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          THE PROBLEM OF MESSIANIC JUDAISM

          PART 5

           

          COMPETING VISIONS OF YESHUA IN THE NEWBORN APOSTLES:

          THE BIRTH OF THE MESSIANIC CONFLICT, CONT.

           

          The Book of Acts from the Holy Spirit’s View

          In the debate between the Messianic and Transcendent visions of Yeshua such as we have, the only vision that matters and can be correct is the vision supported by the Holy Spirit. But if we want to truly understand this conflict from the Holy Spirit’s point of view, we have to step back and see the Book of Acts itself for how the Holy Spirit wrote it.

          A story is always told from the viewpoint of its author. The Book of Acts was Authored by the Holy Spirit. What Acts therefore has to say and what it doesn’t have to say—what it emphasizes and what it ignores—becomes of great importance to understanding the Holy Spirit’s perspective on this vision conflict.

          The Acts of the Apostles is sometimes better referred to as the Acts of the Holy Spirit. And this is so. For it was not men who were accomplishing God’s purpose to bring a race-less, Law-free vision of Yeshua to the world, but it was the Holy Spirit. Not only this, but it was the Holy Spirit, not the man Luke, who left us the record of His accomplishments through these men.

          Given all this, key elements about the way the story of Acts is told plainly tell us the Spirit did not favor the Messianic view of Yeshua as stored in the hearts of the Jerusalem apostles, and that the Spirit Himself was the propeller and proponent of the transnational gospel (as finally enunciated by Paul). 

          After Stephen’s death in Acts 7, whatever the Spirit was continuing to accomplish in Jerusalem, He did not value it centrally enough to tell us much about it. Except for commenting on Paul’s brief ministry there following his conversion (Ac. 9:26-31) and detailing Peter’s miraculous deliverance from Herod (Acts 12), the Spirit hardly mentions Jerusalem’s church and its leaders. What few mentions do remain are clouded by issues of contention due to resistance over what He, the Holy Spirit, is accomplishing among the nations. They are negative.

          The Spirit’s thrust toward the nations after Stephen’s Law-piercing witness, His concomitant reduction of the Jerusalem apostles’ role in defining the gospel, His virtual ignoring after Stephen of the church where Messianism was being both preserved and perverted, His few citings of the Jerusalem church always in context of conflict with His transnational revelation of Yeshua—these together speak volumes as to the Holy Spirit’s support of the Transcendent view of Yeshua, and His rejection of the Messianic view. 

           

          - If the Holy Spirit were Messianic….

          The reader will note that we have not even begun to discuss Saul of Tarsus. Nevertheless, let’s pause to consider that so far, from the church’s birth through Peter’s visit to Cornelius, every word and action of the Holy Spirit testifies against the belief in a Jewish-harnessed faith in Yeshua. Consider the numerous witnesses to this effect.

           

          -         Had the Holy Spirit wanted to insure a connection to Judaism in all believers, He would have seen to it from the start that the message of Yeshua—including the New Testament scriptures—remained conveyed only through Hebrew to preserve that connection. He would not have poured the message out through tongues at Pentecost nor suffered the New Testament to be written in Greek.17

           

          -         If the Holy Spirit were of Messianic persuasion, He would never have inspired Stephen to declare that Yeshua was going to change the Mosaic Law and customs.

           

          -         If the Holy Spirit were Messianic, He would have seen to it that the Jerusalem apostles remained in control of the spread of the gospel, so that it did not spread apart from their tutoring of all according to their Messianic view of Yeshua.

           

          -         If the Holy Spirit were Messianic, and had wanted the Gentiles to come into the faith of Yeshua anyway, when He was ready to do so, He would have:

           

          o       Given Peter the revelation of this from “central command headquarters” in Jerusalem;

           

          o       Given the revelation in terms that were justifiable according to the Law, not by a vision that challenged Peter to break what he knew to be the Law; and

           

          o       Required that Cornelius and his household submit to the Jewish proselyte ceremony (including circumcision) before pouring Himself out on them.

           

          -         If the Holy Spirit were Messianic, He would have insured that the church in Jerusalem remained the focal point of the story line throughout the Book of Acts, and would have written it through the eyes of James and the other Messianics who were there.

           

          By failing of all these things, the Holy Spirit has revealed that He does not support the Messianic view of Yeshua and the conveyance of faith in Him in terms of a connection to Yeshua’s human heritage. It is against this evidence that present day Messianism teaches the Holy Spirit is now trying to “rebuild” a connection to Judaism that He Himself worked so energetically to demolish.

           

          NEXT – PART 6: THE ENTRANCE OF PAUL OF TARSUS


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          17 By pouring the message of Yeshua out through every language possible at Pentecost, the Spirit insured that it would adapt to the context of foreign cultures away from Judaism. (This also causes to fail any notion that Hebrew is ordained to eventually become the governmental language for the whole earth under Yeshua’s reign—further contradicted by the fact that even Yeshua did not speak in Hebrew, but in Aramaic.)

          The same applies to the writing of the New Testament in Greek. Significantly, the later popes also knew that if the scriptures reached the common tongues outside the language they spoke (Latin), it would become lost to their Roman culture and to their control over its conveyance. To prevent this, they persecuted and martyred the translators. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit never allowed men the chance to confine the original message of Yeshua to Hebrew.

          The sum of spiritual and historical evidence shows us that the idea of cultural and lingual confinement of the faith—whether advocated by the popes or by Messianism—is ultimately of demonic origin, not of the Holy Spirit.