Messianic Judaism is Deceitful (On Account of Attempting to Practice Ceremonial Judaism)

Many Jewish people oppose Messianic Judaism for believing that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. This message is not in agreement with those.

The opposition of Messianic Judaism here is also not claiming, like many claim, that “The Law of Moses is not for Christians. Christ abolished that.” People who just assume that don’t apply the Jewish principles to Christianity which are intended to be foundational therein. The inherently righteous, eternal principles of morality are contained in the Law of Moses. Discounting these in Christianity will (and indeed has) led to false grace being taught and an untold multitude of those who profess faith in Jesus Christ who are workers of lawlessness on the broad way to hell.

Many professing Christians who might criticize Messianic Judaism have their own errors in relation to not understanding the significance of the Jewish Temple’s destruction in AD 70. Many believe that though the practice of Judaism and Christianity should not be mixed, they also wrongly believe that God has a separate covenant with Jews who reject Christ. These are almost or altogether inevitably Zionists who also wrongly believe the Jewish people have an unconditional right to a homeland in the Middle East. The same people are also likely to wrongly believe that Jesus has released Christians from law altogether.

Along with the eternal moral law which God sought to incorporate into ancient Israel, He incorporated ceremonies into His worship there also. These things were not moral issues. They were only righteous and holy things because they were appointed as such for the time being. Many things in the Law of Moses obviously fit into this category. A moral law is inherently right and holy; a ceremonial law is only right and holy by appointment. The Sabbath itself was a matter of the ceremonial law between God and national Israel. Ezekiel 20:12 says “Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.”

Messianic Jews and others who attempt to mix Judaism with Christianity will say that Jesus lived under the Mosaic ceremonies and upheld them in His teaching. They are right in that. The appointment that Jewish Christians continue to do these things was also not immediately lifted after Jesus’ death and resurrection nor after the sending of the Holy Spirit upon His disciples on the Day of Pentecost. Those who attempt to mix Judaism with Christianity will pounce on this obvious fact- yet they ignore how God indeed, in due time, removed His appointment of these ordinances. They are right that Jesus taught and practiced the Mosaic ceremonies. If they claim that the Apostles did the same, they are right about that too. But are they right to conclude that anyone ought to be practicing Judaism now? No.

For about 12 years after the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (recorded in Acts chapter 2) there had never been a Christian who was not simultaneously a religious Jew practicing the Jewish ceremonies. However, about 12 years after the Christian church was inaugurated, the Lord chose to send the Apostle Peter to a Roman centurion named Cornelius- a man who truly feared God yet somehow had not become a Jew through circumcision. It’s seen in Acts chapters 10 that when Peter preached the Gospel to Cornelius and those with him that the Holy Spirit fell on them in an unmistakable way. This shocked the Jewish Christians with Peter and even Peter himself- because this had never happened before. Peter had them baptized with water immediately.

Based upon this event, and other similar events which happened afterwards (recorded between Acts chapter 11 and Acts chapter 14) the Apostles of Christ decreed that imposing the Jewish ceremonies upon gentiles was to cease. Gentiles could be now Christians who followed Jesus with subjection to moral law and Christian ordinances- without also being subject to Jewish ceremonial ordinances. Since ceremonial laws are things which are only right and holy by appointment, unlike moral laws which are inherently right and holy, then God can choose to cease causing ceremonial laws to be binding whenever He sees fit. That is obviously something which He could not, and would not, do regarding moral laws. However, both in the 1st century and up until today, many do not accept this God-ordained verdict regarding Judaizing. There were/are very bad reasons for this. These are what the Book of Galatians is dealing with. Galatians is ultimately instruction on how the ceremonies of the Law of Moses are not an alternative form of justification to the faith of Abraham nor were they ever intended to be. To take them as such is to preach another gospel (people go into great error in interpreting Galatians when they don’t recognize its context- as they go into great error whenever the context of a book in the Bible is ignored or twisted).

Messianic Judaism might seem more complicated. It was surely sin after the Acts chapter 15 council to say that gentiles had to convert to Judaism to be faithful to Jesus. Yet what about people who are naturally Jewish which acknowledge Jesus as the Jewish Messiah? Is practicing Judaism required for them to follow Jesus as the Messiah? No. Is it even optional for them in doing so now? No. Trying to keep Jewish ceremonies now is actually a sin when done by anyone.

Didn’t circumcised Jewish Christians in the New Testament continue to practice Jewish ceremonies even after Cornelius and the Acts chapter 15 council? Most professing Christians would say no or that they don’t know- but the answer is yes (Acts chapter 21 proves that beyond any doubt- along with many other things recorded in the Book of Acts after chapter 15). However, something changed shortly after the things recorded in the Book of Acts.

Biblical Judaism centered around the Temple in Jerusalem. In AD 70 the Temple was destroyed by the Romans. The Jewish Christians had already escaped Jerusalem altogether at that point. The destruction of the Temple obviously made the practice of faithful Judaism as a whole impossible for anyone- since the vast majority of the Jewish ceremonies require the Tabernacle, which had become incorporated into the Temple, as well as a functioning Levitical Priesthood, to faithfully perform. The Temple has never been rebuilt to this day- in spite of many plans to do so over the last 1,950 years.

No one can faithfully keep the Jewish ceremonies now without the Levitical Priesthood in place and the Temple in Jerusalem in place. This destroys the basis for Messianic Judaism.

The Jewish Feasts had to be kept in land formerly known as Canaan in the place God would choose to cause His name to dwell. It can be seen in Acts 18:21 that the Apostle Paul knew he needed to go to Jerusalem to keep the feast which he intended to keep at that particular time. It is impossible to properly keep the Jewish feasts now as they were prescribed in the Bible. Attempting to keep them now is an unscriptural offering of strange fire before God in principle. God testified His wrath against such by killing Nadab and Abihu for doing this in Leviticus chapter 10. There is very great sin in Messianic Judaism.

Judaism is impossible to faithfully practice in line with the Law of Moses- while Biblical Christianity is possible to faithfully practice anywhere on earth. Messianic Judaism militates against this lesson and implicitly justifies the dead works of the religious Jews who blatantly reject Jesus as the Messiah.

The Jewish ceremonies do teach spiritual lessons which in themselves are still valid. We should not keep the ceremonial observance of them, but we should indeed receive the lessons which they represent and act in accordance with those lessons. When the Apostle Paul told the Corinthians to keep the feast (in relation to Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread) in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, he was referring to putting away sin which leaven represents in relation to these. The things which the Jewish ceremonies teach about being redeemed from sin and being reconciled to God ought to be a reality in us. This is surely not so with lawless professing Christians and Jews who reject Jesus as the Messiah. It is right then to honor the significance of the Jewish ceremonies- while it is also great presumption and strange fire to attempt to keep them now.

It is also not necessary to call Jesus Yeshua and to use other Hebrew titles in reference to divinity as if these are necessary or better to use. The Apostles of Christ wrote the New Testament in Greek and used Greek words to say things like God, Jesus, and Lord. All of the insistence or preference for Hebrew words in this regard is an error which reflects or grows into false spirituality. Shame on groups which attempt to mix Jewish ceremony (since there is no Temple nor Levitical Priesthood now) with following Jesus and/or mix exaggerated Jewish appearance and speech with following Jesus.

Romans 2:28-29: “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.”