Jews and Christians United for Israel® (JACUFI)

 Martin M. van Brauman

We are all witnesses for God, both Jews and Christians. Jews by their very existence prove the presence of God in the world and Christians are witnesses for God’s grace through Jesus. Christians bring the saving grace of the Word of God through Jesus to the entire world. But who can discern the mysterious workings of God to fathom why it is.

Grass withers and blossom fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever. Isaiah 40:8.

The Jews are God’s eternal witnesses and the keepers of His Word, for

if you hearken well to Me and observe My covenant, you shall be to Me the most beloved treasure of all peoples, for Mine is the entire world. You shall be to Me a kingdom of ministers and a holy nation. Exodus 19:5-6.

The covenant is that I will enter into with you over the keeping of the Torah.[1] “A kingdom of ministers” means that the entire nation is to be dedicated to leading the world toward an understanding and acceptance of God.[2]

You are My witnesses – the word of the Lord – and My servant whom I have chosen, so that you will know and believe in Me, and understand that I am He; before Me nothing was created by a god nor will there be after Me! Isaiah 43:10.

Israel testifies of God by telling its own history as a history with God.[3] The Jewish people understand themselves linked to God and so are witnesses to the eternal covenant between themselves and God.[4] Every Shabbat observed, every kosher meal eaten, every mitzvah performed, every son circumcised, every act of solidarity among the people is another expression of that witness.[5]

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935), the Chief Rabbinate of Jerusalem and the Jewish community in Eretz Yisrael, wrote about the call of God.

In the depths of the human soul the voice of God calls ceaselessly. The tumult of life can confuse the person so that most of the time he will not hear this voice. But under no circumstances will it be able to uproot the source of this voice which, in truth, constitutes the essence of human life. We therefore see in all human history that, like the tides in the oceans, the ebb and flow of the currents of life are always related to this voice of God which calls without ceasing.[6]

Judaism insists on an ethical accountability and the Jewish people are witnesses to the nations, witnesses to an absolute, revealed truth that implicates every human in relationship with all of humans in Leviticus 19:18 of you shall love your fellow as yourself.[7] This relationship with others represents the soul and substance of who we are as God’s people.[8]

To the people who say show me proof that God exists, I say look to God’s witnesses on earth. Look at the history of the Jewish people after more than two thousand years of persecution, the Holocaust and now the ingathering back to Jerusalem and you will see proof that God exists in the world.

. . . for wisdom and might are His! He alters times and seasons; He deposes kings and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who know how to reason. Daniel 2:20-21.

Anti-Semitism may be explained as man’s natural hatred of God’s chosen people, as the witnesses to the God who exercises grace in judgment.[9] Anti-Semitism is the sign of man’s enmity to the grace of God.[10] The continuing existence of the Jews should be a beacon for strengthening Christian faith, since their eternal survival proves the presence and existence of God and His Eternal Promises to the Jews and through Jesus to the Christians.

O House of Jacob: Come, let us walk [both Christians and Jews] in the light of the Lord! Isaiah 2:5.

The Lord is the eternal God, the Creator of the ends of the earth; He does not weary, He does not tire; there is no calculating His understanding. He gives strength to the weary, and grants abundant might to the powerless. Youths may weary and tire and young men may constantly falter, but those whose hope is in the Lord will have renewed strength; they will grow a wing, like eagles; they will run and not grow tired, they will walk and not grow weary. Isaiah 40:28-31.

[1] Rashi, Exodus 19:5.

[2] Tanach, Exodus 19:6 note.

[3] Paul M. van Buren, A Theology of Jewish-Christian Reality, Part 2, A Christian Theology of the People Israel (1^st ed. 1987), p. 122.

[4] Ibid., p. 123.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ben Zion Bokser, ed., The Essential Writings of Abraham Isaac Kook (1^st ed. 1988), p. 39.

[7] David A. Patterson, A Genealogy of Evil: Anti-Semitism from Nazism to Islamic Jihad (1^st ed. 2011), p. 256.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Arthur C. Cochrane, The Church’s Confession Under Hitler (1^st ed. 1962), p. 22.

[10] Ibid.

Martin M. van Brauman

. . . when the earth was bewilderment and void, with darkness upon the surface of the deep, and the breath of God was hovering upon the surface of the waters . . . Genesis 1:2.

 From the second verse of the creation story, there is an allusion to exile and redemption.  There appears a connection between a dark and incomplete stage of creation and the concept of exile and redemption.  The allusion is to the four future exiles of the Jewish people scattered to the four corners of the earth until the Messianic period.  “Bewilderment” refers to the Babylonian exile (423-371 BCE).  “Void” refers to the Median exile (371-356 BCE, Darius the Mede and Cyrus the Great of Persia) and the “darkness” represents the Greek exile (318-138 BCE).  “The surface of the deep” is the fourth exile of Rome (70 CE, destruction of the Second Temple), which is in the last stages as the world witnesses the rebirth of Israel and Jerusalem by the ingathering of the Jewish people and their redemption of the Land.  The “the breath of God” refers to the Messianic period at the End of Days.  The first four exiles have occurred and we are witnessing the ending of the fourth exile of Rome by the ingathering.

 It shall be on that day that the Lord will once again show His hand, to acquire the remnant of His people, who will have remained, from Assyria and from Egypt and from Pathros and from Cush and from Elam and from Shinar and from Hamath and from the islands of the sea. He will raise a banner for the nations and assemble the castaways of Israel; and He will gather in the dispersed ones of Judah from the four corners of the earth. Isaiah 11:11-12. 

 The Fifth exile is when the descendants of Ishmael will go up at that time [End of Days] with the nations of the world against Jerusalem. Zohar 1:119a. Today, we are witnessing a foreshadowing of the barbaric destruction that will be waged by the descendants of Ishmael against the descendants of Isaac.

Behold, I am against you Gog, the prince, leader of Meshesh and Tubal. I will lead you astray, and I will place hooks into your cheeks and bring you out with your entire army, horses and riders, all of them clothed in splendor, a vast assembly with buckler and shield, all of them wielding swords.  Persia, Cush, and Put will be with them, all of them with shield and helmet; Gomer and all her cohorts, the house of Togarmah in the uttermost parts of the north, and all its cohorts – many peoples will be with you. . . You will be repaid for [your sins] of ancient times; in the end of years you will come to a land restored from the sword, gathered from many nations, upon the mountains of Israel that had lain desolate continuously, [to people] who had been brought out from the nations, all of them dwelling in security [the ingathering of the Jewish Diaspora only recently has resettled the Land in an island of security].  You will attack; like a storm you will come; you will be like a cloud covering the earth, you and all your cohorts and the many nations with you . . . You will say, ‘I will advance against a land of open towns, I will come up against the tranquil people who dwell securely, all of them living without a [protective] wall; they have neither bars nor doors’ – to seize booty and to take spoils, to turn your hand against resettled ruins, against a people gathered from the nations, which possesses livestock and property, who dwell upon the navel of the earth [Israel is considered the navel, the center of the world] . . .

 . . . on that day that Gog comes against the soil of Israel . . . My raging anger will flare up . . . I will punish . . . and I will make Myself known before the eyes of many nations; then they will know that I am the Lord. Ezekiel 38:3-23.   

 During the Rome exile, Christian Europe persecuted the Jewish people and drove them from country to country, while in Muslim countries there were peaceful co-existences in second-class status. The culmination of centuries of European persecutions drove the Jewish communities to near extinction with the Holocaust.

The Wandering Jew Comes to the Wall

Passing between the stumbling generations

of nations on the heel of nations,

the Jew came to the place of Lamentations.

On the Twelve Tribes by the Wall of Tears

death drifted, veiling

the crippled captives of the stolen years

with his shadow falling.

With naked hands they tore the granite,

and the centuries with them

echoed their sorrow, murmuring in it,

“O lost Jerusalem.”[1]

 The hatred of anti-Semitism has now moved from the Christian communities to the Muslim communities with the vengeance of Satan against God’s ancient people.  As the world moves from the Fourth Exile to the coming Fifth Exile, the persecutor is changing with the evangelical Christian communities around the world supporting Israel and the Jewish communities. Unfortunately, the mainline churches still spread replacement theology and mask their anti-Semitism behind their hatred for Israel.  The continued existence of the eternal Jewish people and the rebirth of Israel and Jerusalem after 2,000 years of the Rome exile prove without doubt the very existence of God, who the world hates.

Daniel through God’s revelation informed Nebuchadnezzar of the king’s dream about the huge statue with a head of gold (the first kingdom Babylonia), breast and arms of silver (the second kingdom of the Persians and Medes), its belly and thighs of copper (the third kingdom of the Greek empire of Alexander the Great), its legs of iron and its feet partly of iron and earthenware (the fourth kingdom of Rome). The lands of the Roman Empire came to be dominated by Edom and Ishmael, represented by Christianity and Islam. During the fourth exile or fourth kingdom, Christianity was strong as iron and Islam was weak as pottery.

The fourth kingdom will be as strong as iron: Just as iron crumbles and flattens everything, and as iron shatters all these, it will crumble and shatter. The feet and toes that you saw, partly of potter’s earthenware and partly of iron: It will be a divided kingdom and will have some of the firmness of iron, just as you saw iron mixed with clay-like earthenware.  As for the toes, partly of iron and partly of earthenware: Part of the kingdom will be powerful and part of it will be broken.  Daniel 2:40-42.

 In the King’s dream of the End of Days, Daniel tells of “a stone was hewn without hands and struck the statue on its feet of iron and earthenware, and crumbled them . . . They became like chaff . . . and the wind carried them away and no trace was found of them.  And the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the entire earth.” Daniel 2:34-35.

The final battle will be with Ishmael during the Fifth Islamic Exile when God’s “stone” will strike the “ten toes” of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue.  We are witnessing the beginning of a war that will be waged against the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Land of Israel is the “navel” of the Middle East and of the world. Ezekiel 38:12.  The Ishmaelites shall become the “ten toes” of the Nebuchadnezzar’s statute that was made of iron and ceramic clay in the End of Days. Daniel 2:42 

Martin M. van Brauman

Then the Lord, your God, will bring back your captivity and have mercy upon you, and He will return and gather you in from all the peoples to which the Lord, your God, has scattered you. If your dispersed will be at the ends of heaven, from there the Lord, your God, will gather you in and from there He will take you.  The Lord, your God, will bring you to the Land [Eretz Yisrael] that your forefathers possessed and you shall possess it; He will do good to you and make you more numerous than your forefathers.  The Lord, your God, will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. Deuteronomy 30:3-6.

The words of “will bring back your captivity” means that God will return with your captivity, implying that God’s Presence will return from exile with the Jewish people to Israel during the ingathering of the exiles.  God will “circumcise your heart;” in other words, He will help to remove the spiritual hurdles and the forces of Evil to achieve total repentance.  The “circumcision” is the removal from humanity of the natural desire to sin.

In the parable of the valley of the Dry Bones in Ezekiel 37:1-14, the promise of resurrection of the dead from their graves refers to the resurrection of the Jewish People as a community upon the Land of Israel.

He said to me, “Son of Man, these bones – they are the whole House of Israel, Behold, they are saying, ‘Our bones are dried out and our hope is lost; we are doomed!’  Therefore, prophesy and say to them: Thus said the Lord Our God: Behold, I am opening your graves and raising you up from your graves, My people, and I will bring you to the soil of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and when I raise you up from your graves, My people, and when I put My spirit into you, and you come to life, and I set you on your soil. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken and I have fulfilled – the word of the Lord.” Ezekiel 37:11-14.

Ezekiel 37:21 speaks of the ingathering of the “Children of Israel from among the nations to which they have gone; I will gather them from all around and I will bring them to their soil.”  God brings the ingathering of the Jews first for the redemption of the people with the Land before the coming of the Messiah.

Zechariah 8:4-8 speaks of God’s rescue of the Jewish People from the lands of exile and that normal life in the land of Israel will be restored when:

Old men and old women will once again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with his staff in his hand because of advanced age; and the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets. Thus said the Lord, Master of Legions: Just as it will be wondrous in the eyes of the remnant of his people in those days, so will it wondrous in My eyes – the word of the Lord, Master of Legions. Thus said the Lord, Master of Legions: Behold, I am saving My people from the land of the east and from the land where the sun sets; and I will bring them and they will dwell within Jerusalem.  They will be a people unto Me, and I will be a God unto them, in truth and in righteousness.

The day of old men and women leisurely siting in the streets of Jerusalem with children playing has arrived in Israel.

Many peoples and mighty nations will come to seek out the Lord, Master of Legions, in Jerusalem, and to supplicate before the Lord. Thus said the Lord, Master of Legions: In those days it will happen that ten men, of all the [different] languages of the nations, will take hold, they will take hold of the corner of the garment of a Jewish man, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you!’ Zechariah 8:23.

Many Evangelical Christians understand the significance of Zechariah 8:23, but most traditional Christians and especially mainline Christian dominations are blind to God’s teachings, such as demonstrated by the anti-Israel actions of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and others who still preach various forms of replacement theology with new-style anti-Semitism.

The Jewish kingdom will prevail over the neighboring Arab kingdoms and all those who try to rob the Jewish people from their Land of Israel, for God will execute judgments upon them.

When I gather in the House of Israel from the peoples among whom they were scattered, then I will be sanctified through them in the eyes of the nations, and they will dwell on their land that I gave to My servant, to Jacob. They will dwell upon it in security and build houses and plant vineyards and dwell in security, when I execute judgments upon all those who despoil them from all their surroundings; then they will know that I am the Lord, their God. Ezekiel 28:25-26.

The Arab-Israeli wars of 1948, 1967 and 1973 strengthened, rather than shattered, the spirit of the Jewish people.  For Jews continue to make Aliyah to Israel even as the war with Gaza was bringing down rockets upon Israel.  Diaspora Jews continued to immigrate and enlist in the IDF to defend Israel, while they leave their safe homes in the U.S. and other Western democracies. The world does not understand that God is calling the Jewish people back to Israel for their redemption with the Land, in spite of rocket attacks from the enemies of God.

Martin M. van Brauman

During the beginning of religious services in the synagogue and prior to reading from the Word of God, one of the blessings recited from the Siddur prayer book is the following:

My God, the soul You placed within me is pure. You created it, You fashioned it, You breathed it into me, You safeguard it within me, and eventually You will take it from me, and restore it to me in Time to Come. As long as the soul is within me, I gratefully thank You, my Lord, my God and the God of my forefathers, Master of all works, Lord of all souls. Blessed are You, my Lord, Who restores souls to dead bodies.

Under the Thirteen Principles of Jewish Faith by Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon, 1138-1204), the Thirteenth Principle concerns the belief that the dead will rise from their graves to live again, the concept of resurrection.  For Maimonides resurrection meant “the world to come,” the eternal spiritual life.  An eternal spiritual life means a resurrection, not of the physical body, but a resurrection of the soul.  Thus, resurrection equates to the immortality of the soul.

Since God is non-corporeal, then the highest form of communion with Him would be in the spiritual. Therefore, the ultimate state of man is spiritual.  For how can a physical body exist for all eternity, since a body is defined as occupying a space and time?  Eternity is outside time altogether.

May Your dead come to life, may my corpses arise. Awake and shout for joy you who rest in the dirt! For Your dew is like the dew that [revives] vegetation. May You topple the lifeless [wicked] to the ground! Isaiah 26:19

A denial of the eternal spiritual life means there is no ultimate reward and thus no chance for salvation.  A faith without eternal spiritual life has no spiritual power, for there is only the one God and no other “rescuer.”

See, now, that I, I am He – and no god is with Me. I put to death and I bring to life, I struck down and I will heal, and there is no rescuer from My hand. Deuteronomy 32:39

The resurrection of the dead must be interpreted to mean that the entire personality and individuality of man shares in God’s eternal righteousness and goodness.  Resurrection demonstrates that God is not bound by the constraints of the natural order of the physical world; for otherwise, such constraints would deny that God is God.

Many of those who sleep in the dusty earth will awaken: these for everlasting life and these for shame, for everlasting abhorrence. The wise will shine like the radiance of the firmament, and those who teach righteousness to the multitudes [will shine] like the stars, forever and ever. As for you, Daniel, obscure the matters and seal the book until the time of the End; let many muse and let knowledge increase. Daniel 12:2-4

The resurrection is an eschatological hope tied to the rebirth of the nation of Israel followed by the Days of the Messiah, when the Kingdom will be restored to Israel for both Jews and Christians.

It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my Witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Acts 1:7-8.

All of the above is beyond the human mind to comprehend, for these things are beyond the material world and beyond time.  However with God, all things are possible.

Martin M. van Brauman

For the Jew, the Torah (the first five books of the Christian Bible) is the pathway to God as Jesus is the pathway to God for Christians.  Both Jesus and the Torah are the “tree of life” and bring the “Divine Presence” into one’s life.

It is a tree of life to those who grasp it, and its supporters are praiseworthy. . . . safe-guard the eternal Torah and its wise design.  Proverbs 3:18.

However, the Torah is not a way of salvation to God for salvation is entirely within God’s “grace.”  To call upon the name of the Lord is the key that opens up the door to heaven.  By grace, we come into a relationship with God and the consequences are salvation.

Jesus was faithful to the entire Torah and lived and taught his fellow Jews to keep the commandments of the Torah. The word Torah means instructions.

. . . until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law [the Torah] until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:18-19.

The spiritually active Jew establishes a personal covenantal relationship with God through Torah study and prayer.  Eternal life is not the reward but the consequences of this personal relationship through prayer and study of the Word of God.  The relationship with God and through Jesus for the Christian is the reward.  For this relationship enables one to survive the hardships and attacks of this world and to listen to God’s Word as the compass of one’s life.

Martin M. van Brauman

Man’s obligation to pray can be found in Deuteronomy 11:14 in the commandment to serve God with all your heart.  What is service with all your heart?  At the pinnacle of the universe stands prayer.[1]

 . . . when the Holy Temple stood, “service” was the sacrificial service, and following its destruction, prayer took the place of the offerings . . . man’s obligation to pray is the commandment that man should serve God with all your heart (Deuteronomy 11:14).  What is the service of the heart?  . . . when the Torah speaks of “service,” it refers to the offerings brought in the Temple or on an altar . . . What service is performed in the heart? . . . That service . . . is prayer . . . It equates the . . .  daily prayer to the sacrificial service in the Temple, the most sacred place on earth. [2]

The sincere prayer of every person represents their personal “service of the heart” that is elevated to the “pinnacle of the universe!”[3]  The Divine Presence of God lives not in a building, but in the human heart wherever its worshippers gather for They shall make a Sanctuary for Me – so that I may dwell among them – Exodus 25:8.[4]

Since the destruction of the Jewish Temple in the 1^st century, prayer not only takes the place and purpose of sacrifice, but is more important than sacrifice.[5]  The purpose of the sacrificial service was to bring about a person’s closeness and dedication to Godliness.[6]  Pray is the elevation of the soul unto God.[7]

The basic function of prayer is not its practical consequences, but the metaphysical formation of a fellowship consisting of God and man.  Prayer is not just a series of requests to God, but prayer is an engagement, even a confrontation, with God.[8]  God initiated dialogue with man at Mount Sinai with Moses and the Jewish peoplehood.  Through His Word, God speaks to us and we speak to God through prayer and this dialogue is created by the linking of Bible study and prayer.

Martin M. van Brauman

The festival of Passover is also the festival of freedom after the exodus from bondage and to celebrate God’s promise to “pass over you, and there shall not be a plague of destruction upon you when I strike in the land.” Exodus 12:13.  During the meal on the first two nights of Passover, the Cup of Elijah is set out symbolizing the future ingathering of the Jewish exiles and the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty over Israel. “I shall bring you to the land about which I raised My hand to give it to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and I shall give it to you as a heritage – I am the Lord.” Exodus 6:8.   Heritage implies that the land remains the eternal possession of Israel, even to the Jews who have never seen it.  Jews in distant exiles have longed always for the Land of Israel.  Israel belongs to the Jews for all eternity.

On Shabbat services during the Passover holiday, the following verses from Ezekiel 37:1-14 are read in the synagogues.

The hand of the Lord was upon me; it took me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the midst of the valley – and it was filled with bones. He passed me over them all around and around; and behold, they were very numerous upon the face of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. Then He said to me: “Son of Man, can these bones come to life?” And I said, “Lord Our God, You know!”

 He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones!  Say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! Thus said the Lord Our God to these bones: Behold, I bring a spirit into you, and you will come to life.  I will put sinews upon you, I will bring up flesh upon you, and I will coat you with skin; then I will put a spirit into you and you will come to life; then you will know that I am the Lord.  

 So I prophesied as I had been commanded. There was a sound as I was prophesying. Then behold, there was a noise, and the bones drew near, each bone to its [matching] bone. Then I looked, and behold, upon them were sinews, and flesh had come up and skin had covered them over; but there was no spirit in them. Then He said to me, “Prophesy to the spirit! Prophesy, O Son of Man, and say to the spirit, ‘Thus said the Lord Our God: Come from the four directions, O spirit, and blow into these slain people, that they may come to life!’ ” I prophesied as I had been commanded and the spirit entered them and they came to life. They stood upon their feet, a very, very great legion.

 He said to me, “Son of Man, these bones – they are the whole House of Israel. Behold, they are saying, ‘Our bones are dried out and our hope is lost; we are doomed!’ Therefore, prophesy and say to them:

 Thus said the Lord Our God: Behold, I am opening your graves and raising you up from your graves, My people, and I will bring you to the soil of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and when I raise you up from your graves, My people, and when I put My spirit into you, and you come to life, and I set you on your soil. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken and I have fulfilled – the word of the Lord.

Out of the “dry bones” of two thousand years of persecution and the Holocaust, God is restoring His people by bringing them back to the Land and placing His spirit within them. During a CBS interview in 1956, David Ben Gurion said “In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.”

Martin M. van Brauman

What is Jesus telling us when Jesus said that “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is within you.” Luke 17:20-21. How can man comprehend the essence of God and His kingdom, which are beyond the material universe and time?  How can we approach and understand the concept that God is not in the world, but the world is within God?

How can we comprehend that God is outside time for He created time and sees all events in the eternal “Now?”  How can we understand the concept that God dwells in the eternal “Now?”  God has eternally existed before all things and has neither body nor substance for you have seen no likeness. Deuteronomy 4:15.  Whenever the Scriptures speak of God with human attributes, it is a figure of speech for God cannot speak or walk as He has no form.  The Scriptures speak in the language of men, so we can understand in human concepts God’s desires and His will.

It is impossible for man to understand God’s essence and impossible to understand God’s knowledge.  His knowledge is not limited like man by space and time.  Maimonides’ Tenth Principle of Faith is that God knows the works of men. Divine knowledge is not the same as human knowledge.

From heaven the Lord looks down, He sees all mankind. From His dwelling place He oversees all inhabitants of the earth, He Who fashions their hearts together, Who comprehends all their deeds. Psalms 33:13-15.

 . . . Your eyes are cognizant to all the ways of mankind, to grant each man according to his ways and the consequences of his deeds . . . Jeremiah 32:19 

How does man reconcile the Divine omniscience of absolute knowledge with the freedom of human will? Is His foreknowledge of the future events of men incompatible with human freedom, free will?

A man’s heart will plot his way, and the Lord will set his steps aright. Proverbs 16:9.

Man cannot comprehend compatibility that must exist between God’s knowledge and man’s free will.  If God is beyond time, then it is not a question of God looking into the future but of seeing everything at once.  It is not by God’s actions, but through man’s free will that man becomes good or evil. That God knows all men’s deeds implies God is concerned with the actions of men, but they are responsible for what they do.  The free will of man is part of God’s purpose for creation.

For My thoughts are not your thoughts and your ways are not My ways – the word of the Lord. As high as the heavens over the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. For just as the rain and snow descend from heaven and will not return there, rather it waters the earth and cause it to produce and sprout, and gives seed to the sower and food to the eater, so shall be My word that emanates from My mouth, it will not return to Me unfulfilled unless it will have accomplished what I desired and brought success where I sent it. Isaiah 55:8-11.

 Martin M. van Brauman

Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us all?  Why, then, is one person betrayed by another, in order to defile the covenant of our forefathers? Malachi 2:10

Christianity is built upon the foundation of Judaism.  Christianity and Judaism were not intended by God to be one in physical worship, but one towards God’s Plan.  The Jewish people were “chosen” to proclaim the “good news” that there is the one God.  Judaism has never taught that salvation, or eternal life, was dependent upon being Jewish.  Under God’s Plan which is beyond man’s comprehension, both Jews and Christians have a covenantal relationship with God through the expansion of the covenant of Abraham.

After the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D, rabbinic Judaism replaced worship in the Temple with the study of God’s Word and prayer and replaced a physical Temple in Jerusalem with a Temple in time, the Sabbath.  Without such Divine expansion of the Covenant of Abraham, the Jewish people would not have survived the crucifixions, mass murders and the Holocaust.  With the destruction of the Temple, the Jewish people had to participate more completely in a personal Covenant written upon their hearts.

 For this is the covenant that I shall seal with the House of Israel after those days – the word of the Lord – I will place My Torah within them and I will write it onto their heart; I will be a God for them and they will be a people for Me. Jeremiah 31:32.

 The Jewish people are the “chosen people” in recognition by God of the obligation, the “yoke of heaven,” Jews accepted at Sinai of the Covenant.

 You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord, your God: the heads of your tribes, your elders, and your officers – all the men of Israel; your small children, your women, and your proselyte who is in the midst of your camp, from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your water, for you to pass into the covenant of the Lord, your God, and into His imprecation [oath] that the Lord, you God, seals with you today, in order to establish you today as a people to Him and that He be a God to you, as He spoke to you and as He swore to your forefathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.  Not with you alone do I seal this covenant and this imprecation [oath], but with whoever is here, standing with us today before the Lord, our God, and with whoever is not here with us today [all Jewish souls were present at this covenant, just as they were at Sinai when the Torah was given – even though the bodies were not yet born].  Deuteronomy 29:9-14.

The spiritually active Jew establishes a personal covenantal relationship with God through Torah study and prayer.  Jews experience the revelation of the Torah given to Moses at Mt. Sinai as if the revelation were a contemporary and ongoing event, because all Jewish souls were present at Mt. Sinai.

The suffering of the Jewish people represents to the world what Jesus’ crucifixion embodies in Christianity.  The “binding of Isaac on the Altar” in Genesis 22 and the “suffering servant” passages in Isaiah 53 help the Jewish people understand their suffering and persecution history.  But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen. Isaiah 41:8-9.  The “suffering servant” described in Isaiah 52:13 through 53:9 is an allegory concerning the future history of the Jewish people as God’s servant, while Jesus is the image of the “suffering servant” in Christian theology.

Through Jesus, a personal, covenantal relationship with the God of Israel can exist without conversion to Judaism.  Through Jesus hope is given to the Gentile world, in which the non-Jewish world can become “those who have received a faith as precious as ours.” 2 Peter 1:1.  They can join the Jews, who have been the keepers of the Covenant of Abraham.  Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity are covenantal missions to the world having two forms, one to deepen the Sinai meaning as God’s witnesses and the other to bring God to the world.[1]

 He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. Galatians 3:14.

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (that done in the body by the hands of men) – remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. . .

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. Ephesians 2:11-22.

For the Jew, the Torah is the portal to God as Jesus is the portal for Christians.  Both Jesus and the Torah are the “tree of life” and bring the “Divine Presence” into a person’s life.

 It is a tree of life to those who grasp it, and its supporters are praiseworthy. . . . safe-guard the eternal Torah and its wise design.  Proverbs 3:18.

However, the Torah is not a way of salvation to God for salvation is entirely within God’s “grace.”  God’s grace is simply grace without professing certain dogma or reciting rituals.  To call upon the name of the Lord is the key that opens up the door to heaven.  By grace, we come into a relationship with God and the result is redemption and salvation.

Jesus was faithful to the entire Torah and lived and taught his fellow Jews to keep the commandments of the Torah. The word Torah means instructions.

. . . until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law [the Torah] until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:18-19. [Jesus is confirming the importance of the commandments and even the least important commandments.]

 Dr. Amy-Jill Levine wrote of the importance of the survival of the particularism of the Jewish people in relation to the world evangelism of the church.

 Had the church remained a Jewish sect, it would not have achieved its universal mission.  Had Judaism given up its particularistic practices, it would have vanished from history.  That the two movements eventually separated made possible the preservation of each.[2]