Messianic Jewish Alliance of Australia

Challenge: Have you read Isaiah 40-55 in one sitting and carefully and prayerfully considered who the servant of the LORD is?

Would you join me in this prayer? Sovereign LORD, I pray that the same power that saved a people from Egypt, that delivers Israel from exile, that same mighty arm of the LORD (Isaiah 51:9-10) might awaken and reveal the servant of the LORD (Isaiah 53:1). Please bring your power to reveal and to soften hearts and help us see past our biases to your truth. O God of Truth, stretch out your arm to do mighty works in these days again. In the name of the God of Israel, Amen.

It is clear that in some instances in this section of Isaiah the servant of the LORD is identified with the nation of Israel (Isaiah 43:10). In other parts, the servant is clearly not the whole nation of Israel. This becomes salient as a person reads this whole passage (Isaiah 40-55) and carefully considers who the servant of the LORD is. I have written 12 points that a person should think about as they ponder the servant of the LORD.

1. How is the servant the one who opens the eyes of the blind (Isaiah 42:1-9) yet in Isaiah 42:18-19 is the one who is blind?

2. Why is there a contrast between the servant songs where the personal pronoun is used and the references to the servant as the nation of Israel (“this is my servant” in contrast to “you are my witnesses and the servant I have chosen”)?

3. How can the servant be called “Israel” in Isaiah 49:3 and also be the one who brings Israel back to God? How can Israel be the one who restores the Jewish remnant — the “Jews that God has kept” (Isaiah 49:5-6)?

4. How can the servant in Isaiah 50:4-9 be the nation of Israel (every Jew that exists today)? Is this intimate experience of being taught by God normative for Jews of any background today (even Jewish atheists!)? If the servant of the LORD is all of Israel, how can we obey his voice since Jews today have so many conflicting opinions (from atheism to orthodoxy)? Are Jews meant to listen to themselves and obey their own voice in order to demonstrate that they fear the LORD?

5. Compare Isaiah 50:6 with the story of Yeshua (Jesus).

6. Do you resolve these difficulties in the text by explaining that the servant is the righteous remnant within Israel? If so, can you show me one verse in the passage (Isaiah 40-55) that explicitly identifies the servant as being exclusively about a righteous group within Israel; especially considering that the personal pronoun references would seem to point to a righteous individual within the nation?

7. If you view the servant songs as referring to the righteous Jewish remnant, why could they not then be most fully realised in the Jewish Messiah (the most righteous Jew)?

8. Why is a “righteous remnant” reading more credible than reading the songs as referring to the ideal Israelite, the Messiah?

9. Can you explain how the substitutionary verses Isaiah 53:4-6 can refer to the nation of Israel in a way that is not absurd (i.e. saying that when the Nazis killed Jews they made atonement for Germany)? Do you answer this by saying that Isaiah 53 is not referring to the nation of Israel but to the righteous remnant within it? A remnant whose deaths made atonement for the rest of Israel and the world? Do you realise how close this is to what the NT teaches?

10. Do you accept that the servant in Isaiah 53 refers to the Messiah? If so, why don’t you accept the person who it most accurately portrays (Yeshua)? The Gospels tell of a man who was despised and rejected (and continues to be). A person who was rejected by his people but exalted in the nations. One who claimed to be the Messiah that had to suffer before entering into his glory (Luke 24:26). They tell of a man who was literally pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities and whose stripes bring us peace.

11. Isaiah 53 speaks of a servant who is completely cut off from the land of the living (Isaiah 53:8) and who then rises from the dead (53:9-12). How can this be Israel? Or even the remnant within Israel? Neither has ever become completely wiped out and hence neither has risen from death. If you allow that much allegorical work to apply this passage to Israel, why don’t you accept who the plain sense of the passage fits like a glove?

12. A closing point: If, at any time, the servant of the LORD can be shown to be sometimes the whole of Israel and at other times to be less than all of Israel, then it is as fair to consider that the servant is the Messiah as it is to consider that the servant is the righteous remnant.

Romans 6:2 says we have died to sin. Some would argue that this is only a figurative death, but the text seems to indicate that in God’s sight we have literally died with Messiah and we are raised to a new life. Hence we are “united with him in his death.” (Rom. 6:5) This has two primary effects: firstly, dying to sin and thus becoming free from the slavery of it and, secondly, dying to the Law of Moses and therefore, for Jews, being free to serve under a new covenant (Rom. 7:1-6).

Effect 1: Dying to sin and becoming free from the slavery of it.

Before I came to know the Lord I remember having a very great darkness in my life. It would rule me through selfishness, anger, rage, lust. It was my pattern of behaviour and it was organic to me – it was natural, it was who I was. When I came to know God it was like a spear of light penetrated this darkness and made a stairway for me to take through it. It gave me the opportunity to choose a different path, a path I would not previously have taken. In reality, often I stay at the point where there are these two paths before me and I choose the darkness even as a Christian. This is what is talked about in Romans 6:12-14. It’s like an oscillation in my life between doing what God wants me to do or following that darkness. And it is still our choice which path we will take.

But through being united with the death of Messiah we now have the opportunity to choose to serve God and to be free from sin. In fact, the very act of penetrating that darkness in our lives and giving us new life causes us to shift the most basic desire of our hearts from self-focus to God-focus. This makes us rather to serve God than to not. This does not mean that we will no longer sin even when our hearts yearn not to, but it means that even if we do sin, our hearts will be broken by it (see Rom. 6:21 we will be ashamed) because our most fundamental desire is to now be a “slave to righteousness.” (Rom. 6:18) This shift in our hearts ultimately means that, even though we stuff up sometimes, our future is eternal life (Rom. 6:22). Before we did not care when we sinned, now we cannot help but be torn up by it.

Effect 2: Dying to the Law of Moses and therefore, for Jews, being free to serve under a new covenant.

Romans 7:1-6 are some of the most important verses in the NT for Jewish people. This is because this chapter is the NT’s answer to a very significant problem. Throughout the Tenakh (Old Testament) Jews are commanded to keep many laws not just for a little while, but forever and ever[1]. The NT seems to suggest that Jesus fulfilled the Law of Moses (Mat. 5:17-20) and that now Jews are free from the obligation of it, though they are also free to keep it if they desire. If Romans 7 did not exist, then a very significant problem would exist in its place. Jews were commanded to keep some laws from the Law of Moses forever, how could they ever be released from the obligation to keep these? Put in another way, many aspects of the covenant God made with the Jewish people at Mt. Sinai were “forever.” Since this is the case, how could the Jews ever be free to serve in a new covenant[2]? For Jewish people today, this is very significant, and it is an issue that leads many Jewish people away from believing in Jesus as the Messiah. Fortunately for us, however, Paul dealt with this problem in Romans 7:1-6.

In Romans 7:1-3 Paul makes an illustration for Jewish people. We know this is for Jewish people because he says “for I am speaking to those who know the law.” Here he first shows an example of when a law becomes no longer binding because of death. In verse 4-6 he then explains the relationship that Jewish believers have to the Law of Moses now that they have been united in the death of Messiah. He reveals that through us dying with Messiah, we are now “released from the law.” The Law of Moses is only binding on Jewish people as long as they live. But when they die, they are no longer obligated to keep its requirements. In the same way, Jewish believers who have literally been united in Messiah’s death in God’s sight, who have been born again and made into new creations, are now free to live under a new law code and in a new covenant; they are released from the “forever commandments.” This is revolutionary for Jewish people. It means that so long as our hearts don’t condemn us, we are free to eat Bacon and Egg muffins at McDonalds or a Lobster in a Chinese restaurant, things that previously God had forbidden us to eat.

But it goes deeper than that. Being released from the Law of Moses is only one side of the coin. The other is that we now belong under a new law code and a new covenant, the Law of Messiah (1 Cor. 9:21) and the way of the Spirit (Rom. 7:6). As Paul said, “But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.” This new covenant is for everyone – Jew and non-Jew – and both Jews and non Jews die to sin through it, but non Jews do not die to the Law of Moses as they were never truly under the obligation of it as Jews were.

In  Romans 7:7-25 Paul clears up that though Jews died to sin and to the Law of Moses through being united in the death of Messiah, this does not mean that the Law of Moses equals sin. However, there is a relationship between the Law of Moses and sin which Paul elaborates on. This is basically that a good commandment from the Law is sometimes used by the darkness in our hearts as a way to become even darker. It is used as an opportunity for the wicked desires of our hearts to choose more wickedness. Paul goes on to explain that even when he desired what was right sin would sometimes take hold of him and cause him to do wrong. This struggle with the flesh does not end when we enter the new covenant, but rather we are given the opportunity to overcome it like we have never had before.

In this way, Romans 7:7-25 sets up what it’s like to try and serve God while that darkness still rules in our souls and it important to stress that even when we have God’s Spirit in our lives we can still choose to embrace the darkness. While we are here on Earth, we will struggle between trying to serve God and serving ourselves. Through the new covenant and our dying with Messiah we are given the opportunity to overcome the darkness within us, but it still needs to be an intentional choice. God will not override our free will and in a very real sense while we still live we will drag around who we used to be wherever we go, the body of death, sometimes embracing it, sometimes spurning it. But in another very real sense, we are freed from it if we choose to be by setting our minds on living for God by His Spirit.

And everything culminates in Romans 8:1-17. It is here that the real realities of the new way of the Spirit (Rom. 7:6) are revealed and they are glorious. No more condemnation even when we stuff up (Rom. 8:1). A life exchange between us and Messiah; that even when we sin His Son’s righteousness is given to us (Rom. 8:3-4). The shift in our hearts from being focused on the flesh to being focused on the Spirit (Rom. 8:5-7). A real ability to put sin to death by the Spirit every day (Rom. 8:12-13). The glorious transformation in our lives that we become God’s sons, adopted and being able to cry out to God saying “Daddy!” (Rom. 8:15-17). A knowledge that the Spirit will help us in our times of weakness. He will intercede for us and make us like Jesus (Rom. 8:26-29).

We – Jews and non-Jews – have a new way before us unlike any we have ever had before. The Spirit of God changes the odds in our favour in our battle against sin. He works on our behalf. He gives us strength and power. When He is in us, God sees us as having His righteousness, though we still struggle against the darkness of our flesh. It is said that you never know how bad you really are until you have tried to be good. The new way of the Spirit reverses the situation for us. Through God’s Spirit we can overcome. We can be Holy. And even when we’re not, we can rest in the peace not of God’s condemnation, but of His approval. This is what God has done for us and it is marvelous.

[1] For example, see Ex. 31:16, 12:14, 12:24, 31:17, Lev. 16:29, 16:31, 23:31, 2 Chron. 2:4, Psalm 119:159-160, Deut. 5:29, Deut 11:1 & Lev. 10:15.

[2] As a background note, furthermore, the issue of a new covenant was a matter of Jewish prophecy outlined in Jeremiah 31:31-34. Although there is some controversy about the specs and scope of the new covenant and what it would actually be, the NT goes into the guts of it all. There is a new law code (Heb. 6-10, specifically 7:14), a new priesthood (Heb. 6:13- 8:1), a new high priest in a heavenly temple (Heb. 8:5, 9:23, 10:1), a new sin offering (Heb. 8:3, 9-10:18) and a new way to  interact with and access God by his blood (Heb. 9:1-14).

What is happening in Israel?

I’m going to talk about three things today about what is happening in Israel.

1. Supernatural love for the Jewish people around the world.
2. The reason love for Jews is a miracle.
3. God’s promises.

[Pray for a thousand angels to look after us]

Supernatural love for the Jewish Peoples

I am speaking the truth in Messiah—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— ² that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. ³ For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Messiah for the sake of my brothers,^[a] my kinsmen according to the flesh. ⁴ They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. ⁵ To them belong the fathers, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Messiah, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

Paul loved his own people in a supernatural way. He’s basically saying the greatest thing he could say to show love for a people who had tried to kill him several times, who’d given him non stop grief and sorrow, who opposed him and had been enemies of the gospel. For these people he’s saying here that, “If I could, I would trade my destiny of living in the glory of God’s friendship forever with yours. I would take your place in God’s judgement if, only if, it meant that you would take mine in His mercy.” What incredible, miraculous, supernatural love that Paul had for the Jews.

The church is recapturing this. All around the world people are turning to God and when they read His word God gives them a love for Jews. It’s unexplainable. It’s not rational. Why the Jews? Several people in this Church have already shown me this love that God has put in their hearts. In fact I had the great pleasure just last week to meet a lovely elderly Christian woman of God who explained to me, not even knowing who I was, that when God saved her from the Roman Catholic Church He also told her that she must love the Jews and to pray for Israel not just once a day, but as often as she could.

I don’t understand this miracle. And it is a miracle as I will explain later. Why is God developing a supernatural love for the Jewish people in His Church? It defies explanation in so many ways yet it is beautiful. As a Jewish believer, when I went to a Derek Prince conference a few months ago that was about Israel, as I walked through the doors I almost cried. There in that auditorium were people from every nation and background, united by the Jewish Messiah and standing together with a strong and deep love for Israel and the Jewish people. It’s happening all around the world.

The reason love for Jews is a miracle

There has been a hatred that has existed for over 2000 years. It is the longest hatred that has ever existed in the history of humanity. It has invaded every part of society and for many years even the Church harbored it. It’s a hatred of the Jews. Edward Flannery put it this way, “…[it] is the longest and deepest hatred of human history…” then he went on to say, “What other hatred has endured some twenty-three centuries and survived a genocide of 6,000,000 of its victims in its twenty-third century of existence only to find itself still intact and rich in potential for many years of life?” You’d think the holocaust would have been enough to satisfy the hatred of the Jews, to end it, but it was not.

If you don’t know the history, for the last two thousand years wherever Jews have gone they have been hated, told to get lost, beaten, raped, forced to convert, made into slaves and killed. And it has not been only for a little while, but it seems that in every generation people have risen up to destroy or persecute the Jewish people. From the Crusaders to Martin Luther, from Stalin to Hitler, from the Church – we have a dark history – to the Muslims, from black supremacists to white supremacists, from Biblical times to today people have hated the Jews.

And there seems to be no rational explanation for this. When Sigmund Freud tried to understand it, he ended up saying, “With regard to anti-Semitism, I don’t really want to search for explanations; I feel a strong inclination to surrender my affects in this matter and find myself confirmed in my wholly nonscientific belief that mankind on the average and taken by and large are a wretched lot.”

I have a friend, Dr Michael Brown, who went around to universities with a challenge to students to come up with a rational explanation for Jew hatred. He argued that the only rational explanation of this hatred is supernatural, that the Devil hates what God loves, and he would challenge people to come up with a better idea. Apparently, the only idea that came close to being believable was that aliens were responsible for it!

If you have read the book of Ester which was written about 2500 years ago, you will see there the first recorded attempt by a powerful leader in a nation to wipe out all the Jews. This book records a time when a great official in Assyria, an evil man named Haman, tried to kill all the Jews. He almost succeeded, but God intervened and stopped him and saved His people.

So what is happening in Israel? Haman & Hamas

2500 years ago a man named Haman tried to destroy the Jewish people. Today, a Muslim extremist organisation called Hamas is doing the same thing. They have a strikingly similar name and purpose: Haman and Hamas.

Who is Hamas?

Hammas is the elected governing body in the Palestinian region. For decades this group, along with others like the Muslim Brotherhood, has been responsible for suicide bombings in Israel, terrorist attacks, kidnappings and murders of Israeli citizens and for sending over ten thousand missiles into Israel over the last ten years. This organisation denies the Holocaust, agrees with Nazi ideology, and has within its chief religious beliefs a view that every Jew must be destroyed.

Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, oh the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him…  

It’s in their belief system that every Jew must be destroyed. Just as Haman wanted to destroy the Jewish people 2500 years ago, so Hamas wants to destroy them now.

And Dr Michael Brown drew out another link between Haman and Hamas. This is in how Haman in the Ester Story tried to convince the King about how evil the Jews are and how Hamas, the terrorist organisation that’s goal is Jihad, is convincing the world that the Jews are evil and cannot be tolerated. Haman convinced the king to allow him to destroy the Jews by saying that they do not obey the king’s laws and it is not in the king’s best interests to tolerate them. Today Hamas is convincing the world that Israel does not obey international laws – that they are an evil occupier of Palestine – and that it is not in the world’s best interests to tolerate them.

Perspective

Let me put things into perspective for you.

Imagine if NZ was run by an extremist anti-Australia organisation. This organisation has terrorized Australia for a long time and for the last decade has been sending missiles into Sydney. Some of the missiles are deflected Sydney’s missile defense system but others get through and kill civilians. Even if a missile is deflected, can you imagine what it would be like to go about your daily life in Sydney when at any moment a missile could land on you?

How long do you think it would be before Australia retaliated against NZ? What do you think the international response to Australia for defending itself? Would it be to say that Australia is only 200 years old and has no right to exist? Would the world highlight how NZ citizens in Australia are treated unjustly? Would they claim that Australia has not been managing NZ well? Would they set up sanctions against Australia because Australia is allegedly evil? Would there be marches and protests all around the world when Australia fights back? Yet this is how the world seems to be responding to Israel.

In Europe, the very countries that perpetrated the holocaust are now holding marches against Israel where they are accusing the Jews of being Nazis and of perpetrating a second holocaust. Hold on a second. These were the Nazi nations and descendants of the Nazis, yet they are now calling Jews Nazis?

All around the world there is a Boycotting, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. The Marrickville Council in Australia is an example of this – a local council choosing to boycott Israel and to stop using Israeli products.

For the last decade, universities around the world have held an event called “Israel Apartheid Week.” They claim that Arabs are second rate citizens in Israel and that Israel is an Apartheid state. But hold on a second. There are Arabs in the Israeli Parliament. There are Arabs of notable rank in the Israeli army. Arabs are given full voting rights in Israel and are not treated as second class citizens.

To be clear though, as Christians we do not agree with all the policies and decisions of any nation, and Israel has certainly done things that no one is proud of in the past. But this is not enough to justify all the international criticism against Israel today.

And there is a glaring hypocrisy in all these campaigns as well. Only last week the leader of Hamas publicly vowed to destroy Israel and what was the world’s reaction? Silence. Yet if Israel just builds some houses in Jerusalem the world reacts with outrage and venom. Dr Michael Brown once asked, “Is Jewish blood less valuable than Palestinian blood?” It seems that in a lot of people’s eyes the answer is yes.

God’s Promises: The reason Jew Hatred is a Spiritual Problem

In Jer. 31:35-37 God made a promise to Israel. Basically that no matter what happens, no matter how bad they get, no matter that they reject the Messiah for 2000 years, Israel will always exist as a nation before God forever. Jews will always be around.

35 Thus says the Lord,
who gives the sun for light by day
and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,
who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—
the Lord of hosts is his name:
36 “If this fixed order departs
from before me, declares the Lord,
then shall the offspring of Israel cease
from being a nation before me forever.”

37 Thus says the Lord:
“If the heavens above can be measured,
and the foundations of the earth below can be explored,
then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel
for all that they have done,
declares the Lord.”

Don’t you see? If the Jewish people ceased to exist, it would mean that God either cannot or does not keep His promises. This is from a book by Dr. Michael Brown “Our hands are stained with blood.”

“[Satan’s] effort to annihilate the Jews is also an attempt to discredit the Lord, since He has sworn in His Word that they will never be destroyed. If Israel ceases to exist as a distinct people, then God did not, or could not, keep His promise. That would mean that He was either powerless or that He lied!”

There is a story that is told about a Russian Tsar many years ago. He once asked his adviser, “Give me evidence that God exists.” The adviser turned to him and said, “The Jews.” The fact that there are still Jews today is an incredible evidence and testimony that God exists and that God keeps his Word.

I was talking to a Jewish atheist once and he asked me for evidence for God and I said that he was. That even though in every generation there has been people who have tried to destroy us or persecute us, the fact that we are still here as Jews is evidence that God exists. I then said to him that, “Your life is evidence for God.”

And think about it. If God will still keep promises to a people that for 2000 years have rejected His Messiah, how can we not trust that he will keep His promises to you and me? In so many ways the Jewish people today are a rejected and despised people, yet God still keeps His promises to them. How much more can we trust that God would keep promises to you and me? Why don’t we trust Him?

I define a Jew as someone who has a Jewish father (like Obed son of Ruth the Moabitess and Boaz) or a Jewish mother (Lev. 24:10) and who identifies with the people of Israel. Under this criteria, the children of Ester and King Ahasuerus (if there were any) would not have been considered Jewish if they did not associate themselves with the people of Israel. In New Testament terms, a Jew is an ethnic part of Israel and vice versa.

The term “Gentile” is defined simpy as “non-Jew.” Though Eph. 4:17 says “live no longer as the Gentiles do” this does not mean that Gentiles stop being Gentiles when they become Christians, but instead means that they should no longer engage in practices, traditions and customs that they were doing prior to becoming Christians that are anti-God.

The term “Christian” is defined as meaning someone who follows Christ.

The term “Christ” means the Jewish Messiah.

Jesus was a Jew. Even under the Rabbinic understanding of who a Jew is, he had a Jewish mother and, according to the criteria above, embraced the people of Israel as well.

The religion Christianity shares a very strong kinship with biblical Judaism; it has Jewish roots, it is based on the Tenakh (Old Testament) which explicitly set forth that the Messiah had to come within a set number of years before the temple would be destroyed (Dan. 9:24-27), that he must suffer and die and be rejected by his people but become exalted amongst the nations (Isa. 52:13-53:12; 42:1-9; 49:6) and that one day he will return as a reigning and conquering King (Dan. 7:13-28; Isa. 11:1-2; Jer. 23:5-6).

The church began as a Jewish phenomenon. It’s birth place was the synagogue and the Temple (Acts 2:46). First, Gentiles who were considered “God-fearers” and who likely also attended synagogue became a part of this movement. Second, Gentiles who were not a part of the synagogue previously and were not priorly linked to Judaism joined this budding Jewish movement.

After the close of the NT and towards the end of the first century and as early as the second century the church had a great influx with Gentiles, some of whom brought anti-Jewish sentiment with them. It was not long before a schism between Judaism and the new Christianity began being caused by perpetuating Antisemitic views about non-believing Jews. This caused the church to rid itself of following any Jewish traditions and customs,  leading to the idea that first / second century Judaism had little to do with Christianity; especially as it developed into the later third to fifth centuries and beyond. Take the following excerpt from the famous “Golden Tongue” missionary John Chrysotom (344-407 CE) as an example of the developing Antisemitism that the church began to embrace:

“The synagogue is worse than a brothel. It is the den of scoundrels and the repair of wild beasts, the temple of demons devoted to idolatrous cults, the refuge of brigands and dabauchees, and the cavern of devils. It is a criminal assembly of Jews, a place of meeting for the assassins of Christ, a house worse than a drinking shop, a den of thieves, a house of ill fame, a dwelling of iniquity, the refuge of devils, a gulf and a abyss of perdition. I would say the same things about their souls. As for me, I hate the synagogue and I hate the Jews for the same reason.” [1]

Such views led the “Jewish Christian” paradox. Although there appeared to be historically visible group throughout the first five centuries of “Jewish Christians” this group was shunned by both the new Rabbinic Judaism that became mainstream after the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 CE and by the Church. In Jerome’s letter to Augustine of Hippo this group is referred to:

“What shall I say of the Ebionites who pretend to be Christians? To-day there still exists among the Jews in all the synagogues of the East a heresy which is called that of the Minans, and which is still condemned by the Pharisees; [its followers] are ordinarily called ‘Nasarenes’; they believe that Christ, the son of God, was born of the Virgin Mary, and they hold him to be the one who suffered under Pontius Pilate and ascended to heaven, and in whom we also believe. But while they pretend to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither.” [2]

This idea that they cannot be both Jews and Christians seemed cemented here in Christian thought.

The previous concept is not supported by the Christian’s Biblical Canon, especially what was taught by Jesus and his earliest followers in the NT. As the NT was mainly written by Jews (with the exception of Luke), the movement it caused was started by Jews and it all centers on the Jewish Messiah, the idea expressed above does not make sense in Christianity at its most basic level. If what Jerome is saying is true, then Christianity at best is a completely new religion that has nothing to do with the fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy and the God who revealed Himself to the whole nation of Israel at Mt. Sinai. Luckily enough, this idea does not fit in with the NT itself.

A close examination of Romans 11 reveals that Jerome’s idea does not fit in with the NT. Romans 11 is a chapter that centers on the issue of Jewish and non-Jewish believers in the Messiah and what God’s plan is for them and how Gentiles fit into that. In this chapter we find that Jews who believe in Jesus are still identified as Jews (Romans 11:1), non-believing Jews are still identified as Jews (11:7, 11:25) and in fact are still in some sense considered God’s people – rejected (Romans 11:15) but not rejected (11:1), enemies of the gospel but still beloved, gifted and called by God (Romans 11:28-30).

In all the NT Romans 11 is the only chapter that is explicitly identified as a prerogative for Gentile Christians to know (11:13) as no other place has the words, “I am speaking to you Gentiles as an apostle to the Gentiles…” (11:13) and “don’t be conceited, I don’t want you to be ignorant of this” (11:25). In other words, though the whole Bible is a prerogative of Gentiles to know and understand and live by, this passage has particular significance and it is saying that God has not replaced Israel with the Church and, by implication, a Jewish person can still be Jewish and believe in the Jewish Messiah. The Church has not replaced Israel, but it has become linked into it’s spiritual heritage; a very important distinction. (Rom. 11:17-24)

[1] http://www.yashanet.com…
[2] Jerome Epistle 79 to Augustine