12. The Messianic Concern for a Valid Nationhood

To Messianics, it’s imperative the New Testament remain bound in some dimension to God’s preceding covenant with the Jews through Moses. For if not, then the Jewish people—if they come to Christ—really have no spiritual basis for identifying themselves as a physical nation:

“How can the Jewish nation be re-forged in any godly way if it is denied the Old Covenant as its center of gravity? After all, it is only through the Old Covenant that Israel achieved identity as a cohesive nation. If you take Moses away, how is Israel to function in any form as a nation that still reflects its original purpose in God?”

This is a worthy concern and deserves an answer. Obviously, Israel today exists as a secular society apart from the Old Covenant. Messianism believes Israel needs to come back to that covenant, and draws on the prophecies to assert this is what God is trying to do today. Yet as we have seen, the apostles declare the Old Covenant with its ordinances abrogated for all people of all time.

To all this I posit the following answer: There is but One who can truly restore Israel as a nation to His specifications. And it is He, not Moses, that is the true Lawgiver. As noted already, Yeshua specifically distances His teaching from the Mosaic Torah (“You have heard it said of old… but I say to you….”).

If as Hebrews says Christ has supplanted the sacrifices, if He has supplanted diverse washings, if Christ Himself distinguished between His own authority and that of Moses, and if Christ is the fulfiller of all Moses brought forth to where our relationship is directly and exclusively with Him—