Jesus the Jewish Rebel

There is really one primary reason, one primary plan, one primary purpose Jesus came to suffer and to die. That’s why He came. Bethlehem only happened so Calvary could happen. He was only a baby so He could be a man and die. He only lived in order to die.

Those soft baby hands, fashioned by the Holy Spirit in Mary’s womb were made in order that nails might be driven through them. Those chubby feet, pink and unable to walk, were one day to walk a hill and be nailed to a cross. That sweet head with sparkling eyes and eager mouth was formed in order that some day men might crush into a crown of thorns. That tender body, warm and soft, wrapped in swaddling clothes would one day be ripped open by a spear to reveal a broken heart and that’s exactly why God made that body. Jesus was born to die.”[1]

When you study the issue of sacrifice carefully, it is easy to conclude that sacrifices were definitely offered by the Israelites as part of their worship. However, when you start to read the latter prophets, you being to realize that these horrific sacrifices were certainly not something that our Creator, the God of Abraham, required or even wanted! And once you come to this realization, then the mainstream Christian message that “Jesus was born  to die”[2] makes little if any God-given sense whatsoever.

We have become so accustomed in Christianity to thinking of Jesus only in terms of what we think he was – an Atoning Sacrifice who was Born to Die – that we all but forget to focus on what he called himself, what he believed, and what he taught. Rather than appreciating him for the amazing reforming evangelist and prophet that he was, we simply relegate him to “martyred god” status.

I really think we have it all backwards! So for a moment, rather than focusing on what we believe Jesus was, let us pay a bit more attention to his absolutely transformational message. What issues was he passionate about? What did he fight about with the religious leaders? What kind of God did he worship?

Yahushua ha Maschiach or Jesus the Messiah was, first and foremost, a Hebrew reformer. He was a rebel of sorts; contradicting the priests and leaders, calling the temple Pharisees “white-washed tombs”, and attacking the swindling sacrificial racket they had going on in the Temple. In general, he did whatever he needed to do in order to get his message of hope and peace to the Jewish people. Above all, he wanted his Hebrew brothers and sisters to see God’s true Character the way he saw it; not through the power-hungry eyes of the self-serving spiritual leaders.

The reformed faith that Jesus preached in the first century was well in line with what the prophets themselves were attempting to teach centuries before. It was a transformed faith in our Creator that stood against practices that the priesthood itself had conditioned the people to accept and believe via their  altered version of the Torah.

The prophets are indeed on record within the Bible as saying that the written Law handled by the priesthood did not accurately reflect what God had originally said.[3] Furthermore, these prophets admonished that the priesthood had deliberately altered God’s true instruction to suit the pagan traditions earlier leadership had inserted into the Scriptures! These corrupt religious leaders were deliberately altering the Scriptures to the point where the Torah was no longer an accurate depiction of God’s true Word!

It is interesting how history consistently repeats itself. What the priesthood did to Judaism is the exact same thing that the Roman Catholic Church did to Christianity via nothing more than altering the written word that was supposed to represent the true Word of God.

“This ‘Jewish Messiah’ Thing isn’t Gonna Fly in Rome …

One of the first people to propose a “New Testament” canon was a man by the name of Marcion.[4] Although Marcion himself was later rejected by the influential Church in Rome, his anti-Semitic teachings and Pauline theology was highly popular with the Roman people, and unquestionably had a deep influence on proto-orthodoxy’s earliest beginnings.

One of the central pillars of Marcionism was the rejection of Jesus’ own culture, and the recasting of Jesus’ teachings as being not so much culturally Hebraic or “Jewish Christian” but rather more culturally “Gentile Christian” (i.e. much more Greco-Roman). This made them much more palatable to the Gentile populous of Rome and the Gentile Empire at large. As a result of Marcion-Pauline theology, this new “Gentile Jesus”—a kind of fantasy Jesus that has no factual basis in history—has become the “Messiah of choice” for the modern Christian Church today.

Marcion’s recasting of the Hebrew Messiah did not stop with his lineage and culture. Marcion also deprecated the Tanakh, which we know as the “Old Testament”, and relegated it to the trash bin of history as entirely uninspired junk.

In his book The Goodness of God, author Troy Edwards makes the following observations by quoting other Christian authors such as John Bright and Marvin Wilson:

If Marcion subscribed to any part of this Gnostic teaching then it would seem convenient for him to have the OT done away with which proclaims God as the creator of this world. Bright goes on to say that, “This strange doctrine logically led, and in fact did lead, to a drastic devaluation of the Old Testament.” Some may read this and say that they would never fall into the type of error that Marcion advocated. Yet, if you have relegated the Old Testament to a place inferior to the New Testament, then you have given yourself over to the same spirit of error as this man [Marcion]. If you believe that certain promises and moral teachings have no place with the New Testament believer then I am afraid that you have, without realizing it, embraced Marcionism:

“… for there is—if I know the situation at all—not a little neo-Marcionism in our churches. It has no official standing—indeed, under that name it scarcely exists at all—but it is unofficially present nonetheless: call it a practical Marcionism, an implicit Marcionism, an inconsequent Marcionism, or what you will. That is to say, there are people who never heard of Marcion and who would be horrified to learn of the company they are in but who nevertheless use the Old Testament in a distinctly Marcionist manner. Formally, and no doubt sincerely, they hail it as canonical Scripture; but in practice they relegate it to a subordinate position, if they do not effectively exclude it from use altogether.” [5]

 

Dr. Marvin R. Wilson, author of Our Father Abraham would also agree with Mr. Bright that neo-Marcionism [modern-Marcionism] has crept into the present day church:

 

“Though often cunningly concealed, in today’s Church rather strong vestiges of Marcionism have survived. But we are polite. Hardly aware of its subtle presence, we do not call it ‘neo-Marcionism,’ ‘heresy,’ or ‘anti-Judaism.’ Nevertheless, in our concerted effort to be ‘New Testament’ believers, we have too often unconsciously minimized the place and importance of the Old Testament and the Church’s Hebraic roots. At worst, many so called Bible-believing Christians have become de facto ‘quarter-of-the-Bible’ adherents (the New Testament has 260 chapters compared to the Old Testament’s 929 chapters); at best, they rely on a ‘loose-leaf’ edition of the Old Testament (i.e. they select only a few portions of the Old Testament), in addition to the New Testament. This selectivity has had the effect of neglecting the totality of written revelation, severing the Hebrew roots of the Christian faith, and thus eroding the full authority of the Holy Scriptures.” [6]

When Beau and I first started dating, he was a self-described Bapticostal who had always scoffed at Sabbath keepers. I did not want to marry a “non-Adventist”, so I worked really hard to show him from the Bible why he should keep the Sabbath. When he finally came to the conclusion that the Fourth Commandment was a valid one, he started saying to his friends back home, “I keep the Jewish Sabbath.” I cannot tell you how much that irked me! It wasn’t the Jewish Sabbath; it was the Adventist Sabbath! If he was going to be a proper Adventist, he really needed to get that straight!

It took me a long time to realize that instead of feeling any kinship with the Jewish people, I had grown up feeling like I needed to distance myself from them. Deep in my heart, I felt like God was looking down on the Jews. Adventists were His new chosen people, and I wanted no association whatsoever with the group of people that had gone down in history for “killing Jesus”.

My life and actions pretty much illustrated Dr. Wilson’s point. In Marcion-like fashion, many of us as Christians still seek to divide the Hebrew Messiah and his teachings from his deeply Hebraic culture—and all for the sake of some good old-fashioned Roman anti-Semitism. It is a deeply seeded but usually subtle anti-Semitism that is still very much alive and well with Christianity—and especially Adventist Christianity—even today.

One of the results of Christendom’s Marcionist-like historical revisionism has been the emergence of two competing histories of Christianity. One version is decidedly orthodox, supported by Roman Catholic / Protestant tradition which is ostensibly validated by the ostensibly wholly inspired and infallible Roman Catholic Bible canon; the other is simply a historical version supported by both canonical (Biblical) and non-canonical historical documents from the first through fifth centuries, much of it from the annals of Rome and the early Catholic Church’s own records.

As a Christian, you must study both to get to the bottom of the truth; not just the orthodox version (revisions) of the Catholic Church that were handed to Protestantism. The problem is, many Christians are not encouraged or in some cases even allowed to really study the real historical record of Christianity. Even when we do study any “unbiblical” early Christian writings, it is with a deep bias that demands that the Bible alone is infallibly inspired and free from error and therefore, to be believed at all costs if there is any historical disagreement. There is just no way a non-canonical source is ever allowed to supersede a “New Testament” or even “Old Testament” Biblical one, no matter how deep and credible the historical source and no matter how factually unassailable the evidence.

The problem with this culturally Christian paradigm is that the Bible becomes not just another historical witness, but the only historical witness Christians are allowed to view as authoritative. What never really enters our minds is that there is a deeply rich historical record of Jesus outside of the Bible’s orthodoxically selected and edited Gospels and epistles, which reveal a history of the Messiah quite different from the events we have been spoon-fed by the Roman Catholic canon of “Scripture.”

Reviewing the factual history of Jesus and studying the reformed Jewish message that he taught reveals that he held to the following general doctrines:

First: Historically, and like the latter prophets before him, Jesus taught against the sacrificial system that had been put in place by Rabbinical Judaism since before the Diaspora (the dispersion of the Jews beginning with the Babylonian exile). Because of this, many Christian and even secular scholars note that Jesus may have been an Essene.[7] The Essenes did not participate in the priesthood’s sacrificial system or beliefs. The early (Roman Catholic) Church historian, Epiphanius, quotes Jesus as saying within the Gospel of the Hebrews:

“I have come to end the sacrifices and feasts of blood; and if you do not cease in offering and eating flesh and blood, the wrath of God shall not cease from you; even as it came to your fathers in the wilderness, who lusted for flesh, and they ate to their content, and were filled with disease, and the plague consumed them.”[8]

However, because of a firm, man-made Roman Catholic tradition, this historical document observing that Jesus stood against blood sacrifice-and declaring that God did not require blood sacrifice-has never gotten communicated to everyday Christians. Obviously, if the documented evidence ever becomes well known that historically Jesus stood against the Temple sacrifices, it would be utterly illogical to ‘believe’ that Jesus would have taught that he himself was to become a human blood sacrifice to the God of the Hebrews.

Second: Jesus practiced and taught what he considered to be the “true” Commandments and instructions of God—and these “true” laws did not include blood sacrifices. The later prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, et. al.) railed incessantly against the sacrificial system. Jesus was yet another one in a long line of prophets who did likewise.[9]

Within the Bible’s own historical record are actually two competing versions of God’s Word and Character that are being discussed within the Tanakh (“Old Testament”) Scriptures! Not surprisingly, this very same issue of two competing “gospels” is happening within the “New Testament” as well. The version of God that has been sponsored by the priesthood makes Him out to be a bloodthirsty, sacrificial monster who continuously demanded all manner of blood and animal deaths. The other version of God, as related by the latter prophets, shows that our Creator does not now and has in fact never in the past demanded, required or even desired any kind of blood sacrifice to atone for the sins of His people.

This understanding is well illustrated in other early Christian documents, such as Clementine Homilies:

“ Then said Simon: ‘I understand that you speak of your Jesus as Him who was prophesied of by the scripture. Therefore let it be granted that it is so. Tell us, then, how he taught you to discriminate the Scriptures.’  Then Peter: ‘As to the mixture of truth with falsehood, I remember that on one occasion He [Jesus], finding fault with the Sadducees, said, “Wherefore ye do err, not knowing the true things of the Scriptures; and on this account ye are ignorant of the power of God.” But if He cast up to their that they knew not the true things of the Scriptures, it is manifest that there are false things in them. And also, inasmuch as He said, “Be ye prudent money-changers,” it is because there are genuine and spurious words [written within the scriptures].

And whereas He said, “Wherefore do ye not perceive that which is reasonable in the Scriptures?” He makes the understanding of him stronger who voluntarily judges soundly. And His sending to the scribes and teachers of the existing Scriptures, as to those who knew the true things of the law that then was, is well known. And also that He said, “I am not come to destroy the law,” [Matthew 5:17-20] and yet that He appeared to be destroying it, is the part of one intimating that the things which He destroyed did not belong to the law. And His saying, “The heaven and the earth shall pass away, but one jot or one tittle shall not pass from the law,” intimated that the things which pass away before the heaven and the earth do not belong to the law in reality. Since, then, while the heaven and the earth still stand, sacrifices have passed away, and kingdoms, and prophecies among those who are born of woman, and such like [kingdoms, prophecies and laws that were merely man-made], as not being ordinances of God.’”[10]

The Clementine Homilies offer additional insight into whether sacrifices were even ordained by God in the first place. They state, referring to the episode in the desert where the Israelites demanded meat and God responded by sending quail:

 But that He is not pleased with sacrifices, is shown by this, that those who lusted after flesh were slain as soon as they tasted it, and were consigned to a tomb, so that it was called the grave of lusts. He then who at the first was displeased with the slaughtering of animals, not wishing them to be slain, did not ordain sacrifices as desiring them; nor from the beginning did He require them. For neither are sacrifices accomplished without the slaughter of animals, nor can the first-fruits be presented. (Clementine Homily 3 XLV)

Third: Since, according to Jesus, the sacrificial system as written within the Torah (the books of Moses) is not truly part of the “true” Law and Commandments of God, it becomes axiomatically obvious that these books of the Bible have been “meddled with”, edited by unscrupulous Jewish men down through the centuries to support whatever belief or doctrine they wanted the people to observe and believe.[11]

“How can you say ‘We are wise for we have the Torah of AHYH,’ when the lying pen of the scribes [elders, leaders] has handled it falsely?”[12]

There is an ancient Hebraic understanding that goes along with what both Jesus and Jeremiah proclaimed, that is:

God’s true Laws and Commandments are eternal; they do not change just as God does not change.

God’s past is just as infinitely long as His future will be. God does not need to change![13] He knows His Creation and His created children whom He has made. His true Law and instruction reflects who He is. He has no need to update His Word, His Character, to accommodate man’s whims and failings.

What the Clementine Homilies illustrate is a historical understanding that the earliest Judeo-Christian believers knew about what Jesus taught about God’s true Law: What God did not actually “plant” as everlasting will eventually be “uprooted” and done away with. The prime example is that the Temple and the sacrificial laws are no longer with us. Ergo, these systems and laws were not “eternal” and as such were not actually inspired of (“planted” by) God in the first place. In fact, we can agree that it has been the very hand of God that has done away with (“uprooted”) the falsehoods of the past via the destruction of the Temple, the disbanding of the priesthood and even the destruction of the nation of Israel for a time! Sacrifices have totally passed away from our worship of God in both Judaism and, by extension, Christianity.

Of course we in Christianity have our standard excuse for why we no longer maintain sacrifices. Our claim is, “God sacrificed Jesus on the cross as my once and for all-time sacrifice. Because of Jesus’ death on the cross, God doesn’t need any more sacrifices.”  The problem with this feel-good but factually vacuous reasoning is that according to the latter prophets, God never asked for blood sacrifices to begin with! It’s not part of His Character to even ask for such a heinous thing as an animal blood sacrifice, let alone a human one!

God said through the prophet Jeremiah,

‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat flesh. For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you.’”’[14]

As an important side note: Earlier we discussed how modern Christian scholars sometimes deliberately alter the translation of Biblical text as the means to provide support for cherished doctrine(s). Jeremiah 7:21-23 is such a text. Jeremiah 7:21-23 completely destroys the notion that God ever required or commanded sacrifices. But take note that the translators of the NIV deliberately mistranslate this passage by inserting the word “just” into their import of the text to completely change the meaning of this passage. The NIV is the only reliable translation which inserts this wholly Christian sectarian bias into the simple Hebrew of this text; again further illustrating that the Bible is still being “edited”, mishandled, by the “lying pen of the scribes”, by people who have a doctrinal agenda they want to maintain, even in the modern era!