Our sages call Genesis the Book of Creation and say that it is filled
with hints about the Messiah, far more than meets the eye. We all
know the typical passages which allude to Messiah so I will not
cover these today. The rabbinic writings, the Talmud, the Mishnah,
all the books of our traditions, along with our Scriptures all speak
of the Messiah existing before creation. In the Messianic Writings
in the book of Yochanan, we also read about new beginnings.
In the Jewish community our view of the Messiah has been formed
by a reaction to the Messiah created by Christianity over the last
2000 years; one which has been made into another god and unacceptable
to the Jews. Christianity and Judaism have been reacting toward
each other for that long resulting in two new religions born from
Scripture but in many areas divorced from it. Alfonso the wise convened
a disputation between Paulus Christianus (a convert Jew to Christianity)
and Ramban in the 13th century and both claimed victory while in
my opinion both lost. Instead of each accepting that the other may
have had some truth, they destroyed the truth preferring to remain
blinded by their half-truths. Each one was trying to communicate
with the other on a different wave length.
The Dark Ages saw a time when the Jews were destroyed because they
refused to accept the new "Christ" that had been created
by the church. The institutional Church became the enemy destroying
the Jew instead of painting a recognizable picture of the Messiah
to whom the Jew could turn.
When we read the Messianic Writings (it is called the New Testament
in Christianity with the misnomer), it is important to understand
that Jesus (Yeshua) did not come in a vacuum in history. He was
not a mere human invention to save the people from oppression; nor
was he the father of the church. We read about Messiah right from
Bereshit (Genesis), the very beginning.
In the Tradition of Elijah in the Talmud in Sanhedrin 97a and 97b,
the rabbis teach us that the world would exist for 6000 years divided
into three eras: The first 2000 years were to be the years of desolation,
the second 2000, the Torah would flourish and the last 2000 was
to be the Messianic era. So if we are in the last era, why hasn't
the Messiah come, they ask? Their response was that he didn't come
because of the sins of Israel. We as Messianic Jews believe that
he did come as Yeshua ha Mashiach ben Yosef as was predicted. The
majority of our people believed in him at the time but they wanted
him to be Mashiach ben David, the conquering Messiah. Ben Yosef
did not come to conquer Rome but to be the kapparah for Israel and
the world as was required by Torah….there is no atonement without
the shedding of blood- Vayikra 17:11.
What we believe is not wishful thinking, it is truth. Remember that
Hebrew has such depth of interpretation for example through the
pictures painted by the words themselves along with gematria or
the numerical value of the letters. The rabbis thought one of the
greatest sins was committed when the Tanach was translated from
Hebrew into Greek. However it was translated separately by 70 rabbis
into a form called the Septuagint and the miracle was that all came
up with an identical translation. The sages say that the Scriptures
have 70 facets, always being read with new and fresh meaning. The
word in Bereshit for light is "ohr" which holds the idea
of "the light of Messiah" for our sages. In verse 4 we
read about two lights, the greater one to rule the day, the sun
and the lesser, the moon to rule the night. The sun represents Messiah
and the moon represents Israel; both needing each other.
Rabbi Gottlieb Klein (1852-1914), born in Homonna, Slovakia, had
an Orthodox Jewish education but later became Reform. Chief Rabbi
of Stockholm, Sweden, in 1883, he wrote on early Christianity in
the light of Jewish sources and tried to build bridges between Christians
and Jews. He studied the book of Yochanan who he knew to a Jew and
applied gematria to the Hebrew translation. He found that there
were many cryptic references to Messiah such as in verses 1:4 "light
shines in darkness", 11:25 " I am the resurrection…",
14:6; " I am the way, the truth and the life…" Yeshua
spoke about light, life, breath, water, creation. Even though Yochanan
was considered the most Greek of the gospels, it was later recognized
to be the most Jewish. The Greek of the gospels is not the koine
Greek as the theologians taught; it is actually a Jewish Greek with
the syntax and idiomatic expressions that could only have been spoken
by the Jews who spoke the 1st century Greek language.
The numerical value for the word love in Hebrew "ahava"
hbha = 1+5+2+5 =
13 the same as the word meaning "oneness" -"echad"
dxa = 1+8+4+13. Yeshua
said I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. The Hebrew letters for
this give us an extremely powerful understanding of what he was
really saying. The Hebrew word for Way is Derech jrd
beginning with daled
(d); Truth is Emet
tma beginning with
aleph
(a) and Life is "chaim"
oyyx beginning with
chet
(x). These same letters
form the word "ECHAD" (One) by which Yeshua is stating
that he and his father are One. He is also saying comparing himself
to the one spoken about in the Shema (Deut. 12:6) "Hear o Israel,
the Lord is our God, the Lord is ONE (ECHAD)." It was for this
that the religious Jews wanted to stone Yeshua because he dared
to say that he was one with G-d. This to them would be idolatry
deserving of stoning to death. They also didn't want it to be true
because this would ruin their position with Rome.
The Jewish people get very excited when studying the Word of G-d
using this important tool of gematria but for the most part, it
is boring to the gentiles who feel that we are forcing the issue.
As we can see the Gospel of John is also, a book of bereshit - beginnings,
It was thought this book was Gnostic, but when the Qumran scrolls
were discovered, the scholars were given a new perspective- it was
not Greek but Hebrew thinking.
I can go on and on with more of this type of proof but let me end
with this thought. Wars are being fought all over the world today
because of religion. Religion divides us but it is G-d who brings
us together. There is only one G-d, one Messiah - Yeshua who brings
life in abundance for the entire world. G-d does not need anyone
to defend him…He is quite capable of doing that Himself.
We do not need to do evangelism, nor do we need to do missions,
nor do we need to convert anyone to any religion. G-d called a people,
the Jews to be a light to the gentiles. We failed. Then He called
the gentiles to be a light to the Jews. They failed. Today we as
Messianic Jews believe that our calling is to bring back that light
to the world. This house is called a house of prayer for all nations.
There are more Gentiles (gerim) here than Jews. We do not follow
a religion but we follow the word of the Living G-d. As we begin
this new year with Bereshit, may we begin to recognize our calling
and live it in fullness of commitment and joy. May we be open and
honest to follow truth. May we be humble and lose our pride when
we tell people about the reason that we have hope and faith in G-d.
G-d created the Light and it was good! Messiah Yeshua is the Light
that we need to show to those who inquire!
May
G-d add blessings to His Word!
Rabbi
Percy Johnson
Netanel
ben Yochanan
[nxy
[b lantn
©
2008 Use by Permission
Kehilat
She’ar Yashuv
