In The Jews

"He is everywhere among them."

WE MUST live conscious of our place. We are accepted into Jesus because He is Jew. He is the Cornerstone of Old Covenant Law. All of it is about Him coming to earth and it being fulfilled (Luke 1:32). I somehow formed an image of the Old Testament (I did not know there even was a covenant, growing up) being just that – old. To me, young Suzanne, things “old” were no longer usable but are just like memories. As I matured, going into my thirties and forties, I knew the New Covenant came from the Old. But still, it was old and out-of-date. Many in the church hold this same opinion.

But recently, social media algorithm decided I needed to see all things Jewish. Suddenly, I’m surrounded by videos of families, of worship, celebrations, devotionals. And several of those shined a bright Light in my poor one push-button brain. Click. (You find that odd, but it’s accurate.) One writer, speaking of Israel’s freedom from Egypt called God Father. They said He delivered them so that He could be close to them, like a loving father. I sat back. “But I thought the Jews didn’t believe that.” That is what made the religious leaders so angry that they crucified Jesus, after all (John 5:18).

Pause here because the church and Jewish knowledge, both of us, are full of errors. One church minister said God doesn’t hear Jewish prayers because they don’t accept Jesus. Many others teach the Jews are hell-bound. This is a lie. On the other side of the coin, from watching many Jewish testimonies of the moment when they saw Jesus as Messiah, all of them believed the New Testament and Jesus were Catholic. That’s a-l-l, all.

A major spiritual event happened 2,000 years ago. A Jew, born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth, was condemned to die on a cross by Jewish religious leaders who couldn’t see Him for who He was. He submitted to death and was buried in a rich man’s tomb, a location people would know so that there’d not be any suspicion it was a lie. Then three days later, that Man rose from the dead, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Savior. Messiah. And nothing would ever be the same on this earth. He changed it, and no man or spiritual being can ever put things back as they were.

The Jews of Jesus’ day hated Him to the point of murder. They knew the Old Covenant Law. They ignored it in favor of greed and self-promotion. They despised any talk of God being Father. It offended them. So then, why does a modern Jewish writer say that was God’s plan all along?

I love the Jews. The more I observe them, the more I read of their writings, the more I watch their joyful celebrations. And willing sacrifices. The more my heart fills with the love of the Father. The love of Jesus. They have something the church needs, an understanding of the living God, who will never let them go. For us, as non-Jews, who the King James Bible calls “Gentiles”, God is real but temperamental and overly authoritative. We think we must walk a certain way or faith doesn’t work, prayer doesn’t work, and we’re out of luck. But to the Jew of today, He is everywhere among them.

And He is. Because when Jesus rose from the dead, He sent the Holy Spirit to be in us. Just as the Jews today believe of YHWH. The Spirit is the change of atmosphere. He teaches all who seek His Word, Jew or non-Jew. And for the Jew, all the Truths of the New Covenant are there, found in the Old. It is their origin. In the Old Covenant, God is Creator, the Word. He is the Lord, our Shepherd. He is Redeemer and Messiah. He is King. And Everlasting Father (Isaiah 9:6). In the Old Covenant, one who follows Hashem, what they call G_d, goes to heaven because He promised they would.

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name is called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)

What were Jesus’ words? “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I didn't come to destroy them, but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17).” He fulfilled it. He didn’t replace it. He sent His disciples to teach and minister with an instruction for it to be solely to the Jews (Matthew 10:6). When approached by a woman from Syro-Phoenicia, seeking deliverance for her daughter, He said He’d only come for the Jews (Mark 7:27). Then healed her daughter anyway. He later said He also had other sheep, besides the Jews (John 10:16). But I trust you see the picture. The disciples were Jews. The apostle Paul was a Pharisee. Jesus’ father, Joseph, would have been king. This is told us in the genealogy of Jesus, found in Matthew 1. All we, the church, are founded on, all we find in salvation came through the Jews and is revealed to them through the books they read.

God is in them. And because of that, He is in us. We are His body, branches grafted to the same root, the one they came from (Romans 7:11), God who formed them from a single man who dared to believe He had spoken.

Photo by menachem weinreb on Unsplash


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com