Posted on 07/23/2007 7:40:23 PM PDT by topcat54
Interesting question. Certainly, read in context with Zechariah 12 and the rest of Zechariah 13 and Zechariah 14 (realize that the chapter and verse numbers actually are not organic to the text, totally arbitrary and divide where there should be no division), it is obviously talking about The Great & Terrible Day of the LORD, when God pours out His Wrath upon the Nations for attacking Israel. In that case, the two-thirds destroyed would seem to be talking about inhabitants of the Land of Israel, but I’m not sure.
I don’t spend a lot of time either studying or thinking about prophecy. It’s not my calling. My calling is primarily teaching people — primarily, my congregants — how to live a life pleasing to God. Therefore, my opinion on it is not as informed or even as thought about as some of my colleagues. I’m probably the wrong person to ask.
Sure. The key is to observe the God-ordained Judaic feasts/festivals/holidays with a clear understanding of how they point to Jesus the Messiah.
And how does one do that without worshipping according to the "traditions of men"? You need to invent a messianic "Talmud" or "Mishnah" in order to keep the feasts after the coming of Messiah, since they were only shadows pointing temporarily to the Coming One. Once the Substance appeared, the shadows no longer served a purpose.
This is why the writer of Hebrews speaks of the ceremonial law as "decaying" and "passing away" (Heb. 8:13). Why worship God with decayed ceremonies? Even worse, why worship God with decayed ceremonies after the "traditions of men"? It seems to be the worst of both worlds.
My best friend is a devout 7th Day Adventist and a very strong Christian. Adventists do adhere to the Jewish dietary customs and the Saturday Sabbath. While I don’t agree with this, I also know it doesn’t affect his salvation one way or the other. In fact when we are togeather I don’t eat pork or shellfish. I am commanded not to be a stumbling block. He is a faithfull brother in Christ and who am I to judge another’s servant?
Why do we Celebate “Easter”? Has that not passed away?
It is simply a reminder is is not?
Why is there such a misunderstanding as to what the Messianics are?
You seem to think that incorporating the OT with the NT is somehow wrong, does your church not teach both? Did Jesus not have a History? Was Jesus somehow not a Jew? Are Today’s Christian Churches not set up by men and are those men not appointed by God and their beliefs and their ability to convert the non-believer? And do not most Churches have their Celebrations according to traditions? And do they not incorporate Worship at times with these Celebrations?
Doesn’t the Easter celebration remind the faithful of the sacrifice Jesus made for us, as well as enlightening those who do not know? Well, Passover reminds us of God’s salvation for us during the time of our enslaved days in Egypt. It is a reminder and a connection to the Blood of Lamb, our next reminder is Jesus (the Lamb who was slain for us).
Why would you friend consider eating pork or worshipping on Sunday as a stumbling block? Does he not believe in freedom in Christ? Why do you feel the need to change your practices to suit your friend? Does he feel the same way about you, e.g., would he serve you pork or worship with you on Sunday? IOW, is the love mutual?
Do you consider you friend a “weaker brother” in the faith?
Because the Bible tells me to.
One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge someone else's servant?
Romans 14:2-4
As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died.
Romans 14:14-15
I do not “celebrate Easter” and there are many Christians who do not. Annual holy days like easter and christmas are not sanctioned in the Word of God.
It is simply a reminder is is not?
Christians have the simplicity of the Lord’s Day (every Sunday) to worship in obedience to God, and we have the simple sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper to identify with God’s people and remember what Christ has done for us.
Why is there such a misunderstanding as to what the Messianics are?
I don’t think I misunderstand messianics. Now, granted there any many flavors of messianics, some being more ritually pure than others. Some require gentiles to keep their law, and some do not.
When Christ came to establish His church of both Jews and gentiles, He set aside all the laws which formerly separated Jews from gentiles (like food and clothing) in favor of one new man being built up together (Eph. 2:15). The vision to Peter in Acts 10 is unmistakable. It is an argument from the lesser to the greater. When God declared all foods clean (the lesser), He was making the point about all men being clean. (Clean men cannot eat unclean food.) It would be hypocritical of Peter to eat with gentiles and eat their “unclean food”, and still consider them clean. And Paul called Peter such a hypocrite because he did in fact eat gentile food unless certain men from James appeared from Jerusalem. Then he separated himself again from the gentiles. We need to question all traditions, whether messianic or not, to see if they are in accordance with the Word of God. It appears that many messianic customs are built upon the traditions of men.
But your friend does not feel the same way towards you? Does that make him a weaker brother?
I have no doubt my friend would take a bullet for me without thinking. Also, it is not my place to judge whether anyone is "weaker" or "stronger" in the faith. I much to busy dealing with the plank in my eye to be worried about the splinter in his. What I do know is that he is a long time Deacon in his church, he preaches and witnesses for Christ wherever he goes and he gets up at 4:00 AM every Saturday to help me cook food which we load up in an old school bus to take downtown and feed the homeless (about 200 show up every week). If that's weak faith I'll take all you've got.
Uh, that's what I said in my post.
This is why the writer of Hebrews speaks of the ceremonial law as "decaying" and "passing away" (Heb. 8:13).
Indeed, the law is not what saves us.
Even worse, why worship God with decayed ceremonies after the "traditions of men"?
Just curious as to what church you attend. Wondering if it has its own 'traditions of men'.
I think you are grasping at straws here just for the sake of argument. I'm not a Messianic Jew, but I do love hearing them tell about how the feasts/festivals/holidays all point to Jesus. And that is WHY they observe them - because they are reminders of the Messiah. I doubt very much that God has a problem with that.
Then how do you know whether passages like you quoted apply or not? They are all dealing with weaker brethren who do not have the faith to understand Paul’s words in places like Rom. 14:14, “I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.”
Paul did not consider eating pork an unclean thing. But he recognized that some folks were not mature enough in their faith to share that same realization.
“But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin.” (Rom. 14:23)
Also, eating pork is not objectively wrong from Scripture, otherwise we all as Christians would be not eating pork. But your friend in his theology does believe that eating pork is objectively wrong, i.e., sinful. He knows that even if you do not sin in front of him nevertheless you are sinning every time to eat a ham sandwich out of his sight. He may be reminded of that every time he sees you. So the only way to truly satisfy the conscience of a weaker brother is to abstain from the thing that offends him all the time, not just when he’s not around.
Depends on how you define traditions. The church I attend has no man made traditions that are imposed on members as a sign or measure of spirituality.
I think you are grasping at straws here just for the sake of argument. I'm not a Messianic Jew, but I do love hearing them tell about how the feasts/festivals/holidays all point to Jesus. And that is WHY they observe them - because they are reminders of the Messiah. I doubt very much that God has a problem with that.
When I speak of traditions wrt the messianics, what I means is they way that have had to modify and reinterpret the old covenant law having to do with national Israel in the land under the sacrificial system, with the Levitical priesthood and tabernacle/temple.
None of that exists anymore, and the feast days were so tied to that old covenant system that it cannot be “messianized” (“Christianized”) without building up a whole new set of traditions according to the teachings so men.
I think God has a problem whenever men ignore one set on His word and highly modify another portion to suit their circumstances. Nowhere in the Bible did God authorize men to modify the feast days in order to observe them without a Levitical priesthood and tabernacle/temple. What many messianics fails to realize is that there is a very good reason why no temple exists today, and there is no Levites offering sacrifices. That is because Christ has come. The old covenant ceremonial laws were merely pointers forward to Messiah. They were never intended to be pointers backwards. God gave His church a new set of pointers for that purpose, a set that is entirely universal in nature, and not tied to any one race or people. God made it clear that no one had to “become Jewish” in order to faithfully follow Christ. God never even taught that “becoming Jewish” was optional yet superior for members of Christ’s church.
Christianity is not just a reworked form of Judaism, as the messianics think. It is a new creation, one fitted for both Jews and gentiles to live together in harmony as one people. It is neither Jew nor Greek. And it is a shame for some folks to be playing the race card in the Church once again after 2000 years.
11 Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed; 12 for before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. 13 And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, "If you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews? (Gal. 2)Peter apparently had no problem living like a gentile, eating and drinking, before the Jews from Jerusalem arrived. He was a hypocrite to change his tune to look more “Jewish” when the others arrived.
I have no problem with folks who have been raised Jewish retaining some of the customs and traditions after becoming a Christian, as long as they recognize that these customs and traditions do not make one more holy before God. They are now adiaphora, indifferent. No Jewish believer is required to circumcise their male children or only eat certain foods or wear certain clothes out of religious conviction.
What really looks silly, however, is when a bunch of gentiles start acting the Jewish part in order to appear more holy, or believe it is more pleasing to God. That smacks of works-righteousness.
I'm not a Christian -- true or otherwise; I'm Jewish. I do not believe that the Messiah has arrived yet, and that is probably the most major difference between Judaism and Christianity.
You can call it whatever you want, but accepting Jesus Christ as the Messiah is NOT in any way, shape or form Jewish. Those of us who are actually Jewish, don't even refer to the "Old Testament."
The Messianic Jews I've dealt with don't look at those who don't observe the Judaic feasts/festivals/holidays as any less 'spiritual'. One would assume that if one did not want to observe those things, then one would select a different church to join. Nevertheless, I've never heard of it being 'forced' on members of Messianic Jewish churches. They join those churches and participate in the observances because they WANT to.
When I speak of traditions wrt the messianics, what I means is they way that have had to modify and reinterpret the old covenant law having to do with national Israel in the land under the sacrificial system, with the Levitical priesthood and tabernacle/temple.
I'm not at all clear on what you are trying to say here. Is there some official 'denomination' links you can provide that would clarify what you are talking about?
None of that exists anymore, and the feast days were so tied to that old covenant system
As you stated in an earlier post, the Judaic feasts/festivals/holidays were shadows of the Messiah. The difference between celebrating under the old covenant or celebrating under the new covenant is whether one accepts Jesus as the Messiah.
Christianity is not just a reworked form of Judaism, as the messianics think.
The Messianic Jews I've spoken with don't view it as a 'reworked form of Judaism', and I don't believe that is any official position of that 'denomination'. Sure, there may be crackpots who claim to be Messianic Jews who say that kind of thing. There are crackpots everywhere.
The old covenant ceremonial laws were merely pointers forward to Messiah. They were never intended to be pointers backwards.
They were (and are in their view) pointers toward the Messiah. Jesus has always been the Savior - He didn't just start being the Savior about 2,000 years ago. (Revelation 13:8 calls Jesus "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."
It is neither Jew nor Greek.
Uh, okay. Not sure what that has to do with anything. One does not have to be born a Jew to be a member of a Messianic Jewish church. (One doesnt' even have to be born a Jew to convert to Judaism either.) This is a non-issue, so not sure why you even brought it up.
What really looks silly, however, is when a bunch of gentiles start acting the Jewish part in order to appear more holy, or believe it is more pleasing to God. That smacks of works-righteousness.
I would agree with you on this.
Historically, those portion of the Christian church called "Reformed" (Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed, German Reformed, French Reformed/Huguenots), have had an aversion to man-made holy days being introduced into the Church.
The “Directory for the Publick Worship of God,” written by Presbyterians in the 17th century, has this to say:
THERE is no day commanded in scripture to be kept holy under the gospel but the Lord's day, which is the Christian Sabbath.They follow what is known as the regulative principle of worship, which states that only what God has commanded in His Word may be practiced in worship.Festival days, vulgarly called Holy-days, having no warrant in the word of God, are not to be continued.
Unfortunately most of these churches today have lost their foundations, and practice “holy days” such as Christmas and Easter.
As I recall Jesus kept the Sabbath Holy.. As I recall it was Saturday, not Sunday. That Sunday worship actually started with the Catholic Church (The Holy Roman Church, man made Lord’s Day). None of Christ’s Apostles nor Disciples worshiped on Sunday. So how is Sunday Biblical? Because of Easter!
Jesus worshipped on the old covenant Sabbath and kept all the old covenant laws in order “to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15). His life of righteousness, just as His death on the cross, was done benefit His people. He kept the law perfectly (including the laws related to sacrifices) because His people could not.
But Jesus was raised from the dead on the fist day of the week. He poured out His Holy Spirit on the Church on the first day of the week. His followers began to pattern their worship on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2). Again, this was to indicate the universal nature of the people of God and their pattern of worship under the new covenant. The seventh day Sabbath was unique to national Israel. But the kingdom passed from national Israel to the universal Church, and thus we see a pattern change in how God’s people were to worship.
Just as we no longer worship God by killing animals (the shadow) but in keeping the Lord’s Supper (representing the substance of His body and blood), so too we no longer worship according the shadowy pattern of the old covenant seventh day Sabbath, but according to the reality of the first day resurrection.
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