Just because a gentile becomes Born-Again......

[synergy]

I believe in the Olive Tree Theology. The following analysis will show that the separation between the
Church and the Jewish people, as it has developed over the last 2000 years, is completely out of
God's will, a terrible mistake, what is called the worst schism in history. We will see it is our task to
rectify that mistake, to throw ourselves fully into what Judaism calls tikkun-ha'olam, literally
"fixing up the world," repairing it. According to Jewish tradition such activity hastens the coming of
Messiah; and this corresponds to what Kefa [Peter] encourages believers in Yeshua to do, namely,
to hasten the coming of the Day of God. 2 Kefa [2 Peter] 3:12 I call this approach the
"Olive Tree theology," after Sha'ul's [Paul's] allegory in Romans 11:16-26, addressed to Gentile
Christians: Now if the challah (loaf or cake made for Shabbat) offered as firstfruits is holy, so is
the whole loaf. And if the root is holy, so are the branches. But if some of the branches were
broken off, and you---a wild olive---were grafted in among them and have become equal sharers
in the rich root of the olive tree, then don't boast that you are better than the branches!
However, if you do boast, remember you are not supporting the root, the root is supporting you.
So you will say, "Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in. 'True, but so what? They were
broken off because of their lack of trust. However, you keep your place only because of trust. So don't
be ignorant; on the contrary be terrified! For if God did not spare the natural branches, he certainly
won't spare you!

When Yeshua came, he was at the center of the tree, at the center of the Jewish people, the quintessential
Jew as well as the quintessential man. He gathered Jewish disciples around him. He died, rose from the
grave, and ascended into heaven. The Messianic Jewish community grew---a hundred and twenty (Acts 1:15),
three thousand (Acts 2:41), five thousand (Acts 4:4), "and their numbers kept multiplying" (Acts 9:31).
The non-Messianic Jews reacted against the Messianic Jews, pushing them away from the center (Acts 4-9, 12),
Meanwhile, the message spread to the Gentiles---Cornelius (Acts 10).

Although Messianic Jews in Jerusalem alone came to number "tens of thousand,....all zealots for the Torah,"
Sha'ul's travels (Acts 13-28) and other missionary outreaches soon made Gentiles a majority in the Church.
Nevertheless, the Jewish believers will still accepted by the Jewish people as part of the Jewish community.

The Spanish Inquisition scrutinized Catholics of Jewish origin to see whether they retained Jewish customs.
Out of Gentile distaste for Jewishness emerged persecution of Jews----Crusades, Inquisition, pograms,
Nazi Germany (yes, there was Christian involvement, both for evil and for good)---with all the pain and
ugliness that Jews cannot forget, and the Church will not be permitted to forget until all Christians
(not just some) learn the lesson.

So until very recently the Jewish people and the Church have remained separate, with no place for
Messianic Judaism, since both the majority of Jews (unsaved people whose experience with the
Church had been mostly negative) and the majority of Christians (Gentiles who misunderstood their
own faith as it relates to the Jewish people) wanted it that way.

It is the task of Messianic Jews and of sympathetic Gentile Christians to undertake the tikkum-ha'olam
of which I spoke earlier. These are the ones who, because of their common trust in the Jewish Messiah
Yeshua, can work together to undo the damage caused by the division of the Jewish people and the
Church into two apparently separate peoples of God. The Jewish people must be brought to understand
freely, willingly, not by coercion or deception---that the age old goals of Jewish endeavor will be achieved
only when the Jewish people come to understand and trust in Yeshua, the Jewish Messiah.
The Church must be brought to understand freely, willingly, not by coercion or deception---that its goals
will be achieved only when any form of overt or covert antisemitism or stand-offishness has disappeared,
and intimate unity with the Jewish people has been acknowledged.

Can there be a grander goal? We live in an exciting age, as we see the momentum of history sweeping
toward the fulfillment of Sha'ul's prophecy that all Israel will be saved. And as we work toward accomplishing
that end, it is essential that we be armed with the right understanding of the relationship between Israel
and the Church

Shabbat ShalomView attachment 619View attachment 620

Interesting presentation. I have several questions:

1. Figure 4 shows Paul as causing the Church to branch out from Israel. What Paul did was to call out Judaizers from imposing their Legalisms. So your Jews part of the tree are the Legalistic Judaizers?
2. Where do the Hellenized Greek-Speaking Diaspora Jews, with their Septuagints, who are called the Elect by Peter, fit into all this?
3. Figure 4 mentions 350 CE as when the Church was "gentilized". The Nicene Council occurred on 325 so you can't accuse that as being the cause. So what was the "350 CE" cause?
4. Figure 4 shows Messianic Judaism as bringing together both Jews and the Church. Does Messianic Judaism believe in the Nicene Creed? If not, how will that be resolved by MJ?
5. You wrote "all Christians (not just some) learn the lesson" of Nazi Germany. Please elaborate in complete detail what you think that lesson will be.

 

[e v e]

The only true 'born - again' concept is that
All His hebrew souls from eden will be restored to their land, eden paradise...
and that this earth and this type of ape body thing
that the evil realm (egypt) caused will cease
forever

 

[e v e]

Paul is a soul of Him but unfortunately, like all the texts, esau got his hands on them, and produced his corrupt septuagint and kjv etc... none of that is God's text... and from those come all the modern versions....

the Sealed Vision is about this topic of the corrupt scroll

 

[e v e]

we know, as proof of the corruption, that the people DID NOT listen to His prophets...
and instead followed their own traditions and cursed themselves and caused themselves to go into captivity.

So tell me, in that cursed state, what words did they write down in the oldest scrolls?
and who inspired them?

 

[koberstein]

The only true 'born - again' concept is that
All His hebrew souls from eden will be restored to their land, eden paradise...
and that this earth and this type of ape body thing
that the evil realm (egypt) caused will cease
forever

Edit by admin, Rule violation.

 

[koberstein]

The only true 'born - again' concept is that
All His hebrew souls from eden will be restored to their land, eden paradise...
and that this earth and this type of ape body thing
that the evil realm (egypt) caused will cease
forever

Edit by admin, Rule violation.

 

[koberstein]

Paul is a soul of Him but unfortunately, like all the texts, esau got his hands on them, and produced his corrupt septuagint and kjv etc... none of that is God's text... and from those come all the modern versions....

the Sealed Vision is about this topic of the corrupt scroll

Edit by admin, Rule violation.

 

[koberstein]

Paul is a soul of Him but unfortunately, like all the texts, esau got his hands on them, and produced his corrupt septuagint and kjv etc... none of that is God's text... and from those come all the modern versions....

the Sealed Vision is about this topic of the corrupt scroll

Edit by admin, Rule violation.

 

[koberstein]

Paul is a soul of Him but unfortunately, like all the texts, esau got his hands on them, and produced his corrupt septuagint and kjv etc... none of that is God's text... and from those come all the modern versions....

the Sealed Vision is about this topic of the corrupt scroll

Edit by admin, Rule violation.

 

[koberstein]

The only true 'born - again' concept is that
All His hebrew souls from eden will be restored to their land, eden paradise...
and that this earth and this type of ape body thing
that the evil realm (egypt) caused will cease
forever

Edit by admin, Rule violation.

 

[koberstein]

Interesting presentation. I have several questions:

1. Figure 4 shows Paul as causing the Church to branch out from Israel. What Paul did was to call out Judaizers from imposing their Legalisms. So your Jews part of the tree are the Legalistic Judaizers?
2. Where do the Hellenized Greek-Speaking Diaspora Jews, with their Septuagints, who are called the Elect by Peter, fit into all this?
3. Figure 4 mentions 350 CE as when the Church was "gentilized". The Nicene Council occurred on 325 so you can't accuse that as being the cause. So what was the "350 CE" cause?
4. Figure 4 shows Messianic Judaism as bringing together both Jews and the Church. Does Messianic Judaism believe in the Nicene Creed? If not, how will that be resolved by MJ?
5. You wrote "all Christians (not just some) learn the lesson" of Nazi Germany. Please elaborate in complete detail what you think that lesson will be.

Great questions!
I really did not have a concrete answer for #4 after doing a little research I found this

Messianic Jews cannot simply accept the Nicene Creed at face value. Neither can we reject its truth claims out of hand.

The Nicene Creed has problems for us:
(1) The role played by Constantine is problematic, bringing political ends into a theological discussion.
(2) The Nicene Creed is unilateral, bringing the voice of the multi-national church to the table, but excluding the Jewish followers of Yeshua of that time from the discussion.
(3) The Council of Nicaea (325 C.E.) made statements of a blatantly anti-Jewish tenor.
(4) The Nicene Creed is structurally supersessionist, omitting Israel from the story completely.

Yet, the Nicene Creed set about to deny some things we too, as Messianic Jews, would want to deny:
(1) That Yeshua is not eternal, but has a beginning.
(2) That he was created.
(3) That he is of a different nature than God.
(4) That he is changing and mutable.

The Nicene Creed is about the church’s struggle with Arianism. The Arians were committed philosophically to a completely transcendent God. But such a God cannot enter into human history and something like the incarnation is impossible when your view of deity admits of no immanence. Another way to say that is that if God is wholly other, absolutely beyond time and space, then God cannot be present

Interesting presentation. I have several questions:

1. Figure 4 shows Paul as causing the Church to branch out from Israel. What Paul did was to call out Judaizers from imposing their Legalisms. So your Jews part of the tree are the Legalistic Judaizers?
2. Where do the Hellenized Greek-Speaking Diaspora Jews, with their Septuagints, who are called the Elect by Peter, fit into all this?
3. Figure 4 mentions 350 CE as when the Church was "gentilized". The Nicene Council occurred on 325 so you can't accuse that as being the cause. So what was the "350 CE" cause?
4. Figure 4 shows Messianic Judaism as bringing together both Jews and the Church. Does Messianic Judaism believe in the Nicene Creed? If not, how will that be resolved by MJ?
5. You wrote "all Christians (not just some) learn the lesson" of Nazi Germany. Please elaborate in complete detail what you think that lesson will be.

Great questions!
I don't have a concrete answer to #4, but I did some research and found some information from
Derek Leman

Messianic Jews cannot simply accept the Nicene Creed at face value. Neither can we reject its truth claims out of hand.

The Nicene Creed has problems for us:
(1) The role played by Constantine is problematic, bringing political ends into a theological discussion.
(2) The Nicene Creed is unilateral, bringing the voice of the multi-national church to the table, but excluding the Jewish followers of Yeshua of that time from the discussion.
(3) The Council of Nicaea (325 C.E.) made statements of a blatantly anti-Jewish tenor.
(4) The Nicene Creed is structurally supersessionist, omitting Israel from the story completely.

Yet, the Nicene Creed set about to deny some things we too, as Messianic Jews, would want to deny:
(1) That Yeshua is not eternal, but has a beginning.
(2) That he was created.
(3) That he is of a different nature than God.
(4) That he is changing and mutable.

The Nicene Creed is about the church’s struggle with Arianism. The Arians were committed philosophically to a completely transcendent God. But such a God cannot enter into human history and something like the incarnation is impossible when your view of deity admits of no immanence. Another way to say that is that if God is wholly other, absolutely beyond time and space, then God cannot be present with us. Thus, the Arians had to believe Yeshua was not God, but a created being sent by God.

Shabbat Shalom

 

[e v e]

Christ is son of God and as such is Deity, having God's same nature.

 

[synergy]

Great questions!
I really did not have a concrete answer for #4 after doing a little research I found this

Messianic Jews cannot simply accept the Nicene Creed at face value. Neither can we reject its truth claims out of hand.

The Nicene Creed has problems for us:
(1) The role played by Constantine is problematic, bringing political ends into a theological discussion.

What Constantine did was to legalize Christianity. What he wanted was a unified Empire and that's all he was interested in. He had absolutely no say in the actual wording of the Nicene Creed. That's verifiable in the fact that he was Arian in belief.

(2) The Nicene Creed is unilateral, bringing the voice of the multi-national church to the table, but excluding the Jewish followers of Yeshua of that time from the discussion.

Who exactly were those Jewish followers of Yeshua that you say were excluded? Where was their center of operation? What exactly was their title? Where are they recorded in history?

(3) The Council of Nicaea (325 C.E.) made statements of a blatantly anti-Jewish tenor.

Can you give an example or two?

(4) The Nicene Creed is structurally supersessionist, omitting Israel from the story completely.

Israel was represented by the Hellenized Diaspora Jews who converted to Christianity. The Bereans are examples of that.

Yet, the Nicene Creed set about to deny some things we too, as Messianic Jews, would want to deny:
(1) That Yeshua is not eternal, but has a beginning.
(2) That he was created.
(3) That he is of a different nature than God.
(4) That he is changing and mutable.

The Nicene Creed is about the church’s struggle with Arianism. The Arians were committed philosophically to a completely transcendent God. But such a God cannot enter into human history and something like the incarnation is impossible when your view of deity admits of no immanence. Another way to say that is that if God is wholly other, absolutely beyond time and space, then God cannot be present

 

[koberstein]

Interesting presentation. I have several questions:

1. Figure 4 shows Paul as causing the Church to branch out from Israel. What Paul did was to call out Judaizers from imposing their Legalisms. So your Jews part of the tree are the Legalistic Judaizers?
2. Where do the Hellenized Greek-Speaking Diaspora Jews, with their Septuagints, who are called the Elect by Peter, fit into all this?
3. Figure 4 mentions 350 CE as when the Church was "gentilized". The Nicene Council occurred on 325 so you can't accuse that as being the cause. So what was the "350 CE" cause?
4. Figure 4 shows Messianic Judaism as bringing together both Jews and the Church. Does Messianic Judaism believe in the Nicene Creed? If not, how will that be resolved by MJ?
5. You wrote "all Christians (not just some) learn the lesson" of Nazi Germany. Please elaborate in complete detail what you think that lesson will be.

Here is some information I gathered from David H. Stern who passed away a couple of years ago.

A Jew who wanted to accept the Jewish Messiah had to leave his people and cross over into the Church (Figure 5E, 350 C.E.).
Jews who came to faith in Yeshua were required to separate themselves utterly from Judaism, the Jewish people and their
Jewish customs. Here is a confessional typical of those which Messianic Jews had to affirm:

"I renounce all customs, rites, legalisms, unleavened breads and sacrifices of lambs of the Hebrews, and all the other feasts
of the Hebrews, sacrifices, prayers, aspersions, purifications, sanctifications and propitiations, and fasts, and new moons,
and sabbaths, and superstitions, and hymns and chants and observances and synagogues, and food and drink of the
Hebrews; in one word, I renounce absolutely everything Jewish, every law, rite and custom....and if afterwards I shall wish
to deny and return to Jewish superstition, or shall be found eating with Jews, or feasting with them, or secretly conversing
and condemning the Christian religion instead of openly confuting them and condemning their vain faith, then let the
trembling of Cain and the leprosy of Gehazi cleave to me, as well as the legal punishments to which I acknowledge myself
liable. And may I be anathema in the world to come, and may my soul be set down with Satan and the devils."

Crude as this confession may seem to the modern reader, it is representative---admittedly in the extreme form suited to
the fanaticism of the fourth and fifth centuries---attitudes that have persisted in the Church for hundreds of years.

 

[e v e]

I am sephardic european bloodline.


It is irrelevant.

What belongs to God is my soul
not this fleshbody.

 

[e v e]

Hebrews were being kicked out of spain in the late 1400s ... Most of my family converted to Catholicism and stayed in spain.

and here I am, no longer in spain. lol.
But I do speak Spanish. And I am Christian
though relieved Not to be Catholic.

 

[koberstein]

Interesting presentation. I have several questions:

1. Figure 4 shows Paul as causing the Church to branch out from Israel. What Paul did was to call out Judaizers from imposing their Legalisms. So your Jews part of the tree are the Legalistic Judaizers?
2. Where do the Hellenized Greek-Speaking Diaspora Jews, with their Septuagints, who are called the Elect by Peter, fit into all this?
3. Figure 4 mentions 350 CE as when the Church was "gentilized". The Nicene Council occurred on 325 so you can't accuse that as being the cause. So what was the "350 CE" cause?
4. Figure 4 shows Messianic Judaism as bringing together both Jews and the Church. Does Messianic Judaism believe in the Nicene Creed? If not, how will that be resolved by MJ?
5. You wrote "all Christians (not just some) learn the lesson" of Nazi Germany. Please elaborate in complete detail what you think that lesson will be.

This was Mark Kinzer's remarks,

What will surprise many readers is to know that Judaism, not only in the Second Temple period, but also throughout the Middle Ages, deals with a controversy that is parallel to that of Nicaea.

It wasn’t until the Middle Ages that it was pronounced to be avodah zara to believe in Yeshua’s deity and in the Trinity.

But even after that, and certainly before it, Judaism has had discussions at great length and of tremendous importance trying to balance the idea of a transcendent/separate/wholly other God and an immanent/present God.

One example is the medieval battle between the Karaites and normative Jews. The Karaites were against the rabbinic writings but believed the written Torah. They were rivals and often debated and criticized the rabbis. Rabbinic literature has many anthropomorphisms of God.

One of the clearest and most unusual is talk of God laying tefillin (wearing phylacteries) and holding arguments about Torah matters with the angels and so on.

The Karaites criticized this kind of talk making God to be comparable to a man. Saadia Gaon and others retreated to a sort of philosophical God. They said that the Shekhina and other mediate forms of deity (angel of the Lord, Wisdom, the Word, the Glory, etc.) were created forms without the substance of God. They were more like holograms, as we might say, than emanations of God.

But this means that God has never actually been present. So the mystics and kabbalists reacted against this sanitized God. They ultimately came up with something that is very familiar to anyone who knows a little kabbalah:
(1) The Ein Sof is God in his actual being, unknowable, separate, and wholly other.
(2) But the Ein Sof sends out emanations, the sefirot. They come in gradually lesser degrees of holiness, which are classically numbered at ten.

There is evidence in the Hebrew Bible that something like what the mystics describe really is going on.

So the controversy in rabbinic Judaism is such that outside criticism caused some rabbis to propose something similar to the Arians whom the Council of Nicaea opposed. These rationalists described a wholly other God who cannot be present with us. Just as the Nicene Creed found a solution in a binitarian view of Father and Son, one and distinct, the Son radiating from the Father, so the mystics of Judaism proposed sefirot emanating from the direct, unknowable being of God.

It is common in Christian circles for people not to understand the relationship of Father and Son. Many people confuse Yeshua with the Father and fail to see a clear differentiation. Yeshua mediates the Father but does not replace. Yeshua is subordinate to the Father, but not because he is of a lower kind of deity.

Paul Saal demonstrated how in popular discussion people can be unaware of the differentiation of Father and Son and can cry heresy when someone is simply restating what the Nicene Creed affirms. He once explained to someone that Yeshua is not God in the sense of being the Ein Sof. Rather, Yeshua is like the sum of all the sefirot. The person claimed that Saal did not then actually believe in the deity of Yeshua! Yet Saal’s description mirrors not only the Nicene Creed, but also Hebrews 1:3.

Kinzer’s paper wraps up with a description of Messianic Jewish theology as a protest against the boundary drawn by mainstream Judaism against the deity of Yeshua. There are other boundary breakers too, such as the Lubavitch who believe their deceased rebbe is divine.

Kinzer says that MJ will only survive if we succeed in our protest against the boundaries. If MJ is never credited as a Judaism, but is always regarded as avodah zara, then we will likely fade away in time.

We are repairing the broken pieces, standing between church creeds and rabbinic discussions, and trying to make them whole. We are looking for a way to express what Nicaea affirms and what it denies in Jewish language. Our commitment to Yeshua’s lordship must not diminish and hiding our belief in it from public view will not serve us. At the risk of being misunderstood by our Jewish people, we have to affirm that Yeshua is God, even when we don’t have time to explain all the possible misunderstandings. And the idea of a divine Messiah is something difficult to describe in Jewish language because of the many centuries of boundary drawing. We pray for tikkun olam.

 

[e v e]

the ways of egypt mixed in to the hebrews and was not and is not of God.

Like with all groups on earth, esau gets in and takes charge... including taking charge of christianity and 'theology'. Evil Esau runs this world.

 

[e v e]

The only job of us now is to return to Him to eden paradise and to leave this dreadful nightmare earth.

 

[synergy]

Here is some information I gathered from David H. Stern who passed away a couple of years ago.

A Jew who wanted to accept the Jewish Messiah had to leave his people and cross over into the Church (Figure 5E, 350 C.E.).
Jews who came to faith in Yeshua were required to separate themselves utterly from Judaism, the Jewish people and their
Jewish customs. Here is a confessional typical of those which Messianic Jews had to affirm:

"I renounce all customs, rites, legalisms, unleavened breads and sacrifices of lambs of the Hebrews, and all the other feasts
of the Hebrews, sacrifices, prayers, aspersions, purifications, sanctifications and propitiations, and fasts, and new moons,
and sabbaths, and superstitions, and hymns and chants and observances and synagogues, and food and drink of the
Hebrews; in one word, I renounce absolutely everything Jewish, every law, rite and custom....and if afterwards I shall wish
to deny and return to Jewish superstition, or shall be found eating with Jews, or feasting with them, or secretly conversing
and condemning the Christian religion instead of openly confuting them and condemning their vain faith, then let the
trembling of Cain and the leprosy of Gehazi cleave to me, as well as the legal punishments to which I acknowledge myself
liable. And may I be anathema in the world to come, and may my soul be set down with Satan and the devils."

Crude as this confession may seem to the modern reader, it is representative---admittedly in the extreme form suited to
the fanaticism of the fourth and fifth centuries---attitudes that have persisted in the Church for hundreds of years.

What level of church authority "authorized" that? Was it sanctioned by the Patriarchal Heads of the Church (Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, Rome, and Alexandria)?

In sharp contrast to Stern's comments above, there were many traditions and customs that were transposed from the Jewish faith over to the Early Christian Church, like the Old Testament, the liturgical form of worship, the Menorah, etc... Here's an excellent book that goes into detail describing the continuity of the Temple & Synagogue with the Early Christian Church:

https://www.amazon.com/Orthodox-Worship-Living-Continuity-Synagogue/dp/1944967540