ANSWERS TO BASIC QUESTIONS

"Why do Christians try to get Jews to believe in another religion?"

To begin with, true believers in the Messiah Jesus do not have another religion. It is the same faith of the Jewish patriarchs which is the foundation of pure Christianity! It is not a religion since that word tells of a man-made system, but it is belief in a Person, the Messiah.

Followers of the Messiah, both Jew and Gentile, do not have a religion, they have a Life, the Life of God which is given to them when they accept Him into their hearts. The Christian God is the Jew's God. The Christian Messiah is the Jew's Messiah. The Christian Bible is the Jew's Bible.

There is only one difference, and that is found in the way it is interpreted. If you would read both halves of God's holy Book, you would discover that each part corresponds to the other.

The second half of the Bible, called "The New Testament" (Brith Hadosha) or "New Covenant", fulfills the first half of the Bible, the Hebrew Scriptures or Tenach. The first half of the Bible tells of the Messiah who is to come. The second half of the Bible tells that He has come! The Old is the New contained. The New is the Old explained. The New Covenant cannot be understood correctly without the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant cannot be complete without the New Covenant. Both halves form ONE book, ONE Bible, ONE Word of God.

"How can Christians believe in three Gods when God told our Jewish
forefathers that there is only one God?"

Christians do not believe in three Gods. We believe in ONE God according to the Scriptures. There is only one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But God is so great that we creatures of earth cannot understand Him with our limited human mind. Let me ask you, have you read the Bible from beginning to end - both halves of God's Word?

Perhaps you have discovered that it speaks of God who often acts like a human being. He walks. He stands. He sits, He speaks. He is glad. He is angry. He comes in contact with man usually in the form of a man. He dwelt in the Tabernacle in the wilderness. Later He dwelt in the Temple.

He had a conversation with Abraham. He wrestled with Jacob. He appeared before Joshua as a Warrior.

It is difficult to understand, but the Jewish Bible is full of God's
three-fold Being: He is spoken of as Creator of the Universe, yet He
reveals Himself in human form so that mortals can grasp His presence, and He also reveals Himself through His Spirit.
God would not ask anyone to believe in Him, or to love Him, or to pray to Him if He was never visible, for He knows we are not able to comprehend this. So He assumed human form so that the Jewish people, or anyone could understand and believe in Him. He is one God, but He exists in three Persons and this is according to the Tenach, the first half of the Bible.

We worship only ONE God who is a composite unity.

"Christians claim that Christianity is the same as the belief of our
Jewish forefathers. Does this mean that our father Abraham believed the fabrications of the Gentiles, such as the miracle of the Virgin-birth of Messiah, the Incarnation of God in the human Jesus - that God lived among men in the Person of Jesus, and so on?"

All this might seem contrary to human reasoning. But it is exactly in
harmony with the Jewish Bible. Yeshua was, and is the Messiah whom God promised, because all the prophecies of the Jewish Bible about the Messiah are fulfilled in Him. But let me ask you a question: Why do many modern Jews accept the fact that God appeared in human form to Abraham, to Jacob, and to Joshua, and that God lived in the Holy of Holies, as the Bible records it. Yet it is difficult for this same Jew to believe that God appeared in human form in Jesus? In His other appearances it was for a short time, but in Yeshua, it was for much longer.

We would say to our Jewish people: The records and the doctrines about the Messiah are not fabrications of the Gentiles. Do you know where these doctrines and records came from? The Christians learned all of this from JEWISH teachers and preachers! Yes, these doctrines are Jewish doctrines.

They are purely from Jewish teachings taken from the first half of the Bible, the Tenach.

God declared through His prophets of old that He would appear on earth to men, especially to Israel as their Messiah. He would be born into their humanity, and dwell or live among them. He would be a humble servant of God, and perform miracles to prove His divinity. He would die as a sacrifice for their sins, and then rise from death and return in great power and glory.

"How can Christians accept Yeshua (Jesus) as the Messiah when He did not do what the Messiah was supposed to do when He came - such as, establish His Kingdom of peace?"

Have you considered the entire prophecy concerning the coming of your Messiah? Have you studied all the details of God's promise which Messiah was to fulfill? If you have done this, then you will see that the Hebrew Scriptures tell of the humility as well as the glory of the Redeemer who was to appear to men. You will discover that He was to come first as a suffering servant who would die for the sins of His people. Then He would be raised from the dead on the third day and return, not in humility and suffering this time, but in power and glory, as the King who would rule His Kingdom forever and ever. Then will be fulfilled the prophecies concerning peace and righteousness over all the earth. Messiah Yeshua has fulfilled the First Coming, and will accomplish that which was foretold
in the Tenach concerning His Second Coming!

"If Jesus was the Messiah, as Christians claim He was, why didn't the Jews of that time accept Him as their Messiah?"

The Jewish people in the days of Jesus, did accept Him as Messiah. The entire nation did not believe in Him, but individual Jews received Him as the fulfillment of all the prophecies recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures. Multitudes of first-century Jews - many thousands of them - accepted Yeshua.

He told His disciples that He came to the lost sheep of the House of
Israel and it was true. His twelve apostles were Jewish; the first
Christian Church in New Testament days was composed of Jewish believers; the first preachers of the Gospel, the first Pastors, Evangelists and Bible Teachers all were Jews!

The first believers in Jesus who met in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, waiting for the promise of the Father, the Gift of the Holy Spirit, were all Jewish. And today, many of my Jewish kinsmen are receiving Yeshua into their hearts and establishing churches, preaching and teaching about Him throughout the world. They are coming into their own faith which was the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They are believing the Word of God which declares that Jesus (Yeshua) is the Messiah of Israel, the Saviour of the world!

It is recorded in the words of Isaiah that the Messiah would be rejected by the Jewish people, that they would hide their faces from Him and despise Him as the One whom God promised to send to them. As a nation, Israel did just that, yet in the same chapter, it is also prophesied that the Jewish people will acknowledge that He became the Sacrifice for their sins.

And in the second half of the Bible it is recorded that Messiah would
come to His own (the Jewish people) and as a Nation they would not accept Him, yet in this same verse it is written: "But as many as did receive Him would become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name."

This emphasizes the fact that there would be many out of the Nation of Israel who would believe and become the children of God! Dear Jewish Person, won't you open your heart right now and let Him come into your life? Turn away from your unbelief and have faith in your Messiah-Saviour today.