As a lover of God, only willing to worship the One True God of Israel, it is important to find the way to come closer to Him. Believing that the Divine Creator gave His infallible Word (the Bible) to mankind and that His promises are words of truth that become a reality, a Jeshuaist has found that the Word spoken in the Gan Eden has been fulfilled by becoming in the flesh in 4 BCE.
The Jeshuaist believes the Nazarene Jew, born in Bethlehem, is that promised solution against the curse of death. His words and works are written down by his early followers, men of good faith in their God of Israel. Coming from all sorts of education they came to understand that this incredible teacher was the sent one from God, so often spoken off in the Hebrew Scriptures. By his words, parables and by his miracles that Jewish teacher, in his lifetime got several followers. In a way, being followers of Jeshua, they could have been called Jeshua-ists.
Today we do find so many who pretend to be following Jesus, whose real name was Jeshua, but clearly show that they are not following his teachings nor having the same God as Jesus. Jesus never worshipped himself as a godhead nor prayed to himself. He prayed to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of order and clarity, and showed others how they too had to worship that One Eternal Most High Almighty Elohim and should never worship worldly or human beings. When calling one self Christian, lots of people consider you then as someone who takes Jesus to be a god the son. Those who come from a Jewish family, being a Jew but willing to accept Jeshua as the Messiah, would feel very annoyed to be thought of as a worshipper of a three-headed god. First and ideally they would call themselves Messianic Jew, but there are Messianic Jews who adhere to another person than Jeshua as their Messiah. Also are there Messianic Jews who accept Jeshua as the Messiah but strangely enough make him also into their god. That would be unacceptable for any respecting Jew or for any lover of God who wants to stay a member of God’s Treasured or Chosen People or to be a worthy member of Christ his people or a partaker of the Body of Christ.
To make it clear Jeshuaists are no Christians who believe in a Trinity or no Jews who exchanged their God into a Three-headed god; Jeshua-ists are believers in Only One True God, who came to know Christ Jesus (Jeshua) and came to accept him as the sent one from God, to be a son of man and the son of God, who did not do his own will but managed to do the Will of God. Believing in that Son of God and not in a god the son, such Jeshuaists are real followers of the real Christ, and are believers in Something or Some One unseen.
Wanting to live a life they believe more closely resembling that of first-century followers of the Nazarene Jeshua or master teacher Jesus, the Jeshuaist finds it important to be keeping with God’s Will for today.
The Jeshuaist considers The Law or the Mitzvoth given in the Old Testament a gift from God for man to be a guide to life, something to be cherished and enjoyed, as well as something to be obeyed under penalty of punishment for disobedience. It is intimately bound up with the covenant wherein God graciously reiterated His relationship with His people. Though having come under Christ the Jeshuaist does not think they have to be following all the 613 taryag mitzvot, because we no longer have a Temple, or a priesthood, or live as a theocracy in the Land of Israel and are awaiting the theocratic government of Jeshua.
Jehsuaists do believe man is set free to make the best of his life in accordance to God His Will. Several of the commandments are still there for everybody to be kept, but goyim, heathen or atheists who become a believer in God and want to be a follower of Christ, do not have to follow the same rules as the ones who want to stay a Jew. As such the converts do not have to be circumcised and may eat certain products, like pork meat, if they want, though we still would like to see them following the kosher rules or state if possible. The Jeshuaist knows that it is not to man to restrict others, and that everything for God has to be done by their own personal conviction and free will. As such each individual shall have to be responsible before God.
The Law of Moses was part of a covenant that God made with Israel at a particular time and in a particular place. With the coming of Christ, the Brit Chadashah or New Covenant (or New Testament) prophesied by Jeremiah has come into effect and therefore we are no longer under the Old Covenant. The Brit Milah or covenant of circumcision may be finished but it is spiritually still fulfilled by the baptism by immersion in water and by spirit. To become a Jeshuaist one has to be convinced there is only One true God and that Jeshua is His sent one, who brought salvation to us by himself offering as a Lamb of God, paying a ransom for our sins.
Those who are physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, whether through the mother’s or the father’s blood-line, and consider themselves to be a follower of Judaism and its practices by agreeing to all the Judaic rules, only have to accept Jeshua as their Messiah, continue to be Jewish according to the Scriptures (Romans 2:28-29). They either have the choice to stay a Jew and fulfil the mitzvot given to Israel, the People of God, or can decide to become a Christian, and having to comply to lesser rules, though not expecting others to live in the same way as they do.
Gentiles or people of the nations who place their faith in Jeshua, are “grafted into” the Jewish olive tree of faith (Romans 11:17-25) becoming spiritual sons and daughters of Abraham (Galatians 3:28-29). Scripturally, the term “gentile‘ refers to someone who was born of non-Jewish parents and who did not identify himself with Israel through ritual conversion and circumcision. When willing to be part of Jeshua’s brotherhood the “Messianic gentile” and “Messianic Jew” could apply for citizenship in that community under Christ Jesus, becoming part of the New Covenant body of believers composed of both Jews and Gentiles who have received Jeshua the Messiah as the Promised Redeemer. Jews but also goyim or gentiles, who choose to follow the Messiah Jeshua (Jesus) can become part of the Jeshuaist community or Body of Christ, knowing that the “middle wall of partition” has been broken down and that to all of them the opportunity is given to worship the God of Israel together (1 Corinthians 12:13; Ephesians 2:13-14). The New Covenant broadens and deepens the requirements of the Law of Moses:
“For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required” (Luke 12:48).
To stress obedience to the Law of Moses without stressing the fuller applications of the principles embodied in those laws is to miss the point (Galatians 3:24).
Jeshuaists follow the Bible and take care not to be carried away by human teachings or human doctrines.
Though those gentiles who want to be a follower of Jeshua shall have to recognise that Jeshua was a Jew who followed the Jewish rules, and that even when one might be free to live less connected with Jewish rules and boundaries, there shall have to be a Jewish connection in their way of being united with Christ and that certain given days or festivals by God shall have to become part of their religious year. As such 14 and 15 Nisan as erev Pesach (Pasch) or Passover being the most important period of the year, remembering the exodus from Egypt and the exodus from the slavery of sin, by the ransom offering of Jeshua (Jesus Christ, the Messiah).
Gentiles seeking a more Jewish identity are not discouraged and may help increase a sense of unity between Jews and Gentiles. Though all have to know that by Jeshua all now have the opportunity to come to God and to be children of God. For rituals which may be offered by Jeshuaists the stress is on the importance of being a “spiritual” Jew more than a “physical” Jew and that we all have to come to live together as brothers and sisters in Christ, loving each other and respecting each other even when having a different way of life, as long as that life confirms with the Will of God given in the Biblical directions where one also must “read between the lines”, being aware of the intentions of the rules given and not as such taking everything literally.
Faith in Jeshua also has a crucial communal dimension. This faith unites the Messianic Jewish community and the Christian Church, which is the assembly of the faithful from the nations who are joined to Israel through the Messiah. Together the Messianic Jewish community and the Christian Church constitute the ekklesia or ecclesia, the one Body of Messiah, a community of Jews and Gentiles who in their ongoing distinction and mutual blessing anticipate the shalom of the world to come. That world is the hope Jeshuaists share with each other and do know is something others have to come to know also.
Following Jeshua means also following the task he has given to his disciples, to be a Witness for and before Jehovah God, Witnessing of and for Jeshua and of the Good News of the coming Kingdom of God. As edim or witnesses Jeshuaists show the world that Jesus is the Way to God, and that the world can not do without him.
Gentiles who want to become a Jeshuaist also have to bear witness to Jeshua within Am Yisra’el, the people of Israel and have to serve as an authentic and effective representative of the Jewish people within the body of Messiah, placing a priority on integration with the wider Jewish world, letting others know that Jerusalem shall become the capital of God’s Kingdom here on earth, having Christ Jeshua as the sovereign king.
Jeshuaism embraces the fullness of New Covenant realities available through rebbe Jeshua, and seeks to express them in forms drawn from Jewish experience and accessibility to Jewish people.
Immanuel Verbondskind - עמנואל קאָווענאַנט קינד 