Discovering The Jewish Jesus

Rabbi K.A. Schneider: God has revealed the essence foundationally who he is consistently both in the Tanakh and in the Brit Hadashah, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Why? Because he's the same beloved yesterday, today, and forever.

What I’ve been endeavoring to do, beloved ones, is to show you how the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, and the New Testament, which we call in Hebrew the Brit Hadashah, fit together like a hand in a glove. In the Hebrew alphabet, there are no vowels, there are just consonants. So in the word Tanakh, we have the three consonants: the T sound, the N sound, and the K or the kh sound. Then what we do in the Hebrew language is because we don't have vowel letters, we have accent markings that we’ll put above or beneath the consonants that will tell us how that consonant is pronounced, in other words, what vowel sound will be attached to it.

But the word Tanakh, which is the Jewish way of speaking to or referring to the Hebrew Bible, comes from, beloved, the three types of writings, the three types of prophetic literature in the Old Testament or in their Bible. The first sound, the T, comes from the Torah. The Torah is the first five books of our Old Testament, and it is the writings, beloved, that we believe Moses wrote down and received on Mount Sinai.

The N sound in the word Tanakh comes from the Hebrew word Nevi'im, which is the Hebrew word for the prophets. So we have the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, that’s the T sound of Tanakh. We have the Nevi'im, that is the Hebrew word for prophets, that covers the prophets in the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible. And then we have the K sound or the kh sound at the end of the word Tanakh, and that comes from the word Ketuvim, which refers to, beloved, the writings in the Hebrew Bible, like the Psalms.

It's really interesting, beloved, that in the book of Luke, chapter number 24, Yeshua is on the road to Emmaus. And as he’s on the road to Emmaus, he goes up to his disciples in a physical form that was not recognizable to them. They were so downcast, and he comes to them in a way that they thought he was a stranger. He kind of plays dumb with them. He says to them, "Why are you men so downcast looking?" And they kind of look at him like, what’s wrong with you? Don’t you know what’s going on around here? That this one that many people thought was the Messiah, Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus of Nazareth, was crucified?

And you see, the disciples, beloved, all their hopes and all their dreams had come crashing down. After all, think about it, they had left their boats, they had left their nets, they had left their homes, and now, beloved, this one that they had left everything for to follow as far as they knew, he was crucified and dead. So they are downcast, and you can understand why. Yeshua comes, "Why are you downcast?" And then he begins to speak to them, he said, "Didn’t you know from the writings in the Hebrew Bible that the Christ would come, that the Messiah, that the Mashiach would come and would have to suffer?"

And then the Scripture says in Luke chapter 24, verse number 27, it says, "And beginning with Moshe, beginning with Moses, and with all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures." The point that I’m making, beloved ones, is that the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, the Torah, the first five books, the Nevi'im, the prophets, and the Ketuvim, the Psalms and other writings, was Yeshua’s Bible. Yeshua viewed it as fully authoritative. He used it, beloved, to teach, to illustrate who he was. He showed Messianic prophecy in it, and as I said in my first broadcast in this series, he even used the book of Deuteronomy to cut off Satan’s power in the wilderness. Truth, beloved, is truth, and God’s truth is in the whole word of God, not just the New Testament.

Often times as I’ve said, we’ve had a wrong perception of the God of the Hebrew Bible. We’ve kind of been taught that the God of the Hebrew Bible was a God of wrath and a God of judgment, and the God of the New Testament is a God of grace. The reality is the Lord doesn’t change. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever. What the Hebrew Bible and what the New Testament teaches about God’s nature is identical. That God is, above all else, holy.

And this is revealed, beloved, in the Hebrew Bible in Isaiah chapter 6, when Isaiah sees the vision of the Lord and the beings around the throne are crying out day and night, "Holy, holy, holy." A threefold repetition, the only threefold repetition of any of God’s attributes in the entire Hebrew Bible. And how did the Lord of the Hebrew Bible that revealed himself to Moses face-to-face reveal himself to Moses? Did he reveal himself as a harsh lawgiver that mercilessly punished people for their sin?

No, beloved. In Exodus, in the book of Shemot, the Lord revealed himself to Moses, beloved, Exodus 34, verse 6 and 7. Listen, as the Lord God, Yahweh Elohim, the Lord said, "I am compassionate, Rachum." "I love you." Rachum is the Hebrew word. "I am compassionate, Moses. I’m a God who loves you." Listen, with the type of love that a mother loves her infant with. That’s what the Hebrew word Rachum comes from. It comes from the Hebrew word meaning womb.

That the Lord when he reveals who he is, he says, "I love you so much that it’s only described in your human terms as the type of affection a mother has, beloved, a love, beloved, that’s stronger than death." And the Lord said, "I am compassionate, Rachum," coming from that Hebrew word meaning womb, and he said, "And what else? Chesed. Listen, and gracious." We think that the God of the New Testament is a God of grace and the God of the Old Testament is a God of law. That’s not true.

The law itself, beloved, is a manifestation of God’s grace. The Bible tells us in the book of Hebrews that in times past, the Lord spoke to us through the prophets in many portions and in many ways. But in these last days, he’s spoken to us through his son. Listen to this: who is the exact representation of his nature. So it’s like in the Hebrew Bible, the Lord, there were like beams of light that came down, giving us glimpses of who God was. But in the New Testament, beloved, the grace of God was more fully revealed in the person of Yeshua, who’s the exact representation of the Father’s image.

But the law, beloved, is not contrary to the grace of God. The law itself, beloved, listen to this, is a manifestation of God’s grace. You see, when the Lord said in the law, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," that wasn’t the verdict of some harsh law-giving God that had no feeling for his children. But rather, beloved, you have to understand that Israel was living in a barbaric world. And in a barbaric world where there’s no law, there’s no police force, there’s no jurisdiction, what happens is if somebody steals your camel in a barbaric world, you may retaliate by going over that person’s house at night, murdering their wife and kids, and burning his house down.

That would not be an equitable way of being repaid for the camel that was stolen. And so when the Lord said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," that wasn’t the word of a harsh lawgiver, but rather it was the word of a gracious God that was lifting his children out of barbarianism to live in a society, beloved, that could be governed by laws of grace. That’s why the Lord said in Deuteronomy chapter 4 to Israel, "What nation is there that has such great statutes and such righteous laws as this whole law that I’m giving you today?" And so clear that out of your mind that the Old Testament is about law and the New Testament is about grace, as if they're opposite each other. No, the law itself, beloved, is a manifestation, hallelujah, of the grace of God.

Dustin Roberts: This is Discovering the Jewish Jesus and Rabbi Schneider will be right back, but first I want to ask you the most important question you could ever be asked, and that’s, do you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? If you haven’t yet invited Jesus into your heart today, to lead your life and ask God to save you from your sins, I want to invite you to do that right now.

If you’re ready, then I want you to pray this prayer with me. Father God, I repent of my sins, and I ask you to cleanse me with the blood of Jesus. I accept Jesus Christ, your son, as my Lord and Savior. Help me to follow you all the days of my life as you show me how. In Jesus' name, amen. Friend, if you just prayed that prayer, I’m so excited for you. Let us know by clicking Find Jesus at discoveringthejewishjesus.com. And now, here’s Rabbi.

Rabbi Schneider: Well, we saw then in the Hebrew Bible that the Lord when he revealed himself, he revealed himself, beloved, as a God of grace. He said to Moses, "I am Rachum, I love my children with the type of love that a mother loves her infant with." He revealed himself, beloved, as a gracious God, the loving and gracious, holy, holy, holy. And listen, the New Testament tells us the same thing. We saw in the Hebrew Bible that foundationally and preeminently God is holy. And secondly, beloved, he’s a God of grace, as is revealed in Exodus 34:6 and 7 in the face-to-face encounter that Moses had with him. Now, we’re taking the revelation that we’ve seen in the Hebrew Bible and we’re comparing it to the revelation in the New Testament, the Brit Hadashah.

Well, first of all, what does the New Testament tell us is God’s most foundational attribute? Revelation chapter 4, Yochanan, John’s on the island of Patmos, the spirit of God comes upon him. He hears a voice that says, "Come up here." John immediately is seeing in the spirit in the heavens. He sees the Lord upon the throne, Revelation 4, and around the throne, beloved, of Yahweh are the angelic beings that do not cease crying out according to John, "Holy, holy, holy, Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh" is the Lord God Almighty. The only threefold repetition of any of God’s attributes, beloved, in the entire New Testament.

So what I’m saying is this: In the Tanakh, one time there’s a threefold repetition of God’s attributes, it’s in reference to his holiness. "Holy, holy, holy," Isaiah 6. New Testament, only one time is there a threefold repetition of any of God’s attributes. It’s in Revelation chapter 4. What is the threefold repetition? The same thing that Isaiah saw in Isaiah 6. Revelation 4 again, "Holy, holy, holy." God, beloved, is a God of holiness above all else. And in both the Hebrew Bible and in the Brit Hadashah, the Lord has revealed himself, hallelujah, as a God of grace.

So we’ve settled the issue that God has revealed the essence foundationally who he is consistently both in the Tanakh and in the Brit Hadashah, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Why? Because he’s the same yesterday, today, and forever. And God wants you to free yourself from that bondage that you may have picked up in the past, the erroneous teaching that he was a God of law in the Old Testament and a God of grace in the New Testament. No, beloved, it’s all about grace from the beginning to the end.

Now that we’ve covered the nature of God and seen that he’s predominantly holy and that he’s always been a God of grace, I want to move now into the plan of salvation. How did people in the Hebrew Bible come into a saving relationship with Yahweh? Was the plan of salvation for people different in the Hebrew Bible as opposed to the plan of salvation in the New Testament? I’m going to show you now once again, beloved, that the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament fit together like a hand in a glove and that the means of salvation, beloved, has always been consistent. It’s been by grace, listen now, through faith, made possible only through sacrificial atonement and the blood of that sacrifice given for the guilty party.

So let’s look at now the plan of salvation and see how it unfolds in the Hebrew Bible. Well, we really begin to see the plan of salvation unfolding in the life of Abraham. Now, the question is, how did Abraham come into this relationship with God? We know that Abraham’s parents were idol worshippers, that he lived amongst idol worshippers, but he came to an understanding that there was one God, and he also came to an understanding as to who this one God was.

How did it happen? It happened, beloved, listen, because of God’s sovereign election of Abraham. In some traditional Jewish teachings, they say that Abraham somehow was able to figure out that there was only one God, even though all the peoples around him worshipped all these idols. It isn’t true, beloved. It wasn’t Abraham that figured it out, but rather the Bible says the Lord, Genesis, Beresheet in Hebrew, chapter 12, verse 1, it said, "Yahweh, the Lord," listen now, "came to Abraham."

And it’s the same way today. The only way that we can come to faith, beloved, is when God first comes to us and reveals himself to us. Remember the story, beloved, when Yeshua said to one of his disciples, "Who do they say that I am?" It was Peter. Remember Yeshua said to Peter, "Who do the people say that I am?" And Kepha, his Hebrew name, Peter in English, Kepha said, "Lord, some say Elijah, some say John the Baptist back from the dead."

And then Yeshua looked at Kepha and he said to Peter, "But who do you say that I am?" And Peter said, "Thou art the Messiah, the Son of the living God." And Yeshua looked straight in his eyes and said, "Blessed art thou, Simon son of John, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father who is in heaven. And then he said, "And upon this rock I will build my church."

That’s a very critical portion of Scripture. In fact, that particular portion of Scripture, beloved, defines the main difference between Catholicism and the Protestant church. Because the Protestant church believes that what Yeshua was referring to in that section of Scripture was Peter’s confession that Jesus, hallelujah, is the Messiah. So what the Protestants teach is that when Yeshua said, "Upon this rock I’ll build my church," the Protestants teach that the rock that Yeshua was referring to was the rock of Peter’s confession of faith in himself, in Jesus.

The Catholics on the other hand, interpret the rock as referring to Peter. And they say that Peter was the first Pope. So when Peter said, "Thou art the Messiah, the Son of the living God," Yeshua said, "Blessed art thou, Simon son of John, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father who is in heaven, and upon this rock I’ll build my church." The Catholic community believes that the rock that Yeshua was referring to was Peter.

Beloved, I believe neither of those. I believe that the rock that Yeshua was referring to was the rock of divine revelation. Because remember what happened? Peter said, "Well, some say Elijah, some say John the Baptist back from the dead." Yeshua said, "But who do you say I am?" And Peter said, "You’re the Messiah, the Son of the living God." And Jesus looked at Peter and said, "Blessed art thou, Simon son of John." Listen to this now. "You’re blessed," he said, "because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven, and upon this rock I’ll build my church."

What rock was Yeshua referring to? He’s referring, beloved, to the rock of divine revelation. See, the Scripture says all that hear and learn from the Father come to Jesus. And so how did Abraham come to faith in the living God? Abraham came to faith in the living God the same way Peter came to faith in Jesus, because the Father, beloved, in his electing grace revealed himself to Abraham. Can you imagine what that must have been to have the God of all creation, the eternal God, appear to you? You think that faith would spring forth from you? Absolutely it would spring forth.

When God appears, beloved, let me tell you, faith erupts. And so listen, it’s not our faith that saves us first of all. It’s the grace of God that saves us first of all. And because the grace of God comes to us, because God chooses to reveal himself to us because of his grace, the result is the grace produces faith. That’s why the book of Ephesians, beloved, tells us in chapter 2, "By grace you’ve been saved through faith." You see, you’ve been saved by grace, and the grace produced faith, and faith is the channel that brings you into a relationship with the Lord, but the thing that produced the faith, beloved, was God’s grace active in your life.

So Ephesians 2 says by grace you’ve been saved through faith, and the faith is not of yourself, Paul said in Ephesians 2, it is the gift of God. So we’re looking at the plan of salvation. We’re going back to Abraham because we say that Abraham is the father of us all. He’s the father of all believers. We’re in Yeshua today, beloved, because we’ve been made a partaker of the Abrahamic covenant. Ephesians chapter 3, verse 1, the blessing of Abraham has come to the Gentiles.

God said to Abraham, "In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed." What’s the seed of Abraham? The seed of Abraham, beloved, is Yeshua. Amen. Amen. So listen, how did Abraham come to faith? We’re looking at the plan of salvation. He came to faith because God chose in his grace to appear to him. How did you come to faith in Jesus? Because God in his grace, beloved, chose to reveal himself to you. Jesus said in John chapter 6, "No one comes to me unless it’s been granted from the Father."

Jesus said, "All the Father gives me shall come to me, and he that comes to me I shall in no wise cast out." You see, beloved ones, if you’re a believer today, you know why? It’s because the same grace, the same God of love that appeared to Abraham, beloved, is active in your life. We did have to choose. We did have to choose. We’re partners in this, but God initiated it, beloved, and we love him because he first loved us, even as he came to Abraham, beloved, he came to you.

You know why the Lord asks you and I to tithe? Because when you and I tithe, we open up our hearts to him and in so doing we’re able to receive and experiential way his love. You see, when we don’t trust God with our finances, what we’re unconsciously doing is agreeing with fear. That’s why most people don’t honor God with their finances, at least significantly. They might tip God, but they don’t really tithe, which is the precedent of the entire Bible, old and new. Why? Because they’re afraid to. They think if I tithe, then I’m going to fall on my face and I can’t really trust God.

I want to encourage you, beloved, and I want to encourage myself, let’s choose faith, not fear. God told us if you honor me with the first fruit of your wealth, your barn is going to be full. David said, "I’ve never seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread." I want to encourage those of you today that love God, listen, take that next step if you haven’t already, honor the Lord and trust him with your finances. Be a giver. Jesus said it will come back to you pressed down, good measure, and running over into your lap.

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Rabbi Schneider: Blessings trump curses. And in the book of Numbers, chapter 6, we find the Aaronic blessing that God commanded Moses’s brother Aaron, the high priest, to speak over the children of Israel. There’s power in blessing, beloved ones, so take part in receiving Father’s blessing upon your life today.

(Singing the Aaronic blessing in Hebrew).

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift you up with his countenance and the Lord give you, beloved ones, his peace. God bless you and Shalom.

Dustin Roberts: This program is produced and sponsored by Discovering the Jewish Jesus, and I’m your host, Dustin Roberts. Make sure to come back next time when Rabbi Schneider reveals why the plan of salvation began in the Hebrew Bible. That’s Monday on Discovering the Jewish Jesus.