Israel's Messiah

Restoring Jewish Christology

Michael Tupek

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781498291798, 9781498291811
• eBook ISBN: 9781498291804
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Jewish Theology

For most of church history, the Catholic dogma of the Trinity has supplanted the original Jewish understanding of God's incarnation in the Messiah that was taught in the New Testament Scriptures. But the Jews were never trinitarian in their understanding of Yahweh's self-revelation. So, why is the evangelical Christian church described as trinitarian in her orthodoxy? The forgotten reality is that the Messiah Jesus and his apostles were Jewish and would have understood the nature of God exactly as Moses and the prophets had. They knew Yahweh as a singleperson Deity. Therefore, whenever Jesus or the apostles would speak of God or his Spirit, they would never deviate from that Mosaic understanding. And so, when we read of the gospel being presented to the Gentiles in the book of Acts, there is no introduction or controversy about the idea of the Trinity at all. This book will argue for the pure scriptural revelation of the Christology that the Jewish apostles proclaimed and defended, and will provide a definitive refutation of the Catholic fiction by appealing to the verbalized convictions and assertions of Moses and the prophets, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Jewish apostles, which cannot sustain the Trinity.

1

Abraham

The Torah portion of the Hebrew Bible is comprised of the five books of Moses, Genesis through Deuteronomy. At the early stage of the Torah narrative, an event is recounted that will have an extremely important impact on the progressive revelation given by God concerning the plan of redemption, which will also demonstrate an important aspect of the character of God’s love for the humanity that he wills to save. After the fall of humankind by the sins of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, God pronounces not only punitive curses but also the surprising announcement of rescuing grace. This spiritual redemption will be through the agency of a descendant of Adam and Eve, through the involvement of employing a human being in the plan of restoring humanity to the right relationship with God their Creator. This divine determination to help defeated mankind is pre-figured by the natural animosity between humans and snakes, but the victory is particularly intimated in the statement that “he (the human male descendant) will crush [the serpent’s] head” (Gen 3:15).

Though it is God’s own saving determination, it will not be accomplished, as it were, merely from a distance by his remote influence of grace from heaven transforming sinful men. Rather, there will be provided a human savior upon earth, raised up in due time. However, at this early stage the details of his redeeming actions had not yet been disclosed. This redemptive detail of a human victor demonstrates the amazing kindness of God in desiring to be closely united to the humanity that he will rescue, which will be seen to be more than the closeness that was enjoyed by Adam and Eve before sin. Later, the Hebrew prophets will reveal the further detail of God being incarnated in this human savior, permanently, and living among men as one of them.

In the course of time, after many centuries of fallen man’s morally darkened and miserable attempts at civilization, God determined to save a people. In the exercise of sovereign, free grace, God acted in history to pursue a portion of sinful humanity for himself by redeeming the Hebrews from the curse and condemnation of his offended holiness (Deut 32:8–9). God did this by providing the means for their enabling to live to his honor in righteousness and true civilization. This invaluable blessing of spiritual reconciliation was in fact a unilateral covenant given by God to Abram. God also changed his name to Abraham. God would from now on be committed to blessing Abraham and his descendants with a genuine spiritual relationship. This most valuable component of the covenant of grace would be that El Shaddai would be Abraham’s God in real intimacy, and Abraham and his descendants would be God’s people in real intimacy. This is the most precious blessing of the covenant as it is repeated often throughout the Old Testament (Gen 17:7–8; Jer 30:22; Ezek 11:20; Ezek 14:11; Ezek 36:28; Ezek 37:27). This divine commitment is the driving force by which God will also eventually cause reconciliation to be realized by his power in the future nation of Israel along with the gradual increase of his kingdom among the Gentiles (Gen 12:2-3; Gen 22:18; Isa 2:2–4; Isa 9:7; Isa 42:1; Rom 11:25–27). This power also produces the faith and obedience that are naturally required in individuals to enjoy this blessedness of intimate fellowship with God (Ps 110:3; Jer 31:31–34; Ezek 36:26–27), and it will be by this same power that God causes the salvation of the wider nation of unfaithful Israel (Deut 30:1–10).

The covenant of grace, which included both spiritual reconciliation and also the land of Canaan (Gen 17:7–8), was decidedly given to the Hebrews who were descended from Abraham. Abraham was formerly a pagan citizen from the ancient Mesopotamian region who was surprised with God’s call and the attending transformed heart to leave his father’s household, kindred, and country. He was to be blessed with a true spiritual relationship with the one true God and to generate a family of his own who would also enter into this divine calling to be God’s own people among the many peoples who did not know or serve him (Gen 18:18–19). Though the covenant pertained to all of Abraham’s physical descendants, only a small portion of the children of Israel enjoyed a real intimacy with God because of the sovereign selective application of the spiritual circumcision of the heart, which is later disclosed through the ministry of Moses (Deut 30:6; and see Exod 33:19). This unilateral, sovereign grace is absolutely necessary in the making of a real child of God, as will be seen more clearly in later scripture through the ministry of the apostles of the Messiah Jesus (Rom 2:28–29; Col 2:11).

It was at this most important juncture that God (known then as El Shaddai), in his mercy, declared to Abraham the desire to give a covenant to him and his descendants. It was then that God transformed his heart by spiritual circumcision, producing the loving reliance known as “faith,” and entered into a real relationship with Abraham. Abraham responded reverently and trustingly to the call of God upon his life, and he was graciously and freely counted “righteous” because of this trust in the revelation of God (Gen 15:6). This divine grace that makes the soul alive to the real God was undeserved and unasked by the moon-worshiping pagan but was certainly received by Abraham, and the command obeyed, because of the necessary transforming grace that rendered his heart willing to respond favorably to the divine calling. This critical and necessary supernatural influence, which is always sovereignly initiated, would be progressively revealed through the ministries of Moses and the later Hebrew prophets of God, and further affirmed by the apostles of the Messiah Jesus.

This calling event required both a spiritual departure as well as a social departure from Abraham’s former ungodly environment. He first had to renounce, in his heart, his former mistaken perceptions about the spiritual realm and the nature of deity which he inherited from cultural traditions, and then had to leave the relatives and society which were in fact the strong invisible props to these deceitful perceptions. This significant repentant departure from his former life and the embracing of the true God (including the realization of his true nature) was a kind of crossing-over; and so, he and his descendants are then called “Hebrews.” The word comes from the Hebrew term abar, which means to “pass” or “cross over.”

This event of Abraham’s repentant response to God’s commandment to enter into a genuine relationship with himself is fundamentally a type or picture of the profound conversion that takes place when God determines to save a person from their lost condition. Such a graced person is rescued from living and feeding upon lies and fictions of both false deities and vain philosophies of life’s purposes. Abraham in this event becomes a figure of all future individuals who also believe the truth of God’s sole reality and prerogatives over mankind. He is regarded as the “father” of all the believing ones in the redemption provided by God’s mercy, and so those who do believe are regarded as the sons and daughters of Abraham (Rom 4:11–12). More than this, Abraham’s conversion represents the beginning formation of the community of restored humanity to their true God, the beginning gathering of God’s portion of humanity, which involves the disclosure of his true nature to his redeemed people. This disclosure is necessary for both a correct knowledge of God and to reject pagan deceptions.

The most important truth that is impressed upon the redeemed person is the true nature of the only real God, who has been insultingly violated by the pagan’s life-long embracing of those evil traditions found in whatever particular culture he has been born into. This person will then forsake his inherited traditions and will submit himself to God. This crossing-over, similar to Abraham’s, must take place, or one does not become a genuine servant of God. When Abraham encountered God at Ur and also at later stations in his life, fundamental aspects of God’s nature were revealed.

We learn that God, the only real and living God, is unknown to sinful mankind so that he was not ever perceived and depicted by any idol-concept. He is invisible and estranged because he is holy, and man is unholy; there is no affinity between God’s righteous character and their unrighteous character. He is only known whenever he reveals himself to someone, and then not without changing that person’s character first so that he can rightly appreciate God’s glorious nature. Abraham did not know God until he was approached by God. Rather, he was a depraved idolater, as all of pagan mankind, and had to be supernaturally redeemed from his own lost condition (Josh 24:2–3; Isa 29:22).

We also learn that God is the only real sovereign deity over the earth so that he has no difficulty promising to give land to Abraham and his descendants (Gen 13:14–17). The supposed gods of these pagan lands and their...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Abraham
• Chapter 2: Moses
• Chapter 3: The Soul of Yahweh
• Chapter 4: The Hebrew Prophets
• Chapter 5: Jesus the Messiah
• Chapter 6: John the Apostle
• Chapter 7: The Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ