Saturday, May 12, 2012

Rabbinic Jews, Salvation and Yeshua

Men of Yisrael(Israel), I'm not a good writer or a scholar, but I feel that I must address this issue the best I can.  What issue? To put it simply, can a Rabbinic Jew be saved without believing in Yeshua?  First I need to define some things.  My definition of Rabbinic Jew is a Jew who denies Yeshua and follows the Oral Torah.  And my definition of saved is being able to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. 

Again, can a Rabbinic Jew be saved without believing in Yeshua? According to Shaul(Paul) and Barnavah(Barnabas), no.

Acts13:45 But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Shaul, contradicting and blaspheming.
46 Then Shaul and Barnavah waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of Elohim should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.

What did Yeshua say?

Yochanan(John)14:6 Yeshua saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.  

Again he says;

Yochanan8:24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am, ye shall die in your sins.

Yeshua also told the Perushim(Pharisees);

Yochanan8:42 Yeshua said unto them, If Elohim were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from Elohim; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.

But are these statements correct?  Will YHWH(Jehovah) really condemn someone for not believing in HaMashiach(the Messiah)?  I think He will.  For it is written;

Devarim(Deuteronomy)18:18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.
19 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which He (Yeshua) shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.

Anyone who does not believe in Yeshua HaMashiach will perish, for it is also written;


Tehillim(Psalm)2:12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.

Yochanan3:16 For Elohim so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

It seems clear to me that if one wishes to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven they must submit to the King Messiah who is Yeshua.  I would love to hear your opinions.  Yerushalayim(Jerusalem) Hear the cry of your Mashiach!

Mattityahu(Matthew)23:37 O Yerushalayim, Yerushalayim, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
39 For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of YHWH.

Shalom

12 comments:

  1. You make excellence points Barrett, although they can be painful ones. Apparently it was for Paul, too.
    Romans 9:3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:

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    1. It is the most painful point one can make. I was very depressed writing it.

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  2. I understand that Messianic IsraElites call Messiah Yeshua. I want to know where YaH is in the name Yehshua? Just wondering.

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    1. The name Yeshua as found in Nechemyah(Nehemiah)8:17 is short for the name Yehoshua(Joshua) as seen throughout the Tanach. Yehoshua=Joshua and Yeshua=Josh. At least this is how a Jewish employee of ours that spoke fluent Hebrew explained it to me. The Yeho part of the name is what represents YHWH.

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  3. What will happen to the ignorant ones who have never heard of the Messiah?

    I think of all the Jews who have been presented with a Greco-Roman anti-torah Messiah...they haven't yet been told of the true one.

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    1. "What will happen to the ignorant ones who have never heard of the Messiah?"

      I believe that the people that have never heard of the Mashiach (like the Polynesians before contact with the outside world) are vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. See Romans9:22.

      "I think of all the Jews who have been presented with a Greco-Roman anti-torah Messiah...they haven't yet been told of the true one."

      If it is true that they have never been told of the true Yeshua they would fall into the same category as the Polynesians. If we are honest with ourselves we would have to admit that the Jewish people would not have been presented with an anti-Torah Messiah if their Fathers in the first century had not rejected Yeshua. Who they knew to be a Torah observant Jew at the time of their rejection. Christianity and Judaism both have inherited lies from their Fathers. Sadly some lies endanger our very souls.

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  4. Soteriology is a topic you don't often hear discussed in much detail like this. Thanks for bringing it up. One problem I haven't seen addressed: Rabbinic Jews would have made up many of the victims of the Holocaust. Is it the case that once these Rabbinic Jews were killed in Auschwitz, they would have entered into even more torment in hell? That is, they would be suffering more under God than they did under Hitler. If one can somehow reason that the Rabbinic Jews deserved this kind of treatment for their sins, then isn't Hitler merely a vigilante who took justice into his own hands? In other words, the Rabbinic Jews got what they deserved, even if Hitler didn't have the right to do so. I look forward to your thoughts.

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  5. First let me say that I believe that anyone, Jew or Gentile, must have the blood of Yeshua HaMashiach to be saved. I am specifically discussing whether someone who practices Rabbinic Judaism needs the blood of Yeshua or not. Because in Messianic Judaism, which I practice, our love for our Rabbinic brothers sometimes leads us to try and find a way to justify their souls without the atoning work of HaMashiach. So this can be a very sensitive issue for us. But I felt it had to be addressed. Your question is not an easy one. But I will try to answer it the best I can. I fear though, that my answers will be terribly inadequate.

    I tend to look at Hitler like a modern day Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Shalmaneser or Sennacherib. Unrighteous leaders of unrighteous nations used by YHWH to come against us for His reasons. We might never understand why, but our faith in His justice must never become compromised because of our lack of understanding. I know this may sound like a cop out to some, but its what I believe.

    Just because someone is a murder victim does not mean that they will not go to Hell. I know this sounds cold and hard hearted but as I said above, we can be at peace knowing that YHWH is just.

    I hope this answers your questions. If not let me know and I will try again.

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  6. Barrett, thanks for responding. Yours is a common argument made. It basically says that God is always good, but we don't understand God's ways and God's justice. Another variation of the same argument goes something like: "I don't understand, but I know that God will do what is just and loving, because that is God's character". Another variation is "God's goodness is different from our goodness" and "God's view of good is different from ours".

    The problem with this is view is that we then define "good" and "loving" as something other than how people define it in everyday English. In fact, we don't even define "good". God could do anything toward the Rabbinic Jew who died in the Holocaust, and one would still call it "good". Perhaps God saved the Jew at the last minute. Or perhaps God sent the Jew to hell, where every day is even worse than what life was like in Auschwitz, and the Jew is in exquisite pain. We are saying that God will be just and loving, but not taking a single option off the table of what God can do to the Jew. Us saying God is then "just", "loving", and "good", is absolutely meaningless.

    In the way of an analogy, imagine you're the owner of the Texas Rangers, and I'm going to trade you a baseball pitcher. So you start asking me some stats about this pitcher you're going to get, like what's his ERA. And I say well it's between 0.0 and 90.0. And you say you think he's lousy if his ERA is 90! And my retort is something like "well, my definition of a good baseball pitcher is different and you don't understand it, and you just have to trust that whatever his ERA is, he's going to be a good pitcher". Or "my ways of baseball are different than your ways of baseball". What I've basically done is define a "good pitcher" as something different, making the term "good" meaningless.

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    1. You present humanity on one side and Elohim on the other. And of course humanity is correct and Elohim is wrong. Because we humans know what a good pitcher is. The first problem with this is that you assume that all humanity has the same definition of good and evil. This of course is not the case. Humanity's definition of good and evil changes from culture to culture and from time to time and person to person. I don't think you need any examples do you? Being how humanity is so hopelessly divided on what good and evil are, what gives us the right to tell the One who created good and evil(Yeshayahu(Isaiah)45:7), what is good and evil? The only meaningful definition of good and evil is YHWH's.

      Another problem with your statement is that you assume that YHWH loves everybody. This is not true. For it is written:

      Malaki(Malachi)1:2 I have loved you, saith YHWH. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esaw Yaakov's brother? saith YHWH: yet I loved Yaakov,

      3 And I hated Esaw, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.

      YHWH does not love everyone. He even hates some.

      Romans9:18 Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth.

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  7. Barrett, thanks for your answer. I think we agree on a some things, such as there being an objective morality, and morality varying from culture to culture. We also agree that the Bible states that God hates some people.

    My previous post was solely about language. If one doesn't have a definition of a word, or the definition is circular, then it is meaningless to use that word. Nor can one redefine a word from its everyday use. It's basically doublespeak, where the use of language is subverted. Calling the God of the Bible "loving" is a classic example.

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    1. My point is that it does not matter what we think the definition of a word is. The only definition that matters is YHWH's. YHWH is love. If our definition is different from his we are wrong.

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