What is Messianic Judaism?
The name "Messianic Judaism" is modern, and the writers in this collection never use it — but the question underneath it is as old as the book of Acts: what happens when someone who is Jewish believes in Jesus, and how much of the Mosaic system carries over? The commentators here treat that question at length, and they answer it in two directions at once: with real sympathy for Jewish believers who kept their customs, and with a hard refusal to let the law be made necessary.
The first Christians were Jews who kept Judaism
The earliest church in Jerusalem was made up of Jewish believers who saw no conflict between faith in Jesus and the whole system given through Moses.
F. B. HoleFrom the beginning thousands believed and gladly identified themselves with the rejected Messiah without cutting their links with "Judaism," that is, the whole system of things set up through Moses, which was only a shadow of "the good things to come" (Heb. 10:1)… Doubtless these believers, whether priests, Pharisees, or zealous lovers of the law, were mostly true souls with sincere faith in Christ, yet nothing they had heard in the gospel had made them feel it was inconsistent to link the faith of Christ with priestly service in the worn-out and desolate temple, or with Pharisaism, or with zealous law-keeping.
Where it turned into error
The trouble started when law-keeping stopped being a habit and became a requirement, pressed on others.
William Kelly"There rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed." This is a new feature… it is not merely the envious unbelieving Jews, but the working of legalism in the believing Jews. This is the serious evil that now begins to show itself. They insist "that it was needful to be circumcised, and to command them to keep the law of Moses." In fact they thought Christians would be all the better for being good Jews.
A moment came when the two could not be held together
For a while God bore with the mixture. The letter to the Hebrews marks the point where it had to end.
F. B. HoleIf we read Acts carefully we become aware that most believing Jews never broke their links with Judaism. They thought now to go on with Christ AND Judaism. With many it was really Judaism and Christ, because the outstanding feature with them was, "they are all zealous of the law," rather than zealous for Christ. When this letter was written the hour had struck for a decisive move. It could no longer be Christ and Judaism. It had to be Christ OR Judaism.
The cross made something neither Jewish nor Gentile
The commentators' central objection is not cultural but doctrinal: at the cross God did not upgrade one group or downgrade the other.
James BoydHe has made both one, broken down the middle wall of partition between us, and abolished in His flesh the enmity, the law of commandments in ordinances, so that He might form the two in Himself into one new man, making peace. It is not the Jew brought down to a Gentile level, nor the Gentile raised to the level of the Jew, but both in Christ, not in the flesh at all, where only these distinctions exist.
Why a believer cannot go back under law
The reason is not that the law was bad, but that the believer died — and the law has no claim on the dead.
William Kelly"We have been made dead to the law by the body of Christ." It is not some fresh means, but the application of what is already true, applied to the law, even supposing I had been a Jew. It is the death of Christ, applied to both sin and law, that gives the believer his clearance. And now we are "married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead." So it is as wrong for a believer to still have a thought of being "under the law" as for a woman to have two husbands at once.
Freedom to keep Jewish customs — never a duty
Paul himself used Jewish practice freely when love called for it. The line he drew was between choosing it and being compelled.
J. N. DarbyLiberty fully recognises the law in its place, although itself exempt from it… Paul circumcises Timothy, and does not give in for an hour to those who would have forced Titus to be circumcised. He would become a Jew to the Jews out of love; but the Jews themselves must give up all claim to impose the law on others.
God has not finished with Israel
Rejecting a law-based Christianity is not the same as writing off the Jewish people.
F. B. HoleThough Israel as a nation has been set aside for a time, they have not been cast away for ever. Some Gentiles in the conceit of their hearts thought so when Paul was writing, and not a few think so today. But God forbid that it should be so, for they are His people foreknown for a special purpose… Mercy had been shown to him and he was an Israelite, a sample of that remnant which God was then calling, and a pledge of the ultimate restoration of his nation.
Summary
- Sympathy — Thousands of sincere Jewish believers kept temple, feasts and law after believing; God bore with it for a season.
- Line — The evil was not the custom but the claim that it was needful; Christ was thought better with Judaism added.
- Crisis — Hebrews forced the choice: no longer Christ and Judaism, but Christ or Judaism.
- Ground — In Christ the dividing wall is gone and one new man exists, where the Jew is not lowered nor the Gentile raised; the believer died to the law and cannot be remarried to it.
- Future — Israel is set aside, not cast away; today's believing remnant is itself the pledge of the nation's restoration.