In this installment of the series "Back to the Root", I'd like to delve more into the consequences for the modern western church of being severed from the root of our faith, which is the root of Israel, the Word of God. Just seeing that the consequences are so far-reaching and so detrimental to the health of the Body can stir a hunger for righteousness. It is then that I would like to take a look at what being re-connected to that root might look like. This is inspiring for a number of reasons mainly of which is a purification process the Lord might choose to take us through.
REPLACEMENT THEOLOGY
As I have touched on in previous posts, one of the ways we can see how the church has been disconnected from her Hebrew roots is through an error in doctrine known as replacement theology. Replacement theology is built upon the notion that the church has replaced Israel as God's chosen people and therefore have superceded Israel in the promises God has made to His people including the promise of land. It can be as blatant as outright anti-semitism and persecution of the Jews, and can be as subtle as minimizing Israel's importance or significance in any number of ways.
During the reign of Constantine (306 A.D.), there was a growing segment of the population, the Christians, whom Constantine saw as a catalyst for solidifying his power and homogenizing the Empire. According to reports, Constantine had a "conversion" experience during which he saw an illumined vision of a cross. There is much dispute about whether or not Constantine became a convert to Christianity or not. The fact of the matter is that he said he did, although those who look with discernment at this experience may come to a different conclusion. (I happen to believe the latter). It worked to Constantine's favor politcally. Nonethless, he became very influential in church affairs and doctrine. Around that same time, the followers of the Messiah were increasingly gentile (non-Jewish) in their background. The number of Jews who followed The Way (of Yeshua, as it was called), was diminishing. Adding to that fact that Jews who were followers were also being burdened with a heavy tax and pressured to look more and more gentile in their identity and style of worhsip, and we can see how the Jewish influence in the Body at that time was in danger of becoming extinct. In effect, such Jewish traditions (which most were biblical traditions and in fact, mandates of the Word of God, such as the celebrations of the Feasts in Leviticus 23) were becoming less observed and instead, a slew of pagan celebrations were taking their place by the time the Roman Catholic church was well established.
Constantine, an obvious anti-semite, replaced the Sabbath of the seventh day (Saturday) with the day which was named for honoring the sun god, Sunday officially. He also replaced the Passover with his more preferrable "holy day" of Easter, named after his fertility goddess Ishtar, or Ashteroth. The name of this goddess has changed throughout the centuries and across cultures, but historians generally agree that it is one and the same goddess, the one, in fact, the Lord told the Israelites to demolish her strongholds in the Land of Israel and to destroy her poles (the Ashterah poles, of which we get our verions today of the striper pole, believe it or not). These are things, mind you, that Constantine had no authority from the Word of God to do.
Constantine's reasons for doing away with the Passover of our Lord in place of the fertility goddess' holiday, complete with the dipping of eggs in blood and conducting "sunrise services" is documented in the Nicean Council's report which is available on the internet. He did it to distance himself and his subjects from the practices of "those detestable Jews" (his words, not mine).
Other early church fathers followed suit in their prejudices against the Jews and they officialized them in the form of church doctrine. Among them were Justin Martyr, John Chrysostom, Turtullian, and Martin Luther. Most of these men preached of deicide (the killing of God) and charged the Jews with the murder of the Lord. They taught that the Jews should suffer, amongst other things, wandering the earth, for the crucifixion of Jesus. Martin Luther was the most explicit of them all, for when he tried to convert the Jews and was unsuccessful, he ordered that people "set Jewish synagogues on fire for the honor of God". It was indeed, Adolph Hiltler who got many of his ideas for persectuting Jews from the writings of Martin Luther.
As the church progressed into pagan and political oppression, these sentiments were perpetuated in the writings. We have to remember that only nobility and clergy were educated at the time and the masses were at the mercy of anit-semitic men who were bound and determined to rid the church of any Jewish influence. "Legalism" and Judaism became synonomous in the minds of the church fathers, and both were thrown out equally. Thus the gentile church suffered for not being instructed in the ways of God through the Old Testament which was the foundation for Judaism and in actuality, is the foundation for Christianity. Consequently, a pagan culture filled the void, including the worship of other gods, pagan church practices and the like. Oppression and deception ensued, followed by many superstitious beliefs. And little teaching came out of scripture to condemn these detestable practices. The church was then plunged into her darkest hour to date....that even secular historians agree on the term to describe it....The Dark Ages.
Since those days, the church has experienced a rebirth by way of the Reformation (including the 99 Theses Martin Luther pinned to the door of the Catholic Church stating that salvation is by grace through faith alone, not by works as was taught in his day). But little, until now, had been done to cleanse the root system of the church from the effects of Replacement theology. The church remained for centuries homogenized as gentile, with some pagan practices thrown in here and there, even though there has always been a small believing remnant of Jews down through the centuries.
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MODERN MESSIANIC MOVEMENT
During the late 1800's and early 1900's, something began to change. Gentile Christians began feeling a deep sense of love and responsibility toward the Jews that coincided with Jewish persecution in Russia and Europe with the first and second World Wars. This led to missionary activity in the metropolitan areas where Jewish people settled. Little by little, more Jewish people were coming to believe that Jesus was indeed their Jewish Messiah, and although they were severely persecuted in their own families and communities and cut off, they persisted in their faith. Many of these Jews who were now followers of Yeshua, wanted to retain their Jewish identity while following the Messiah. This culminated in a mass Jewish revival in the 1960's and 70's which ran congruently with the sexual revolution, the hippies, and the Jesus Movement. Jews flocked to Bible studies on campuses at major universities such as UC Berkeley and Columbia University. Messianic synagogues began popping up all over America. These Jews knew they were Jewish and they wanted to stay that way. As Jew and gentile began worshipping together and following the leading of the Holy Spirit to restore some of their cultural moorings such as the Israeli Davidic dance and Torah services, a cross-pollination of sorts began. Gentiles ALSO began flocking to the Messianic Congregations to learn more about their Jewish Messiah. Another movement was in the works, one of restoration of the gentiles to the Hebrew roots of their faith. This stream of the movement can be called the Olive Branch, or Olive Tree Movement. Churches began organizing prayer groups to pray for Israel and allowing Messianic congregations to meet in their church buildings.
Although the movement started small and increased in size as it snowballed through the late decades of the 20th century, it is an ever- increasing vaiable part of the Body of Messiah today. Because of this movement, which was founded upon prayer and evangelism to the Jew, millions of Jewish people worldwide have come to faith in the Messiah and many gentiles in the Body are coming to an ever-increasing maturity as they re-discover the Word of God as seen through Hebrew lenses.
Much of this information is documented in a biographical book by Yohanna Chernoff entitled "Born a Jew, Die a Jew". It is about her late husband, Martin Chernoff, a pioneer in the messianic movement. It is a fascinating true adventure which at one time oh, about 9 years ago, transformed this blogger's life. I highly recommend it. It sits on my living room bookshelf next to my Bible and it does not get out of my sight for long.
RESTORING THE ROOT (REALLY)
As the messianic movement has done much to bring awareness to the Jewishness of the gospel and our Savior and to draw attention to the importance of the Old Testament as the foundation for our faith, much is still needed in the way of restoring the whole Body of Messiah to the whole Word of God. It is this writer's opinion that this is indeed part of the last day's plan to purify the church of pagan and wordly influences, and to bring restoration to the people of Israel. ("...for all Israel shall be saved..." Romans 11:26). When the church is restored to her root, the commonwealth of Israel, which comes from God and is good, then she can be reviatalized and rise to be the glorious Bride "without spot or wrinkle" (Ephesians 5:27).
This is imperative for the Bride to make herself ready for the Bridegroom's coming, who is Messiah, our Lord. It is also imperative in order to cleanse the church of deception in these last days and to protect her from the coming world system which is demonic in nature and whose leader, the anti-messiah, will persecute unrelentingly.
So it is of paramount importance that these errors in our theological belief systems (those such as replacement theology) be rooted out of our churches and Bible studies. I have listened to many great teachers in the Body of Messiah, many of whom I love and respect and could only aspire to their lives of godliness and dedication to our Lord, who, knowingly, or unknowingly, perpetuate streams of these kinds of errors in their teachings. They make statements such as "we are under grace, not under the Law". As I have explained in previous articles, this comes from a misunderstanding. The operative word LAW, in the Hebrew is torah, it means teaching. And so I would ask, "are you saying we are not under God's teaching?" Even though this misunderstanding exists, it is unfortunately being perpetuated. This is why we all in the Body of Messiah need one another. We individually and collectively have blind spots which only another person or segment in the Body can see and relieve us of. No one has the whole of truth. No one is perfected (yet) in grace. This is why we must not only humbly accept when another part of the Body restores us to the truth, but also be willing to look at those things in our blind spots, such as pride and idolatry, (more on that later) that have kept us out of the entirety of God's blessings and abundance.
Join me next time when we will delve even deeper into the very important subject of the Hebrew Root and specifically, purging out the influences which keep us from the full radiance that is Christ-likeness. It is a journey for me as well, one in which I would love if you take with me. The cost might be high, but the rewards are extraordinary!!
Shalom (peace)
**
No comments:
Post a Comment