The Fundamentals of Faith


G-D AND MESSIAH

WHETHER COMMANDMENTS ?
BAPTISM

G-D AND MESSIAH

Messianic Judaism is a revival of the original Jewish Christianity based on (it is desirable that those joining the Messianic Judaism could recite Šema‘ Yisrā‘ēl and Our Father in Hebrew):
1) The Torah confession of “Šema‘ Yisrā‘ēl”: G-d of Israel is the Single G-d,
2) Belief in coming of Messiah (Mashiah, the Anointed King, Gk. Christ), who will reign the Kingdom of G-d's people (the chosen people extended onto all mankind, in Messianic terms), and who will restore justice in the world. As said, He is Y-shua‘ the Savior, Who will come in glory for the second time, as the L-rd and Judge.
Thus the difference between the Messianic Jews and the traditional Halachah Jews is in the confession that Y-shua‘ is Mashiah (Christ).
Everything else is secondary for a Messianic Jew, including theology perfected by the gentile Christians on the basis of ancient philosophy (cf. Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity: “Self-determination of the Early Church in favor of philosophy”) as concerns e.g. Natures of Christ and the ontological relation between the Son, the Father and the Holy Spirit. This theology was necessary for Christians of the Graeco-Roman world to contradistinguish the Single Truth from ceremonial worshipping of deities in the surrounding paganism. However the Jewish relation to the Single G-d had always been subject of the Moral Truth. As for the Old Jewish ritual, it was not a ceremonial worshipping, but it had been a precise prescript how to perform e.g. a sacrifice for a sin to become purified. Therefore it is alien to a Jew to accept all theological demands of the non-Jewish Christian Councils in order to be united in Christ in sophisticated dogmas, upon which depends even the Salvation itself. Then the faith is more an obedience to dogmic authority within some space of a concrete religious institution than a way of everyday practical living. However namely the way of everyday living is a traditional sacralized space of manifestation of the Jewish faith, not any “G-d's House”. This was even in times when the Temple served as a uniting center of all Jews, not to say that a synagogue is a place for reading and studying Torah.

This means that the reviving Jewish Christianity can be variform. This should not frighten anybody. All Jews consider G-d their Father, therefore the definition of Y-shua‘ as Son of G-d is not more important for a Jew as whether Y-shua‘ is Massiah, and how this can be seen. The Divinity of Y-shua‘ appears to be subjected to a question of whether Messiah is Divine in principle. This question is a subject of controversy with today (not of Y-shua‘s earthly times!) Halachah Jews (there are enough indications in Prophets to the Divine origin of the Messiah cf. e.g. “Whose goings forth from of old, from everlasting” – miqqedem mīmē(j) ‘ōlām, Micah 5,1). The Messianic Jews have no enthusiasm to defend Divinity of Christ with any Greek theological logics in their argumentation with the Halachah Jews, because the Incarnation of G-d with the relation of Natures is absurd and heathen from the point of traditional Talmudic faith. Not to say that theological intricacy of “analyzing” Nature of the Illimitable (Ēn-Sōf) is beyond any Jewish tradition and can even be near to a sacriledge.

Therefore, one has grounds to consider Messianic Judaism to be Ante-Nicene, but this is only for the benefit of the need to unite the last faithful Christians of various denominations around the reborn “natural olive tree” (Romans 11). The Nicene Creed (or a shorter “Apostolic Creed", historically later than the time of the disciples of Y-shua‘) can occur among Messianic communities, but it is not obligatory for each of them.

 

WHETHER COMMANDMENTS ?

Gentile Christianity expounds the Decalogue as numbered “Commandments”. However one finds imperfect indicative (whether with a negation or not) of the 3rd and the 2nd singular persons in text of the Decalogue, except the 4th and the 5th commandments in the Hebrew Bible. The Jews call the Decalogue ‘Statements’ (aśèret dib (j) hab-berīt  “Ten Statements of the Covenant”), of which the 1st is the main one: He Who speaks is G-d Himself Who has brought His people out of the land of Mitsraim (Egypt)
Gentiles who are fond of formalizing everything and who know that nobody has brought them out of Egypt, have not puzzled their brains over Jews pretending to ‘their G-d’ (in fact - having not puzzled their brains over G-d). Therefore they have simply “discarded” separate 1st Statement which they made a preamble of the 2nd one, and started from it. As a result they got into a muddle not knowing what Statement should be divided by two in order to get an original number of all commandments. The 10th Statement has been divided in the West, but the 2nd one in the East. 
After illiterate sages had come into being liberated by young capitalism, who were sure being able to explain everything with the help of the Saint Spirit, they began to blame the Catholic Church for “abolition” of the 2nd Commandment against the idolatry but compensating this with dividing the 10th Commandment into two commandments. The thing was that popular Catechisms usually presented Commandments shortened to the beginnings words. Such a “discobery” was done on the basis of the Eastern version of Commandments, of course.
The following are authentic Hebrew Statements of the Exodus 20, 2-17 (one can see their first words on facades of many synagogues):
 

אנוכי – ’ĀNŌKĪ (Anokhee) „I“ [1]: I am HaShem, thy G-d, Who have brought thee out of the land of Mitsraim, out of the house of bondage. 
 
לא יהיה – LŌ YIHYĒ (Lo yihyé) „Will not be (by thee)“ [2]: Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image...
 
לא תשא – LŌ TIŚŚĀ (Lo tissá) „Not raisest“ [3]: Thou shalt not take the name of HaShem, thy G-d, in vain...
 
זכור – ZĀKŌR (Zakhór) „Remember“ [4]: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy...
 
כבד – KABBĒD (Kabbēd) „Honour“ [5]: Honour thy father and thy mother...
 
לא תרצח – LŌ TIRSĀX (Lo tirtsákh) „Not killst“ [6]: Thou shalt not kill.
 
לא תנאף – LŌ TIN’ĀP (Lo tin’áph) „Not committest adultery“ [7]: Thou shalt not commit adultery.
 
לא תגנב – LŌ TIGB (Lo tignóv) „Not stealst“ [8]: Thou shalt not steal.
 
לא תענה – LŌ TA‘ĂNĒ (Lo ta‘ané) „Not witnessest“ [9]: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
 
לא תחמד – LŌ TAXMŌD (Lo tahmód) „Not covetest“ [10]: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house. thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, not his manservant, not his maid servant, not his ox, not his ass, not any thing that is thy neighbour's.

 

BAPTISM

Baptism of the first Christians Jews and gentiles was a full immersion, as the Jewish Tvila was and is, undoubtedly. This is a common Abrahamic purgation, one finds it ordained in Torah. However the Tvila in Christ has a new meaning in Christ, it is performed once for ever, similarly to Jewish circumcision. Christians compare this with death of the Old Man in Christ and Resurrection as a New Man in Christ. 

In course of time however the traditional Nicene Christianity has replaced the full immersion with partly immersion or affusion in many churches. Is Baptism an occult action and does it, and G-d Himself, depend on “correct” physical performance of a man? Is it a kind of sorcery, a Shamanism? 

As everything in faith, the Baptism depends on faith exclusively, whether one accepts JHS Christ, or not.  If the rite symbolizes death with sinking, then one can also be really sunk and revived with means of modern medicine: were such „baptism“ even better than the immersion only? Finally, when speaking about baptism of the Jewish people on their coming through the Red Sea, the Jews were not immersed! Immersed were the Egyptians and they really sunk.

As an action of faith, baptism is a mystic spiritual Sign. If it depends on “a correct form”, then one could say, Christianity became dead before centuries when the baptism stopped to be a precise correct operation, but only Baptists suddenly restored Christianity on empty place from books only in a correct precise way. Could this baptism of the Baptists be a kind of occult sorcery in turn? 

As depending on faith, baptism should be accepted according to actual practice in corresponding churches, not as a mechanical physical occult operation. 

No doubt messianic baptism is a Jewish Tvila in the name of Y-shua‘, therefore it should be performed as a full immersion according to Jewish traditions. Every Jew, accepting Y-shua‘ as Messiah, must perform precise Jewish Tvila in Y-shua‘s name, or in name of G-d the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in accordance with practice of each community. 

However in any form baptized gentile Christians, who only join the Messianic movement and form Para-Messianic groups but remain in own churches, apparently do not need any Tvila since they have been baptized already. Repeated baptism was prohibited in the first Church.

The question is whether a person baptized in babyhood is truly baptized. Here again one goes back to ostensible entire „death“ of gentile Christianity almost from the very beginning, when entire families were baptized together with their babies, and its miracle occult restoration from nothing, only from books by clever Baptists with the help of correct occult actions. 

No magic rites can limit G-d and alter action of the Holy Spirit! If Christendom is a Body of Messiah, then this Body is sufficient for every born in it provided a child depends on its parents’ faith in the Body of Messiah. A grown up should confirm own faith publicly, but the act of traditional confirmation corresponds to Bar-Mitzvah, or Bat-Mitzvah, in traditional Judaism where babies are circumcized as ordained in Torah, not according to any human rationalism. If some churches believe otherwise, let this be according to their faith. 

Faith is not any science, its laws cannot be proved by mental formulas.

 

Back