— Critical issues concerning the Church —

Fellow Soldier,

In approaching the Hebrew Roots and Messianic movements, it’s vital to first understand that God has partitioned all people into three groups.

Before the cross of Christ, mankind was divided into two groups: Jews and Gentiles.  The Old and New Testaments both make very clear what caused this distinction.  It was the covenants God made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and with their descendants through Moses.  These covenants were for Israel alone and separated her from all the nations on the face of the earth, making God’s “chosen people” absolutely unique.  Israel was segregated from other peoples by the Mosaic Law and by her special relationship with the One who calls Himself “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” (Lv 20:24,26, etc.).

Jews, Gentiles and The Church

God divided mankind into distinctive groups.

(Part 3 of 7)

"So shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that [are] upon the face of the earth." — Exodus 33:16b

The important distinction between Jews and Gentiles is maintained consistently throughout the bible: “... for I the Lord am holy, am have severed you from other people that ye shall be mine” (Lev 20:26).  “And what one nation in the earth is like thy people Israel, whom God went to redeem to be his ... own people forever” (1Chr 17:21,22).  “Ye [Gentiles] were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God ...” (Eph 2:12).

After the Cross, a new entity came into existence: the church that Jesus Christ promised He would build (Mt 16:18).  As a result, there are now three divisions of mankind: Jews, Gentiles and the Church.  Paul tells us we are to “Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God” (1Cor 10:32).  It is absolutely essential to understand that these three groups exist side by side in today’s world, to distinguish between them, and to recognize that God deals with each [group] differently.

Essential also is an understanding that the church was created by offering to both Jews and Gentiles, a new covenant relationship with God. This didn’t bring Gentiles under the Mosaic law — no more than it brought Jews into paganism.  Instead, it delivered those coming into the church (Jew and Gentile) from both the Law and paganism.  Paul explains that Gentiles who were “Aliens ... of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise” have been “made nigh [to God] by the blood of Christ” (Eph 2:13).  God has “Broken down the middle wall of partition between [Jew and Gentile] having abolished in his flesh the [Mosaic] law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain [Jew and Gentile] one new man” (Eph 2:11,12).

These scriptures and many others make clear that the church did not replace Israel but came into existence as a third entity.  It is comprised of both Jews and Gentiles, yet distinct from either.  As surely as Gentiles continue to exist outside the church, so does Israel, with all of God’s promises and plans for her remaining in full force.  God also has unique plans for the church that are different from those for either the Jewish or Gentile nations.

A basic error of Reconstructionists is their claim that the law of Moses was for all mankind and provides the basis for the civil government of Romans 13 ... as well as for Christian conduct today.  On the contrary, the law which unsaved magistrates enforce could not be Mosaic because that was given exclusively to the Jews.  It is rather the moral law Romans 2:13-15 says is written by God in every human conscience. That the Mosaic law was never intended for Gentiles and not applicable to the church, is clear from the quoted scriptures and many others.  Consider: “For what nation is there so great,who hath God so nigh unto them ... [and] hath statutes and judgements so righteous as all this law” (Dt 4:7,8); “He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgements unto Israel.  He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgements, they have not known them” (Ps 147:19,20).  As already noted, the Mosaic “law of commandments” that distinguished Israel from the rest of the world, was “abolished” by the cross of Christ in the process of creating the church out of both Jews and gentiles who have been made into “one new man”.

Failure to accept this clear teaching of Scripture leads to serious errors which plagued the early church and are being revived today.  Foremost, of course, is legalism — the idea that to be a Christian one must obey the laws of Moses. This causes confusion both of justification and sanctification: the means of being delivered from sin’s future penalty and present power in our lives.  Scripture makes clear that neither of these involves keeping the Law.  The claim of Judaizers that the church is under Levitical law was rejected as heresy by the apostles and elders who met in Jerusalem specifically to consider this subject shortly after Pentecost (Acts 15).  Moreover, Paul thoroughly refuted that assertion in his letter to the Galatians.

Through the keeping of the Law “there shall no flesh be justified” (Rom 3:20).  Justification comes as a free gift of God’s grace through the finished work of Christ.  Nor can one be sanctified (have victory over habitual sin) by keeping the Law, because of the weakness of human flesh.  The good news is that “what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh,” God accomplished in “sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin” (Rom 8:3,4).  The New Testament presents to the Christian a much higher standard of moral and ethical conduct than that of Levitical law.  We are empowered to live this higher standard because Christ himself, by the Holy Spirit, has come to indwell our hearts and live through us a supernatural life pleasing to God.  The glorious result is the death of self and a new life of faith (Gal 2:20) that produces fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22,23).

There are also many serious consequences to the malignant delusion that the church is Israel (Replacement Theology).  Christ said that those who “say they are Jews and are not,’ are in fact the synagogue of Satan” (Rv 2:9,3:9)!  They who teach this lie are no doubt entirely sincere, but like the Jewish nation itself, blinded to the truth. 

In an attempt to prove the contention that God’s covenant is one unchanging code through Old and New Testaments, some quote Psalm 89:34 (My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.).  Yet, Psalm 89 has nothing whatsoever to do with a moral code.  It is all about the covenant God made with David, that “His seed shall; endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me” (v 36).  This is the covenant the angel Gabriel reaffirmed in telling Mary that the One conceived in her of the Holy Spirit, would reign on the throne of His father David.  Jesus’ statement that, “... one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law ...” is also used to support the contention that the church is under Mosaic law.  But they don’t include His entire statement.  Far from teaching that the Law would always be in force, Christ declared that it would pass away when it was fulfilled and that He had come to fulfill it: “I am [not] come to destroy the law ... but to fulfill [it] ... One jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (Mt 5:17,18).  His life death, burial and resurrection accomplished this fulfillment and made possible the new covenant relationship with God, whereby those in the church are “justified by faith without the deeds of law” (Rom 3:21-30).  Does this “make void the law”?  No, it “establish[es] the law” (v31) as that which made Israel unique.

That same law was the barrier between Jew and Gentile and is still in force.  But for Christians (former Jews and Gentiles) it’s been fulfilled and abolished in Christ.  Scripture makes abundantly plain, it is God Who providentially divided peoples into three groups: Jews, Gentiles and the Church.  He alone erected barriers between them.  The cross of Christ bars all unregenerate from the Church, be they Jew or Gentile — just as the Mosaic Law blocks Christians and pagans entrance to their holy convocations.  It is therefore as unbiblical for Christians to attend an orthodox Passover Seder, as it is for Jews to come to the Communion table; equally ludicrous for a pagan to attend either, or Jews and Christians “worshipping” with Buddhists or Muslims.

Judaizers and the ecumenically-minded who dare breach those barriers might do well to review God’s response to Nimrod and company who had the neat idea of constructing the world’s first skyscraper.  They do so at the risk of incurring God’s wrath.  Our responsibility is not to build an edifice or the Church (the latter being Christ’s job) but to learn and obey God’s commands.

The second advent of Jesus gets confusing if we fail to realize He comes very differently for Jews, Gentiles and the Church.  For the Church (His bride) He comes secretly to rapture her to His heavenly kingdom where He’s prepared an eternal dwelling place (Jn 14:2-4).  For Jews, He appears openly in awesome power, in the midst of their being judged for rejecting Messiah; when surrounded by the armies of the world and about to be destroyed.  They are saved and delivered into His earthly millennial, but temporal, kingdom (Rom 11:26).  Simultaneously, He comes for Gentiles whom are summarily executed (Rev 19:21).  Thus, the Savior and Judge of all three, comes to deliver the Church, Jews and Gentiles to entirely different destinies: heaven, earth and to damnation; eternal, temporal, eternal.  Maranatha!

1 - Dave Hunt, The Berean Call, 9/99

— Articles in this series —

Part-2 — Our Hebrew Roots —Without roots there can be no fruit.
Part-4 — Judaizing The Church — Today’s Pharisees are at work to seduce you.
Part-5 — Judaism's Lubavitchers — They aim to teach all Gentiles their Noahide Laws.
Part 6 — "Messianics" ... whaa? — Does Scripture support Christians “keeping Torah”?
Part-7 — Messianic Christianity — A syncratic religion.
Part-1 — God Loves Israel ... and what God loves Christians should also love.

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