A Tale of Rabbit Trails, Cyclical History and 11/28/2011 - In reading the works of the Apostle Paul in contrast with the Modern Church, one cannot help but be amazed by the confusion, misunderstanding, or just plain disregard that has taken place for what Paul called the Gospel. Some of it is reasonable, perhaps the result of taking other New Testament epistles (like James’) and using them as if the entire New Testament hangs on a specific piece of text. Some of it is just honest mistakes of bad eisegesis, taking specific letters out of context, hundreds of years of proof-texting and wrongly assumed theology. It is in Paul’s epistle to the Romans, however, which is (in my opinion) the clearest letter on the full Good News, where the Church misses some of the greatest truth concerning God’s Grace. Not only the Grace for the Gentiles but also, in the same breath, Grace towards national Israel. Paul’s Gospel In the eleventh chapter of Romans, Paul declares his prophecy that all Israel will be saved. It is to say that Good News for the Gentiles necessitates Good News for the Jews, because, as Yeshua said, Salvation is of the Jews. The epistle Romans says nothing if not these four things: 2.) There is now NO condemnation (Romans 8) 3.) ALL National Israel will eventually be saved (Romans 9-11) 4.) Because of all this, we don’t have to be jerks to one another (Romans 12-16)
Paul always inserted a blurb about how believers are to behave contrasting the world in order to demonstrate what our newfound righteousness looks like. These blurbs always came after the “theological groundwork” (I don’t like that phrase since it separates the scholar from the simple – how about substituting the phrase “very real reality”) of our effortless righteousness in Messiah.
Some have mistakenly taken these verbal demonstrations of the fruits of righteousness and created another moral code of them—Paul’s Laws—achieving “Christian morality” by some amount of human strength plus the secret ingredient of the mysterious Holy Spirit. But why start in the Spirit and finish in any kind of flesh or human strength? Are we trying to summon up any dignity from our dead corpses that are hopeless to help save themselves? These additions and mixing of efforts is exactly what Paul was attacking in the New Testament Church. But enough rabbit trails. Messianic Envy The first generation of believers in Yeshua were primarily raised Jewish, culturally and religiously (though there was no separation at that time between culture and religion). Those who first believed had no problem accepting Yeshua as their Messiah and Savior – as the basis for their righteousness and salvation. They taught one another from the Tanak (Old Testament) at the synagogue. They sang Psalms. They prayed and preached at the temple while the priests were busy trying to repair a recently tattered veil. They continued to observe the Torah and to consider themselves Jews, just as I continue to brush my teeth everyday and consider myself Mexican American. They saw that it all pointed to Messiah and that Messiah now walked in them, just as real as he walked the earth, walked to Calvary, walked out of the grave and now sat at the Father’s right hand. But the real kicker and test for this young Messianic body was when the Gentiles started becoming sovereignly thrust into the Kingdom of God and baptized in the Holy Spirit. These dogs were suddenly being included as a people who were not formerly a people. They had not the Torah, nor the Prophets, nor the traditions, history, or centuries of waiting, purging, and seeking under their belt. Yet they were now piggybacking a free ride into the Kingdom of God, hanging on to the shirttails of their Jewish Messiah. The First and Second Offenses Gentiles were grafted in to a Jewish promise – an olive tree – the shoot being Messiah himself, buried in the earth and springing forth, with the natural branches (Jews) hanging off his Life as the beneficiaries. This humiliating death and ridiculous resurrection was the first offense in which many natural branches jumped off and were cut off from the Messiah. This offense started from the very first time Yeshua mentioned that he was going to die and continues offending to this day. He came to his own, and his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God. Blessed is he who is not offended because of him. Yet, as great as the first offense was to the Jewish and general population in that day, a second offense surfaced when these Gentiles started coming in. And it came from a nagging question: In a primarily Jewish shaped faith, what level of Jewishness would be required from these new Gentile believers? But I believe that this question begged and still begs another question. Namely, what does it mean to be Jewish? Torah Tunnel Vision Many of the new Gentile Christians were told that they had to become Jewish first or after their conversion, which to the Judaizers, meant observing the Torah. I greatly respect the Torah and its role. It is an invaluable necessity and a definite word of God. It has been a cornerstone of the Jewish people for millennia. But, like it or not, it was not the binding factor for these people of God. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and his 12 brothers, the generations that grew in Egypt, hundreds of years in slavery, Moses, the deliverance and crossing of millions of Hebrews across the Red Sea all did without the aid of the Torah. The Torah contained a covenant clause that said, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” But it wasn’t that covenant that actually made Israel God’s people. It was long before this covenant was made that God said to Moses, “I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt… Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” So what was it that made Israel the people of God? It was the promise given to Abraham. The Torah was a schoolteacher to point us to the Messiah, to teach us that the attainment of righteousness was nothing that can be won by following all the right directions. Instead, it is in the person of God in the flesh – found in the display of Daddy’s Love on the Cross. That they will look on him that they have pierced and mourn, only to find that the death of the Only Begotton has opened up a fountain in the House of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness. So the Torah is good, but it is not complete. I am not advocating throwing out the Torah. You don’t finish primary, secondary school, and university, get a job, and then go back and kill all your teachers and professors. But you also (hopefully) wouldn’t have them all living with you in your two bedroom apartment until the day you die. School points you to the real world; the Torah points you to a bunch of real lame attempts on our part at a God-reunion, and a realer salvation offered at no cost at all through the realest Savior. The Tragedy of the Second Offense So what does that mean for the Jew? Maybe the chosen people of God truly are chosen instead of qualified, that the salvation of the Jews comes by promise rather than them fulfilling a condition of a covenant. And what of a Gentile taking hold of a Jewish promise? Must they become Jewish? Must they observe the Torah? Why compel them? If it was so freely given to the Jews, as they were in fact chosen for it, why put a dead condition on the new Gentile converts? But that is exactly where the second offense crept so creepily into the Early Church. The notion that a skeevy Gentile, who had not spent years in bondage, years in captivity, and years searching for a Messiah, could just stumble upon the Kingdom effortlessly, apart from the Torah. This offense manifested in the Jews who tried to impose Jewish laws upon the Gentile believers in addition to the simplicity of the Cross. Paul ferociously battled anything that put salvation or sanctification on man’s terms—which was the very essence of the law. Paul was not against the Torah, but he was against salvation from man’s effort at every possible angle. This notion of man-made or man-helped salvation was a myth and a spit on God in the face of Messiah. He realized that the Torah was powerless to empower its followers. No one could ever fulfill its demands. So, at Paul’s cue, the early Gentle Christians rejected the teaching of the Judaizers, and an even greater number of Jews rejected the Root of Jesse and fell away; this Gentile business was just too much for them. They continued looking for a Messiah exclusively for the Jews who would work with the Torah, not above it. The Present Pruning Fast forward several hundred years, add a temple destruction, a Jerusalem ransacking, religious councils on all sides, bad theologians, good theologians with a little bad theology, a few crusades, reformations, inquisitions, and a holocaust, and you will find the Church to be a very Gentile (and pagan influenced) enterprise. Many have forgotten that most of this good doctrine on Grace for the Gentiles has actually come compliments of a Jew, Paul. That the one who first preached to the Gentiles was a Jew, Simon Peter. That the very one who has become for us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption was and is, in fact, a racially Jewish man. We may have forgotten that Jesus Christ is Yeshua HaMashiach, King of the Jews and Son of David. This brings us to the letter of Romans aforementioned, and the provision in the True Gospel that all Israel must be saved. The very fact that Gentiles now receive the promises of the Jews points to the inevitable destiny that all racial Jews will soon inherit those promises once again. It is a binding clause in the New Covenant, a pillar of the Gospel that national, racial, religious, and terrestrial Israel be restored. This present day Church will soon begin to grow in Grace and eradicate its dependence on her efforts and dead works—mindsets that have come from non-Christological, and worse, pagan sources. This eradicating process in known in agriculture as pruning, and in Paul’s letters as the “perfecting of the saints.” He who has begun a good work in his Church will be faithful to complete it before his coming to harvest her fruit. As the Church is pruned from erroneous and fruitless thinking and turns to Messiah’s root, we will unwittingly make room on this ecclesiastical olive tree for the natural braches (national Israel) to be re-engrafted. In coming years preceding the Lord’s return, we can expect all Jews to be sovereignly attached to the Messiah, just as the Gentiles were in the first century C.E. It will take many in the Church by surprise, and will give potential for a third great offense. Setting the Stage for the Third Offense Stinky Gentiles squirming their way into the Kingdom of God was just too big a falafel for many of the Jews to digest. And now the tables will have turned. The Jews, who sat stubbornly resistant to the Messiah for upwards of two millennia will, all of the sudden, take first place in a predominately Gentile establishment—just as sovereignly as the Gentiles originally intruded (or were invited) into a predominately Jewish establishment. To the Jew first and also to the Greek. I can already see the pandemonium. The elder brother, who sat outside his prodigal sibling's party, trying to earn the approval of the Father that he already had, will finally mosey on over to the house, grab some brisket and a beer, stop pouting, and just enjoy the fun. The workers hired at the end of the day will receive the same reward as those who had been trucking around since morning. And that level of Grace is going to tick some people off. Woe to you who believe you deserve more Grace than someone else. In the beginning, many natural branches were cut off so that the wild branches could be grafted in. And yet Gentiles will be surprised when the natural branches are invited back to the VIP club. Many will have missed a very important clause of the Gospel, that Good News for Gentiles necessitates Good News for the Jews. Many Gentiles may possibly be offended. But I assure you, all Israel will be saved. Save the Date This marriage of the Jew and Gentile to the Bridegroom Messiah will be organized chaos, oozing with complicated theological debates about eating pork or driving on Saturday. Some may just leave, unable to live with these kipa-wearing Jews taking ownership of their Messiah. Some might try to make them stop their Seder meals or quit circumcising their children, forgetting Paul’s exhortation to “let each one remain with God in that state in which he was called.” Ultimately, this end time harvest has potential to be a messy, but lively affair. All kinds of unlikable types mixing with acceptable churcy folks, all celebrating and being celebrated. The saints finally drinking the new wine with Yeshua, the angels singing their little throats out, God being glorified, and us glorified in him. The marriage supper of the Lamb will probably look more like a Mexican wedding than the plain, Mormon family reunion with potato salad and good manners that most people might expect. Don’t be offended. The Grace of God appears to all men. And salvation is of and for the Jews. Righteousness happens despite you, and you are not condemned. This is the Gospel. This, and the fact that all Israel will be saved. God saved Joseph’s brothers, the Israelites, by sending Joseph to save the entire Gentile world first. God will once again save the Jews by first saving the fullness of Gentiles. It is a “very real reality.” Don’t get too hung up on questioning his methods of his incomprehensible Kingdom. He is a genius, but a master offender. -Matt Escobar |
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