Feedback archive → Feedback 2013

Jesus: imposter or Israel’s God?

wikipedia.org

In today’s feedback, Rabbi Chaim D. writes in response to Noah’s Ark … or what? He appreciates our emphasis on biblical creation, but asks that we leave Jesus out of the discussion. CMI’s Dr Carl Wieland shows why Jesus is the reason why we write about creation—he is our eternal Creator and Israel’s God come in the flesh.

CMI’s Dr Carl Wieland responded:

Dear Rabbi Chaim,

I am glad you appreciate our articles. However, I will be infinitely more glad if you should come to know and worship Yeshua Hamaschiach, the One foretold by the prophets. The One whom the prophet Micah, for instance, said would come out of Bethlehem, “whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Micah 5:2). The One whom the prophet Isaiah said would be called “Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). [Editor’s note: see Isaiah 9:6–7: The coming Child who would be called ‘Mighty God’]

The One foretold in Genesis 3:15 as the coming ‘seed of the Woman’, whose heel would be bruised by the serpent but would crush the serpent’s head. The One who foretold His own death and Resurrection, who said that just as Moses lifted up the serpent to your forefathers in the wilderness, He would need to be lifted up on a tree, so that those who look upon Him would live. The One who is God’s Passover Lamb, without blemish and without spot (i.e. He lived a sinless life). John the Baptist said of Him, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Peter the Apostle said,

“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you [this includes you, Rabbi Chaim, if you come to believe in Him]. Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.” (1 Peter 1:18–21)

Have you noticed how your forefathers were instructed to apply the blood of the Lamb, so that God’s wrath might pass them by? On the lintels and the doorpost, the blood points of a cross. I urge you to put aside cultural issues and traditions, and look for truth—from the very Bible portions you hold dear. When the Lord Yeshua was resurrected, He appeared to His disciples on the Emmaus road, and He expounded to them all things concerning Himself in the Old Testament Scriptures, “beginning with Moses and the prophets” (Luke 24:27). The Torah is so laden and interwoven with Christ, that it beggars description. I urge you to read it after prayerfully asking God the Creator to make Himself truly known to you. He makes it clear that simply believing in Him as Creator is not enough to save from His wrath against our sinfulness. Just as Moses was hidden from God’s Holiness by God Himself, not just in the rock, but in the cleft of the rock, Christ the rock, the lamb, was smitten, cleft for us, and just so we may hide from the Father’s wrath through the covering hand of God Himself.

I hope you will come to see that while we do not go out of our way to offend anyone, to ask us to avoid mention of Yeshua Hamaschiach would be like asking us to avoid the very reason for our existence, and the reason we do what we do, why we have a ministry at all. Because it is so that we might break down the barriers to belief in Him, “our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).

If you care to send me a private email through our website (it will get forwarded to me) I will be more than pleased to put you onto works by Hebrew Christians, scholars who have come to understand that Yeshua (the real one, not the caricature you might have been exposed to) is not some imposter, but is the only hope for both Jew and Gentile. That faith in Him is not the rejection of the God of the Torah, but its fulfilment. It would have to be the most exciting and satisfying thing I can imagine, for someone to have been brought up in that tradition, and to have the scales fall from their eyes, so to speak. I will undertake to pray for you.

Kind regards,

Carl W.