Jesus …The Jewish Messiah

“Jesus, for Jews?” “Crazy!” Yes, but a lot of people are considering the claim that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah.

Two thousand years ago people didn’t ask, “How can you be Jewish and believe in Jesus?” Instead, they asked “How can you be Gentile and believe in Jesus?”

This early controversy over Gentile inclusion in the congregations of the early believers is recorded in the New Testament book of Acts, chapter 15.

But today people say, “A Jew for Jesus? That’s like a vegetarian for beef!” What caused the change? If Jesus is the Jewish Messiah is there any evidence? Will we consider these questions?

WHY DO MODERN JEWISH PEOPLE REJECT JESUS?

I wish that I could say that the reason is because, having examined the evidence, most Jewish people have decided that Jesus cannot be the Messiah. But this is not the case at all. By the way, the same thing could be said for non-Jewish people. Relatively few people who reject the claim that Jesus is the Messiah and Savior do so on the basis of an informed search of the evidence.

To find the answer to the question, “Why do Jewish people reject Jesus?” one need only look at Jewish history. The earliest followers of Jesus were all Jewish and worshipped in the synagogues alongside those who did not follow Jesus. Tensions gradually increased between the groups. A final blow to the relationship between these two groups within Judaism was the Bar Kochva rebellion in 132 CE.

Bar Kochva was a revolutionary who received the approval of Rabbi Akiva, who in many ways is the founder of modern Judaism. Messianic Jewish believers, that is Jewish believers in Jesus, fought alongside their Jewish brethren during the first year of the revolt. But then, Rabbi Akiva declared Bar Kochva the Messiah. The Jewish believers in Jesus could no longer support this war since it would involve denying Jesus as Messiah. This was the last straw in a gradual growing apart of these two groups within Judaism.

Alongside this split within Judaism over Jesus, there was also a trend in the congregations of more and more Gentiles coming in and less and less Jewish people. It is a shameful fact of Christian history that even by the beginning of the second century, believers in Jesus were forgetting their Jewish roots and the Jewishness of their Messiah.

Early Christian writings such as the Epistle of Barnabas (not actually written by the Apostle Barnabas) and early Christian leaders such as Ignatius of Antioch and Justin Martyr rejected Jewish heritage and began a growing hatred for all things Jewish. When Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Empire, things looked dismal for the Jewish people.

If they looked dismal then, they only got worse. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the so-called Enlightenment, Jewish people were subjected by “Christian” Europe to ghettos, pograms, crusades, eviction from their countries, and inquisitions. Jewish people were pressured to claim Jesus as their Savior on pain of death, torture, and eviction. Many succumbed to the extortion and made professions of faith in Jesus before Church authorities.

The modern Jewish song, sung every year at Yom Kippur, the Kol Nidre, is an outgrowth of this whole problem of forced conversions. Rabbis devised a way for those who had converted to spare their lives to repudiate their conversions and be made clean before God. The Kol Nidre, or renunciation of all vows, was sung every year to “un-convert” these Jewish men and women.

Well, naturally those Jewish people who converted to Judaism were increasingly viewed as traitors by many. How would you feel if your family died clinging to their faith in Judaism and then your neighbor gets out of it by making a false profession of faith in Jesus?

And so, that lead’s us up to present day where this attitude toward Jewish believers in Jesus as traitors persists. The sad truth is that Jewishness in the twentieth century has only a negative definition. Jewishness is not defined as adherence to the teachings of the rabbis or the practices of the synagogue. The truth is that if that were the standard for Judaism, then one would have to drastically reduce the number of Jewish people in the world today.

Rather, Jewishness today is defined in this way: born to a Jewish mother and not a believer in Jesus. As evidence for this assertion let me ask you — do you know Jewish people who believe in New Age religious ideas, Buddhism, Hinduism, Atheism? I certainly do. Are they considered to be non-Jewish? Not at all. But Jewish people who believe in Jesus as Messiah are consistently told they are Gentiles, traitors, and ought to be ashamed.

Why are most Jewish people today not believers in Jesus? Because centuries of persecution by the church has made the idea abhorrent to them and because they would face rejection by Jewish family and culture if they did.

IS THERE ANY EVIDENCE THAT JESUS IS THE MESSIAH?

In my opinion, the answer is yes! But you will have to look at the evidence and decide for yourself. But first of all, one has to consider whether it is right to believe in a Messiah at all. Of course, to believe in Messiah, one must first believe in God. If you have not decided that you believe in God, the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, you might enjoy pondering “Is There a God and Why Should I Care?”.

If you do believe in God, then it is helpful to know what the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, says about Messiah. This is a rather involved topic, but let me say a few things. First of all, many people recognize that Messiah will be a king who will rule the world from Jerusalem and bring peace on earth. The scriptures are clear on this point, such as Isaiah 11 which says that a “shoot shall grow out of the stump of Jesse”, that is the line of King David, and that he will be endowed with power and insight by the Spirit of God to “judge the poor with equity” and “slay the wicked with the breath of his lips.” He will bring about a time when “nothing evil will be done” and an “babe shall play over a viper’s hole” (quotes are from JPS Tanakh).

By the way, this king will be born in Bethlehem, as it says in Micah 5:1 (v.2 in other versions), “And you, O Bethlehem of Ephrath, least among the clans of Judah, from you one shall come forth to rule Israel for me — one whose origin is from of old, from ancient times.” This king is none other than the Messiah, for in the next verse it says, “He shall stand and shepherd by the might of the LORD . . . for lo, he shall wax great to the ends of the earth” (JPS).

What few people realize, though, is the second role of the Messiah. Messiah is not only a king who will bring peace, but he is also a Suffering Servant who will die for sins. The Talmud recognized this, but it seems that some Jewish leaders would just as soon forget this idea today. In the Talmud, there are two messiahs: Messiah ben Joseph and Messiah ben David. Messiah ben David is the king, but Messiah ben Joseph is the one who dies a redemptive death. Where did the Talmud get such an idea? Try Isaiah 53, among other texts. Have you ever read this passage? If you want to know the reason why Jesus had to die on a Roman execution stake, check out “Isaiah 53”.

Well, someone might say, “So what if the Tanakh teaches a suffering Messiah, how do I know Jesus qualified?” My answer to that is simple, three days after he was crucified for claiming to be the Messiah, Jesus rose from the dead and proved who he was. For more information on this, check out “Why Should Anyone Believe in Jesus Anyway?”