I have often said that God did not send His Son into the world as a Jewish rabbi to establish a lovely new Gentile religion called Christianity. Rather, Jesus came into the world to fulfill what was written in Moses and the Prophets, to bring to realization the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and to establish a new and better covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In light of this, it is common for Jewish believers in Jesus to state clearly that they have not converted to Christianity—since that implies something alien and Gentile to Jewish people—and to say instead that they have found the Jewish Messiah. And for many Jewish believers, recognizing Yeshua as Messiah has caused them to deepen their personal sense of Jewishness and strengthen their commitment to the people of Israel worldwide.
Many Gentile Christians have also recognized that being joined together with Jesus meant that they were now uniquely connected to the Jewish people, which makes perfect sense. After all, if Jesus had been a good Russian who taught in Russian and was a child of Russian culture, and if all of His first followers had been Russian, and if the Russians were the chosen people and Jesus came first for His own Russian people, sending them to share the Good News with the rest of the world, wouldn’t all of us feel a special solidarity with the Russians?
What, then, does it mean to restore the Jewish roots of the Christian faith? Here are some initial foundations for understanding. (1) It means that Gentile believers understand Paul’s words in Romans 11:18, specifically, his warning that, “You do not support the root, but the root supports you.” So, rather than the Church replacing Israel—an unbiblical and, in Jewish history, dangerous doctrine—Israel has expanded its borders to the nations. In this context, it should be emphasized that the Lord made His new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah (see Jeremiah 31:31–34, quoted in Hebrews 8:8–12), not with the nations of the world, which means that Gentile believers are grafted into Israel’s new covenant and thereby “share in the nourishing sap from the olive root” (Romans 11:17). (2) We understand that God’s ideal was not for the Church to become a predominantly Gentile religion that severed its vital connection with its biblical Jewish foundations, changing the Sabbath to Sunday and separating Easter from Passover. (For the question of Sabbath observance, see #49.) This also means that we understand that a Jew does not need to become Gentile to be a follower of Jesus. (3) We seek to grasp the spiritual and even cultural understanding that our Savior was a Jewish rabbi named Yeshua, recognizing that many of His teachings can only be fully understood against the historical and religious background of the day (see #42). (4) We take hold of the prophetic significance of the biblical calendar, beginning with Passover, which prophetically speaks of Yeshua’s death, and ending with Tabernacles, which prophetically speaks of the final ingathering of the nations (see #51). (5) We recognize that Israel plays a special role in world redemption—and therefore the Good News of the Messiah is to the Jew first (see Romans 1:16). Therefore, we should pray regularly that Jerusalem will become the praise of all the earth (see Isaiah 62:6–7), and we should understand that Yeshua will not return to earth until His own people welcome Him back (see Matthew 23:37–39; see #58 and #59), and therefore Israel’s salvation will mean life from the dead (see Romans 11:11–15).
There is much more, of course, that could be said, but these thoughts are meant to stimulate further study, prayer and action, all of which can be healthy, constructive and life-giving.
Unfortunately, there are many groups that have ended up on the fringes in their search for Jewish roots, and their teachings are confused at best and heretical at worst. Here are some of the characteristics of these fringe groups: (1) Torah gradually displaces Yeshua in terms of centrality, emphasis and devotion. In contrast with this, the Father has ordained that “in everything [Jesus] might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him” (Colossians 1:18–19). The Torah finds its fulfillment in Yeshua, not the reverse (see Matthew 5:17–20; see also #46). (2) These fringe groups get caught up with externals and secondary things, such as never saying the name “Jesus”—as if it was the name of a false god or a curse word (see #38)—and major on the minors. (3) They teach that Gentile believers are obligated to observe the Torah, putting an overemphasis on Messiah’s Jewish observance of the Torah as well. (For aspects of Torah observance that are right and aspects that are wrong, see #48 and #49.) (4) They have a disproportionate interest in “Jewish background” and emphasize Yeshua’s Jewishness more than His Lordship, getting caught up in recovering the “original meaning” of His teachings as a rabbi far more than they get caught up with knowing and loving Him in His fullness. In keeping with this, they will spend more time studying rabbinic literature than the Word of God itself. (5) They begin to dress and act like traditional Jews (or even ancient Israelites), although they themselves are not Jewish, sometimes trying to find some connection to the people of Israel in their distant lineage. (Even for Messianic Jews, unless God has called them to reach out to traditional Jews and to live among them, in the spirit of 1 Corinthians 9:20–22, there is no good reason for them to dress and look like traditional Jews, since traditional lifestyles reflect rabbinic teaching more than Torah; see #18, #19 and #22.)
These practices are not in themselves heretical, but it is not uncommon for people on the fringes to take the plunge into heretical views, normally beginning with the denial of Yeshua’s eternal deity and the outright rejection of God’s tri-unity—in a private email to me, one teacher recently called the Trinity a “three-headed monster”!—and these heretical teachings lead to the rejection of the rest of the Body, all very perilous positions in terms of right connections with God’s truth and God’s people.
On the other hand, Church history has not always been that rosy—especially from a Jewish perspective—and many errors in theology and practice have crept in because of the Church’s rejection of her Jewish roots. A very practical book on this subject is Ronald E. Diprose’s Israel and the Church: The Origins and Effects of Replacement Theology (Carlisle, U.K.: Authentic Media, 2004; Dr. Diprose is a theological professor in Italy). The Church’s ignorance of God’s eternal purposes for Israel led to arrogance, which is always spiritually fatal (see Romans 11:25).
So then, it is detrimental for the Church to sever its Jewish roots and it is damaging for the Church to overemphasize its Jewish roots. The solution is a healthy recovery of those Jewish roots and foundations, with Yeshua remaining first and foremost in our devotion and proclamation.[207]