Do Christians, Muslims, and Jews Worship the Same God? by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
Published: 2019-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

Was Christianity a New Religion?

So we return to the question: Did Jesus and Paul start a new religion, which would suggest that Christians and Jews worship different gods?

As I suggested above, Christians have had various reasons for saying yes to this question. One of the most important, and perhaps the one most widely used, has been the matter of Torah, the Jewish Law. Jesus set aside Torah, it has been said, and Paul said Torah is no longer binding, for Messiah Jesus has become the new Torah. Only his words, and the words of his inspired followers who wrote the New Testament, are binding on Christians anymore.

But what if it turns out that Jesus had no intention of setting aside Torah but saw himself as teaching and embodying the inner meaning of the Law? So that Torah was still binding for his Jewish followers and important in a different sense for his gentile followers but now seen with fresh clarity through his words and actions?

And what if it turns out that Paul was Torah observant, contrary to what most Christians have believed? That he, too, saw the Law as binding on Jews in all of its commandments, and a source of teaching—if not detailed observance—for gentile followers of Jesus? For example, that while kosher rules would not apply to gentiles, they would teach gratitude for food and the need to obey our Lord even when we don’t understand all of his commandments?

If these things are true, then the principal rationale for the “Jesus and Paul aiming to start a new religion” thesis dissolves. Of course Judaism and Christianity have evolved into quite different religions. Today they are distinct. But Jesus and Paul did not have it in their minds to start a new religion. Jesus came to show his fellow Jews the fulfillment of their Law (himself!), and Paul brought this message to the gentiles so that they could be adopted into the Messiah’s Abrahamic family.

There still remain, however, several important objections I articulated at the beginning of this section. For example, grace versus works. Didn’t Jesus come to show a works-obsessed Jewish people that their relationship to God was not caused by their works? And wasn’t Jesus trying to teach them that they could have a personal relationship to the God of Israel instead of standing at a distance at the foot of Mount Sinai, cowering in fear?

Christians have been saying this sort of thing to Jews and their rabbis for centuries. And rabbis have been responding in several ways for those same centuries. “Our relationship to God based on works? Don’t you know,” they have asked in return, “that we take a little baby boy at eight days and circumcise him, proclaiming to ourselves and the world that something cosmic has just happened: that this little boy has been brought into God’s covenant family called Israel, and his destiny has been forever changed? Do we think this little baby has done anything to deserve this cosmic privilege? Of course not! He has been given a free gift from God—the very notion that you Christians call grace.

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