Similarly, spiritually-grounded Christians could not view Jesus as anything but the Word made flesh, through whom God made all things, through whom God would also redeem all things. They accepted at face value the words recounted in the Gospel of John: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

For such Jews and Christians, another way of reconciliation must be found. Both believe that there is only one covenant that provides a roadmap for God’s purposes in history—that which God makes with the family of Jacob, Rachel, and Leah. But might that one covenant include two distinct but inseparable paths?

This is the view held by Messianic Jews. The one covenant summons the physical descendants of the patriarchs and matriarchs to chart their course as a particular nation in the midst of the world, bearing witness to the God who called them. The same covenant empowers a multitude from among the nations to become spiritual descendants of the patriarchs and matriarchs, extended family of the Jewish people, and fellow witnesses to the God of the covenant.

This one covenant finds its definitive realization in the person of Yeshua the Messiah. He confirms the ancestral promises, travels with Israel through its centuries of exile, and provides by his resurrection a certain pledge of Jerusalem’s eschatological future. He also opens the way of access to Israel’s God for the nations of the world.

One covenant, with two distinct but inseparable paths—which culminate in one redemption. May the cry resound from both paths, “Come Yeshua, speedily, in our days!”