In Reply to: Message to Rose about salvation posted by Roy on July 09, 1997 at 18:22:33:
: Rose;
: >
: > I get mail from Eddie's ng, but I'm a rabbi. When I saw him beating up on you,
: > I sent him a reply which he has not printed. You may be able to use this.
: > Here it is.
: >
: > Eddie, I would humbly suggest that your exhuberance for the message you wish to
: > put forth has put you in the same position as other Christian fundamental
: > evangelicals. That position is to repeatedly and in an oversimplistic way
: > quote from Paul without an in-depth understanding of what his overall context
: > was, and patently ignoring the Gospel truths on salvation. Christian
: > fundamentalist evangelicals also seem to routinely fail to see that Paul, taken
: > at face value, does indeed contradict the Gospel teaching of Yeshua on
: > salvation. Considering these contradictions, either Paul must be understood
: > differently than at face value, or he is the first Christian heretic, and in
: > that case all his work should be considered rubbish. It was no accident that
: > the Ebionites, the Jewish Christian community of Jerusalem after James's
: > execution, totally rejected Paul. Let me share with you some relevant
: > salvatory scriptures.
: >
: > 1. First, there are three major salvatory covenants; they are the Noachide
: > Covenant, the Avrahamic Covenant, and the New Covenant. Christians recognize
: > the last two, but don't recognize the first one. Genesis 9 tells us that this
: > covenant was between God and every living thing on earth through Noah and that
: > this covenant is "everlasting", which means it still exists today, which means
: > that it is still a relevant salvatory vehicle for those persons under it today.
: >
: > Who are those persons who are under the Noachide Covenant? Gentiles who are
: > not "under the Law" (the Avrahamic/New Covenants, both of which are Jewish).
: > As Paul says in Romans 2:12-16, Gentiles who are not under the Law are saved on
: > the great day of Judgment not by acknowledging Yeshua but by a conscience that
: > "defends" them as opposed to a conscience that "accuses" them.
: >
: > 2. Second, the Gospel makes eminently clear that Yeshua came ONLY for the lost
: > sheep of the House of Israel -- not for the whole world. See Matt 10:6 and
: > 15:24. And this truth is consistent with the first mention of the New Covenant
: > -- which he is the Mediator of -- in the Tanak. There, in Jeremiah 31:31-34,
: > it is also very clear that this covenant is made not between God and the world
: > but between God and Jews. Therefore, once again, non-Jews are not saved by
: > accepting Yeshua as their savior, let alone their Messiah, which wasn't even a
: > Gentile concept. They are saved by a conscience at peace under the Noachide
: > Covenant. And Jews who are yet under the Avrahamic Covenant are not saved by
: > faith in Yeshua because the scriptures are repeatedly clear that the Avrahamic
: > Covenant is a viable, relevant covenant for Jews even today. Only those Jews
: > who are called to New Covenant service, or Gentiles who convert with a
: > ministry/mission to make the Old Covenant Jews jealous, are saved under the New
: > Covenant. Even Paul says of the cross in one of his "meat" statements that
: > Yeshua didn't die for the world's sins, but for the sins under the Avrahamic,
: > or, "first" (Jewish) Covenant (Hebrews 9:15).
: >
: > 3. Paul says of himself in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 that he speak sometimes
: > figuratively or loosely and at other times very factually and accurately,
: > depending upon his audience. Peter says of him in 2 Peter 3:16 that the
: > "unlearned" tend to distort what Paul says to their own destruction. What
: > consists of being "learned"? A knowledge of Jewish theology, that's what.
: > This is something that Gentile Christians repeatedly do not know, and so they
: > repeatedly misinterpret Paul by simply taking him at face value where he should
: > not be so taken. The plain truth about Paul, if he was indeed not in heresy
: > and in disagreement with the clear statements of his Master, is that when he
: > used personal pronouns in a salvatory context, he was speaking of Jews unless
: > he specifically mentioned Gentiles also. That is how Jews of that time wrote.
: > They specifically spoke of their own people, even when mentioning the "world"
: > because they were scattered all over the then known world, when they wrote
: > unless they specifically mentioned Gentiles. I was taught this 35 years ago in
: > seminary, and I know for a fact that seminaries generally don't even get close
: > to teaching this anymore.
: >
: > 4. Then, there is always the well-known, but poorly received or even ignored
: > (by fundamentalists) fact that the Roman Church did indeed tamper with the
: > scriptures. The New Testament generally is not verbatim-reliable. Each and
: > every passage must be compared with Jewish theology as recorded in Tanak, and
: > if there is a disagreement, the New Testament passage cannot stand, and the Old
: > Testament passage must be deferred to. The entire canonical Bible in our hands
: > today is a Jewish work, written by Jews for Jews. Even when speaking of
: > Gentiles, this information must primarily be considered to be for the
: > informational benefit of Jewish readers. Paul would be the big exception here,
: > but one must still remember that he, too, was a Jew and wrote as a Jew. And
: > though his interest was in Gentile believers, he must be considered to have
: > written as a Jew, following Jewish rules and Jewish theology -- even where he
: > spoke loosely -- or his entire work must be deemed suspect and of no salvatory
: > value.
: >
: > The New Covenant way of salvation, through Yeshua, is properly understood as
: > being for those Jews or converts to Judaism that have been called to New
: > Covenant service.
: >
: > Respectfully,
: >
: > Rav Avraham ben Ya'akov
: >
: > If I can do anything else for you, please let me know.
: >
: > Shalom, Abe
: =-=-=
: .”Our beliefs must be large enough to included all the facts, open enought to be tested, flexible enough to change when error is found.
: Blessing Roy
The Rabbi's got it right!
Christianity will never be whole until it does
what the Spirit said to do in the Book of
Revelation to the two good churches,
the two who recognized the Synagogue of Satan,
that they should return to their first love.
Who is our first love but God, Himself? To
understand the salvation of the New Testament,
we must understand the Old Testament first.
Otherwise, we Christians come up with ridiculous
concepts like God's Chosen People must be "saved,"
by Christians who don't even comprehend the mean-
ing of FOREVER. If He made a Covenant FOREVER,
how can a new covenant replace it? It must be in
addition to it, right? If He said that certain
things like the sabbath were to be laws FOREVER,
who gave Christianity the right to change them?
The New Testament? The New Covenant?
I don't think so. We Christians need to reexamine
our beliefs. God doesn't take kindly to persons
changing His laws. Christ said that He did not
come to change the law, but to fulfill it. And
we didn't believe that either - because we changed
them and are now preaching the doctrines of men.