I am Jewish, can I become a Christian?

No, any Jew, converted after our Lord ascended and the Spirit has given, would cease to be a Jew religiously, and would become a Christian, and form part of the Church of God.

When a Jew is converted today he turns his back upon the synagogue and embraces Christianity—he gives up the hope of an earthly calling and embraces that of the heavenly calling. The Epistle to the Hebrews brings this out when it speaks of “a better hope”—“a better covenant”—“a more excellent ministry”—contrasting the law principle that Judaism clings to with Christianity—with grace reigning “through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 5:21).

“One night I was walking down one of the narrow streets of the city, when I saw a sign telling of a meeting for Jews: Curiosity led me to open the door and go in. Just as I took a seat I heard a man say, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin’ (John 1:7). It was my first introduction to Christianity, but I listened breathlessly as the speaker told that ‘without shedding of blood is no remission’ (Heb. 10:22); but that He had given His only begotten Son, the Lamb of God, to die, and all who trusted in His blood were forgiven all their iniquities. This was the Messiah of Isaiah 53; this was the Divine Sufferer of Psalm 22. Ah I my brethren, I had found out the blood of the atonement at last. I trusted it, and now I love to read the New Testament, and see how the shadows of the law are fulfilled in Jesus. His blood has been shed for sinners. It has satisfied God, and it is the only means of salvation for either Jew or Gentile.”

If one of Abraham’s race believes today, he surrenders gladly earthly hopes and aspirations. He ceases to be a Jew (or an Israelite, if he could know himself to be one), religiously, he becomes a Christian, and part of the assembly that is called out from the nations to be a people for God’s Son.

The Jew's rejection of Christ brought in a new era, that of Christianity. A Jew who gets converted to-day drops Judaism religiously, and embraces Christianity. And until the Church is raptured to glory it will be true that "blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in" (Rom. 11:25).

Before Jesus died and rose again, "Salvation was of the Jews" (John 4:22), as the Lord Himself said on more than one occasion. Gentiles could only enjoy the blessing of God in a secondary way, through their links with the nation of Israel. From now on, the narrow confines of one nation, even Israel, could not limit the immense blessing accruing from the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Jew and Gentile alike could trust Him and know Him as Saviour and Lord. The middle wall of partition between them had been broken down. So, one of the marks of God having made Himself fully known in Christ is that He is "preached unto the Gentiles".

Peter has delivered his message. Is God going to honour it? Will He accept the Gentiles as well as the Jews? Or will He keep up the distinction? Will He acknowledge the faith of the poor Gentile? As Peter spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word. God puts no difference between Jew and Gentile. Both are accepted in Christ and placed in relationship with God upon one footing by the gift of the Holy Ghost. Those who believe in Christ, whether they be Jews or Gentiles, are saved by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, for “The grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men has appeared.”

The sovereign grace of God toward all men was about to have another and yet more conclusive formal seal. It was not enough that the scattered Hellenists were preaching the gospel in the free action of the Holy Spirit or that Philip in particular had evangelized Samaria. It was not enough that Saul of Tarsus had been called from his persecutions to bear Christ's name before the Gentiles no less but more than before the sons of Israel. The apostle of the circumcision must now openly act on the grand principle of Christianity which knows no distinction between Jew and Greek. As the cross proves them alike sinful and lost (Rom. 3:22-23), the gospel meets them alike where they are (Rom. 10:12), and proclaims the same One to be Lord of all and rich to all that call upon Him. This was now to be publicly demonstrated by Peter's preaching to the Gentiles, and their entrance into the privileges of the gospel on precisely the same terms of gratuitous, unconditional, and everlasting salvation by the faith of Christ as to the Jews at and since Pentecost. Henceforth there is no distinction for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved

Next, the way. It is such to every one that believed, Jew, or Greek; they wanted saving. God's power, there to save, took man up in his need and sin, not in his titles or claims, even if given of God, and applied to a lost Gentile as to a lost Jew. It was for "every one that believed" - the way of it was faith; the order of it recognised God's ways. It was "to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." But this did not alter its character; it was salvation to a sinful Jew, who had to come in in mercy, just like a Gentile, by faith in what was on God's part in grace towards him, though in the order of administration it might first be addressed to him.

Peter then, with this new-born conviction in his soul, reads the prophets with entirely fresh light and other eyes. Full of the truth himself, he speaks with the utmost simplicity to Cornelius, who with his household hears the blessed word. "To him give all the prophets witness." It was one concurrent evidence. "To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believes in him." There is no question of a Jew, but "Whosoever believes in him." Alas! the Jews did not believe in Him; but whosoever did, let him be Jew or Gentile, "shall receive remission of sins." This precisely Cornelius had not known, nor could any one have known it till the work of redemption was done. The Old Testament saints were just as safe before the work of Christ as they were afterwards, but this work put them on a ground of conscious salvation before God. It was not a question of being saved in the day of judgment; nor is this the meaning of the term "salvation" in the New Testament. Salvation means that the heart enters into deliverance by grace as a present known public standing in the world. Nobody could have this till the gospel, and even after its publication God Himself sent specifically to the Gentiles; for He has His ways, as well as His times and seasons. God will always be Himself, and cannot be other than Sovereign.