NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/alt/messiani/2489

Internet Message Format | 1992-07-23 | 3.3 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ukma!widener!gvls1!tredysvr!portland!tom
From: [e-mail] (Tom Albrecht)
Newsgroups: alt.messianic
Subject: Re: Messianic Judaism 4 Of 4
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 23 Jul 92 14:36:34 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: Unisys - Applied Technology
Lines: 57

Rob Strom writes:
>
>-That's not surprising.  For today's Messianic Jews are
>-not an unbroken continuation of a Jewish splinter
>-group of followers of Jesus.  They are all of them
>-recent converts who learned their Christianity from
>-post-Nicean, post-Augustinian sources, not from
>-an unbroken chain of practicing Jewish Christians.

And, for that matter, learned their Judaism from post-Talmudic Jewish
sources.

The historic fact is that the vast majority of the Jewish disciples of
Jesus went hand-in-hand with their Gentile brethren into the early Church.
As the generations went by, these Christians became more unified in their
common beliefs and practices to the point that Jew and Gentile were
indistinguishable.  (It's probably safe to say that many of the Christians
still living in the Middle East are descendents of these early Jewish
believers, even thought their religious practices are decidedly Christian.
For these people being a physical descendent of Abraham no longer makes any
difference in God salvation plan.  Being a spiritual child of Abraham is
what's important.)  The remnant of Judaism and the remnant from among the
Gentiles became the new holy nation of the Church.  Peter and Paul
certainly understood the fact that, covenantally speaking, the promises to
Abraham and his "Seed" had been brought lock, stock and barrel into the
Church (the pejorative term "replacement theology" notwithstanding).  For
the most part the Jews who refused assimilation in the Church were the
heretical groups like the Ebionites who also rejected the emerging
Christian tradition regarding the trinity and the person of Christ.

Modern Messianic Judaism has no special connection with these early Jewish
Christians, other than the connection that all Christians have which is
brought to us through the centuries of orthodox Christianity.

>Cynics (of which I am one) would claim that once
>the "completed" individual becomes a Christian "believer",
>the evangelical movement could care less whether
>that individual's grandchildren remain Jewish
>or Gentile so long as they continue to be "believers".

I am not a cynic, but allow me to point out that this is precisely the way
it should be, from a Christian perspective.  The children of Abraham belong
to every nation under the sun.  They can retain their particular cultural
distinctive if they wish, but the religious distinctives that once
separated human nations one from another are ended.  There is only one
"commonwealth of Israel" with one set of Bible-mandated, common religious
practices.

Again, and in case I haven't made myself clear in the past, if Jewish
believers in Messiah wish to retain there cultural heritage by way of
distinctive practices, that's absolutely OK by me.  It is not my intention
to get any Jew to convert to "Gentilism."  (Gentilism is paganism, BTW.)
But let's not suggest that you can attach religious superiority to such
cultural practices.

--
Tom Albrecht