Jewish Messiah or Christian God?
Many Christians do not understand that the major difference between
Christian and Jew is not a question of WHO Messiah is, rather it is a
question of WHAT Messiah is. When we ask a Jew to “accept Jesus” we are not
asking them to accept the Jewish Messiah, rather we are asking them to
accept the Christian God.
Aime Palliere in his book
The Unknown Sanctuary quotes M.
Loyson as saying:
The chief reason why the Jews do not accept Christianity is that the latter
departed from its origins in creating a God of secondary importance, as
Justin Martyr said. And little by little after having made Jesus equal to
the Heavenly Father, have we not practically substituted him for the
Heavenly Father?
How can believing that Jesus is God be “departing from our origins?” Isn’t
that what the founders of Christianity believed?
In his book This Hebrew Lord,
John Shelby Spong writes:
The simplistic suggestion that Jesus is God is nowhere made in the biblical
story. Nowhere!
How can THAT be? If the first followers of Yeshua (who were all Jewish) did
not believe that the Messiah was God, what DID they believe? And why is it
that Christian and Jew have such different views on WHAT Messiah is?
If this is the fundamental difference between us, it would make sense to
explore the Jewish concept of Messiah, and discover WHEN and WHY the
view of the divinity of the Messiah became