THE NEW TESTAMENT IS KOSHER!
I soon became convicted that Jesus is God in the flesh and
that the Lord had called me to tell my fellow Jewish people that
Jesus is the Messiah and that the New Testament is kosher!
There are two magnificent passages in the Hebrew Scriptures
DECEMBER 2018 / THE CHOSEN PEOPLE - 3
that each of us should
reflect on during this
holiday season: Isaiah 7:14
and Isaiah 9:6-7. The first
passage is a clear prophecy
of the virgin birth! You
can only imagine how
surprised I was to discover
this prediction of the
incarnation and virgin
birth in my Bible! The
prophet Isaiah writes,
“Therefore the Lord Himself
will give you a sign: Behold,
a virgin will be with child
and bear a son, and she will
call His name Immanuel”
(Isaiah 7:14).
I am well familiar
with the traditional
objections that challenge
this prophecy finding
fulfillment in Jesus. The
principal objection I
had as a Jewish person
to this possibility had
nothing to do with the
passage, but, rather, with
the fundamental belief
that God could not
become flesh. In fact, as a Jewish person, I believed that this was
tantamount to idolatry. The second of the Ten Commandments
tells us that we should not create graven images of God. I
recognized graven images are made of wood or stone, but Jewish
people generally assume that a manifestation of God in the flesh is
an idol. Therefore, for Jews, believing that Jesus is God is idolatry.
The other arguments are minor compared to this. Scholars
debate whether the Hebrew word for virgin means “young
woman” or “virgin,” and the son mentioned is also traditionally
believed to be one of Isaiah’s children. There are good answers to
these objections, but the primary challenge is encouraging Jewish
people to be open-minded to the possibility that the eternal God
could take on humanity. For some reason, this made sense to me
and I believed it. I became convinced that God could become
flesh because of this passage.
I then jumped a couple of chapters and found this new
insight strengthened by another passage in Isaiah:
For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;
and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His
name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end
to the increase of His
government or of peace,
on the throne of David
and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to
uphold it with justice
and righteousness from
then on and forevermore.
The zeal of
the Lord of hosts
will accomplish this.
(Isaiah 9:6-7)
I view the son born
of the virgin as the same
child who is given this
litany of spectacular
names. I envision the
names as characterizing
the child and as windows
into the character of this
extraordinary individual.
He is God in the flesh as
depicted in the names.
Finally, it became
clear to me that this child
would become a king and
reign on His father David’s
throne for all eternity.
I asked myself the simple
question, “Who lives for
all eternity?” The answer, of course, is God Himself. At that
point, as a new believer, I began to fully understand that Jesus
was both the Messiah of Israel and Lord of the universe. He took
on flesh to reveal the character of God to all mankind, identify
with humanity, live a perfect life, and die as a worthy sacrifice
for our sins.
Whew! What a journey through Scripture.
Jesus is God’s Hanukkah present wrapped in flesh!
I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy
Hanukkah, and enjoy this special holiday edition of The Chosen
People newsletter.
Your brother in the Messiah,
Mitch
g
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Christmas and Hanukkah in Haifa, Israel
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