By Andrew Strom | Reposted August 18, 2009
I have friends who call Jesus "Yeshua". I don't mind it at all. I have other friends who keep the Saturday Sabbath. It doesn't bother me too much, unless there is a kind-of "aggressive attitude" about it. But in recent years I have witnessed a worrying trend - that in my opinion is growing worse - and we need to address it.
Today when a Christian tells me that they are "Torah-observant" then all kinds of alarms go off. It may be that they are just into 'Hebrew roots' - but usually it is a lot more than that. We all know that in the early church, the biggest problem they had was with the "Judaizers" who went around trying to convince the Gentile Christians that they must obey the letter of the Old Testament Law. This shipwrecked the faith of many. It was the biggest problem they had. The book of Galatians is all about it - and many other sections of the New Testament. It was a battle between the old Law - with its subtle bondages - and the new walk of the Spirit and of grace.
A few months back, we published the testimony of a Christian woman who got involved with a Messianic group that slowly under-mined her faith in Jesus - and basically converted her gradually into a practicing Jew - even though they all thought of themselves as "Messianic Christians"! She realized later that in almost every way she had slowly had her faith in Jesus and the New Testament replaced with the keeping of the Torah. She had been "Judaized"! And I fear this is happening to a great many Christians today - in all kinds of subtle ways.
This is exactly what the Bible warns against - losing the "simplicity" of the faith. And that is why Paul was so strong against the Juda-izers. He saw that Christians were being tempted - not to place their faith in Christ alone - but rather in Christ PLUS the keeping of the Law. It was no longer a simple trust in JESUS to be their righteousness. They now started to feel they had to keep the letter of the Old Law too - in order to be truly "holy". And so they became "Judaized". This is the worst trap possible. And so subtle!
Let us look at a few vital Scriptures. Please open your Bible to Acts 15:1-29. This whole passage is about a great meeting of the apostles to decide whether - with the new Gentile Christians – it was "necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses" (v 5). So what did the apostles conclude about this? As Peter declared during the debate about it, "Why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?" (v 10).
At the end of the great meeting, the apostles put out a letter to the Gentile Christians that declared: "For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well." (v. 28-29). And as far as the Old Law went, that was it!
In other words, no "Torah observance", no Sabbath, no circumcision, no Old Law apart from these few things. This brief list only. That was the pronouncement of the apostles. If they wanted to tell the Gentiles, "You must keep the Jewish Sabbath," then this was the place to do it. But it is definitely not included. And neither are a thousand-and-one other things from the Old Testament.
Of course, this should be no surprise to us. In Colossians 2, Paul tells us very clearly that Christ has "wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us" by nailing it to the cross (v. 14). He then goes on to say: "So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ."
(v. 16-17).
So all these Old Testament practices are only a "shadow" of the New. In fact, as Hebrews makes clear, the entire Old Covenant was only a 'type' or shadow of that which was to come. It was not the real thing! It does not make us more "holy"! The substance is found in Christ - and Him alone. The Old Torah "requirements" were nailed to the cross with Jesus. We don't need them any more. If anybody ever tells you that the New Testament is simply a "continuation" of the Old, run a mile from that person. They simply do not know what they are talking about. In fact, what they are spouting is dangerous heresy.
Thus, as Paul tells us in Romans, observing the Sabbath is only necessary if our conscience is weak in this area - and we feel we have to:- "One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it" (Rom 14:1-6).
So we do not "have" to observe the Sabbath. It does not make us more 'holy' or righteous to do so. It is simply a matter of conscience. This runs against a lot of the teaching that is doing the rounds right now. There is a lot of dangerous "Back to the Torah"-type emphasis that is bringing a lot of harm to a lot of people. Many of them don't even realize what is happening to them.
Paul clearly tells us in Galatians that you can lose your salvation by beginning to rely on the Law in your Christian walk: "You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain" (Gal 4:10-11). He then goes on to say, "You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace." (Gal 5:4). Alarming statements, are they not?
You see, it is a direct insult to the work of Christ and to God for us to go back to the "works of the Law" to try and make us more 'righteous' in His sight. It is placing our trust in something other than just Jesus. We are "adding works" for our salvation. And it will not do.
I believe that just like the Galatians, a lot of people today need to repent of trying to add the Old Law to their salvation – sometimes in subtle ways - sometimes major. This is not the kind of thing to toy around with. It can be utterly deadly. If you are someone who is adding "Torah observance" to your faith, I urge you to repent.
The testimony of the woman who slowly lost her faith in Jesus through Messianic Torah-observance can be found at the top of our website. Here is the link-
http://www.revivalschool.com
God bless you all.
Andrew Strom.
=========================================================
JESUS, YESHUA or YAHSHUA??
=========================================================
NOTE: Dr. Michael Brown has a Ph.D in Semitic languages – which of course include Hebrew and Aramaic - the original languages of Jesus and His people. He is a recognized authority on this topic.
JESUS, YESHUA or YAHSHUA??
by Dr. Michael L. Brown.
I am continually amazed by how many people write to our ministry and ask us questions like this one, which came in last week: “Some Christians say we have to use the Hebrew name, Yashua. They say calling on the name of Jesus is calling on Zeus. That Jesus is a disguise name for Satan. What answers do you have for this? Where can we prove the name of Jesus is correct to use in its
English translation and pronunciation?”
As bizarre as these questions are, the fact that they keep coming up means that they need to be addressed, so here are some simple responses (for more details, see What Do Jewish People Think About Jesus, question #38).
The original Hebrew-Aramaic name of Jesus is yeshu‘a, which is short for yehoshu‘a (Joshua), just as Mike is short for Michael. The name yeshu‘a occurs 27 times in the Hebrew Scriptures, primarily referring to the high priest after the Babylonian exile, called both yehoshu‘a (see, e.g., Zechariah 3:3) and, more frequently, yeshu‘a (see, e.g., Ezra 3:2). So, Yeshua’s name was not unusual; in fact, as many as five different men had that name in the Old Testament. And this is how that name came to be “Jesus” in English: Simply stated, this is the etymological history of the name Jesus: Hebrew/Aramaic yeshu‘a became Greek Iesous, then Latin Iesus, passing into German and then, ultimately, into English, as Jesus.
Why then do some people refer to Jesus as Yahshua? There is absolutely no support for this pronunciation—none at all—and I say this as someone holding a Ph.D. in Semitic languages. My educated guess is that some zealous but linguistically ignorant people thought that Yahweh’s name must have been a more overt part of our Savior’s name, hence YAHshua rather than Yeshua—but again, there is no support of any kind for this theory.
The Hebrew Bible has yeshu‘a; when the Septuagint authors rendered this name in Greek, they rendered it as "iesous" (I¬¬esous, with no hint of yah at the beginning of the name); and the same can be said of the Peshitta translators when they rendered Yeshua’s name into Syriac (part of the Aramaic language family). All this is consistent and clear: The original form of the name Jesus is yeshu‘a, and there is no such name as yahshu‘a (or, yahushua or the like).
What about the alleged connection between the name Jesus (Greek I¬¬esous) and Zeus? This is one of the most ridiculous claims that has ever been made, but it has received more circulation in recent years (the Internet is an amazing tool of misinformation), and there are some believers who feel that it is not only preferable to use the original Hebrew/Aramaic name, Yeshua, but that it is wrong to use the name Jesus. Because of this, we will briefly examine this claim and expose the fallacies that underlie it.
According to the late A. B. Traina in his Holy Name Bible, “The name of the Son, Yahshua, has been substituted by Jesus, Iesus, and Ea-Zeus (Healing Zeus).”
In this one short sentence, two complete myths are stated as fact: First, there is no such name as Yahshua (as we have just explained), and second, there is no connection of any kind between the Greek name I¬¬esous (or the English name Jesus) and the name Zeus. Absolutely none! You might as well argue that Tiger Woods is the name of a tiger-infested jungle in India as try to connect the name Jesus to the pagan god Zeus. It is that absurd, and it is based on serious linguistic ignorance.
Here is another, equally absurd statement:
"... according to the ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, the name Ieusus (Jesus) is a combination of 2 mythical deities, IEU and SUS (ZEUS, a Greek god)." - (www.wwyd.org).
The response to this statement (which has as much support as the latest Elvis sightings) is quite simple: We know where the name I¬¬esous came from: the Jewish Septuagint! In other words, this was not some later, pagan corruption of the Savior’s name; rather, it was the natural Greek way of rendering the Hebrew/Aramaic name Yeshua at least two centuries before His birth, and it is the form of the name found in more than 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. This is saying something! The name I¬¬esous is also found in Greek writings outside the New Testament and dating to that same general time frame.
Although it is claimed that the Encyclopedia Britannica says that “the name Ieusus (Jesus) is a combination of 2 mythical deities, IEU and SUS (ZEUS, a Greek god)” it actually says no such thing. This is a complete fabrication, intentional or not. In short, as one Jewish believer once stated, “Jesus is as much related to Zeus as Moses is to mice.”
Unfortunately, some popular teachers continue to espouse the Jesus-Zeus connection, and many believers follow the pseudo-scholarship in these fringe, “new revelation” teachings. Not only are these teachings and practices filled with error, but they do not profit in the least. So, to every English-speaking believer I say: Do not be ashamed to use the name JESUS! That is the proper way to say his name in English—just as Michael is the correct English
way to say the Hebrew name mi-kha-el and Moses is the correct English way to say the Hebrew name mo-sheh. Pray in Jesus’ name, worship in Jesus’ name, and witness in Jesus’ name. And for those who want to relate to our Messiah’s Jewishness, then refer to him by His original name Yeshua—not Yahshua and not
Yahushua—remembering that the power of the name is not in its pronunciation but in the person to whom it refers, our Lord and Redeemer and King.
SOURCE-
askdrbrown.org/ask-dr-brown/35-ask-dr-brown/79-what-is-the-original-
hebrew-name-for-jesus-and-is-it-true-that-the-name-jesus-greek-isssous-is-
really-a-pagan-corruption-of-the-name-zeus
===================================================
