Congregation Shema Yisrael

And the people of the nations who bind themselves to the LORD to serve him, to love the name of the LORD, and to worship him, and who hold fast to my covenant, these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. -Isaiah 56:6-7

Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Sukkot (Tabernacles). If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, they will have no rain. If the Egyptian people do not go up and take part, they will have no rain. The LORD will bring on them the plague he inflicts on the nations that do not go up to celebrate Sukkot. -Zechariah 14:16-18

Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses. -Acts 13:38-39

On the surface, these verses don’t seem to be well associated with a single theme, but if you dig in, even slightly, you’ll see that they all talk about how the Gentiles; the non-Jewish people of the world, can come to know the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. Quoting Paul in Acts, we see a message that I’m sure is abundantly familiar to Christians; that one is saved and reconciled with God through Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Christ). Yet the prophets Isaiah and Zechariah, although each contributed to Messianic prophesy, deliver a message that says access to God by the Goyim (nations) has always been available and in Messianic days, will not only be offered, but expected, at least on Sukkot.

Traditional Jews see the statements of Isaiah and Zechariah somewhat differently than traditional Christians and Messianics, and here’s the point of this article. That interpretation isn’t rendered differently to different groups based on different Bibles, although Jewish people of course, don’t acknowledge the Apostolic Scriptures as being from God. The different interpretations are rendered by different faith groups based on theology and tradition. Often a person’s first encounter with a religious life isn’t through the Bible but through how it’s interpreted, as viewed through those twin lenses. What would it be like to learn about God just from the Bible?

This is probably impossible from a human standpoint, but I woke up this morning with just that thought on my mind. No matter how you came to an awareness of faith, whether as a child in a religious family, or as an adult through some sort of outreach program (and even for secular Jews, Chabad functions as an outreach for them), you probably had a parent, or friend, or mentor interpret the scriptures and the worship experience for you, rather than encountering those things raw and unadulterated.

This isn’t a bad thing necessarily. In my case, I was told by my parents to go to church with them starting as a pre-teen but I never developed a faith. I finally left the church at age 18 and didn’t go back for decades. When I did eventually return, it was to explore a life of worship, trying to negotiate an encounter with God and to understand the Christian Jesus. However, even at the age of forty years and some, I still didn’t have that encounter without the context of church theology and church tradition. Even when I became Messianic, I exchanged one theological viewpoint and set of traditions for another. Same Savior. Same God, Same Bible. Different human viewpoint.

I teach a class on the 613 Commandments as sort of a “sequel” to my Torah 101 class. The 101 class is the Christian’s introduction to Torah and why it continues to have relevance in the lives of both Jewish and Gentile believers in the modern age. The 613 class extends this teaching by using the traditional Jewish template for presenting the Laws of God to the Children of Israel and asks the question of each commandment; “Are you relevant to a believer today, and if so, how?” Even with the emphasis of exploration and investigation, we hardly study without any preconceived bias, viewpoint, or perspective. No human being exists who can be totally objective, especially about God.

Some months ago, I wrote an article for this blog called The Objective God. The premise of the writing was that, regardless of what theologies or traditions we employ as human beings trying to become closer to the Creator, or even if we don’t believe in God at all, God is God. He exists independently of our viewpoints, our biases, and our Biblical interpretation. He existed before the Earth came to be and He will exist long after everything we know and understand is gone. He doesn’t depend on us to define Him; God defines Himself and indeed, He defines us as well.

As people, we hold our theologies and traditions very dear. I’m not unmindful that as I write this, a vast population of families across the world are celebrating what is largely presented as the day Christ was born. Most know that in all likelihood, Yeshua (Jesus) wasn’t born anywhere near December 25th, but Christmas is the day that has been assigned for over a thousand years, as the occasion to rejoice in the coming of the Savior of the world as a tiny babe.

A gentleman named Vincent Murphy, a Christian living in Malaysia, recently wrote an article for his blog called In Defense of Christmas. We have spent some time conversing on the topic and, while he continues to hold on to the celebration of Christmas as a time to live out the life of Christ, and I hold to the more traditional Torah festivals, we both grasp our practices and theologies tightly as our way to serve God and the world around us. What would it be like though, if we didn’t have traditions and theologies? What if the only method of learning about God was through the written Word?

I know what you’re thinking; at least what some of you are thinking. “What about the Holy Spirit?” you ask. Don’t we also know God through the leading of the Spirit? Yes we do, but in that, we must be careful. God’s Spirit isn’t the only supernatural presence in existence, and sometimes other spirits speak to us. Sometimes we even listen, not realizing our mistake. Then too, sometimes what we interpret as “the Spirit” is the “voice” of our own imagination and our own wants and desires. For instance, someone faced with a difficult decision may say that they prayed and that the Spirit guided them in making the correct decision. When asked how they know this, the person in question might say something like they felt a lifting of a weight or felt their anxiety drain away when they made the decision in a particular direction.

Each believer’s experience with the Spirit is unique, and no two people have exactly the same relationship with God; sort of like no two children in a family have exactly the same relationship with their father. In that light, I can’t say a person’s experiences are or are not a communication with the Spirit. I can say, based on my understanding of people, that we have the capacity to fool ourselves, making a decision that satisfies our personal needs, and sincerely believing that it came from God. I can’t be critical of anyone, but I can advise caution, especially if it looks like whatever the Spirit says may be in conflict with the written Word.

All that said, let’s enter a hypothetical situation and suppose you belong to an isolated people who’ve never heard of Christianity and in fact, have no concept of a religion as such. You have no preconceptions about the world beyond your five senses and believe that “what you see is what you get”. Somehow, a Bible written in your language comes into your possession. No one is available to interpret what it means to you. All you have are words on a page. Let’s further say that you read the entire Bible and are convinced that it is the inerrant Word of the Creator of all things. You communicate this to your people and they all come to faith and desire to worship God. With the Bible in their hands as their only guide, what would this faith and worship look like?

Frankly, I can’t imagine how the scenario would be acted out. From a theological sense, I would have to believe that the Spirit of God would become involved in the lives of these people, guiding them, but what would that look like? No church denominations, no halacha, no Talmud, and no Christian commentary. Only the Word of God and the Spirit of God, unaltered and undiluted by thousands of years of human tinkering with worship styles, spiritualizing the literal, and literalizing the spiritual.

I don’t have an answer, but I believe it’s the center of what we all seek; to know God without the filters and lenses that human beings set up between us and Him. For that matter, we seek to know God without the filters and lenses that our human nature and our sinful hearts set up between us and Him.

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. -1 Corinthians 13:12

This is how Paul said it and he said it pretty well. My story of the hypothetical people is…hypothetical. If there could possibly be such a group and such a circumstance, in all likelihood, they’d start developing a tradition and theology of their own, if they lacked one due to outside influences. That’s the nature of human beings. We gum up the works. We bend the rules and the words they’re based on. We get spiritually hard of hearing when the Spirit calls, misunderstanding or just ignoring those things we don’t want to hear about ourselves from God. I’m not saying that we have it all wrong, but it would be foolish to assume that we get it all right…at least all of the time.

Traditions and theologies give us a context in which to express our worship of God and our understanding of His Will. They open up certain doors and close others. We find great meaning and comfort in them, and for many people, they are the means by which we define faith and love. On occasion, they are also the reason we create divisions of “us and them”, accepting some into our group and declaring others to be false…just because of their traditions.

If you’ve taken the time to read this blog on December 25th, you are either taking a break from the Christmas festivities or you do not celebrate the holiday of the Christian birth. In either case, please stop a moment and turn to God. For me, that’s stepping outside into the cold morning air in my backyard, closing my eyes and turning my face upward. Whatever it is for you, set aside tradition, theology, and doubt for a moment, and ask God to show you who He is, regardless your lenses, filters, and assumptions. God exists in spite of our traditions, not because of them. If you really, really want to know who God is, ask him, but be prepared for the unexpected (if such a thing is possible). This is what God’s greatest prophet asked.

Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.” And the LORD said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” Then the LORD said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.” -Exodus 33:18-23

We cannot see God’s face today and our vision of Him is obscured because of who we are as human beings right now. It won’t always be this way.

“No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever”. The angel said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place”. -Revelation 22:3-6