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I am a Gentile man who has had the wonderful blessing of being lead to the Lord by Jewish Believers , some 30 years ago! They came from orthodox backgrounds, and were able to view, discern, and teach the scriptures in a way that most Gentile Believers never could.
An important part of my ministry is to share with Gentile Believers and churches the many blessings and benefits of viewing the scriptures from a Jewish perspective. This in no way deminishes New Testament theology, but rathers enhances it, and fills it with new richness, fullness, and understanding. I have come to acknowledge that there is nothing new in the New Testament, just as there is nothing old in the Old Testament. In fact, if you only read and understand the New Testament, you don’t know half of the Bible. In fact, it’s less than half, because the New Testament can not be fully discerned without knowledge of the Old.
To illustrate this point, I want to share with you something that I believe you most likely have never heard taught or preached on in any Gentile church. I will go as far as to say that you would be hard pressed to find a Gentile Pastor that has ever heard of this teaching, let alone understands it. Were it not for God’s grace, and some godly Jewish Believers who remembered that salvation was “to the Jew first, but also to the Greek (Gentile)”, and showed me the godly love that can only come when the “middle wall of partition” is broken down in Messiah Jesus, I would also be ignorant in this regard.
Allow me to build a foundation with the following, which is an admittingly simplistic explanation of the theology of the Pharisees during the days of Jesus, and of the orthodox Jewish community of today. The ancient Rabbi’s taught that the written law given to Moses by God contained 613 specific commandments, which can be found in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible authored by Moses. They also taught that God verbally gave Moses hundreds of other commandments that were not written, hence called the oral law.
Since throughout the Old Testament, Israel was judged harshly by God for breaking the law, a group of the most learned ancient Rabbi’s set out to interupt the law, and all of it’s implications, which was then set forth in written form. This work was called the “Mishna”, which is now part of the “Talhmud”. The Pharisees considered the Mishna of equal authority with the Torah, as Jews today do with the Talhmud. In fact, much of the contention between Jesus and the Pharisees was over Mishnaic Theology, verses the true intrepretation of the Law of Moses. That being said, let’s consider the first chapter of the Gospel of John.
Through out the “Tenach”, the Old Testament, the “Word” of the Lord is mentioned continually, as in Gen.15:1 “. . . the Word of the Lord came unto Abram . . .” Using the Mishna as their basis of authority, the ancient Rabbi’s, and the Pharisees ascribed certain attributes to the “Word”, and used the Hebrew word “Memra” to describe this understanding.
In the Gospel of John, the writter says, “In the beginning was the Word”, using “Logos”, which is the Greek word translated into the English, meaning literally a “word”, as in the spoken word. Almost any comentary on John’s Gospel will go to great lengths at this point, to expound upon how Jesus fulfilled the Greek concepts of the “Logos”, which were “reason” and “speech”, with Jesus being the very “idea” of God, and well as the “expression” of God. ! But is this the understanding that John was trying to convey, or was his true meaning lost in the Gentile translation?
John was hardly a Greek philosopher, but rather a simple, uneducated Jewish fisherman. As a Jew, however, he was taught the Rabbinic theology of the Pharissee’s, and surely had knowledge of the “Memra”. If this were true, we would expect to see evidence of this understanding contained in his writing about the “word”! Rabbinic theology taught that the Menwah had six charactaristics.
1: The “Memra” was distinct from God, and yet was the same as God. Compare with John 1:1, “
In the beginning was the Word, and the Work was with God (distinct from God), and the Word was God (same as God).
2: The “Memra” was the agent of creation! Compare with vs.3, “All things were made by him”
3: The “Memra” was the agent of salvation! Compare with vs. 12, “but as many as received him, to them gave he power to become sons of God . . .”
4: The “Memra” was the means by which God becomes visible! Compare with vs. 14, “and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory . . .”
** Note: Throught out the Old Testament, the glory of God, the Sheckina Glory, was made visible in the form of light, fire, clouds, etc. Now it is visible in the form of flesh and bones - Messiah.
5: The “Memra” was the agent of revelation! Compare with vs. 18, “ . . . the only begotton Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared (revealed) him”
6: The “Memra” was the means by which God signed his covenants! Compare with vs. 17, “For the law (the Old Covenant) was given by Moses (sealed by God through the burning bush), but grace and truth ( the New Covenant) came (was signed by) Jesus Christ”.
We need to always bear in mind that the Gospel writters was addressing a Jewish audience, and used terms and expressions common to Jews that day and people, which Gentiles are unfamiliar with.
In order to fully understand what John was trying to convey, it must be viewed from a Jewish frame of reference, and the perspective of first century Israel. While John gives us a beautiful portrait of Messiah Jesus as the “Word” of God, a New Testament understanding, he is also identifing Jesus as the one by which God did all things through out the Old Covenant.
The concept of the “Memra” was an important part of Rabbinic teaching of that day, and John so wonderfully addressed how Messiah fulfilled this ideal in detail. This single Jewish concept gives new understanding to the interrelationship between the Old Testament “Word” and the New Testament “Word”, and since this concept is still taught in Orthodox Jewish circles today, it is vital that we fully understand it if we are to share Messiah with His own people.
Ron Cusano,
Shiloh Ministries
Note: Please visit our website at: www.Shiloh-Ministries.org If you have a burden for reaching the Jewish people with the good news of their own Messiah, or want to be involved in our outreach to the churches about getting back to the Jewish roots of our faith, please contact me personally at: (631) 864-2932l
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