Descendants of Abraham Part V: Judah (No. 212E)

Yehoshua as a Torah-observant Jew

Geza Vermes was also unequivocal with regard to Jesus/Yehoshua’s observance of the Law of Moses:

… Jesus not only was not hostile to the Torah in principle or refused to abide by it in practice, ready when necessary to choose between conflicting obligations, but that he acknowledged the Law of Moses as the foundation-stone of his Judaism (op. cit., pp. 188-9).
Vermes continues with this theme on page 194:

As has been clearly demonstrated in chapter 2, Jesus made no attempt to restrict, or interfere with, the Torah; he rather embraced it as the recognized framework of Judaism. What he strove to emphasize was inward piety for the individual devotee of the Kingdom of heaven. In brief, he adopted, intensified and sought boldly to inject into the Judaism of ordinary people the magnificent prophetic teaching of the religion of the heart (cf. Isa. 29.13) (emphasis added).

Earlier in his book, the above author made the following comment, which concurs with the views expressed above by Rabbi Kushner regarding Torah observance.

To be brief, the survey of Jesus’ preaching in parables, proclamations and sayings has shown that, the essential requisites are detachment from possessions, unquestioning trust in God and absolute submission to him. The fact that the duties imposed are generally expressed in ethical rather than ‘legal’ terms should not lead one to imagining that Jesus’ eschatological preaching conflicts with his attachment to the Law. It is approval of his recapitulation of the Torah as love of God and love of men that brings the sympathetic scribe ‘near to the Kingdom’ (Mark 12.34). Perhaps even more pregnantly, in the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6.10) the petition, ‘Thy Kingdom come’, is followed by, ‘Thy will be done’, a divine will seen by Judaism of all ages as being expressed and manifested in the commandments received by Moses on Mount Sinai (Vermes, ibid., pp. 148-9; emphasis added).

Messiah came to introduce the vital spiritual dimension that is impossible to engender within ourselves. In doing so, however, he did not “shatter the letter of the Law” as claimed by Ernst Kaesemann in Essays on New Testament Themes (transl. by W.J. Montague, Lond., 1964). Vermes countered Kaesemann as follows, and his footnote speaks of Jesus explaining the true meaning of the Law:

Incidentally, Jesus’ antitheses do not differ structurally from that which, according to Mark 7.10-13 (Matt. 15.4-6), the Pharisees are said to have propounded their doctrine concerning qorban: ‘Moses said … but you [Jesus] say’ (Mark), or even more strongly, ‘God commanded … but you say’ (Matt.). One can, needless to say, debate the nature of the contrasts in question, but the point at issue is that if Jesus’ teaching ‘shatters the letter of the Law’, that of the Pharisees seems to do the same, which is of course nonsense.²⁸

Footnote 28: In the words of a well-known New Testament scholar, the scribes and Pharisees were ‘tampering with God’s Law’, whereas in the case of Jesus, it was a matter of ‘the Son elucidating its real meaning’ (C.E.B. Cranfield, The Gospel according to Saint Mark (1959), 237).” (ibid., p. 31, emphasis added)
The one known as Jesus Christ was referred to by his fellow Jews as a Rabbi on numerous occasions (Mat. 23:7-8; Jn. 1:38,49; 20:16, etc.), so perhaps respect is due for his wisdom and teaching ability as for any other Rabbi before or since, such as Gamaliel, Akiba or Rashi. As a Rabbi he was speaking almost exclusively to other Jews of his day, and may have been the expected Teacher of Righteousness mentioned by the Essenes.
It is known absolutely that he didn’t abrogate Torah either when he was alive or by his death and resurrection, as so many Christians incorrectly claim today. He didn’t say to the wealthy Jewish leader who was seeking the best way to eternal life, “Keep all the Commandments for now but, know this, that my death and resurrection will abolish all those Laws of God that most people find so burdensome and difficult anyway, for everyone will come under grace from that time forward” (see Luke 18:18-30). It is worthy of note also that the Fourth Commandment requiring seventh-day Sabbath observance was too obvious to be mentioned here at all, yet could in no way be considered abolished by Christ’s silence on the matter.
The Patriarchs and prophets were among the few people in the Hebrew Scriptures recorded as having received God’s Spirit, the power of God. Abraham was called “a friend of God” (2Chr. 20:7), while David was known as “a man after God’s own heart” (1Sam. 13:14). They were given God’s Spirit and were led by it. They were among the first to receive the Spirit but were to be far from unique in this. This is the reason that Messiah had his Advent and began his teaching about the higher aspects of the Law and the availability of the Holy Spirit to a far greater number of people than the mere handful of specially-favoured men and women who had received it up until that time, in order to allow a more faithful keeping of the Law than ever before possible.
Through the Messiah, God is actually giving all of us the chance to become “a friend” of His and “a person after His own heart”. It is His intention that all human beings who ever existed are to be called into the Body of Israel at some point, given the Spirit so that they are better able to keep the full intent (i.e. the spirit) of the Law, and then to be finally transformed into spirit beings on a par with the angels in Heaven and thus become full Sons of God; and thereafter have eternal life.
The Advent of Messiah

Jews generally have never accepted that the man called Jesus Christ, or Yehoshua ben Yoseph, was the promised Messiah, despite many references to him in the Tanakh. One example is from Zechariah, where the Messiah is prophesied as one who is to be killed by being pierced.

Zechariah 12:10 "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of compassion and supplication, so that, when they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a first-born. (RSV)
He is not about to be pierced at his glorious Advent as King-Messiah, so it seems logical that the person spoken of here must have been pierced in the past, then resurrected to life in order to be seen again by those who pierced him at some time in the future. He is the same one pierced by the Jews (by proxy) and the Gentile Romans (by commission), thus he has already had one Advent … and most of the Jews, then and now, knew it not or refused to accept it. John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, who was a Levite, stated categorically that the above Scripture referred to this same Jesus or Yehoshua ben Yoseph.

John 19:37 And again another scripture says, "They shall look on him whom they have pierced." (RSV)

The text in Zechariah undeniably alludes to two separate Advents of the one person, the person whom the first Jewish converts and all subsequent Christians have acknowledged as the long-awaited Messiah. (See also Commentary on Zechariah (No. 297).) Hence his first Advent according to Judah will actually be his second, when he will appear as an all-conquering King-Messiah. When they arise in the Second Resurrection of the dead, all those who pierced Messiah, or who called for that to happen, will come under judgment before him. This is dealt with in the paper Advent of the Messiah (No. 210).
Another Scripture that implies two Advents from an historical point of view is found in Daniel 2:31-45. It is generally acknowledged that the iron legs of this image represent the Roman Empire, the fourth kingdom extant in Messiah’s time, and that the stone uncut by human hands is Messiah himself. The stone is shown striking the great image on its feet of mixed iron and clay rather than on the legs; in other words, Messiah didn’t destroy the Roman Empire and the occupiers of Judaea at his first Advent as Jesus Christ. That Empire was to last several hundred years after his death and resurrection, without the promised physical Kingdom being set up on Earth during that period.
Incidentally, besides speaking of two Advents of Messiah, the prophet Zechariah (Ezekiel also) talks about a definite raising of the dead to life, so the Sadducees are without excuse when attempting to deny any future resurrection (cf. Mat. 22:23; Lk. 20:27ff.). Also, Paul, who was of the tribe of Benjamin, spoke to the Roman governor of Judaea, Felix, and his Jewish wife, and raised some uncomfortable issues regarding justice and a resurrection to judgment.
Acts 24:24-25a After some days Felix came with his wife Drusil'la, who was a Jewess; and he sent for Paul and heard him speak upon faith in Christ Jesus. ²⁵ And as he argued about justice [righteousness; KJV] and self-control and future judgment, Felix was alarmed … (RSV)
At some stage we are all required to acknowledge that Messiah has indeed already come once to this Earth. And the understanding that he would set up the physical Kingdom there and then, and therefore that Yehoshua ben Yoseph could not have been the promised Messiah, is erroneous. Instead, he set up the Kingdom spiritually in the hearts and minds of a number of faithful disciples at that time, with the millennial Kingdom on Earth not to be set up until after his Second Advent.
Revelation 1:4-7 John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, ⁵ and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood ⁶ and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. ⁷ Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, every one who pierced him; and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen. (RSV)
Again, Revelation 1:7 contains a dual meaning. “Every one who pierced him” may not be there to personally witness Messiah coming in great glory in the clouds; however, they and everyone else will most certainly see him sometime after they’ve been resurrected to life again, in either the First or Second Resurrection.
It is even possible that some of the Roman soldiers and others who had a part in the death of Messiah will be in the First Resurrection and thus will literally meet him in the air at his second Advent. Several Scriptures hint at this (Mat. 27:54; Mk. 15:39; Lk. 23:47). For instance, the Gentile centurion verbally acknowledged Jesus/Yehoshua as the Son of God, so it is quite conceivable that he was later converted and became a disciple along with many other witnesses to the crucifixion.
Matthew 27:54 When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe, and said, "Truly this was the Son of God!" (RSV)
It seems strange that a Gentile should recognise the Messiah when so many Jews of the time didn’t. In fact, this was the second recorded occasion on which a Gentile knew Christ to be the Messiah, the other being when he spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well (Jn. 4:4ff.). Many of the leaders of Judah were jealous of Yehoshua ben Yoseph, and this was perhaps a major reason for wanting him dead (see Mat. 27:18). As the saying goes, ‘What goes around, comes around’ or, in Hebrew, mida keneged mida (lit. ‘measure for measure’, i.e. the repayment in kind by God for good or evil). The Jews persecuted the Church endlessly and that was why they wanted the prophet Muhammed and the small group in Arabia killed so that it was wiped out. This envy and murder was to be returned with interest upon their own descendants’ heads over two millennia leading up to the Holocaust of the 20^th century.
The Servant Songs

Another Jewish author, Stuart Sacks, in Revealing Jesus as Messiah (Christian Focus Publ., Scotland, 1998, p. 89), made this observation:

Some Talmudic writers have recognized the likelihood that suffering is bound up with Messiah’s work [Babyl. Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin 98b]. Among the ancient prayers said for the Day of Atonement may be found the words of Eleazar ben Qalir (perhaps as late as AD 1000): ‘Our righteous Messiah has departed from us; we are horror-stricken, and there is none to justify us. Our iniquities and the yoke of our transgressions he carries, and is wounded for our transgressions. He bears on his shoulders our sins to find pardon for our iniquities.’ (cf. Isa. 53:4-5).
Hence it appears that some Jewish writers acknowledged (albeit rather quietly) the fact that the Messiah had actually come and gone. Geza Vermes, in his book Jesus the Jew (SCM Press Ltd, Lond., 1983, p. 135), also mentioned this possibility.

In addition to the royal concept, Messianic speculation in ancient Judaism included notions of a priestly and prophetic Messiah, and in some cases, of a Messianic figure who would perform all these functions in one. On occasions, furthermore, Messianic brooding and reflection went hand in hand with the belief that the Anointed had already come.

The Dead Sea Scrolls show that the understanding of the community there was that the Messiah was the same person, being of two Advents. The first Advent was as the Priest- Messiah and the second was as the King- Messiah. The texts are examined in the symbolism of the High Priest on Yom Kippur and are examined in the paper Day of Atonement (No. 138) and Azazel and Atonement (No. 214).
Isaiah 53 is one of a small series of texts recorded by the prophet Isaiah and usually known as the Servant Songs (also Isa. 42; 49; 50; 52:13-15; part 40 and 61 also). Stuart Sacks had this to say about the last of these Songs:

Although the Jewish community has traditionally thought of this final Servant Song in messianic terms, how wonderful it will be in that day when multitudes of the household of Israel accept the Scripture’s reliable witness through such men as Luke and Philip [cf. Acts 8:34-35]. The fact remains that the final Song’s fifteen verses [52:1-53:12] fit none other so well as the Messiah as he was revealed in first century Palestine; if they do not refer to Jesus, we do not have the remotest idea of whom Isaiah is speaking (ibid., p. 68, emphasis added).

This author added that the latter Song “clearly identifies individual suffering in place of a rebellious people”, and the person known as “Jesus (Yeshua) is the perfect embodiment of the word yasha” (meaning to save), for it is recorded that Jesus (Gk: Iesous) will save his people from their sins (Mat. 1:21).
Returning to the Tanakh, the Psalmist gave a specific description of the hallmarks, so to speak, of the Messiah who was to come.

Psalm 22:16 Yea, dogs are round about me; a company of evildoers encircle me; they have pierced my hands and feet (RSV)

That is just one small example from a whole set of criteria required for Yehoshua/Jesus to be fully acknowledged as the promised Messiah. Besides the piercing of his hands and feet by the nails, there were also puncture marks around the head of this crucified one from the crown of thorns that had been jammed onto his head. These holes in his scalp allowed blood to trickle down his face and settle on his earlobes, while the wounds in his hands and feet allowed blood to run down onto his thumbs and big toes. God thereby arranged for Yehoshua ben Yoseph to be fully consecrated as a Priest, in accordance with the solemn ordination ceremony of Aaron and his sons (and all their priestly descendants) as described in Leviticus 8:23-24 (see also the paper Wave Sheaf Offering (No. 106b)).
Even now, as High Priest in the Melchisedek priesthood, Yehoshua is willing and able to make intercession directly to God the Father on behalf of the called-out and chosen ones alive on the Earth, as Timothy showed.
1Timothy 2:3-6 This is good, and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, ⁴ who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. ⁵ For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, ⁶ who gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony to which was borne at the proper time. (RSV)
Jews for Jesus

God surely wants everyone of Judah to become “a Jew for Jesus”. But He certainly doesn’t want the Jews to dispense with their Monotheism and embrace the false gods of the Trinitarian concept adhered to by the overwhelming majority of ‘Christians’, whose Jesus is one of three co-equal members of an exclusive Godhead. If this belief takes some swallowing and appears to run contrary to the ‘Shema Ysrael, that is because it most certainly is at odds with it.

If we have accepted that Messiah has already had one Advent and died for the salvation of all people in the world, then there is no longer a need to struggle with the alien concept of the Trinity of ‘Father, Son and Holy Ghost’ as it is totally unscriptural, found in neither the Tanakh nor, surprisingly, in the books of the Christian New Testament.
A typical Trinitarian thesis might include the following, though perhaps with a little less honesty than found in the opening sentence. This is actually a rather brave admission considering the Trinity concept is supposed to be pivotal to Christian belief. As Christians are also meant to be People of the Book, one would reasonably expect the doctrine to be plainly laid out in the New Testament Scriptures.

It is now generally acknowledged that the doctrine of the Trinity is not found in the New Testament. At the same time, it is more commonly recognized than it has sometimes been, that the New Testament contains the materials out of which the doctrine of the Trinity took shape; and these are to be found, not so much in the texts in which the names of the three “persons” occur together …, as rather in the outlines of a Trinitarian pattern which can be discerned, especially in the thought of Paul and the Fourth Evangelist (The Holy Spirit in Christian Theology, George S. Hendry, SCM Press Ltd, Lond., 1965, p.30).

That is not so. The only pattern which can be discerned, apart from in men’s fertile imaginations, is analogous to the pattern of DNA found in all living creatures. The basic building blocks are the same, i.e. we use the same scriptural texts in expounding doctrine, but the conclusions reached can be totally different, just as a human and a gorilla possess a similar make-up of DNA (sharing about 98% of genes) but only one will inherit eternal life.
Some pseudo-Christians have even claimed that the idea of a Trinity is implicit in the Old Testament or Tanakh, when that is not the case at all. One such point concerns the use of the term echad instead of yachid in the ‘Shema Ysrael when speaking of the ‘one and only’ God. The paper Consubstantial with the Father (No. 81) should be studied for an explanation of the use of the term echad in the ‘Shema.
The original Christian faith, such as being expounded by the Christian Churches of God, provides a scripturally-based alternative to the paganised and syncretic or pick-and-mix beliefs of the so-called Christians.
Reconciliation of Judah and Israel

Despite its persistent sinfulness, rebellion and an unhealthy love of wealth and status, it appears that Judah holds a special place of affection in God’s heart.

Psalm 114:2 Judah became his sanctuary [SHD 6944: holiness, sacredness], Israel his dominion. (RSV)
And, of course, out of Judah and from the lineage of Jesse and David, Messiah was born for the salvation of the entire world.

Isaiah 11:10-13 In that day the root of Jesse shall stand as an ensign to the peoples; him shall the nations seek, and his dwellings shall be glorious. ¹¹ In that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant which is left of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Ethiopia, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea. ¹² He will raise an ensign for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. ¹³ The jealousy of E'phraim shall depart, and those who harass Judah shall be cut off; E'phraim shall not be jealous of Judah, and Judah shall not harass E'phraim. (RSV)

We see in 2Chronicles 28:9-15 that Ephraim had a change of heart when it and the other tribes had warred with Judah and taken many captives. Although God was angry with Judah and allowed them to be defeated, Israel had been over-zealous in its treatment of the captured Jews. Therefore God strongly advised them to show compassion. We are often judged on how we treat our enemies, for to be magnanimous in victory is a Godly characteristic.
Some time soon, there will be a foretold reconciliation of Judah and Israel, as we see in Hosea 1:11 and Ezekiel 37:15-22.

Hosea 1:11 And the people of Judah and the people of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head; and they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel. (RSV)

Ezekiel 37:15-22 The word of the LORD came to me: ¹⁶ "Son of man, take a stick and write on it, 'For Judah, and the children of Israel associated with him'; then take another stick and write upon it, 'For Joseph (the stick of E'phraim) and all the house of Israel associated with him'; ¹⁷ and join them together into one stick, that they may become one in your hand. ¹⁸ And when your people say to you, 'Will you not show us what you mean by these?' ¹⁹ say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I am about to take the stick of Joseph (which is in the hand of E'phraim) and the tribes of Israel associated with him; and I will join with it the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, that they may be one in my hand. ²⁰ When the sticks on which you write are in your hand before their eyes, ²¹ then say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all sides, and bring them to their own land; ²² and I will make them one nation in the land, upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all; and they shall be no longer two nations, and no longer divided into two kingdoms. (RSV)
In the prophecy given by Jacob/Israel to his sons on his deathbed, Judah’s hand is said to be on the neck (or back) of his ‘enemies’.
Genesis 49:8-12 Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father's sons shall bow down before you. ⁹ Judah is a lion's whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as a lioness; who dares rouse him up? ¹⁰ The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. ¹¹ Binding his foal to the vine and his ass's colt to the choice vine, he washes his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes; ¹² his eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk. (RSV)

The last verses of this text refer to the death of the Messiah in Jerusalem. By his death he accomplished the washing of his vestments and the vestments of all of his people as the vineyard of the House of God (cf. Isa. 5:7).

In view of the words brothers and father’s sons elsewhere in verse 8, it appears that the reference here is to Judah’s hand being on the neck or back of his brothers also (as former enemies) in order to draw them to him; that is, to embrace them and to weep upon each other’s necks (cf. Gen. 33:4; 45:14) in a spirit of reconciliation rather than enmity. Isaiah 11:13 states prophetically that, “Ephraim [representing the 10 Tribes] shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim”. As mentioned earlier, this alludes to the jealousy and dislike of a group of people (in this case a brother tribe) toward Judah (the Jews), just as Judah may have envied Joseph (father of Ephraim) as the favourite son of their father, the Patriarch Jacob. The term enemies thus appears to be in the same sense as enemies shall be of one’s own household (Mic. 7:6; Mat. 10:36), i.e. one’s own blood relatives. Had there been a negative connotation to this part of verse 8, it would probably have spoken of Judah having his foot upon the necks of his enemies (Jos. 10:24), or a yoke of bondage upon their necks (Gen. 27:40; Jer. 27:12).