Today I am going to be writing about how I came to leave Christianity and embrace Judaism and the one true G-D of Israel and the creator of the world.
One thing I should mention here I am not interested in “converting “you to what I believe. You may find that hard to believe because of what you are taught in Christianity about converting the world, but in Judaism they don’t believe that you need to be converted (I have not converted by the way) but only that you live as a righteous Gentile following the laws that G-D gave to Adam and to Noah, which are known as the Noachide laws, a subject for another day, and in keeping those you will have a place in the kingdom to come.
Another thought that came to me is that some of you seem very shocked that I have left Christianity. A few have suggested, rather strongly, that I am ‘godless’ or that I am following the father of lies. It finally hit me as to why. As Christians you are taught that if a person does not believe in the deity of Jesus then they are automatically placed in the camp of Satan by default, so my guess is that you couldn’t imagine that I would be anything else, other than a Christian, when I am acting and living my life in a G-Dly manner, quoting scripture and singing the praises of G-D. I think that it is very hard for you to compute and therefore the shock comes in.
So as I set out to write this, here is my challenge to you; be open minded. If you are reading this for the purpose of trying to find my mistakes or to try and convince me that you are right, then you miss the purpose of this writing. Some of you have asked and now I am answering.
You also must keep in mind two very important facts; the first being that I was a pastor and that I have been involved in Christianity, in various forms, most of my life. The second is that I never set out to disprove Christianity, in fact I was determined that I was going to prove that Christianity was right so I could present this to a few Jewish people that I had met. Obviously, my studies did just the opposite and as a result I have left Christianity in all its forms.
What started me on this road was a simple question that had come after a rather severe berating I had received from a Jewish man on my interpretation of something that Jesus had said, I don’t even remember what the issue was, but what I do remember is that I couldn’t understand why it was that they couldn’t seem to grasp that Jesus was the messiah and that he was their future king. This led me to ask the one simple question; why don’t the Jews believe in Jesus? This was my starting point. It made no sense to me that such a wonderful and intelligent people couldn’t grasp something as basic as that and so I started out to show them , if I could, just who he was and that they were wrong. I couldn’t accept the idea, as most Christians are taught, that the Jews were blinded to the truth because I had listened to too many Jewish Rabbis and people who knew the NT very well so it was not a matter of ignorance, there had to be another reason.
To set the stage for you, I had already left my position as a young adult pastor and camp director, not because I didn’t believe in Jesus, but because I had started to learn about messianic Judaism and I believed that this was the route that we should pursue. In all fairness it was probably, up until that time, one of the best things I ever did. The group that we belonged too did not believe in trying to convert people, especially the Jewish people, because they believed that the Jewish people already had the Torah (the law) and G-D. Our Rabbi was Jewish and through his teaching we embraced a combination of Jesus and Jewish ways, I wore the Kippah, Tzit Tzit, and the Tallit, by all external measure I had become Jewish but still with just that touch of Christianity. The reason that I believe that it was one of the best things to ever happen to me and my family ,was because it introduced us to Judaism and it started me on a study and love of the” Old Testament” and more of a love for the G-D of Israel as a result.
The first thing that I did was peruse the internet. There are many articles and excerpts from writings and books that were both for and against Jesus as being the messiah. I looked at some of the writers of the Jewish Talmud as well as some of the early church fathers and the one thing that I came to realize was that all of them had some sort of an agenda or, perhaps better put, a bias in one direction or the other and it was really hard to find someone who was neutral on the subject. Those that were neutral usually turned out to be atheists or serious skeptics of G-D or religion in general. So I decided on a completely different approach.
The first thing I did was decide how I would approach someone in the time of Jesus to convince them that Jesus was the messiah that they were looking for. I wouldn’t be able to use the NT because that was written well after the events so that left me with the option of just using the OT to prove the point. It makes perfect sense to do it this way when you consider that Jesus and his followers as well as John the Baptist would have only been able to base their views or opinions on their knowledge of the OT prophecies. So I used several different versions of the Bible, including KJV, NKJV, and NIV amongst others. I also used the Strongs/Vineyard concordance as well as a program that could show the words as they would have been written in the OT Hebrew and, with pens and lots of paper, I began to search.
The first thing that I started with was the word Messiah. Messiah is the English translation of the Greek word Christ which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Mashiyach which simply means “anointed one“. The word is used 98 times through the Bible with 86 of them appearing in the OT. Of those 37 apply to people such as kings and priests and one refers to a person in particular, that being Cyrus who eventually let the captives go back to Israel and rebuild the temple. Please see Strongs/ Vineyards #4899. Nowhere though is there any reference to the Messiah, or anointed one, as being anything more than human. A servant of G-D? Yes. A king yes, but nothing about him being G-D in any form.
I still wasn’t too rattled though because I figured that somewhere in the scriptures I would find something that would explain the idea of the messiah being G-D, I just had to dig a bit deeper. So dig I did. I started out by reading every scripture that I had ever heard even had the remotest reference to what the messiah was supposed to do or be. I read all the “suffering servant” passages, checked out words and entire phrases as they would have been written in Hebrew/Aramaic and came to the rather startling conclusion that there were no scriptures what so ever that even hinted that the messiah was going to be anything more than human, with the exceptions of the ones that clearly pointed to Israel doing the suffering, but there again we are not talking about Israel being G-D, just His servant. Well needless to say I was floored. I had always just kind of assumed that it was there hidden in the passages but it wasn’t. I even did the whole 300 proof texts thing only to discover that the vast majority of them could have applied to anything or anyone and the few that were left were either badly misquoted or were taken out of context and still none of them proved that the messiah was to be G-D. It simply was not there.
Let me remind you at this point that there was nothing more I would have liked any better than to have found some sort of solid proof the messiah was to be G-D. This discovery threw me for such a loop that for almost a year I did nothing more than mull over it and re read biblical passages just to make sure. I honestly couldn’t decide if what I had found, or in this case not found, was really all that important. It seemed to me that Christianity had done a lot of good for the world and if getting people to know G-D was through someone who everyone believed was G-D then who was I to say.
I decided at that point that what I would do then was find out what the scriptures did have to say about the messiah, because I thought that surely Jesus could at least have that role even if he wasn’t G-D. I started from the beginning again and came to realize that even in this manner he couldn’t have fulfilled the role as the messiah, because one of the things about the messiah is that he is to bring about an end to war and bring both a universal peace and knowledge of G-D and His laws, none of which Jesus accomplished. In fact Jesus himself said that he hadn’t come to bring peace but a sword, that alone would disqualify him and since his time there have been literally millions killed in his name, many of them Jews, who simply refused to convert. Israel is not the nation it once was and yet the messianic prophecies say that when he comes the nations of the world will come to Israel to seek forgiveness and for the knowledge of G-D and as of this writing this has not happened. In fact it is quite the opposite; the nations of the world are ganging up on Israel to do her more harm. Now I know that some of you are thinking to yourselves well he is going to accomplish all that during his second coming. The problem here is that there is no mention at all of any second coming nor is it even implied. Again a commonly held belief in the Christian world that’s not there.
This is usually about the time someone will say to me, well what about the blood sacrifices don’t they point to Jesus? If the sacrificial system was done away with and the temple destroyed how is it that they can have forgiveness without the shedding of blood?
First of all if you go back and do a careful reading of the sacrifices you will discover two things. One is that a blood sacrifice wasn’t always needed, especially for those that were poor. They had flour offerings as well as meal offerings, no blood necessary, and then the second thing is that when they did have an offering of animals, depending on the situation it could be a Dove, or a male or female sheep and or goats or a bull.
So what about the temple then, how does one receive forgiveness without the sacrifices and the temple?
Prayer. Simple answer isn’t it? G-D, through Solomon and Moses, foretold of a time when the temple would be gone, that they would not be able to do the sacrifices and that they would be in captivity because they turned from Him and went to other “gods”. What they told the people was simply this; when you go into captivity and you finally realize that you have sinned turn your heart back to me and seek my forgiveness. Solomon goes so far as to say that their prayers will be as the sacrifices of bulls. All through the prophets you have this theme emphasized that when they turn their hearts back to Him that He will forgive them and save them. It’s not through the sacrifices it’s through having a willing heart to turn back to Him. In one place it even says that He will bring them back to the land, then forgive them, then remove their Idols and place His laws back in their hearts where it will never be removed. Not because they deserve it but because He is their G-D and He loves them. In fact if you take the time to look at the OT prophets , you will find that it’s not just about the “wrath” of G-D but rather that there is much to be found as to His redeeming His people and bringing them back to Israel. I should also point out that it also is very clear that it will be all who worship G-D will be amongst those that G-D gathers not just the children of Israel. But here is a real shocker for you, in the end the third temple will be build according to the description given to Ezekiel and the sacrifices will resume. It also says that the nations of the world will keep at least some of the holy days of the Jews such as Sabbath, New Moon and the Feast of Tabernacles, it even goes so far as to tell you that the nation that doesn’t keep the Feast of Tabernacles will not receive any rain.
So the more I studied the more surprised I became because I was seeing things that I had never seen before and suddenly realized that it was I that was blind, not the Jews.
Other things kept showing up ,like G-D saying over and over again that He alone is G-D and besides Him there are no others, that He will not share His glory with another or the all-important, you shall have no other gods before me. Probably this one alone was the one that pushed me into a realization that worshipping anyone else other than G-D is Idolatry. The first commandment that He gave to the children of Israel was that they were to not have any other G-Ds before Him, in fact the reason that they were scattered into captivity and exile was because they broke that law over and over again.
There can only be one G-D and He has made that very clear.
Now at this point you have probably noticed that I haven’t given you much as far as biblical text goes. It’s not because they don’t exist, they do, and it’s that I want you to do the research for yourselves. Secondly though I could give you a good chunk of them but I would be wasting my time if you aren’t really interested in the truth of it all, and it has come to my attention, especially while I was a pastor, that most aren’t interested in the truth they just want it handed to them in a sermon. So if you are truly interested you will look for yourself and, I might add, I have only scratched the surface of what is to be discovered if you actually look.
I will however leave you with two texts to consider and my own prayer that you will look for yourself.
Jeremiah 16: 19-20 O LORD, my strength and my fortress My refuge in the day of affliction The Gentiles shall come to You From the ends of the earth and say, “ Surely our fathers have inherited lies, Worthlessness and unprofitable things.” 20 Will a man make gods for himself, Which are not gods?
Zechariah 8:22-23 22 And many peoples and powerful nations will come to Jerusalem to seek the LORD Almighty and to entreat him.”
23 This is what the LORD Almighty says: “In those days ten people from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.’”From here I don’t know what else I could say to you that would convince you of anything, and as I said in the beginning I’m not trying to convert you to my way of thinking or believing and, quite frankly, if believing that Jesus is somehow god will at least point you to the true G-D of Israel then who am I to stand in the way of what He is doing in your life.
The challenge I do give though is to read it and research it for yourself and then draw your own conclusions, with a heart for G-D and not the doctrines of man.
Shalom,
Ignacio