By Jason Charles on 10/2/2019 (5 years 82 days ago) Theology & Religion
Outside of salvation by Grace, through faith in Jesus Christ alone, all other religions and philosophies are false philosophies. So, in light of this Biblical Truth, I often deal with false doctrines and philosophies, and one such false doctrine is that of Talmudic Judaism.
Rejecting the Real Messiah
Christians often stand back and wonder how Jews fail to see Jesus as a complete fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah?
The answer is, they reject Jesus on the basis of the Talmudic instructions given them by their Rabbi. The refutation often breaks down to four main points, sourced below,
- The diminution of the role of Messiah in Scripture
- Narrowly define the Messiah as a descendant of David who unites nations under God as universal King
- Diminish the genealogies of Jesus thus his Davidic claim
- Rehash the old lies told about Jesus by the Sanhedrin
(Jews for Judaism)
Based off of these 4 Talmudic premises, Jews from all kinds of backgrounds and disciplines reject Jesus’ messianic claims. In fact, just based off the authoritative word of their Rabbi, the Talmud is correct, and they needn’t look any further into the matter. And just like that, it is case closed for the average Jew. Rarely do you find a Jew that will investigate these claims on their individual merits.
Point 7 in the referenced article on Jews for Judaism, says this,
“The Bible never speaks about believing in the Messiah. Because his reign will be an historically verifiable reality, self-evident to any person, it won’t require belief or faith.”
This is a false statement, by this limited thinking Jews and Gentiles can just go their merry way, not worrying about religion or God until a messianic figure pops up on the political scene, unifying and leading the nations. Then they can worry about God and their soul, until then who cares is the attitude of most secular Jews.
They forget that God required faith at every itineration of all the covenants He made with individuals in scripture. The Edenic, Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosiac, Priestly, and Davidic all required the catalyst of faith in God’s plan towards redemption. Faith in God to fulfill these promises over the course of generations is paramount.
These 4 points can easily be refuted one by one,
- The Messiah is the central role of scripture, and this is exactly why there is a huge laundry list of Jewish messianic claimants over the centuries; as well as a demonstrated pharisaic obsession and pestering of Jesus about the messiah question as recorded in the gospel narratives. In fact, it was this claim that was the charge that brought Christ before the illegal, night-time tribunal of Jesus by the Sanhedrin (Mark 15:53-65) Historical record shows it to be a mega-obsession among the Jews for centuries before and after the Common Era.
- In the sourced article above, they use Isaiah 11:1-9 to define the Messiah as a universal King pictured as a man of understanding and unity, “And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord;” they stop there and completely ignore verse 10 which says “And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.” Verses 1-9 are about the character of Christ, but verse 10 screams Jesus as the Messiah. Why? Because the Gentiles don’t seek the Jews religion, no, they seek Jesus. Christianity was brought to the Gentiles having been rejected by the Jews, and the Gentiles have routinely placed their faith in Christianity and not Judaism making this a proof-text for Jesus and not the Davidic Messiah as claimed.
- When they diminish the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke, all I have to say is praise God, at least He has a genealogy intact considering under Herod’s reign the temple records were destroyed. So I ask, if there is no genealogical records, then no Jew alive can ever prove their Davidic pedigree, and thus there can never be a Messianic claimant under the Jews own criteria for such. A coming Messiah descended from David is a complete Jewish fables. God ended the records during the life of Jesus assuring there can never be a new claimant to the role of Messiah.
"It is assumed that under Herod I. all genealogical rolls kept in the Temple were destroyed (Sachs, "Beiträge," ii. 157). The loss of official genealogies was deeply deplored as a calamity, more especially because of their importance for the understanding of the books of Chronicles (Pes. 62b; B. B. 109). How prolific these Biblical books were in provoking genealogical conceits is shown by the statement that 900 camel-loads of commentary existed on I Chron. viii. 37 to ix. 44 (Pes. 62b)." (Jewish Encyclopedia)
- Finally rehashing the old lies of, the disciples stole the Body, or Jesus didn’t really die, or Jesus isn’t a historical figure falls flat on its face. Either Jesus is who is, and the disciples were martyred and never recanted from their eye-witness testimony, or the Pharisees reports are correct. It can only be one or the other. There are always two sides to a story, and in this case only one can be correct, if Jesus is the Messiah then it makes total since he would read Isaiah 61 to the temple of the onset of His teaching and miracle ministry.
And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. - Luke 4:17-21
All in all there has been over three hundred prophecies pertaining to Jesus identified that Jews skip over completely. The sourced article takes you through many of them,
“Down through history, God provided us a roadmap. He foretold various signs and conditions through His prophets. These prophets spoke of things that mankind should watch for so that the Messiah would be recognized and believed. These signs or prophecies were given to us in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the part of the Bible written before Jesus was born. Its writings were completed in 450 B.C. The Old Testament, written hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth, contains over 300 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled through His life, death and resurrection.
Mathematically speaking, the odds of anyone fulfilling this amount of prophecy are staggering. Mathematicians put it this way:
1 person fulfilling 8 prophecies: 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000 1 person fulfilling 48 prophecies: 1 chance in 10 to the 157th power 1 person fulfilling 300+ prophecies: Only Jesus!
It is the magnificent detail of these prophecies that mark the Bible as the inspired Word of God. Only God could foreknow and accomplish all that was written about the Christ. This historical accuracy and reliability sets the Bible apart from any other book or record.” (CBN)
Conclusion
So, when we think of reaching unsaved Jews we have to understand that the insistence to assign credibility to the oral traditions of the Talmud has literally blinded them to the plain Truth actually written down in scripture,
“Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” - 2 Corinthians 3 12-17
Watch this video of Jews reading Isaiah 53 which is considered the quintessential prophecy about Jesus as the Man of Sorrows. In Israel, this chapter is called the Forbidden Chapter because it is so powerful towards the converting of Jews to Christianity.
Read Isaiah 53
1 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? 2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. 8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. 9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. 10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. 11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
When confronted with verses of scripture like Isaiah 53, you can see that these Jews in Israel are visibly shaken. They are all told to be waiting for a conquering King to unify the world, but because of their blind adherence to the authority of the oral traditions associated with the Torah they totally miss hundreds of verses that plainly lay out who, and what to look for in terms of their Messiah. Pray for the people of Israel and Jews everywhere, pray that God lifts the blindness from their mind. These oral traditions have led countless Jews to hell over the centuries simply because the traditions of men, and the authority of their Rabbi’s supersede their own ability to think, read, study and believe on Christ for themselves.
This is why Jesus rebuked the pharisees concerning their oral traditions, He knew that those traditions would blind them to Jesus in His own time, as well as the times to come, right up to our modern age.
Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? - Matthew 15: 1-3
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