Does God Have a Son? | How Judaism and Christianity Separated

Rabbi K.A. Schneider: Jesus is God in the flesh. We're not saying that God is a man, but rather what we're saying is that God clothed himself in humanity. If Jesus never came to start a new religion, but instead came to fulfill that which had already been given to Moses and the prophets, why today do we think of Judaism and Christianity as two totally distinct and separate religions? How could this have come about? What I am doing in this series, beloved ones, is I'm going back to the origins of this separation to help you understand how we got to the place that we're at today. And in doing so, I hope also to help Jewish people understand the Jewishness of faith in Jesus and to help Gentile believers understand how Judaism and the Hebrew scriptures are actually the foundation of their faith in Jesus. You see in the book of Luke chapter 24, Jesus brought his apostles on a journey through the law of Moses and the prophets, showing them in the holy scriptures all the things that had been written in the Tanakh or in the Old Testament concerning himself. You see, the Bible tells us that Christ, that Messiah Yeshua, is the aim of the law. He fulfills it all. This is why Jesus said, "If you believed in Moses, you'd believe me." So I'm going to pick up right now, that was all review, and I'm going to continue on the reasons that these two movements separated from each other. I talked about the jealousy of the Pharisees. That the Pharisees we read in John 11:53, sought to put Jesus to death because they were jealous of him. When the miracles started happening, when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, Jewish people started leaving the Pharisees to follow Jesus instead. And the natural human reaction is, we got to stop this because we don't want to lose what we have. And so the Bible says that from that point forward, the Pharisees sought as to how they could put Yeshua the Messiah to death. Modern day Judaism, which is called Rabbinic Judaism, was actually created by these same Pharisees and their sons that wanted to put Jesus to death because they were jealous of him. And so through osmosis, this anti-Jesus mindset is passed on to every generation of Jews from the time of the Pharisees in 90 AD, when they wrote Rabbinic Judaism or when they created it, or when we should say the origins of it are. From 90 AD, the origins of Rabbinic Judaism has been passed on to every succeeding generation of Jews down to this very day. Let me say it another way. Orthodox Judaism today is based on the concepts and mindset of the Pharisees that wanted to put Jesus to death 2,000 years ago because they were jealous of him. And so Jewish people like myself, we grow up in our homes and we're just taught Jews don't believe in Jesus. We don't understand that one of the reasons we don't believe in Jesus is because 2,000 years ago, there were some Pharisees that were jealous of him because they were losing their place. And so they wanted to put him to death. And that mindset that they have out of insecurity has been passed on to us even today. So we sometimes are rejecting Jesus as Jewish people without realizing that one of the reasons we're rejecting him is because of the insecurity of the Pharisees. The Pharisees hadn't examined the scriptures to see whether Jesus had fulfilled them. They didn't approach it with an open mind and an open heart. They were just concerned, beloved, about losing their place because the Jewish people began to follow Jesus and were being led away to the true Messiah. I want to continue on with the next important foundation as to why today Jewish people reject Jesus as being a Jewish Messiah. It has to do, beloved, with theology. You see, Jesus really rocked the Jewish people when he claimed to have the relationship with Father that he had. I'm going to read now in the gospel of John and I'm going to go now to John 10 verse 33. Jesus answered them, "I showed you many good works from the Father. For which of them are you stoning me?" Verse 33, the Jews answered him, "For a good work we did not stone you, but for blasphemy and because you being a man make yourself out to be God." And so Jesus claiming to be equal with God, claiming to be the son of God. He continued on in verse 36, he said, "You are blaspheming because I said, 'I am the son of God.'" Oftentimes Jesus was referred to as the son of God and is referred to as the son of God in the New Testament. And Jesus said, "I and the Father are one." This was heretical to the Jewish people because as Jewish people, we believe in one God. In fact, the most famous declaration of the Jewish people today is what we call the Shema. Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. We say. Once again, we speak of the oneness of God. So when Jesus comes claiming to have authority like God's authority, in other words when he did miracles, they said, "Who are you that says they can forgive sins?" And then Jesus said, "Is it easier for me to say your sins are forgiven or to say?" and then he looked at the man and he said, "Man, take up your pallet and walk." And then immediately the man was healed and he got up and he started walking and everyone was amazed. So Jesus was proving that he had authority to forgive sin and he said, "The Son of Man has been given authority on earth to forgive sin." So again, this was not something that the Jewish leaders of Jesus's day could wrap their heads around because they only thought of God's oneness in terms of a singular unity. And so to think of God as God the Father and God the Son, again, was outside of their paradigm. But I want to show you something now in the Hebrew Bible in the book of Daniel, where all the way back in the Hebrew prophets before Jesus' time, we see the reality of Father God having a son. I'm going now to the book of Daniel chapter number seven and I'm looking at verse number 13. This is a prophetic vision that Daniel was given that spoke of the end times, of the end of days. In fact, Jesus referred to Daniel's writings in Matthew 24 when he talked about the time of the end and the time of his return. Daniel said this, "I kept looking in the night visions, and behold with the clouds of heaven, listen now, one like a son of man was coming. And he came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations and men of every language might serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed." What's going on here? Daniel is seeing Father turn over the world to him, turn over the kingdom to him. And Daniel says this Son of Man was given a kingdom that will never pass away and it's everlasting. And so all the way back, beloved church, in the Hebrew writings, we see the prophecy of the Son of God, the Son of Man, given dominion over the earth and reigning even as God. This is why Jesus said, "All that the Father gives me shall come to me and he that comes to me, I will in no wise cast out." Why? Because he was doing the will of the Father. You see, the Father created the world through his Son. The Father saves people through his Son, and the Father's going to reign over the world through his Son. The Bible says all things came to being by him. And apart from him nothing that's come into being has come into being. And so Jesus said, "I and the Father are one." But again, when we're confronted with information that's unfamiliar to us, it can scare us and it can threaten us. And this is what happened in the days that the New Testament was written. And this same phenomenon, beloved ones, is still taking place on earth today in the minds of the traditional Jewish community. You see, as a traditional Jew, I understand being raised as a traditional Jew that, you know, we believe in one God. And so when a Christian says, "I believe in one God. I believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," to most traditional Jews, this doesn't make sense. You say you believe in one God, and yet now you're saying you believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct. That doesn't sound like one, that sounds like three. But this leads us, beloved, to the mystery of what the Church fathers coined as the Trinity, that God is one, yet he's manifest in three persons.
Guest (Male): You're listening to Discovering the Jewish Jesus with Rabbi Schneider and he'll be right back. But first, did you know that this program is available in Hebrew, Russian and Spanish? If you know somebody who speaks one of these languages, now's your chance to share the blessing. To access the language version that's right for them, just go to discoveringthejewishjesus.com and click the watch/listen tab and choose an available alternate language channel right there. Go into the world and preach the gospel to all creation. We take that command very seriously. Through our online media platforms, TV, radio, and overseas festivals, we're sharing the truth of the gospel with people of all different nations, tribes and tongues. And if the Lord has put a burden on your heart to support us, would you please give financially today at discoveringthejewishjesus.com. And now, back to the second half of today's lesson.
Rabbi K.A. Schneider: The paradigm that I want to help you to understand the Trinity through is the paradigm of what we see God doing in the very beginning of creation. What did God do? In the very beginning of the book of Genesis, we read this. The Lord said, "Let us make man in our image." So when the Lord said, "Let us make man in our image," we have to ask ourselves, who was he referring to? Who is he speaking to when he said "us" and who is he speaking to when he said "our"? Now, some rabbis teach that he was speaking to the angels. But the truth is, beloved, we aren't made in the image of the angels. We're made, God said, in his image. So the only one that God could have been speaking to, beloved, was himself. Now, what do I mean that God was speaking to himself? Listen, here's the mystery. Within God, there is relationship. Most of you would agree with me that God is love. And by definition, love needs an object. So if God has always been before anything was created, and by definition he is love, who could he have loved before anything was created? Beloved, he loved the Son, who the Bible tells us in the Gospel of John, has always been, get it now, in his bosom. And so from the very beginning, the Father had an object of affection which is his Son, and the Son is eternal just like the Father, and the Spirit is what holds everything together. And so this concept of God being one is not violated by a Christian's belief in the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Even as God said this in the Torah, he said, "A man shall leave his father and mother, cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one." What happens? Two separate, husband and wife, man and woman, come together and they become one. It is a compound unity rather than a singular unity. It's two parts coming together as one. And the same thing exists within the Godhead. That within God, beloved ones, is relationship, and the Son has always been in his bosom, and the Spirit holds everything together and is the one through whom God moves, the Spirit is the one through whom God moves, and we actually see a manifestation of this threefold manifestation of the Godhead when Jesus was baptized. Remember Yeshua came to the Jordan River, and as soon as he comes out of the Jordan River, what happens? The Spirit appears above his head as a dove, right? The Father speaks from heaven and says, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I'm well pleased." So the Spirit is there, the Father's there, and Jesus himself is the Son. Well, I want to help you to understand, beloved, by understanding this. We shouldn't expect to understand the mystery that God is one, yet within him is the Spirit and the Son and the Father. In the same way that we can't understand how it's possible that God could have always been. In other words, when we try to understand how God has always been, that he has no cause, we can't grasp that at all. We always want to ask ourself, well, where did God come from? It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make sense that God has always been. He had to come from somewhere. How could he be and have always been without being caused? You see, the truth is, church, that we can only think in terms of cause and effect. We can't think in terms of an eternal being that's always been that has no first cause. And in the same way that we can't even touch on grasping the reality that there's a God that's always been, that has no first cause, that nothing created him, that nothing made him, but that he's always been. We can't understand that. We think he had to come from somewhere. Where did he come from? How could he have always been? In the same way that we don't get that, neither should we expect to understand the mystery that within God there is relationship, the mystery of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And even in the Hebrew scriptures, we see this mystery being revealed. I just showed you Daniel 7:13. Once again, listen. Daniel said there, "I kept looking in the night visions, and behold with the clouds of heaven, one like a Son of Man," this is the term that Jesus so often used to describe himself, he said, "one like a Son of Man was coming." Listen now, "and he came, who came? The Son of Man," the term that Jesus used to describe himself. "And he came," the scripture says, "up to the Ancient of Days." Who's the Ancient of Days? The Father. So we see here in Daniel 7:13, we see the Father and we see the Son. And other places in scripture, we see verses like, "Grieve not my Holy Spirit." And so God now is revealing the part of him that is described as his Holy Spirit. And so this has been a stumbling block, again, to many Jewish people on the earth and it was a stumbling block to the Pharisees of Yeshua's day. And beloved, it's still a stumbling block to traditional Jewish people even down to this very day. And it's one of the reasons that the two movements of traditional Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity have separated from each other. Closely connected to this concept, beloved, is the concept of the fact that we as Christians believe that Jesus is God in the flesh. We're not saying that God is a man, but rather what we're saying is that God clothed himself in humanity. And so we read in John chapter 1, verse 1 through 5, and then verse 14, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God," listen now, "and the Word was God." And then in the 14th verse, "And the Word became flesh." And so in the beginning was the Word, God's always been as the Word. And the Word was with God, Jesus has always been with God in the bosom. And then it says, "And the Word was God," and then it says, "and the Word became flesh," that God clothed himself with humanity. That concept is very difficult for traditional Jewish people to grasp and to receive. Even in Jesus' day, it was very, very difficult as it is down to this very day. And it's one of the reasons that Rabbinic Judaism and the Christian movement separated from each other. But once again, going back to the Torah, to the writings of Moses, to the first five books of our Bible, we read about how God appeared to Abraham in the flesh at the Oaks of Mamre. We read that three angels stood before Abraham at the Oaks of Mamre, and one of those angels is Yud Hay Vav Hay, we read in the original language which is actually God's sacred name, Yahweh. So this is what was called a Theophany. It was a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. It was a time before Jesus was manifest in the flesh 2,000 years ago when God manifested himself clothed in flesh in the world. And he did that, beloved, even back in the Torah. And so there are reasons and there are explanations, beloved, for all these concerns that traditional Jewish people have today. And my hope and my prayer is that I will help some of my beloved Jewish brothers and sisters see and understand that believing in Jesus really is Jewish after all. And I'm hoping that my Gentile brothers and sisters today will understand, beloved, that the mother of your faith is Judaism. You should love Jewish people because your faith in Jesus comes out of Judaism. After all, Jesus himself said, "Salvation is from the Jews." And Paul said to the Gentile Church, "Don't be arrogant against that which supports your faith." And church, what supports your faith? It's the people of Israel, right, the prophets that came before. It's the writings that came out of Israel, the Old Testament, and finally the Messiah himself, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.
Rabbi K.A. Schneider: Beloved, whether you're from Africa, India, Israel, the United States, it doesn't matter, we're all on the same journey, if we're following Father through Yeshua, and that is to be changed into his likeness, to experience personal transformation. In order for this to take place, a lot of work and effort is required on our part. We have to be obedient. And God brings us through certain tests in order to bring us to the next level. And one of the tests that all of us must pass is putting him first with our finances. It's a test of faith, it's a test of trust, and it's a test of personal denial. Jesus said, "Unless we pick up our cross, deny ourself and follow him, we can't be his disciple." I want to encourage you today if you're not already, let's put him first with our finances. And I would say this, if Discovering the Jewish Jesus is being used by Father God to bless you, consider making a financial sacrifice to him today through this ministry. Beloved, this is Rabbi Schneider saying, "I love you and God bless you and shalom."
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Rabbi K.A. Schneider: What I love about the Aaronic blessing is that it did not originate with man. The words actually proceeded from the very essence of God himself. The blessing comes from the book of Numbers chapter 6. So listen to these words and receive the blessing of the Lord into your life today. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift you up with his countenance and the Lord give you, beloved one, his peace. And now, in Hebrew.
Singer: Yevarechecha Adonai v'yishmerecha. Ya'er Adonai panav eilecha v'yichuneka. Yisa Adonai panav eilecha v'yasem lecha Shalom.
Rabbi K.A. Schneider: God bless you and shalom.
Guest (Male): I'm your host Dustin Roberts and this program is produced and sponsored by Discovering the Jewish Jesus. Tomorrow Rabbi Schneider's going to reveal a part of Jewish tradition that many believers have never encountered and how it helped separate Judaism and Christianity. Join us Thursday on Discovering the Jewish Jesus.