Shalom Aleichem,
Faith is required… My encounter with Mendel, a Chabad Rabbi
Beth and I were recently traveling back from a speaking engagement where I met a Chabad Rabbi – a promotor of Rabbinic Judaism. I was able to speak a little Hebrew with him which opened a conversation. He asked if I was Jewish and proceeded to try to determine my Jewish “pedigree”. As we were speaking I was reminded of
John 1:13
which tells us we
were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God
as well as
Philippians 3
where Paul declares his Jewish “pedigree” by suggesting if any man could have confidence in the “pedigree” of his flesh Paul could more than any man and yet he goes on to say “
But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ
”
. That’s not to say he rejected his Jewish heritage but rather all things in his life were nothing compared to “
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
”.
Once the Rabbi determined that I was Jewish enough, he attempted to “evangelize” me by encouraging me to put on the tefillin (phylacteries) spoken of in Deut. 6. I was able to tell him that I was a Jewish believer in the Jewish Messiah to the world. For me or anyone to recite the Shamah and do the things listed in Deut. 6 without a circumcised heart of faith in Yeshua is worthless.
Mendel responded by saying: “Oh, you believe in the Pauline theology of polytheism” … As much as I wanted to take him verse by verse and try to “convince” him to believe in Jesus I realized it was not my job to teach him into salvation. The only job I had was to declare the truth and ask him enough questions from the Bible to cause him to question his so-called “faith”. We discussed many verses, but a few in Joshua were especially relevant in response to his question regarding the Trinity. We talked about how God is both unseen and yet has a Spirit, but the question at hand was -- could he also come in the form of a man? I had him read
Joshua 5:13-15
And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant? And the captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so
.
This was just one of many verses we could have discussed but this was one that even the seasoned Rabbi couldn’t explain. How could a Jew worship anyone but God alone? If this was just an Angel, why was it considered Holy Ground where He stood? I could have also taken him to
Exodus 23:20-23
where God declares His Angel would go before the people to guard them and they were told to “
Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him
.” Only God could forgive sins! These and many other Scriptures show strong evidence that the Son of God is the Angel of Jehovah / Yahweh where God Himself, through His Son Jesus Christ, takes the form of a man and is called an Angel. This is strong evidence from the Tanach (O.T.) to prove the concept of the Trinity of the God-head – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Once I had enough Scripture quoted that He (a master teacher/Rabbi) could not answer, he couldn’t get away from me fast enough. But since we had the same two flights back to Israel, God providentially put him in my path again and again over the next 15 hours.
As I watched him with other Jewish people in giving out instructions of davening (meaning to pray and worship by reading the Siddur {a Jewish prayer book, containing a set order of daily prayers} while wearing tefillin. It became strikingly apparent to me that Mendel’s form of “evangelism” did not require people to demonstrate faith, a knowledge of the almighty, or for repentance for those he encouraged to daven.
All he was doing was encouraging others to do external duties without faith and we know that works
WITHOUT
faith are dead which is described as legalism! Even those works mentioned in Scripture, if they are not accompanied by faith and a regenerated heart, as in
Deut. 30:6
And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live
. or as the New Testament states in
John 3:3b
Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God
. are worthless and will never please God or justify a man before God.
The whole situation reminded me of the verse in
Matt 23:15
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves
.
The reality of what I saw broke my heart! A rabbi, like the apostle Paul before he was saved, was thinking he was doing right by leading people to religion without faith in God. My only desire for the Jewish people is to see them brought back to God, through a circumcised heart of faith in the Messiah, not encouraged to a works-based religion that doesn’t require faith in the covenant keeping God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
At the end of my time with Mendel I told him I appreciated his earnest zeal for the laws of the Hebrew Scriptures and the traditions of our forefathers, but I warned him that without faith, a circumcised heart, and belief in Jesus as the Messiah he stands helpless and hopeless before a holy God. Works of self-righteousness are just filthy rags before the Lord God Almighty! This message is applicable to all men, whether Jew or Gentile, but it is especially pointed to a Jewish person who was blessed with so much Scriptural knowledge “
For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required
”.
Gen 15:6; Deut. 6:4-9; Isa. 64:6; Luke 12:48; Romans 9:4-5; Hebrews 11:6
