I haven't really voiced it much over the years, but for a long time I have thought about how the Gentile Christian and Messianic Jews, when we are joined together in the oneness God has planned for us will be revealed to be much closer to a marriage than we might have thought.
In Ephesians 5 Paul said "this mystery is profound"
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, but I am speaking about Messiah and the ekklesia. 33 Nevertheless, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
A man must leave his father and mother and becomes united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This will be hard to hear for Messianic Jews because retaining their Jewishness to their people who are not yet saved is essential. Still every Messianic Jew has to see the Gentile believers they are uniting with as God calls us to as the same spiritual connection as they have with the family of Jews.
Like a husband leaves his father and mother to cleave to his wife, making her his family now - he doesn't need to walk away from this father and mother like they don't count anymore. The love and connection is still there, but the priority connection is between husband and wife, between the spiritually restored Messianic Jews and the Christians who will enter into relationship with each other to fulfill God's priorities. God wants this. It is not a rejection of where we came from, but a holy dedication to where God wants to take us together as we become one in Yeshua/Jesus.
I wouldn't translate ekklesia as the "church" because that is thinking in Gentile Christian mindset only. Ekklesia from Jewish Paul/Sha'ul's understanding of the mysteries of God's intention to make of two "one new man" is far more in line with referring both to Christians and Messianic Jews - called out ones who have come to Jesus/Yeshua and who will be made one, like in the marriage terms Paul is saying here is a profound mystery.
Brushing aside modern rationalizations of equality, the marriage between a husband and wife is also a oneness before God that is sacred and equal in spiritual standing. There is a marriage principle according to God that the husband is the "head" of the wife, and Yeshua/Jesus is the "head" of the man.
As 1 Cor 11 explains it: "8 For man did not come from woman, but woman from man. 9 Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. 10 For this reason a woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels."
It doesn't matter what any spiritual woman thinks of that because it only matters that Paul got that from God, not man. This goes back all the way to Genesis 3 unchanged.
So if we see the mystery of God's ekklesia as profoundly like marriage, then we must also see that first came the Messianic Jews, like a husband in the relationship with God's whole ekklesia including the Church, that was created out of the Jewish people - the Chosen People in the Promised Land. These Jewish believers in Yeshua were specifically the first fruits of salvation in Yeshua that took place before He fulfilled His sacrifice as the Lamb of God on Passover and afterwards. Many thousands came to faith, and took the faith out into the world to the nations.
Now faith increasing among Jews in the fullness of times, the growth of the Messianic body of Messiah, the remnant of faith are standing in the profound mystery of a marriage, like a husband. Christians, having been dominating the faith for so long, have a hard time realizing her spiritual "husband" when she see the Messianic Jews. She sees Messianic Jews as 'too stern' with the views they carry of how to walk with God in HIS ways, not our ways. The Church is so like a single mom who possesses great nurturing instinct for her children, but lacks greatly in the orderly authority a father brings to his family.
Can you see that? God has gifted men and women in their intrinsic nature to bring unique gifts to a marriage and family. Now we may have been nurtured by worldly mindsets to be Beta men and Alpha women, but God who created us, endowed us intrinsically to be just the opposite. Can we override how He made us and do things opposite? Yes we can, but it will be unnatural and it will not bless our families as it we surrendered our being to what God wants from us. Many women think they have just hardened themselves for survival, but I believe that no woman who is truly surrendered to God is in danger of Him not looking out for her. Weapons may form against her, but He has given us authority to stay in our Creation-design and be protected by Him.
I have long believed that Christians did not understand what Messianic Jews bring to the table from what God has given them. The Church has operated for so long without the benefit of what God has invested in the Jewish people in understanding Him. The Church is like a wife who spurns her husband's leadership in their family. When you have fended for yourself, it is difficult accepting that God made provision to wives (and the Church) to receive from their husbands (Messianic Jews) the things God put in their nature from the beginning.
In addressing the consequences of the Fall in Genesis 3, God held the husband more responsible than his wife coming into deception from the serpent. The reason was because God made the husband to be "the head" over his wife. It is a chain of command that many women, and now men, reject but it is from God. It can be overruled in our lives by choice, but the consequences of not recognizing the safety net God provided will always be negative.
Just lately I am beginning to see that like the God-given motherly nurturing of wives, the Messianic Jews also have much to learn from the nurturing instinct of Christians. (Current cancel culture vulturing aside). Messianic Jews can get as overly attached to expressing God's law & order just as easily as the Church can go overboard in "sloppy agape."
The truth is God is out to create something new out of our union in Messiah Yeshua, and it is a 'more perfect' union where there is accountability, orderliness, as well as nurturing, restoration. . .and above all else, forgiveness for each other and all the family members.
UPDATE: There is something more that God intends for the final level of unity between Jewish and Gentile believers in the end, as Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:15. Yes we are all one body, but the ACTUAL unity between us is SUPER LOW! A marriage that only comes to the measure of unity that we have attained between Messianic Jews and Christians would be a very troubled marriage.
What God is looking for is more on the lines of a marriage made in Heaven, where both parties - husband and wife - are different but equal. Their roles given by God are different, but God does not value one above the other, and neither do they. They fulfill the roles He has given them each - different roles - so their union is blessed and gives God glory as a witness.
Genesis 3:6 Adam was with Eve when the serpent was tempting her to go against God's command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was Adam's responsibility to God and to Eve to step in and be the authority who stopped her from entering into that sin. He didn't and in fact, when she handed the fruit to Adam, he also entered into her sin by also eating it.
To me this speaks of the knowledge God has invested in the Jewish people who know the commands of God in a much deeper way than most Christians do or ever did. First because Christian forefathers ignored Jewish thought on God's Word. There are so many things they got wrong because the didn't seek the understanding Messianic Jewish have on what God invested in them to know His standards of morality and ethics. It is a rejection that has hurt us, but God is restoring this knowledge to us, as I said earlier, we have to receive what the Messianic Jews have to bring to the table for us. And they must receive the beautiful things that Christians bring to the table also - the nurturing nature of the church, like a wife and mother whose heart is toward her children.
Our acceptance of each other is for our good and for God's glory.
In Ephesians 5 Paul said "this mystery is profound"
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, but I am speaking about Messiah and the ekklesia. 33 Nevertheless, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
A man must leave his father and mother and becomes united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This will be hard to hear for Messianic Jews because retaining their Jewishness to their people who are not yet saved is essential. Still every Messianic Jew has to see the Gentile believers they are uniting with as God calls us to as the same spiritual connection as they have with the family of Jews.
Like a husband leaves his father and mother to cleave to his wife, making her his family now - he doesn't need to walk away from this father and mother like they don't count anymore. The love and connection is still there, but the priority connection is between husband and wife, between the spiritually restored Messianic Jews and the Christians who will enter into relationship with each other to fulfill God's priorities. God wants this. It is not a rejection of where we came from, but a holy dedication to where God wants to take us together as we become one in Yeshua/Jesus.
I wouldn't translate ekklesia as the "church" because that is thinking in Gentile Christian mindset only. Ekklesia from Jewish Paul/Sha'ul's understanding of the mysteries of God's intention to make of two "one new man" is far more in line with referring both to Christians and Messianic Jews - called out ones who have come to Jesus/Yeshua and who will be made one, like in the marriage terms Paul is saying here is a profound mystery.
Brushing aside modern rationalizations of equality, the marriage between a husband and wife is also a oneness before God that is sacred and equal in spiritual standing. There is a marriage principle according to God that the husband is the "head" of the wife, and Yeshua/Jesus is the "head" of the man.
As 1 Cor 11 explains it: "8 For man did not come from woman, but woman from man. 9 Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. 10 For this reason a woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels."
It doesn't matter what any spiritual woman thinks of that because it only matters that Paul got that from God, not man. This goes back all the way to Genesis 3 unchanged.
So if we see the mystery of God's ekklesia as profoundly like marriage, then we must also see that first came the Messianic Jews, like a husband in the relationship with God's whole ekklesia including the Church, that was created out of the Jewish people - the Chosen People in the Promised Land. These Jewish believers in Yeshua were specifically the first fruits of salvation in Yeshua that took place before He fulfilled His sacrifice as the Lamb of God on Passover and afterwards. Many thousands came to faith, and took the faith out into the world to the nations.
Now faith increasing among Jews in the fullness of times, the growth of the Messianic body of Messiah, the remnant of faith are standing in the profound mystery of a marriage, like a husband. Christians, having been dominating the faith for so long, have a hard time realizing her spiritual "husband" when she see the Messianic Jews. She sees Messianic Jews as 'too stern' with the views they carry of how to walk with God in HIS ways, not our ways. The Church is so like a single mom who possesses great nurturing instinct for her children, but lacks greatly in the orderly authority a father brings to his family.
Can you see that? God has gifted men and women in their intrinsic nature to bring unique gifts to a marriage and family. Now we may have been nurtured by worldly mindsets to be Beta men and Alpha women, but God who created us, endowed us intrinsically to be just the opposite. Can we override how He made us and do things opposite? Yes we can, but it will be unnatural and it will not bless our families as it we surrendered our being to what God wants from us. Many women think they have just hardened themselves for survival, but I believe that no woman who is truly surrendered to God is in danger of Him not looking out for her. Weapons may form against her, but He has given us authority to stay in our Creation-design and be protected by Him.
I have long believed that Christians did not understand what Messianic Jews bring to the table from what God has given them. The Church has operated for so long without the benefit of what God has invested in the Jewish people in understanding Him. The Church is like a wife who spurns her husband's leadership in their family. When you have fended for yourself, it is difficult accepting that God made provision to wives (and the Church) to receive from their husbands (Messianic Jews) the things God put in their nature from the beginning.
In addressing the consequences of the Fall in Genesis 3, God held the husband more responsible than his wife coming into deception from the serpent. The reason was because God made the husband to be "the head" over his wife. It is a chain of command that many women, and now men, reject but it is from God. It can be overruled in our lives by choice, but the consequences of not recognizing the safety net God provided will always be negative.
Just lately I am beginning to see that like the God-given motherly nurturing of wives, the Messianic Jews also have much to learn from the nurturing instinct of Christians. (Current cancel culture vulturing aside). Messianic Jews can get as overly attached to expressing God's law & order just as easily as the Church can go overboard in "sloppy agape."
The truth is God is out to create something new out of our union in Messiah Yeshua, and it is a 'more perfect' union where there is accountability, orderliness, as well as nurturing, restoration. . .and above all else, forgiveness for each other and all the family members.
UPDATE: There is something more that God intends for the final level of unity between Jewish and Gentile believers in the end, as Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:15. Yes we are all one body, but the ACTUAL unity between us is SUPER LOW! A marriage that only comes to the measure of unity that we have attained between Messianic Jews and Christians would be a very troubled marriage.
What God is looking for is more on the lines of a marriage made in Heaven, where both parties - husband and wife - are different but equal. Their roles given by God are different, but God does not value one above the other, and neither do they. They fulfill the roles He has given them each - different roles - so their union is blessed and gives God glory as a witness.
Genesis 3:6 Adam was with Eve when the serpent was tempting her to go against God's command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was Adam's responsibility to God and to Eve to step in and be the authority who stopped her from entering into that sin. He didn't and in fact, when she handed the fruit to Adam, he also entered into her sin by also eating it.
To me this speaks of the knowledge God has invested in the Jewish people who know the commands of God in a much deeper way than most Christians do or ever did. First because Christian forefathers ignored Jewish thought on God's Word. There are so many things they got wrong because the didn't seek the understanding Messianic Jewish have on what God invested in them to know His standards of morality and ethics. It is a rejection that has hurt us, but God is restoring this knowledge to us, as I said earlier, we have to receive what the Messianic Jews have to bring to the table for us. And they must receive the beautiful things that Christians bring to the table also - the nurturing nature of the church, like a wife and mother whose heart is toward her children.
Our acceptance of each other is for our good and for God's glory.
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