah 31:34
This is still a work in progress. Not all men know the Lord yet, but we have been forgiven for our sins.
Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day, and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea, so that its waves roar; the LORD of hosts is His name: “If this fixed order [The Law] departs from before Me,” declares the LORD, “then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before Me forever.”
Jeremiah 31:35–36
Israel is still Here! The Commandments of God given before the New Covenant still remain forever.
Thus says the LORD, “If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out below, then will I also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,” declares the LORD.
Jeremiah 31:37
God says that Israel and His Commandments given to them will remain along as the Universe and the Earth remain. We are still here!
“Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the city will be rebuilt for the LORD from the tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. The measuring line will go out further straight ahead to the hill Gareb; then it will turn to Goah. And the whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields as far as the brook Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be holy to the LORD; it will not be plucked up or overthrown any more forever.
Jeremiah 31:38–40
This is a description of the city of Jerusalem in the future Messianic Kingdom. The New Covenant leads to Jerusalem, not Rome, London, New York, or Salt Lake City.
When Yeshua inaugurated the New Covenant with the Cup of Redemption and bread from Passover, He was not establishing the sacraments of the church. He was keeping and fulfilling the Passover. The fact is that the Church stole those elements to make their own rituals.
When James was the leader of the believing Jews in Jerusalem, he did not set up the first church in Jerusalem. They worshipped God at the Temple. In fact, the book of Acts says they were all zealous for the Law!
After we arrived in Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly. And the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present. After he had greeted them, he began to relate one by one the things which God had doneamong the Gentiles through his ministry. And when they heard it, they began glorifying God; and they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the Law;
Acts 21:17–20
When Peter led Cornelius, the Roman Centurion at Caesarea, to the Lord, he did not instruct him to build the first Gentile Church there.
When Paul and others journeyed to other nations to share the Gospel, He went on Sabbath to synagogues to find Gentiles worshipping the God of Israel. They were the ones accepting the Hebrew Messiah.
After the first counsel in Jerusalem addressing the number of Gentiles coming to faith, James’ instruction to them was to go where Moses is taught every Sabbath in the synagogues. This was not a new thing for believing Gentiles. Who told the new Christians to set up churches separate from Israel? Answer: neither the Messiah nor the Apostles. It was the church fathers with Constantine. What followed is called church history.
Church history prior to this generation is an interesting study and most modern-day Christians have no idea what happened. Church history is full of power struggles, persecutions, and pogroms leading to the Holocaust. The Crusades were particularly deadly, all in the name of Christ.
Modern day Christians think they are exempt from any guilt associated with those atrocities. They are wrong. They are still following the teachings and doctrines of those same church fathers and seeing themselves separate form Israel.
The God of Israel is a just God, and the guilty will not go unpunished. There is a Day of Reconciliation coming. Religious men who have added to and taken away from the instructions (the Commandments) are going to find it difficult giving an account to the Master. Every word out of our mouths will be measured against what the Lord has said.
I have watched over the years as many Christian brethren have made the transition to become Messianic believers. It is like walking out of a dark cave into the light of day. Their excitement is genuine. They want their family and friends to see the light also but is not easy for them to follow. This is a movement of the Holy Spirit bringing us back to the Words of God; the majority of those in church will not make the transition. They are listening to the words of men. Only those who set the paradigm aside and seek the understanding that comes from the Holy Spirit will understand.
To address the issues that contrast Messianics and Christians I have taught a program entitled Messianic Teachings for Christians. It is available for viewing on social media and a separate program for purchase through Lion and Lamb Ministries’ marketplace: “Messianic Teachings for Christians” on MessianicMarketplace.org.
This program addresses the most fundamental questions in this transition. What is the proper reference material for our faith and how we should live? Is it the New Testament that has replaced the Old Testament? Is the position of Peter as the “Apostle to the Jews” of greater authority than anyone else including Moses, the Prophets, or the other Apostles? Or, do the Church Fathers have the authority to set aside the Biblical instruction? Did Paul really set up Christianity? And he can adjust a few things differently from what the Messiah said?
The reason many Christians will not make the transition is very simple. They do not want to deal with any of the questions nor open the Bible for themselves. Some of them plead ignorance of everything including the Bible.
It is sad to see a faithful church goer just ignore the words of the Messiah and the wooing of the Holy Spirit. They claim to know Jesus and that is all they need. In the final days of the Apostle John’s ministry, he may have met some believers with the same attitude. This is what he kindly said to them.
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Yeshua the Messiah the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep his commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.
1 John 2:1–6
For those of you who have turned to the words of Moses to understand the words of Yeshua, I commend you and encourage you to continue on the path. Learn to obey from the heart toward God. Learn to seek out God’s heart for you.