When the Apostolic Writings speak of “God,” they generally mean the Father of Messiah Yeshua—not Yeshua himself, nor an essence that Yeshua shared with the Father and the Spirit. Christian tradition diverged from this usage in order to guard its confession of the deity of Yeshua and the Oneness of God. While this linguistic development may have been necessary, it was also problematic.
Israel was chosen to be a priestly nation, the representative and vanguard of all creation in the worship of God. As its High Priest, Yeshua empowers Israel to fulfill its vocation of worship, and enables those from the nations to share in that vocation.
The letter to the Ephesians captures succinctly this work of the Messiah: “So he [Yeshua] came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off [i.e., Gentiles] and peace to those who were near [i.e., the Jewish people]; for through him both of us [Jews and Gentiles] have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Ephesians 2:17-18). The goal is universal worship of the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit.
"Born a Jew . . . raised a Jew . . . still a Jew”—this is what the Messianic Jewish community declares about the resurrected Yeshua, the root of Jesse, the king of Israel. It is also what Yeshua declares about himself at the end of the Apostolic Writings: “I am [present tense] the Root and the Offspring of David” (Rev 22:16).
Yeshua’s identity as the “son of David” is central to the gospel message. As Paul put it, “Remember Yeshua the Messiah, raised from the dead, a descendant of David—that is my gospel” (2 Tim 2:8). Note the order— “raised from the dead, descended from David.” Paul seems to imply here that the resurrected Yeshua remains a descendant of David. In describing his gospel to the congregation in Rome, Paul similarly emphasizes that Messiah is “descended from David according to the flesh” (Rom 1:3). He reminds the Gentile believers that the Messiah is an Israelite “according to the flesh” (Rom 9:5; cf. 15:12).
Viewing Yeshua as a risen Jew has implications for our understanding of Jewish and Gentile identity in Messiah. The debate over how to describe Yeshua’s divine-human nature (in the fifth–seventh centuries) required a vocabulary rich in nuances to explain how the Messiah’s humanity coexisted with his divinity without diminishment of either nature. This vocabulary can also be utilized to explain how new creation identity and Jewish identity1 (as well as new creation identity and Gentile identity) coexist in union, without one diminishing the other.
I am presently teaching a class on Matthew (Seminar in Besorot) so I am wading through this first book of the Apostolic Writings. Most Messianic Jews know that Matthew identifies Yeshua as the son of Abraham in the opening line of his besorah (gospel)—“This is the genealogy of Yeshua the Messiah, son of David, son of Avraham” (Matt 1:1)—but have you ever noticed that Matthew seems to return to this theme at the end of his narrative?
Matthew begins his besorah by identifying Yeshua with Abraham who commences the story of Israel’s Messiah. Emphasis on Abraham then recurs at the conclusion of the genealogy when Matthew summarizes the genealogical chain that links Yeshua to Abraham, “Thus there were four- teen generations from Avraham to David, fourteen generations from David to the Babylonian Exile, and fourteen generations from the Babylonian Exile to the Messiah” (Matt 1:17).
God’s concern for the Gentiles is another literary theme in Matthew 1. The mention of Gentiles who joined themselves to Israel, such as Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Uriah, rep- resents a subtext that Abraham and his seed were called to bless the nations (Matt 1:3, 5, 6; cf. 2:1–2; 3:9; 8:11; Gen 12:2–3; 17:5; 18:18; 1 Macc 12:19–21).