Monday, 29 February 2016

Jewish Tradition

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Some of the old time Hebrew Christians through ignorance approached the Jewish tradition with total disdain. For them, it was only a creation of hell-bound sinners, a tradition with no value. Such an attitude bordered on anti-Semitism. However, if the tradition (some of which is first century or earlier) was partially derived from the Bible, God's truth could be seen therein.

How is it that some clearly saw that the Messiah suffered for our sins in Isaiah 53? How is it that prayer enshrines the knowledge of salvation only by grace through no merit of our own, even to the extent of appealing to the sacrificial system and the sufferings of the Messiah? So also the Talmud teaches that Habakkuk reduced all the commands to one: "As it is said, the righteous shall live by his faith" (see Hab. 2:4). Some of the traditions are so old that it would seem that Paul drew from them to illustrate his teaching on faith.

Jewish Roots, Chapter Six: The Faith and Life of Messianic Jews