What Has Not Changed at TorahResource
Tim Hegg • 2009
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During the recent presidential campaign in the States, now President Obama utilized one primary word to focus his message: Change. The mantra was “Change you can believe in.” Now that he is the new president, his victory slogan is: “Change can Happen” and “Change has Come.” It seems that the well-worn adage is true: “Nothing is as sure as change.”

But some things should never change, and when they do, it brings sorrow. Robert Frost wrote a small poem bemoaning the inevitability of change:

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Indeed, our own dependent existence is likened to grass by the prophet Isaiah: “All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades …” (Is 40:6–7). In absolute contrast to the inevitability of change among mortals, Isaiah goes on in the next verse to affirm: “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” In a world where nothing is quite as certain as change, we long for that which is unchanging—that which remains the same from generation to generation. So we cling to the Holy One of Israel and to His infallible, unchanging revelation, the Bible. “For I, Adonai, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed” (Mal 3:6).

Some change is good. If we discover, for instance, that some darling belief of ours is not founded upon the truth, we must jettison the falsehood and commit ourselves to changing in line with the truth. But when it comes to central aspects of our faith, we dare not change unless we are convinced from a thorough study of Scripture that our current position is in error. If, however, we change our doctrinal positions because we have grown weary of being marginalized by the majority, or because our message doesn’t seem to be producing the results we desire, or we yield to the strong rhetoric of our detractors, such change can be devastating. It may be likened to a person building a rock wall who, coming to the very end finds himself short two or three stones. He decides to take a few from the foundation row to finish the top course. After all, hardly anyone would notice that a couple of stones from the bottom row are missing. Then come the winter rains that wash through the lower gaps and the whole wall collapses.

I guess it should come as no surprise that we continue to hear Messianic leaders pushing the Jewishness of the Torah and teaching that Messianic Judaism should be reserved primarily for ethnic Jews—that the Gentiles (by-and-large) should remain in the Christian Church and find their connection to Israel in their mystical, spiritual connection with Messianic Judaism. This is Kinzer’s point when he opts for a “bilateral ecclesiology in solidarity with Israel.”(1) He likes the idea of two separate entities that make up the ekklesia of Messiah: one Jewish and the other Gentile, remaining separate in their leadership, ecclesiastical government, and traditions, but affirming each other as valid expressions of the one ekklesia of Messiah.

It is also no surprise that Kinzer’s well written and hard hitting book would significantly embolden the position of those who teach that Messianic Judaism is primarily for Jews and not Gentiles. This perspective is necessary to attain their goal of being recognized by “wider Israel” as a bona fide Judaism in our day. They know that to be accepted within the circle of wider Judaism they must prove (among other things) that they are thoroughly Jewish, which means that their synagogues and communities cannot be overpopulated with Gentiles. Kinzer’s theological treatise offers a scholarly basis for a “bilateral ecclesiology” that keeps Gentiles in the Church so that Messianic Judaism can be “thoroughly Jewish.”

Some of us, who openly and strongly oppose such a “bilateral ecclesiology,” have had our teaching labeled as “One Law,” being charged with dissolving the distinction between Jew and Gentile and even teaching supersessionism or replacement theology. We’ve been called “judiazers,” judged as mishandling the biblical text, and labeled as divisive. But we remain unconvinced by the arguments set forth by Kinzer and others, and are committed to standing firm on what we believe the Scriptures teach in spite of such opposition.

We are saddened, therefore, to discover that some who have previously championed the One Law position are changing their message. . . . Click here to read the rest of this article

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(1) Mark Kinzer, Post-Missionary Messianic Judaism (Brazos, 2005); see particularly Chapter 4 and pp. 152, 160f. The term “ecclesiology” identifies that section of theology that deals with the ekklesia or “assembly of believers,” especially as it is described and defined in the Apostolic Scriptures.

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