Anti-Semitism or WHAT??? Part 2
As a result of PART 1 >>>---> Part 2 !
Some of my friends have been rightly concerned over Messianic Jewish practices. There is error in the Messianic community. I attended a Messianic Bible Camp this summer and was relieved that they understood the grace of God and "faith plus nothing" which the church enjoys today. There was strong caution regarding Messianic believers and congregations that are "preaching law but practicing grace." And it was noted that not a few gentiles are attaching themselves to the "Torah keepers" and the Jewish "roots" movement, also the Holy name movement.
It need to be said and taught and thank God it that the Law of Moses was entirely put aside as obsolete by Jesus through His blood via the cross. The basis for forgiveness of sin is no more the blood of animals. If you break one of the ten commandments today it is by the grace of God and the blood of Jesus and with your faith and your faithful confession of that sin that you are forgiven and cleansed of all unrighteousness!
[ ... if you ask me the only way to keep the law is to stop sinning! ; ) ]
If there is error in Messianic congregations don't rejoice, there is a lot of "strange fire" in the gentile churches too. A VERY GREAT LOT. It is very sad that for over 1500 years the gentile churches have been influenced and very often dominated by anti-semites. Jesus IS a Jew in His humanity and can we say He is not a Jewish God-man today? He came incarnate to the family and nation God raised up through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The enmity He tore down on the cross was the law of ordinances which barred the gentile unless he convert by the law. Though the barrier was removed and gentiles were grafted in by grace through faith alone, hatred did persist, and anti Christs arrived from without and arose from withinn the One New Man church. Pagan Rome and Greece as I see it eventually wore the church down and then co opted the church by declaring christianity the religion of the empire. So we had the beginnings of the Roman heresy through Origen who formulated the allegorical replacement of Israel. That idea declared falsely that God was done with the Jews as a people as a family and that the church was given to gentiles. That idea has been the cause of more error and cruel sin against Jews, against true believers and even against muslims that can be known. An all the while complicating the matter was the Jewish unbelieving world which passionately opposed Jewish faith in the Messiah.
In their hearts of these gentile churchmen we call the early church fathers was a surprising amount of outright hatred and vocal castigating of the Jews. Pagans had long hated the Jews before Christ came in the flesh; the scriptures in my note show that they were excessively cruel in their treatment of the Jews. CAREFULL study the scriptures I selected for Part 1. Before the Messiah they even excused their evil mistreatments on the basis of Jewish unfaithfulness to God! After Jesus ascended and Jerusalem was destroyed this was amplified by gentile christians(?) who notoriously called Jews "Christ killers!!! It would be laughable were it not so PATHETIC a misunderstanding of the purposes of God in the Messiah!
Unbelieving Jews had a passionate interest in keeping Jews out of the church too! Oddly and SADLY the MANY Jews then and now who oppose(d) the church's efforts to evangelize Jews are blindly opposing the only thing that can save and bless them into the Lambs book of life! Jews who still reject the Lord, who see the devil in every gentile believer, are anti-Jesus, anti-church and anti their only hope for life! In the few words I wrote above I wrote that anti-semitism is anti-Judaism and anti-Christian (anti-Messianic) and it is Anti-One New Man (Eph. 2:15) !!!!! And unbelieving Jews unwittingly are also anti semites in that they are anti Jesus and anti those Jews who believe in Jesus!!!!
This is from beginning to end a spiritual problem in which unbelieving Jewish AND gentile flesh are embroiled. They cannot and will not see that until faith in the Messiah and the knowledge of the truth sets them free!
Satan hates the Jews. When I find myself thinking unkind things about Jews I chalk it up to satanic influence and correct my thoughts renouncing them. By the study of church and Jewish history, and gentile history, and BC history too, we can expose anti-semitism as the work of the devil and men who have forgotten God (Psalm 9:17).
Anti-semitism is a sin on two counts. First it is hatred, which is a sin itself. Second this hatred with its roots in Satan, hinders the knowledge of God, the unity of the One New Man and effective love motivated evangelism to both Jews and gentiles. This ENMITY which exists only in unbelief, opposes wittingly and ignorantly the faith of God and the building up of the One New Man. One New Man is a NAME of the church of Jesus Christ established and built by Him.
The misunderstanding and ignorance hindering unity in the gentile and in the messianic church movements can be overcome. Reading Ephesians 2 we see that Jew and gentile must be One and remain together in Christ for the One New Man to have an active presence and witness to the world today. I'm thinking John 17 and some of John 10. It is true that there is now no Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free. Yet those identities persist in the world with enmity, and persist in the churches with enmity. The purposes of God that we be One must and will overcome the prejudices which hinder when in AGAPE love we expose and condemn those anti-semitic prejudices. Ephesians 5:11 "Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them." WE ARE to deal with this because it is a hindrance to the comfort of the church and to salvation! Salvation is offered to ALL who receive Jesus in faith. But the very issues which hinder that faith are the sins of men, in particular the sins of Jew hatred, and of Jewish unbelief !
...got there by the grace of God... did that (believed & repented)... and am going to buy the t-shirt... !
Some of my friends have been rightly concerned over Messianic Jewish practices. There is error in the Messianic community. I attended a Messianic Bible Camp this summer and was relieved that they understood the grace of God and "faith plus nothing" which the church enjoys today. There was strong caution regarding Messianic believers and congregations that are "preaching law but practicing grace." And it was noted that not a few gentiles are attaching themselves to the "Torah keepers" and the Jewish "roots" movement, also the Holy name movement.
It need to be said and taught and thank God it that the Law of Moses was entirely put aside as obsolete by Jesus through His blood via the cross. The basis for forgiveness of sin is no more the blood of animals. If you break one of the ten commandments today it is by the grace of God and the blood of Jesus and with your faith and your faithful confession of that sin that you are forgiven and cleansed of all unrighteousness!
[ ... if you ask me the only way to keep the law is to stop sinning! ; ) ]
If there is error in Messianic congregations don't rejoice, there is a lot of "strange fire" in the gentile churches too. A VERY GREAT LOT. It is very sad that for over 1500 years the gentile churches have been influenced and very often dominated by anti-semites. Jesus IS a Jew in His humanity and can we say He is not a Jewish God-man today? He came incarnate to the family and nation God raised up through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The enmity He tore down on the cross was the law of ordinances which barred the gentile unless he convert by the law. Though the barrier was removed and gentiles were grafted in by grace through faith alone, hatred did persist, and anti Christs arrived from without and arose from withinn the One New Man church. Pagan Rome and Greece as I see it eventually wore the church down and then co opted the church by declaring christianity the religion of the empire. So we had the beginnings of the Roman heresy through Origen who formulated the allegorical replacement of Israel. That idea declared falsely that God was done with the Jews as a people as a family and that the church was given to gentiles. That idea has been the cause of more error and cruel sin against Jews, against true believers and even against muslims that can be known. An all the while complicating the matter was the Jewish unbelieving world which passionately opposed Jewish faith in the Messiah.
In their hearts of these gentile churchmen we call the early church fathers was a surprising amount of outright hatred and vocal castigating of the Jews. Pagans had long hated the Jews before Christ came in the flesh; the scriptures in my note show that they were excessively cruel in their treatment of the Jews. CAREFULL study the scriptures I selected for Part 1. Before the Messiah they even excused their evil mistreatments on the basis of Jewish unfaithfulness to God! After Jesus ascended and Jerusalem was destroyed this was amplified by gentile christians(?) who notoriously called Jews "Christ killers!!! It would be laughable were it not so PATHETIC a misunderstanding of the purposes of God in the Messiah!
Unbelieving Jews had a passionate interest in keeping Jews out of the church too! Oddly and SADLY the MANY Jews then and now who oppose(d) the church's efforts to evangelize Jews are blindly opposing the only thing that can save and bless them into the Lambs book of life! Jews who still reject the Lord, who see the devil in every gentile believer, are anti-Jesus, anti-church and anti their only hope for life! In the few words I wrote above I wrote that anti-semitism is anti-Judaism and anti-Christian (anti-Messianic) and it is Anti-One New Man (Eph. 2:15) !!!!! And unbelieving Jews unwittingly are also anti semites in that they are anti Jesus and anti those Jews who believe in Jesus!!!!
This is from beginning to end a spiritual problem in which unbelieving Jewish AND gentile flesh are embroiled. They cannot and will not see that until faith in the Messiah and the knowledge of the truth sets them free!
Satan hates the Jews. When I find myself thinking unkind things about Jews I chalk it up to satanic influence and correct my thoughts renouncing them. By the study of church and Jewish history, and gentile history, and BC history too, we can expose anti-semitism as the work of the devil and men who have forgotten God (Psalm 9:17).
Anti-semitism is a sin on two counts. First it is hatred, which is a sin itself. Second this hatred with its roots in Satan, hinders the knowledge of God, the unity of the One New Man and effective love motivated evangelism to both Jews and gentiles. This ENMITY which exists only in unbelief, opposes wittingly and ignorantly the faith of God and the building up of the One New Man. One New Man is a NAME of the church of Jesus Christ established and built by Him.
The misunderstanding and ignorance hindering unity in the gentile and in the messianic church movements can be overcome. Reading Ephesians 2 we see that Jew and gentile must be One and remain together in Christ for the One New Man to have an active presence and witness to the world today. I'm thinking John 17 and some of John 10. It is true that there is now no Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free. Yet those identities persist in the world with enmity, and persist in the churches with enmity. The purposes of God that we be One must and will overcome the prejudices which hinder when in AGAPE love we expose and condemn those anti-semitic prejudices. Ephesians 5:11 "Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them." WE ARE to deal with this because it is a hindrance to the comfort of the church and to salvation! Salvation is offered to ALL who receive Jesus in faith. But the very issues which hinder that faith are the sins of men, in particular the sins of Jew hatred, and of Jewish unbelief !
...got there by the grace of God... did that (believed & repented)... and am going to buy the t-shirt... !
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