PASSIONISM: THE ROOT OF MESSIANISM

This treatise has been dedicated to answering Messianic Judaism’s major offenses with and objections to the pure non-lineal New Testament faith, and to exposing the fallacious unbelieving mindset on which they are built.  Beneath Messianism’s diehard devotion to Yeshua as the Son of Man, its fallacies are traceable to one very important root. That root is the sin of spiritual Passionism.

Passionism is a perception of God’s primary centeredness on man. It believes and teaches that man is at the center of all divine intent and purpose. Passionism is the result of a weak gospel that preaches just enough repentant faith in what Christ has done for man to save one’s spirit, but not enough repentant faith in what Christ requires of man to save one’s soul—producing the false belief in man’s ultimate centrality to the heart of God.

Passionism accurately declares that man is at the center of God’s passion—ie, of His emotions and desires. But it inaccurately defines God entirely by His passion to conclude God is governed by His passion. In truth, God’s passion is subject to His holy transcendent nature, a nature pre-eminently centered on His Son and on His own glory. God’s love for man is subject to His supreme commitment to His own transcendence (—which is what the Son demonstrated by going to the cross).

          - Messianic Passionism

Messianic Judaism is a fruit of Passionism. It is Passionism applied to Israel. Where Passionism in general views mankind (not Christ) as the center of God’s cosmic design, Messianism teaches that Israel (specifically natural Israel) is at the center of God’s universal purposes.

Messianism isolates God’s passion for Israel displayed in the prophets to interpret the entirety of God’s cosmic plan in terms of Israel’s centrality. It’s from this platform that it then advances all its other issues and arguments.

Under a fervent persuasion of “Israeleocentricity,” Messianics find it difficult to conduct objective, dispassionate discussion of spiritual issues touching the Jewish people. And they are particularly unable to share God’s transcendent impartial view of Israel relative to the nations (as shown to Peter at Caesarea).

Messianics are hard pressed to call Israel to repentance, or to evenly condemn Israel’s sins as well as those of Israel’s haters. They’re instead given to the partisan hereditary and political support of Israel (—the same carnal support all nations lend to themselves) believing God Himself to be driven to such.

Through Passionism’s lure, Messianics remain more identified with and loyal to their fleshly brethren than to the transnational Body of Christ to which they have supposedly been joined—continually speaking from that human point of identification.

- Compounded by the Curse’s Residue

As is true with all Passionist converts to Christ, Messianic converts generally come with just enough repentance and faith to save their spirits, but not enough to save their souls. But for Messianics the problem is compounded because of the remaining power of the Mosaic curse.

Given the extraordinary spiritual forces converged on their bloodline over the Mosaic curse, the Repentance Imperative required of Jews for their complete salvation and deliverance from the curse is especially demanding, far exceeding the limited repentance Messianics bring to Yeshua when they respond to today’s Passionist gospel.

·        The Dreaded “A” Word

          - Distorted View of the Prophets

Under the Passionist veil, Messianics religiously feed on the Old Covenant prophets apart from the governing teaching of the New Covenant apostles. They not only magnify the prophets out of proportion to the apostolically-revealed heart of God, but selectively magnify them out of proportion to all that the prophets themselves have to say about Israel.

The prophets wonderfully and accurately display the intense earth-focused side of God’s heart for Israel. Since Messianism is Passionist, it naturally draws its major strength from them.

Yet, as we saw with Joel, Messianics dwell on the prophecies that affirm Israel’s centrality to the Lord’s passion in their beleaguered condition (e.g., “he who touches you touches the apple of my eye”), while ignoring those that impugn Israel for its evils. This feeds the self-absorption / victimization mentality and warps the divine heart.

- Distorted View of Yeshua

Under this same cloud, it follows that Messianics share a distorted vision of the One to whom they have come for salvation. Within its imprisoning concept of Yeshua as the Son of Man, Messianism sees Yeshua as an affirmer of Jewish self-preoccupation and self-pity. This is critical because our view of Jesus is our plumb line for all faith and practice. If the plumb line is off, the whole building is structurally unsound and cannot long stand.

Yeshua incontestably revealed the complete heart of the Father, including His passion. As bearer of the Father’s fullest passion, no one could surpass Yeshua’s desire for Israel—not all the Pharisees and zealots in Israel put together.

Yet the gospels in no way reveal a Messiah driven by His desire for Israel or for mankind in general. They reveal a perfect Son whose passion for men was entirely subjected to His selfless commitment to His Father’s will and singular glory.

Time after time Yeshua had opportunity to stoke the flames of Jewish national zeal, to proclaim Israel’s centrality to His heart and to the world; and to console Israel over her state as a “despised nation.” Yet no where in the gospels do we find Him expressing an Israeleocentric zeal and commiseration.

Why is that? The reason is because, in coming to die for Israel and for mankind, Yeshua came first to die to His own heart’s desire and will. As stated earlier,

Jesus proved that God is not controlled by His emotions for His people, but His emotions are governed by His reasoned impartial holy judgment. In coming to Israel, Yeshua showed that His devotion to the Father, not His feeling for Israel or mankind, was His ultimate center of reference for all reality.

Yeshua was not governed by His feelings for Israel. He would not allow Himself to be emotionally bought by His own desires. Nor in reaching out to Israel would He stoop to play up to Israel’s soulish self-awareness. Rather, affirming His supreme allegiance to His Father’s transcendence, Yeshua uttered things to Israel that, spoken today, would earn Him the charge of being “insensitive” and “antisemitic.”

In the end, it was for failing to bow to the national Passionist spirit—for failing to love Israel on Israel’s terms—that Yeshua was put to death.

It’s here then, in their understanding of Yeshua’s heart, that Messianics are most amiss. Like their Gentile counterparts, Messianics largely come to a “Yeshua” of their own making—to an image that He will in the end fail, as He did before. Though they come, they come through a veil of humanistic expectations—just as many did when He first came, and then deserted Him when His true agenda—the cross—became known.

To Messianics, devotion to Yeshua and to Israel are commensurate. But to Yeshua they are not. True conversion puts a sword between one’s allegiance to Yeshua and His allegiance to his heritage. Those who originally endured to follow Yeshua, did so at the expense of their attachment to their nation. And so it was, they died with Him, “outside the camp” (Heb. 13:13).

Messianism vs. the Cross

Today, the cost of following Yeshua for Jews has not changed. The issue remains as it was when Paul, that arch “Hebrew of the Hebrews,” preached about the first Messianic circumcizers. It is the cross.

For Jews coming to Yeshua in Paul’s time, having the guts to stand up to Jewish nationalism in favor of a heaven-born transnational kingdom is where the cross was. And that’s where it still is.

Originally, the core issue of the cross was circumcision. But circumcision only represented the underlying spirit of human generation found at the root of every people’s identity. By contesting Jewish circumcision, the cross contests every spirit of familialism, ancestralism, clanism, tribalism, racism, nationalism, patriotism and every natural love of man found in the corporate human soul.

Before anyone can love a nation on God’s terms, he must die to his own love for that nation, beginning with his own identity in that nation—as Yeshua did. He must become separated from his nation to the Lord. The cross is a sword that pierces the soul of every people, dividing between soul and spirit, between human and divine identity, between nationality and transnationality. It is the sword Yeshua said He came to bring, and which Simeon told Mary would pierce her soul also (Mt. 10:34; Lk. 2:35).

So in laying the cross to circumcision, Paul was laying the cross to every expression of devotion to and zeal for natural Jewish identity. It was against that zeal that his letters contended (Rom. 10:2; Phil. 3:6), and on account of which he, like his Messiah Yeshua, was put to death. Rest assured, Paul was no Zionist.

Genuine Messianic conversion is the fruit of repentance over Jewish self-consciousness and allegiance to Jewish identity. And it ministers the same repentance to the Jewish people. True Messianic conversion submits to Paul’s gospel of heritage denial without reservation. It does not embrace “Zionism,” but repents of it.

Those who consider themselves Messianic—who want to reharness us all to the Old Covenant law and feasts, to Jewish heritage, and to an Israeli kingdom of this world—need to weigh their passionate beliefs against the truth of Yeshua and Paul. They need to count the cost of true discipleship as Paul did, and come to a complete cross-bearing salvation as a truly new creation. For in truth, the salvation of many Messianics is in doubt (Gal. 4:20 KJV).

Messianism and the Holy Spirit

Today, the Holy Spirit is present and active among the growing prophetic Messianic churches and gatherings, just as He is among the predominantly Gentile Passionist movements and streams. Worship, prophecy, miracles and intercession all abound. But it is entirely possible to abide under the Spirit’s Presence and never bear the cross of true soul-saving discipleship.

As discussed before regarding Elijah’s cave experience, the acts and presence of God among a people do not speak to God’s true habitation within a people, to His affirmation of them, or to their knowledge of the truth. Many have been “baptized in the cloud,” but He may not truly know them and with many He may not be well pleased (I. Cor. 10:1-5; Mt. 7:22-23).