Questions and Answers
QUESTION:
“Isn’t it true that Jewish people who believe in Jesus are no longer Jewish?”
ANSWER:
According to the Word of God, the Bible, a Jew is a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. One is either Gentile or Jewish by birth, and nothing can change that! When a Jewish person accepts the promised Messiah, he becomes a completed Jew. The Jewish people will never be fulfilled in their faith until they accept the “Anointed One of God, the Messiah.” When a person accepts the promised Messiah, he is now in continuity with Moses and the prophets. He is now completed in his (or her) faith because he is not only Jewish physically but spiritually as well. That person has had the redeeming love of the Messiah Jesus revealed to him and because he has put his trust in our Messiah, he is now accepted by God, and he now possesses the righteous of God and he is justified by faith.
Jesus Himself is Jewish. Consider this, He was born into a Jewish home circumcised on the eighth day, his family kept the law, Sabbath and feasts, Jesus was brought to the Temple at the age 12 approaching the age of 13 to make His Bar Mitzvah and became a “Son of the Commandments.” Jesus kept the feasts and taught in the synagogues. Jesus has not changed, He is still Jewish!
8Messiah Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8) NASB
Scripture teaches us that Jesus came to His own people, the Jewish people:
John 1:11 (NASB) 11He came to His £own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. ’
The disciples and apostles were all Jewish. These Jewish men never renounced their Jewish heritage and were not considered by others to have done so. The Rabbi Paul taught this to the Church in Rome:
Romans 11:1-2 (NASB) 1I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew.
Once again, writing to the Church in Corinth, the Rabbi Paul said this:
2 Corinthians 11:22 (NASB) 22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I.
Jewish people who come to believe in Jesus today are no different.