More Human Every Day
by Rev. David Andrew

Some people have discovered that just being born is taken by others to be a declaration of war. Racism is an ugly and perennial evil which has filled human history with bloodshed and continues to poison the minds of millions. As we seek to reconnect with our Jewish Roots, it is important to understand that our quest is also a struggle.

Like it or not, the nightmare concept of the "master race" also has ancient roots in the Satanic response to our Creator’s declare intent to make a people in His own image: the Master’s Race. To an important degree, the Jewish Roots message is both a ministry of restoring love to the saints and a significant act of spiritual warfare which attracts relentless Satanic opposition.

The writer would have much sympathy with those who say there is no such thing as "spiritual warfare." In the sense that God’s Word gives us no encouragement to "learn" those surefire techniques and formulae which carry "no-failure" guarantees, spiritual warfare, as sometimes taught, is a dangerous illusion.

 The deception is in imagining that we possess a "control" which belongs to God alone. This happens where "faith" is presented, not as a trust which we place in God but as in influence-or even power-which we exert over God, based on His covenant promises to believers. In fact, this reasoning is closer to sorcery than Biblical faith, since it encourages the notion that it is wrong to submit to certain circumstances when we have the power – so it is thought – to change them. By this think, Jesus ought never to have been limited by the unbelief of His fellow Nazarenes (Matthew 13:58), Paul lacked faith when he had to leave "Trophimus sick on Malta" (II Timothy 4:20), and the entire unbelieving population of Asia Minor could have been struck with blindness at the whim of any saint whenever they resisted the preaching about Jesus! (Acts 13:11). It is certainly true that some approaches to spiritual warfare leave no room for the sovereignty of god and leave min-guided saints with questions as why their "faith" did not "work"!

However, our Lord was tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1), addressed the devil directly (Matthew 4:10), and spoke to demons and cast them out of their human victims (Matthew 17:18). His apostles and other disciples did likewise, and Paul counseled believers to "stand firm" against the devil’s schemes, equipped with the "whole armor of God" and the "weapons of righteousness" which "have divine power to demolish strongholds." Believers are warned to be on the alert "against our adversary the devil" and encouraged to "fight the good fight of the faith" as "good soldiers of Jesus Christ."

It is beyond doubt that the first Christians saw themselves as an embattled people, and that this was borne out in their experience of many trials and persecutions. Nonetheless, the primary and consistent aim of apostolic doctrine is concerned not with "how to fight the devil" but with "how to follow the Master." The apostles preached Jesus not only as "Savior" but also as "Lord," because disciplined obedience to God is effective opposition to witchcraft ( l Samuel 15:22) and a prerequisite of potent "spiritual warfare" (James 4:7).

It is important to keep this perspective in the discussion which follows. Our intention is to show that the heritage of God in man is fundamental to both Jewish Roots study and the warfare we call discipleship which will end only with the return of our Lord to the earth (II Thessalonians 2:8).

MAN-THE SHADOW

"Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule . . . .' " (Genesis 1:26).

The Old Testament, according to the first Jewish leaders of the Church, is full of types and shadows, all pointing beyond themselves to the One who would come in the fullness of time. In this respect, there is something of a mystery attached to Adam, our first parent. That the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation l3:8) suggests an atonement which in some way anticipated and predated God's work in the creation of man.'

From this anticipatory atonement, it is clear that, even before the Fall, Adam (though sinless) was not "the image of the invisible God" (Colossians l : l 5 ) in the sense that it is true of Yeshua, "the Last Adam." Nevertheless, the first man was God's shadow (selem, likeness, image) in the same way that the blood of the Passover lamb prefigured the sacrifice of Messiah on the cross. God who is Light said "Let light be," and at that moment He imparted something of His being to the earth; but when God made a man, the world began to feel something of God's presence as His shadow moved across its surface.

SATAN-THE FAULTFINDER

Here, at this moment of supreme beauty and innocence we find almost incredibly, the bitter root of racial hatred. For Lucifer, an angelic being who aspired to make himself like God, there could have been no more bitter pill to swallow than that the Creator should willingly impart His image-and delegate His rule-to a new earthbound race (Genesis 1:26). In the very moment of man's creation, racism was born.

In its origins, racism is the hatred of the entire human race by God's enemy, the devil. Typical of the refinements of satanic strategy, however, this has been developed historically into the persecution of man by his fellow man usually on ethnic grounds, but usually for reasons neither side fully understands or even remembers. (It is essential to the purpose of evil that warring men should never discover their real enemy.)

 Such is the driving force of pride in the Adversary that seeks to equal and duplicate the work of God in every aspect-not the least of which is the production of his own image in fallen human beings. The apostle's title for Satan, "the accuser of the brethren," is well chosen. Satan has made a career out of faultfinding. Not content with accusing humanity before the throne of God (Revelation l2:10), he seeks also to impart his own nature and likeness to mortals with the effect that they constantly find fault with each other-and with God (John 8:42-47).

Thus the warnings of Yeshua: "Anyone who says 'You fool!' will he in danger of the fire of hell" (Matthew 5:22) and James the apostle: "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness . . . My brothers, this should not be"(James 3:9-10). Talmudic scholarship also reflects this insight: R. Tanhuma b. Abba (350-375 C. E.) said, "If you act in this manner [despising your fellowman], know Who it is you despise, for `in the image of God made He man.²

The Creator's unchanging commitment to His image in man and the satanic struggle against His purpose is an essential factor in the interpretation of human history and development. Any concern to discover our true humanity-as defined and intended by the Creator-is sure to meet with satanic opposition.

The paradox is that the very hostility of the evil one serves to emphasize the urgency of our task. This, as we shall see, places a unique importance on the Jewish roots message.

GOD IN MAN'S IMAGE!

Of course, if it is true that Man is to some extent "like God," it is equally true that God is, in some respect, "like man" (Hebrews 2:17)-although we can only marvel at the mystery of divine humility. This gracious reality also has its satanic parody in the myriads of cults and religious systems where the focus of "worship" is a creature-an animal, a river, a tree, another man perhaps-which is designated "God" instead of the Creator (Romans I :25; I Corinthians 10:20).

 Were it possible for Satan's pride to suffer deeper humiliation than the exaltation of the human race, more bitterness was in store in what "Screwtape" (C. S. Lewis' fictional devil) called the "discreditable episode" of the incarnation.³ Man made in the image of God was bad enough from the Accuser's point of view-but God in the image of man? Satan's anger at the Messiah's birth must have known no bounds. Herod's murder of "Rachel's children" is a mere glimpse of Hell's fury (Matthew 2: 16-18).

The Incarnation was indeed a gigantic theological surprise for the powers of jealousy, but its strategic value in spiritual warfare terms was incalculable. Hence the fatal miscalculation by the powers of this age (I Corinthians 2:8).

Rage brings its own peculiar form of blindness, and the devil's is no exception. Whereas it must have seem that murder (the Satanic attempt to reverse creation) would provide the "final solution" to the problem of Yeshua the God-Man, the reality was quite different. The Creator had counted upon Satan's murderous inclinations, and He was not mistaken (Acts 4:27-28).

GOD IN MAN'S PLACE!

Only Almighty Goodness could have foreseen that death would be powerless against a truly Perfect Man. Thus, incarnation was only the precursor of yet another Master-stroke-namely, substitution of the righteous for the unrighteous, the pure for the soiled, the vindicated for the condemned (John 1:29; I Peter 3:18). If there was one lesson Satan learned the hard way, it was that only the One who is truly God gets to write the rules!

On its own, the incarnation would have been nothing more than a divine parlor trick, a cosmic version of "the Prince and the Pauper" where the King-to-be goes around disguised amongst His people. It might have made for amusing theological conundrum, but it would not have changed the lot of sinners. Coupled with the willingness of this God to suffer the punishment for sin in place of His creatures, the enfleshment of divinity had nuclear repercussions for the dominion of darkness. Yeshua's "descent into hell" was not the celebration Satan had anticipated!

YESHUA-THE FULLNESS

When the Son of Man rose from the dead, He was the perfected prototype of a new fully-human race, the first of "new creation." In Yeshua we see a fuller humanity than Adam lost in the Fall. "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation… For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him…" Colossians 1:15,19). Such a statement could never have been appropriate of Adam, even before the fall. There is a humanity which indicates the Creator's existence-as a shadow indicates the existence of the substance it represents, as a watch suggests the existence of a watchmaker. There is another humanity which reveals the Creator's own character, personality and work. This humanity is not dignity, but is in such close kinship with the Creator as to be the exact representation of his being" (Hebrews 1:3). Through faith in Yeshua's Name, "we are children of God", John 5:19). We are not God, nor do we expect to become God, but as children, we expect to bear (and reveal) His likeness to an extent that was not true of Adam even before the Fall.

God's provision of atonement in anticipation of the creation of man means that, even before the Fall, Adam was less capable of revealing the Creator than the One in whom God caused all His "fullness" to dwell. Humanity has never been seen in such perfection and completeness as that of the Son of Man when He walked the earth. However, this is no basis for our discouragement but rather its opposite. Paul saw with crystal clarity the central miracle of the New Covenant: "Christ in you, the hope of glory"(Colossians 2:27). He was equally clear that God had not turned back the clock to perform cosmetic surgery on Adam's line. What the apostle saw was restoration not by recycling the old humanity, but by replacement. "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (II Corinthians 5:17).

The astonishing hope of the gospel is that everything Yeshua is in His humanity, we who believe shall become by the grace of God in redemption (John 1:12-13). Note: "in his humanity." There is no suggestion that God is reproducing Himself. We are not destined to become clones of God! This would be absurd, since if everyone is God, no one is God! Several modern cults espouse this theory of divine reproduction. Such thinking is typical of today's New Age slogans: "Realize your potential," "Be all you can be," You are a god."

There is no question that reproduction figures in God's plan, but it is the reproduction of perfected humanity, not of divinity, which is in view. Jesus is "the firstborn among many brothers" (Romans 8:29). "We . . .are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory" (II Corinthians 3:18). "We shall be like him" (I John 3:2). Our Biblical hope is that each of us who trusts Yeshua as Saviour and Lord will be transformed into His human likeness-as children perfected for obedience to the One True God and Father who created all things.

THE MEANS IS NOT THE END

In Yeshua, we see everything that it means to be made in the image of God: "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). This is humanity at its finest and most complete. This is Jewishness defined and perfected. When, to our shame, we have imagined (and insisted) that Jews need to become like us Gentiles in order to follow their Jewish Messiah, we have erred greatly.

"It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master, " said Jesus (Matthew 10:25). The great racial irony of Christian history is that it is we Gentiles who, as disciples of Rabbi Yeshua b. David b. Adonai, are on the way to becoming as Jewish as it is possible to be!

If we have mistaken our roots, we have often, perhaps for connected reasons, misrepresented the nature and scope of the Gospel. All too often, we restrict and devalue salvation by equating it with "getting saved." It is wonderfully true that Yeshua is our Savior. To have our eyes opened by the conviction of the Holy Spirit, to see our great need of forgiving grace, and to discover His redeeming love as we reach out to Him in repentance and faith is rescue indeed (Colossians 1:13). He does save those who call out to Him. But the means is not the end. Rescue is not God's goal for our lives-it is the means by which we can start towards the goal. Thus the New Testament speaks not of "getting saved," but of "being saved." Solomon too understood this principle: "The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day" (Proverbs 4:18).

It is tragically possible for rescue to be wasted on be- believers. Ananias, Sapphira, and Simon Magus are among the names of those who held right beliefs which disguised wrong hearts. Simon, we are told "believed and was baptized, " but he was "full of bitterness and captive to sin" (Acts 8:23). God's will for those He saves is nothing less than that they should be "conformed to the image of His Son." The devil is not afraid of mere believers. He's a believer too! (James 2:19). It's God who makes him tremble, especially when the Creator's image is manifested in mortal men and women.

"NOT OURSELVES"

Paul aimed to "make Israel envious." Significantly, he sought to stimulate this envy, by showing not himself, but Yeshua to his fellow Jews. In worldly terms, Paul had enjoyed the finest and best of what it was to be a "Hebrew of Hebrews," but he saw Yeshua as the epitome of Jewishness-the only One whose life demonstrated fully what God had always intended for Abraham's children. "We preach not

ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as his servants for your sakes." It was the apostolic joy that "[Yeshua's] life may be revealed in our mortal body" (II Corinthians 4:11 ). For the apostles, the 'surest way to show Yeshua was to be a disciple-and to make disciples of others.

When we need a paradigm for discipleship, our role model is no particular disciple, but the Master Himself. Only He defines and exemplifies our aspirations. Similarly, those of us who study to recover our Jewish heritage also cover that the focal point is not so much a particular Jewishness as a particular Jew-"The Man Christ Jesus "

Any conviction we have of the need to get the Church connected to her Jewish Roots is fired by a powerful discovery: that the Root is Yeshua (Revelation 5:5; 22:16), the "connectedness" produces authentic discipleship (John 15:5; Colossians 2:19), and that the quest for our lost Jewishness is about learning to put on our "new self which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator" (Colossians 3:10). The first disciples did not renounce their Jewish heritage. Rather, they saw themselves as enriched and completed in their discovery of Messiah. Yeshua was and is "the Key of David," the One whose divine authority and perfected human submission unlocks the fullest understanding of Israel's patriarchal hopes "to the Jew first, and also to the Greek" (Romans 1:16).

Speaking of the "new self," Paul said: "Here, there is Greek or Jew . . ." (Colossians 3:11), and we agree.

Our hope is not that we may become more like Jews, or less like Greeks, but that we may become more like the one who is perfect Jew and perfect man, Yeshua HaMashiach. Becoming Jewish is not our goal, but rather becoming like Him (I John 3:2). It happens that, in God's sovereign choice of the Jewish people to be a light to the nations, the perfected humanity to which we aspire is that of a Jewish Man. In this respect, the Gentile attempt to assimilate the Jew-and its Judaizing counterpart-both miss the point. Properly understood, Jewishness is not just another cultural identity, but a prototype of human fellowship with the Creator-a fellowship based on holiness.

SET APART

It may be an obvious point, but the paradigm of Jewishness is of divine, not human, origin! This is not to be frivolous. The descendants of Shem had no distinctive role in the global family until God said to one of them: "Leave your country, your people, and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation" (Genesis 12:1). It was God's initiative which set apart a people for Himself and ensured their distinctiveness by means of covenant (berith), commandment (mitzvah), and instruction (Torah).

Thus, the essence of Jewishness is a God-given distinctiveness. Even Israel's enemies have noted the uniqueness of the Jews, albeit as an excuse for persecution (Esther :8). At heart, anti-Semitism is hell's hatred of holiness.

However, the great purpose of this holiness was never isolation from the rest of humanity, but isolation from sin, and thus provision of a light to guide the rest of the nations out of darkness back into that same fellowship with the Creator. In complete continuity with the prophets of Israel, Peter saw the Body of the Messiah from this perspective: "You are a chosen people, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light"(Isaiah 49:6;1 Peter 1:9). Writing towards the end of his life, Peter thus understood the purpose of the Commission he and others had received from the Lord before He ascended to glory (Matthew 5:14; 28:18-20).

If we forget the divine initiative in the emergence of the Jewish identity, we divorce it from its place in His plan to restore His image in humanity as a whole, and we reduce it to just another ethnic label. Prophets and apostles alike were always clear that there was a false (i.e. man-made) as well as a true Jewishness (Jeremiah 4:4; 9:25; Romans 2:29). Suffice it that the existence of the false is never reason to reject the true.

LABELS DEVALUED

If we permit that Yeshua is God's definition of Jewishness, we are no longer at risk of devaluing any race. Rather, we devalue human labels and put forward a new definition of the one human race. This, of course, would be a working premise for intercession and evangelization-and the goal of discipleship. People of a worldly and "ethnic" viewpoint could be excused for interpreting the Biblical hope here expressed as "racism"! (I Corinthians 2:14).

For this reason, we must stress that we speak of the Creator's goal, not man's. The herrenvolk was the perverted imposition of human arrogance, whereas the spirit of adoption is the extravagant offer of divine condescension and generosity. Evangelism and proselytism could never be allies, anymore than love and lust could share the same motivation.

To be conformed to Yeshua's image is to gain more than Adam lost. It had always been the Creator's intention that Adam's humanity would be filled out more and more until he bore an unmistakable family likeness to his Father. This is attested by the learning process to which God's own incarnate Son was subjected (Hebrews 5:8). Likewise, apostolic doctrine affirms that the divine plan remains unchanged. "We . . . are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory . . . " (II Corinthians 3. I8).

IMPARIED EYESIGHT

Paul had a clear sense of direction. In seeking to "make Israel envious," his discipling strategy was simple: "Copy me as I copy Christ" (I Corinthians 4:16). Imitation is the heart of discipleship but this implies a clear view of the original role model. For the first leaders of the Church, there was no need of a Jewish Roots message! It is not as though Scripture fails to offer a clear view, but that the church has impaired eyesight. Her spectacles are heavily tinted by centuries of Gentile perspectives which obscure Jesus the Jew-and the relevance of His Jewish heritage-from modern eyes.

Given that our commission from the Master is to "make disciples," it is a matter of some urgency that we recover the fullest possible appreciation of how His first hearers would have understood His words and ministry.

It must be self-evident that much of our modern discipleship is less than authentic. By this we mean not in style or in the detail of religious observance, but in understanding of the Master's words and devotion to His way. Two small examples will suffice. On the day of His resurrection, the Lord gave the ultimate impromptu Bible study to two disconsolate souls on the Emmaus Road. How many of His modern followers, armed with nothing but the Old Testament Scriptures, could help today's Jewish people find their Messiah in "Moses and all the prophets"? Or again how many of today's believers (or preachers!) have an unambiguous understanding of Messiah's teaching: "If your eyes are good," [AV "If . . . thine eye be single"-more literal] "your whole body will be full of light…" (Matthew 6:22)? Many opinions have produced as many sermons on this text. But Judaic Christian scholars have been able to show us that the first century Hebrew mind had no such difficulty. They knew by common usage that Yeshua was referring to a "charitable or generous disposition"- this, he said, would make the very nature of God shine from their lives!

In effect, the young itinerant rabbi from Nazareth was saying, "Imitate Me:' This fact also would not have been lost on His Jewish hearers. It was assumed that a Jewish teacher's intent was not merely to impart knowledge, but to impart, by example, his own particular way of life to his disciples. In the case of Yeshua, those who were inspired to imitate Him were - albeit unwittingly - manifesting the image of God in their lives.

"BUT I TELL YOU . . ."

Thus, Yeshua's teaching went far beyond that of other rabbis. "You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your, neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your father in heaven " (Matthew 5:43-45, emphasis added).

The New Covenant, fulfilled not only in Yeshua's teaching but also in the shedding of His lifeblood and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in disciples, is therefore the covenant of new birth, a new start. Regeneration is re-parenting, the sovereign gift of a whole new ancestry, with Yeshua as the firstborn of many brothers. The Spirit testifies to this adoption by which we cry, "Abba, Father!", as children of God saved by grace.

"Children"-what a liberating word! It refers to those who require training and nurturing. When learning to walk, they sometimes fall; but that does not mean that they do not have their Father's nature. It just means they are . . . children! When learning to submit to His authority, they are sometimes stubborn and willful; but that does not erase their parentage, it merely disguises it for a time. When they walk a straight line and give glad obedience to their Father, they reveal who they really are and whose they are.

"The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work" (I John 3:8) Satan's ancient racism has backfired. When he engineered the crucifixion of the incarnate Son of God, he could not foresee that this One Death would perfect and secure forever countless numbers of the very race he sought to destroy. Today, the Master's Race has spread invincibly over the planet, and it is the generation of the wicked that will not stand!

When the devil coaxed Eve with "you will be like God," he was, as always, close enough to the truth to be deceptive. The power of the lie was such that it made the first man and woman go in search of something they had already received, the likeness of their Creator Father. To the extent that we become more like Yeshua, we simultaneously reconnect with our Judaic heritage and begin the return journey of the Spirit towards our full humanity-the true image of God.

LEARNING TO UNLEARN

Indeed it is a "return journey." The way forward is the way back. There is an emptying which must precede any filling. Restoration also involves eradication. Learning is completed by "unlearning." Thankfully, as God's Word affords fresh illumination to our lives, darkness moves out at the speed of light! (Psalm I 19:130-AV). In a sense, the Jewish Roots ministry is an echo in our time of the prophetic words of the Puritan pastor, John Robinson, who affirmed: "The Lord hath yet more light and truth to break forth from His Word. " Not "new" light, but "more."

When the recovery of our Judaic heritage also means that we grow into the likeness of the One who is the "image of the invisible God," discipleship becomes another name for "spiritual warfare." To such as reject the way of self-seeking and bear the image of the Servant King, the powers of darkness can never say: "Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?" (Acts 19:15).

As Paul said, "The mystery of godliness is great; He appeared in a body . . ." ( 1 Timothy 3:16). The mystery continues as the great paradox of sainthood. As we grow into the likeness of our God and Savior, we become more human every day! "Let us make man in our image . . . " (Genesis 1:26).