Replacement Theology Article 5 One New Man

One New Man

Eph. 2:14-15, For He is [Himself] our peace (our bond of unity and harmony).  He has made us both [Jew and Gentile] one [body], and has broken down (destroyed, abolished) the hostile dividing wall between us, by abolishing in His [own crucified] flesh the enemy [caused by] the Law with its decrees and ordinances [which He annulled]; that He from the two might create in Himself one new man [one new quality of humanity out of the two], so making peace. (Amplified)

“In the Temple court there was a wall separating the court of the Gentiles and the court of the Jews, the court of the Women and the court of the Men. No longer in Christ are those walls separating our place in relationship to worship our God. We are One in Christ. Our identity as men and women Jew and Gentile remain intact but our separation because of the laws of man has been abolished by the love of God in the sacrifice of His Son.” Joan Masterson One In Messiah Ministries

Paul is writing to the Gentile believers to make it clear to them that they are now, in Christ, one new man with the Jewish believers.  He later says in Ephesians 3:6, “the Gentiles are now to be fellow heirs [with the Jews], members of the same body and joint partakers [sharing] in the same divine promise in Christ through [their acceptance of] the glad tidings (the Gospel).”

 So what is this “divine promise in Christ” that we as Gentile believers share in with the Jewish believers?  Leviticus 26:45 begins to shed light on it, “Rather, for their sakes, I will remember the covenant of their ancestors whom I brought out of the land of Egypt — with the nations watching — so that I might be their God; I am Adonai.” Complete Jewish Bible (CJB)

This is the promise that the same God that brought Israel out of the land of Egypt is our God too!   The powerful covenant keeping God, ADONAI is also the God of the Gentiles.  Paul also further explains this promise and the blessings that come from it in Romans 10:11-12.  “No man who believes in Him will ever be put to shame or be disappointed. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, the same Lord is Lord over all [of us] and He generously bestows His riches upon all who call upon Him [in faith].”

The Word of God is full of the promises to His people the Jewish nation that we as Gentile believers can also enjoy as a result of being grafted into the olive branch through belief in Yeshua. (Romans 11:17)

This idea of a One New Man has been on the heart of Father God from the beginning.  We can see an example of His heart coming through Jacob to his grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh in Genesis 48:5.  “And now your two sons, [Ephraim and Manasseh], who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine. [I am adopting them, and now] as Reuben and Simeon, [they] shall be mine.” 

Jacob took the first born sons of Joseph and made them his own giving them equal inheritance with Joseph and his brothers. This is a picture of God adopting the Gentiles as His own and putting them on equal ground with the true inheritors of the promises of God.

  

We as Gentiles have our faith, our promise, our blessing because of the Jewish nation.  It is their God who became our God through Yeshua Ha Meshiach (Jesus the Messiah).  Once we realize this is the case, it changes our whole perspective of the Jewish people and Judaism.  

Cannon Andrew White wrote it this way in his booklet, Older Younger Brother, “The fact that our faith came from Judaism meant that there was no contradiction between my beliefs and the Torah.”  He further goes on to say that much of the problems we face in society today are a result of the Gentile Church detaching itself from its Jewish roots. “…the Church has detached itself from its Jewish roots…seeking to accommodate secularism by going with the flow – bowing to the tide of family breakdown, embracing multiculturalism and seeking to be non-judgmental.  The outcome has been that, faced with a society descending into moral chaos, the Church has followed suit. Believing that we all have to respect each other’s truths, it can no longer uphold truth itself.  Of course judgments – making distinctions between good and bad, right and wrong, justice and injustice – lie at the very heart of the ethical traditions of the Hebrew Bible upon which Christianity and Western morality are based.  And it is those Jewish religious precepts, putting chains upon our appetites and upholding truth and justice, which are in the sights of the big guns of ‘non-judgmental’ secularism.” 

We must get back to our Jewish roots and be willing to humble ourselves in order to learn from our older brother. Our Savior was a Jewish man who studied and lived out of the Torah even while walking in the manifestation of the Kingdom here on earth. It was His heart that we work together to walk out the Kingdom here on earth just as He did.   John 17 beautifully attests to His heart for this as we read His prayer to the Father for the disciples and for us who have come to believe in Him through their word and teaching.

“Neither for these alone do I pray [it is not for their sake only that I make this request], but also for all those who will ever come to believe in (trust in, cling to, rely on) Me through their word and teaching.  That they all may be one, [just] as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be one in Us, so that the world may believe and be convinced that You have sent Me.  I have given to them the glory and honor which You have given Me, that they may be one [even] as We are one; I in them and You in Me, in order that they may become one and perfectly united that the world may know and [definitely] recognize that You sent Me and that You have loved them [even] as You have loved Me.” John 17:20-23

 I believe what Jesus was saying in this prayer to the Father was that His heart and the Father’s heart was for us to be One in Him and in the Father so that the rest of the world would have an opportunity to come to the saving knowledge of Yeshua.  He even went further to say that He has given us the same glory and honor that the Father gave Him so we can be One and perfectly united for one purpose the salvation of the world.  

We cannot be fully in the will of God if we are not One with our Jewish believers. Israel is called to represent God to the nations in order that the nations would be blessed.  The Jewish believer’s call goes further to present the nations with the source of that blessing, Yeshua Ha Meshiach, so they can fully come into relationship with the Father through Yeshua.  As Gentile believers we are called to the place of being One with our Jewish believers, as such their call becomes our call. If we are to embrace this call to the nations we must embrace once again our Jewish roots.

So what happens when we become One with our Jewish believers?  Romans 11:15 gives us a glimpse of the outcome.  “For if their rejection and exclusion from the benefits of salvation were [overruled] for the reconciliation of a world to God, what will their acceptance and admission mean? [It will be nothing short of] life from the dead!”

As we come into our calling as One New Man in Yeshua and fully engage all that means for us and the world, the world will have a revelation of Yeshua and the veil will be lifted.  All Israel will say, “Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord,” and we will see life from the dead! (Matt. 23:39)

The next and last article I will post on this subject will look into this statement Paul made concerning the acceptance of the Jewish people bringing life from the dead.  What exactly does Paul mean by the phrase life from the dead and is it just for the Jewish people or is it for the entire world?