Monday, April 19, 2010

Yeshua means God's Salvation

Yoseph & Miriam took their new Son to the Temple to be circumcised on the 8th day according to the command of God. They named Him Yeshua, which means God's Salvation.

In every language the Name of Jesus is powerful, but I wish our translations had not obscured what His people called Him to His face: Yeshua - yehôshûa, God's Salvation, the Messiah. Yeshua HaMaschiah. His name is made of of two Hebrew root words - yeh-ho-vaw' GOD and yâshaŹ½ salvation.

To not understand Jesus first as a Hebrew boy named Yeshua, born of God to be the prophesied Messiah of Israel, is a disconnect from reality.
We are also used to the term "Christ" but it is the term AND concept of "Messiah" that is the foundation laid by all the prophets - our faith is built on the foundation of the prophets (of the Old Covenant) and the apostles (of the New Covenant).
The prophets of today may be continuing to experience non-acceptance of their role in five-fold New Testament ministry because they have failed to hear and heed what God spoke through the foundations laid by the prophets of Old about Israel. Selah.

I am not quibbling over semantics here. The concept of Messiah is necessary for Jews of all times to understand their own connection to Him who is the Messiah of Israel. Otherwise, they can go on thinking this "Jesus Christ" is just some Christian god that has nothing to do with them.

Why don't we get it? Jews cannot relate to what a "Christ" is, but they all know well what the Messiah means.
They cannot relate the Christian Jesus Christ to the Messiah prophesied for Israel's salvation. The name "Yeshua" is, in fact,purposeful and He was pointedly named - Salvation. It is the same root of the name of Joshua (yehôshûa), who was a prophetic type of the Messiah to come who would lead "all Israel" into the promised Kingdom.

This article was not conceived in order wrestle over terminology or to debate who is right and who is wrong, but for the real issue at stake: the salvation of Israel that is in progress. In our Christian insistence of not recognizing God's purposes in the foundations of our faith that were laid in the prophets of Old FOR THE SAKE OF ISRAEL's SALVATION of how we refer to Him, we become a stumbling block to faith for the Jewish people.

We don't own "Christ" - the Messiah is the salvation of us all - Jew and Gentile.

Some may say, well, all these thousands of years the Jewish people have not recognized that Yeshua was the Messiah, so what difference does it make? The difference is timing. Specifically: God's timing.

The blindness of Israel to their own Messiah was according to the plan of God, this is explained by the apostle Paul - the apostle to the gentiles - in Romans 9-11. The purpose of Israel's blinding was in the plan of God to open the door of salvation to all the nations - not just to Israel.

"For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" Romans 11:32-33

Paul is exclaiming, the human mind has a difficult time laying hold of this "judgment" or plan of God, but in His wisdom, God spoke blindness upon Israel to the Messiah IN ORDER THAT He might open up salvation to all the nations beyond Israel and including Israel again in the end.

That word in verse 32, For God hath "concluded" them all in unbelief - concluded means "to shut together" or "enclose in a common subjection" to unbelief.

Israel's unbelief was a God-thing! It was according to the plan of God from the foundation of the world because "God so loved the world." The whole world - all mankind, Israel and every other nation was always in the heart of God's Salvation. That is why Paul breaks out in praise of the "riches of both the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out."
God's plan makes no sense to the human mind, but it is spiritually perceived - but God's plan was in His Mind from the beginning.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:9

Israel did not stumble that they should fall, Paul stresses in Romans 11:11, "Certainly not! But through their fall...salvation has come to the Gentiles." Paul goes on in verse 15 to ask a rhetorical question, "For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?"
Clearly, the Apostle to the Gentiles taught there would be an acceptance of Israel into salvation in the timing and plan of God. There are hints throughout the Hebrew scriptures of this plan, just as there are plenty of hints about what would happen in the life of Yeshua when the Messiah would be born in Israel.

In Deuteronomy 29:4 Moses called all Israel and said to them that the LORD did mighty miracles before their eyes, "Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day."

What we understand from the Word of God is not due to our brilliance or faithfulness, it is a gift of God, lest any should boast. We cannot perceive His truth unless He gives us a "heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear."

The apostle Paul says in Romans 11:25-27 that he would not have us (Christians) ignorant of this great mystery:
"lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part has befallen Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.

I firmly believe that self-pride is the legal cause of spiritual blindness, as Paul told the Christians in this Roman letter not to be "wise in your own self-estimation" so you would not miss the great mystery behind the partial blindness that befell Israel. Thousands in Israel DID believe that Yeshua was the Messiah and what they possessed was a humility instead of pride that allowed them to perceive the Truth.

But where does that leave us today as so much of what I call the "cutting edge Church," those that are operating in the gifts of the Holy Spirit? Indeed,the very prophetic portion of the Church that are possessing and teaching of our inheritance in Him, are also GUILTY of having NO VISION for the plan of God that is being revealed in the current harvest underway of "all Israel" just as the apostle Paul predicted?

Are the Jews really more faithless people than all the non-Jewish nations? Is this really what we Christians think, that we are so much better than Israel in the natural that we can believe what they could not believe just because of spiritual superiority?

If so, we need to get over ourselves and just read what the Word has to say about all that. Otherwise, we show ourselves full of unbelief because the Word of God clearly spells out that God blinded the spiritual eyes and ears of Israel FOR HIS PURPOSES to widen the net of salvation beyond Israel to all the nations.

Isaiah 6: 9-10 is a prophetic proclamation spoken over Israel specifically regarding their coming spiritual blindness to the Messiah. "And He said, “Go, and tell this people:

‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
“Make the heart of this people dull,
And their ears heavy,
And shut their eyes;
Lest they see with their eyes,
And hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart,
And return and be healed.”


Why would God put a blindness on the people of Israel "lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their eats, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed?" So that God could "conclude" them all in unbelief and widen His Salvation to all the nations of the world - including Israel.

God did not (and does not) hate and repudiate Israel, the spiritual blindness was for a season. He had (as has) every intention of removing the scales of blindness in His own timing and for His own stated purposes to turn away all ungodliness from Jacob.

At the end of the age, the spiritual scales of blindness like those that were upon the eyes of the apostle Paul, are being removed, and Israel will increasingly be able to see that the Messiah of Israel has come in the form of the Son of man, Yeshua, perfectly fulfilling the the prophecies of Israel's Messiah.

This is why we Christians need to lighten up and realize that Israel has paid a price too - FOR OUR SAKES - in the big picture of God's plan of salvation for man.

Is it such a big obstacle to us to embrace that a Jewish child was born of a Jewish virgin. She named Yeshua according to His destiny to be God's Salvation - the Messiah, not only of Israel but for all the nations?

Can we Christians put our feelings of insecurity aside about "the Chosen People" and look upon those fields and spiritually perceive the fields are white unto harvest?

1 comment:

Isabelle Esling said...

Thanks for your insightful article...Yeshua came to me in July 2014 to save me...He asked me to call Him Yeshua and revealed Himself to me as the Jewish Messiah:)