THE TRIUMVIRAL SPECTRUM: PAUL, PETER AND JAMES, CONT.

THE PROBLEM OF MESSIANIC JUDAISM

PART 11

Paul’s Relentless Burden for the Jews: His Final Trip to Jerusalem

Neither Paul’s gospel nor the Council’s decision keeping Paul’s gospel at bay removed his own burden for his natural people. Paul’s desire for Israel remains intense throughout his ministry (Rom. 9:1-3). Nor does he lose all natural affinity for his human Jewish roots.

But in continuing to interface with those of his natural heritage, Paul’s heart is to win his own people to his complete freedom in Yeshua by any means possible—even if it means conditionally stooping to their level of practice long enough to reach them with his gospel.

Reflected in his teaching on Agape (see above), Paul’s freedom from the Law was not more important to him than his burden to reach his people by “making himself all things to all men” (I Cor. 9:20). Where expedient, he conditionally sacrificed his own freedom wherever he believed doing so would serve this higher end. Acts notes several times Paul participates or acts in reference to Jewish legal observances from which he has otherwise declared his own freedom and that of all believers. (More on this to follow).

Meanwhile, because of his burden, and knowing the heritage transcendence issue is not settled between him and the Jerusalem church, a fatal but Spirit-led attraction for Jerusalem remains with Paul the duration of his ministry. He could find no rest in his heart over this silent division.

So in the eight years following the Council, Paul returns twice more to Jerusalem—to demonstrate the good will of the Gentile-based churches through relief offerings, and to still, if by any means, win not only Jews to Yeshua, but his own Messianic compatriots to his complete freedom in the Son of God.

Paul’s first return to Jerusalem concludes his second mission trip, about 2-3 years after the Council (circ AD 53/54). It is very brief and the Spirit doesn’t comment on it (Ac. 18:22). Then, in the middle of a third more extensive foreign trip, Paul becomes purposed of the Spirit to return yet one more time to Jerusalem (Ac. 19:21). As his trip proceeds, his burden to reach Jerusalem grows from one of purpose to one of Spirit-driven compelling. Paul knows this visit to Jerusalem will be a showdown trip, his last, and possibly the scene of his own martyrdom—and so do all his companions.

It is now AD 57/58, some 4 years since his last brief visit to Jerusalem and 7-8 years since the Council. Peter has left Jerusalem and its cloud to minister (we surmise) “throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (I Pt. 1:1) as well as in Corinth and possibly by now Rome. James is the only original lead “pillar” remaining. Paul can only hope that in all this time since the Council, the Spirit has somehow worked in James and the Jerusalem eldership to reveal Yeshua’s transcendence to them. Yet he knows not what to expect.

Meanwhile, Paul’s name has become a household word among Gentile and Jewish societies alike. Despite the Jerusalem compromise, Messianic Pharisees “masquerading as apostles” have dogged Paul’s steps, seeking to undermine his work everywhere. Also, he’s been writing to his churches outlining the Faith’s transcendence of the Jewish Law and culture for all believers. These writings (or word of them) circulate empire wide, reaching back to Jerusalem.

On returning to Jerusalem his last time, and against all hopes, Paul is met with the unbelievable chemistry of a church stacked against him (“by the thousands”) who are all “zealous for the Law” (not for Yeshua). And he is met by spineless elders, including James, who not only have not defended Paul or stood up to the spirit of zealotry in their midst, but plead “ignorance” (?) of what Paul has been teaching since he first presented his gospel to the “three pillars” back before the Council!

Acts 21 makes it clear that, in the years between the Council and Paul’s final visit to Jerusalem, regardless what the Jerusalem apostles thought of Paul’s doctrine of Jurisdictional Nullification, as an eldership they did little if anything to quell the zeal for the Law by their own congregations (which included priests and Pharisees) or to publicly stand up to the insinuations held against Paul by their own people. The evidence shows that James never embraced Paul’s gospel and that the Jerusalem elders never effectively governed the beliefs and temper of the thousands under their charge.35

And now, lost in a cloud of diplomatic ignorance, James and the elders seek assurance from Paul that he doesn’t really teach or practice the things being attributed to him by their people,

21 and they have been told about you, that you are teaching all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs.

This is a thorny charge. Paul had indeed taught Jews they were no longer obligated under the Law. But his opponents interpreted Paul’s teaching as a frontal attack against the Law. They charged him with actively campaigning to forbid Jews from observing Mosaic customs, which he did not.³⁶

Paul is now trapped. If he declares he does not teach against the Law, he will be interpreted as denying his teaching of freedom from the Law. But if he defends his teaching of freedom from the Law, He will be taken as a campaigner against the Law. What is he to do?

I cannot imagine Paul’s deep unspeakable frustration at this point. Stunned and amazed silence, perhaps. The reality sinks in. It’s hopeless. Under Roman siege with but few years til Jerusalem’s prophesied destruction, it’s clear the Messianic church is too far gone under the cloud to ever come to the “knowledge of the Son of God” and an understanding of the grace of God.

Meanwhile the elders—uninterested in discovering the truth from Paul hurriedly (without waiting on the Spirit) ask Paul to participate in a Nazarite vow to “prove” he still is a Jew at heart, that he “keeps the Law,” and that he encourages Jews worldwide to do likewise. It is purely a “face saving” measure, an act to make a “fair show” for appeasing the people.

With the deck stacked against him, and the elders of no mind to hear Paul’s truth underneath the charge, it was futile for Paul to offer any defense. Therefore he offers none. Nevertheless, out of deference to them, being on their ground, and in his own characteristic spirit of “submission outreach,” Paul acquiesces as a lamb to their request. He could do no other.³⁷

And wouldn’t you know, as the final irony would have it—Paul’s willingness to submit to James’ legal request leads to his incarceration at the hands of those who oppose them all.³⁸ And now, at the last, Paul has come full circle in his life, finding himself back in Stephen’s dock.

A Conflict Unresolved

Throughout what remained of his ministry and his incarcerations unto death, Paul’s conflict with the Messianic spirit remained unflagging. He articulates that conflict from prison to the Philippians. He laments how “some” were preaching Christ out of rivalry with him, glad that he was imprisoned—following which he warns them against these “circumcision dogs” (1:15-17; 3:2-3).

He concludes by counting as “dung” his own relationship to his Jewish pedigree—pitting the most excellent knowledge of Yeshua as the Son of God against all relationship to his human heritage in Abraham, holding out as his own goal the obtaining of the transracial resurrection (3:7-14). Consistent from beginning to end, never wavering like Peter, never again blind like James, Paul gives us this, his last testimony to Yeshua’s transcendence of Judaism.

The Witness of Hebrews

Though Paul remained finally unsuccessful at winning the Messianic church to his complete soul-saving transcendent gospel, the Spirit of grace yet took on Himself to articulate one final witness of His Law-free Covenant revelation in Stephen’s lineage—the last word of doctrine with which He would close the New Testament canon.

Putting the nail in the coffin of 1^st century Messianic belief, the Spirit inspired the anonymous writer of Hebrews—very likely a 2^nd generation disciple of Paul writing in sight of the destruction of the Temple—to speak directly and plainly to the Messianic Church to say that through Yeshua, the inseparable Mosaic Law and its priesthood have been changed and that the Covenant centered on them is forever abolished and replaced:

7:11 Now if perfection was through the Levitical priesthood (for on the basis of it the people received the Law), what further need was there for another priest to arise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be designated according to the order of Aaron? 12 For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also. 18 For, on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness 19 (for the Law made nothing perfect), and on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.

8:7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second. 8 For finding fault with them, He says, "Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will effect a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; 9 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they did not continue in my covenant, and I did not care for them, says the Lord. 10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 12 for I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more." 13 When He said, "A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.

10:1 For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? 3 But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. 8 After saying above, "Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have not desired, nor have you taken pleasure in them" (which are offered according to the Law), 9 then He said, "Behold, I have come to do your will." He takes away the first in order to establish the second. 10 By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 14 For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. 15 And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us; for after saying, 16 "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws upon their heart, and on their mind I will write them," He then says, 17 "and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." 18 Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

Where Paul taught on the Law without respect to the sacrificial system, this apostolic writer focused on the sacrificial system, identifying it as the basis for the Law, marking the Law and Priesthood as one unit under the covenants. Hence everything he says about covenantal replacement of the Priesthood applies to the Law.

Beginning from an utterly transcendent view of Yeshua in Chapter 1, the writer proves to the Messianic church that the New Covenant in Yeshua has no link to the Levitical priesthood (hence to the Mosaic Law), and that the first priesthood (and thus the Law based on it) was made obsolete, ready to disappear and to be forever set aside.

Explaining the words of Jeremiah himself, Hebrews flatly contradicts the Messianic positions that the covenants are connected (they are in fact “not like”) and that Jewish believers were to remain bound to the Old Covenant (never mind a notion that the Gentiles were to become “grafted into” it). Moreover, he denied the reconstructive idea that once abolished, the animal sacrifices could or would ever be “restored,” because their only purpose—to memorialize sins—was removed. (In the New Covenant, there is no more remembrance or memorial of sins.)39

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In the end however, despite this bold last witness to Yeshua’s transcendence confirmed by the destruction of the temple itself, the vision conflict with the Jerusalem church was never resolved. No more councils were held to prove the matter. Eight years before the temple’s demolition, James had been put to death while Paul remained incarcerated in Rome. Then Paul too was martyred. Shortly thereafter, Jerusalem was conquered and the entire Messianic church was scattered, eventually to just melt away…

NEXT – PART 12: THE BATTLE FOR YESHUA’S IDENTITY TODAY: THE “RESTORATION” OF MESSIANIC JUDAISM

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