THE
CHURCH REPLACED THE JEW, OR DID IT?
I
have heard so many pastors state that the Church was started on the day of
Pentecost with the Apostles in the upper room.
First look at the meaning of church:
CHURCH
Ekkle-sia
ek-klay-see’-ah
From
a compound of G1537 and a derivative of G2564; a calling
out, that is, (concretely) a popular meeting, especially a religious congregation
(Jewish synagogue, or Christian
community of members on earth or saints in heaven or both): - assembly, church.
1.
An assembly of the people convened at the public place of the council for the
purpose of deliberating
2.
The assembly of the Israelites
3.
Any gathering or throng of men assembled by call for worship or discussing
Biblical scripture.
Ekklesia”
means assembly, a called out assembly, an assembly called out for a specific
purpose, namely, to fulfill His will, to keep and teach His ordinances and
commandments. Church comes from the
Greek word “ekklesia” meaning an assembly or congregation set apart.
So I will let the scripture tell us when the Church begin.
In Acts, speaking of Moses:
Act
7:38 “This is the one who was in
the congregation in the wilderness together with the angel who was speaking to
him on Mount Sinai, and who was with
our fathers; and he received living oracles to pass on to you.
So,
was the Church really started at Mount Sinai?
They were an assembly of Israelites, called out and set apart from Egypt,
called to worship, and not only to discuss Biblical Scripture but to receive it.
You may even argue that Abraham was separated from the land of Ur and he had
many services with God and that could be the first Church. One may argue that
the Church began under the New Covenant when Yeshua called His first Apostle.
By the time that He was completing His ministry of teaching the Torah, he
had twelve Apostles and hundreds of followers.
They held church service everyday. When
the Church began is not the important thing, what is important is the
separation. I am talking about the
separation of the Church and her Hebrew roots, or the separation between the Jew
and the Church, not the separation of the Church from the world.
The
problems started right after Yeshua came out of His forty-day fast in the
wilderness. As soon as He started
teaching the true meaning of Torah and how to keep it, the Pharisees saw him as
a threat. He was a threat to not
only their authority but to the very foundation of their religious tenants of
rabbinical laws. The problems grew
during the three and half years of His ministry until they surmounted in His
death. The differences did not ease
off with His death and resurrection, but grew worse. Even with 3,000 souls added
to the Church at Pentecost multiplied the problems.
The larger the Church grew, the more problems there were. Stephen’s
death was a catalyst for the spread of the gospel message. In fact, persecution
was so much a part of preaching about Yeshua that the Greek word for witness was
martur, from which we get the English word martyr. Paul and all the
Apostles but John were killed, and he was imprisoned until his death.
However, as the Messianic Jews became alienated from
their fellow Jews, they also began to be outnumbered by their Gentile
counterparts in the church. The
Gentile converts believed at a much faster rate and in greater numbers than the
Jews and the Church spread rapidly throughout the Roman Empire.
In 70 AD, when Rome was putting down the Jewish
Revolt, Titus allowed anyone who wanted to leave the Temple Complex as long as
they lay down their arms and left the city.
The Christians accepted and went to Petra. This only increased the animosity between Jew and Christian
because they felt the Christians had deserted them when needed most.
Many Jews and Christians were scattered but the Church continued to grow
rapidly.
In 67 AD, Nero had set fire to Rome to have land to
build a new palace. He blamed it on
the Christians and the Romans began to persecute them more earnestly.
Persecution was going on all over the Empire but this only created more martyrs
and helped the faith to grow faster.
In
the early 300s, during the time of the most severe persecution against all
professing Christians, the Roman Empire was divided between four Emperors.
When Constantine’s father died he was Emperor of the North: Gaul,
Britain, Spain and Eastern Germany. The armies proclaimed their favorite
general, Constantine, as the new Caesar of the North.
He knew that this was without the consent or knowledge of the other three
Emperors so he had to align himself with as much support as possible.
He had witnessed the bravery and fortitude of the ever-growing Christian
sect and realized that their only crime was that would not acknowledge Roman
Caesars as gods. He released all
Christians from the jails and said they no longer would be persecuted.
A great number of Christians joined his army, and he marched to conquer
the Emperor of Rome.
He
had claimed victory after subduing the opposition in the Battle of Mulvian Bridge outside Rome. Prior to that battle, the
Christians had inspired him, he was said to have had a vision of the first two
letters of the name of “Christ” (in Greek, chi (X) and rho (P)) and heard a
voice that told him, “By this sign you
will conquer.” He said that the meaning of the letters he had seen was
unmistakably symbolic of Christ and thus, he was indebted to Christianity for
his victory, in spite of being an ardent sun worshiper. Immediately upon
becoming Emperor of the Eastern half of the Empire, he issued the Edict
of Toleration, which gave Christianity legality in the empire
Constantine
recognized the benefit of aligning with the movement—which called itself
Christian instead of the Nazarenes. Not only was he indebted to this “power”
which helped to establish him as Emperor, he saw this movement as a potential
means of unifying the empire. Yet,
the Christianity of the Western Empire was significantly different from that in
the Eastern Empire and even more so from that of other sects in North Africa.
Thus, after defeating the Emperor of the East, Constantine took measures to
“standardize and unify” his newfound supporter and friend, Christianity. At
the same time he took on the title of “Pontifex
Maximus”, high priest of the sun god, Apollo, Sol Invictus, (the All-Powerful
Sun). He held this position until his death and even had this inscribed on
his coins.
Constantine
viewed God much like some people view the God of the Christians and the God of
Islam and the God of the Hindu and the Great Spirit all being one and the same.
President George W. Bush took this very stand during a speech in Israel May
2008. He said that the
Christians, the Jews and the Muslims all worship the same God and there should
be only tolerance in how any of us worship. Therefore, there was no conflict for
Constantine being the High Priest of Mithra and protector of the faith of the
Christians at the same time. Taking
elements from both faiths and combining into one faith was no problem.
Constantine
convened the Council of Nicaea in 325
AD to resolve the different elements of belief in the various Christian
denominations. Before this time, Constantine had already decreed that the day of
the sun would be kept throughout the empire. This “day of the sun” was the pivotal point to unify various pagan
sun-worshippers with those nominal “Christians” who already had accepted
Sunday and had never observed the Sabbath anyway. Sunday worship was the very
thing that could unify all the beliefs, Christian and pagan, into one religion.
Thus,
this entire episode was a marriage of
convenience between Constantine and the Christians. This council of Nicaea,
directed personally by Constantine, condemned the practice of Christianity that
continued in keeping the commandments,
feasts and even sometimes circumcision. He felt that circumcision was
mutilation. Constantine directed that there would be no keeping those “Jewish
Things”. All of the precepts of the evolving Church in Rome were now
decreed as part of this new state religion. Constantine gave everyone, pagan or
Christian, a choice: conform or be exiled.
With
the enforcement of a false religion upon them, the Nazarenes or Torah keeping
Christians had no choice but to flee. As decades rolled by, and persecutions
raged, they gradually melted away. Some apostatized and some were martyred.
But most migrated, going north and east into Armenia and Cappadocia, into
the farthest bounds of the Roman Empire. Other Christians found places to hide
from Rome far to the west in Spain.
The
Roman historian Eusebius wrote a
book, “Life of Constantine” and
in Book 3, Chapter 18, he records Constantine’s letter to the council with his
supreme directions and expectations from the Emperor. Concerning the Feast of Resurrection;
“It
appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this the most holy feast
you should follow the practice of the Jews, whom have impiously defiled their
hands with enormous sin, and are, therefore, deservedly afflicted with blindness
of soul… Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd;
for we have received from our Savior a different way.”
And
in Theodoret’s Ecclesiastical History
19, he records:
The
epistle of the Emperor Constantine, concerning the matters transacted at the
council, addressed to those Bishops who were present:
“It
was, in the first place, declared improper to follow the custom of the Jews in
celebration of this holy festival, the feast of resurrection, because, their
hands having stained with crime, the minds of these wretched men are necessarily
blinded. Let us, then, have nothing in common with the Jews, who are our
adversaries, avoiding all contact with that evil way.
Who, after having compassed the death of our Lord, being out of their
minds, are guided not by sound reason, but by an unrestrained passion, wherever
their innate madness carries them, a people so utterly depraved. Therefore, this
irregularity must be corrected, in order that we may no more have any thing in
common with those parricides and murderers of our Lord. No single point in
common with the perjury of the Jews.”
With
these letters, Constantine not only established a new religion, Catholicism, but he magnified the ill feelings
between Jew and Christian and established a motive for every Christian to hate
the Jew, as Christ killers.
The
council assumed the task of regulating the differences within the Christian
creed. By order of the Emperor the
most concerning to them was not to have Passover correspond with the Jewish
calendar and to never be celebrated on the same day.
The feast of the resurrection was thenceforth required to be held
everywhere on a particular Sunday, the same day that historically the Spring
Feast of planting was celebrated, Easter.
All other Jewish feasts were completely forbidden.
Make
up and task of the Council of Nicaea and birth of the Catholic Church.
1.
300 Bishops, deacons and elders, from all over the Empire (only two were
Jewish Christians, the rest pagan converts)
2.
No Pope, there was no single Pope until Pope Leo, only Bishops, Deacons
and Elders leading the different districts of the Roman Empire.
3.
Chose books of Canonized Bible.
4.
Decided that Yeshua was God in the flesh.
5.
Took direction from Constantine that there would be NO
Jewish Feast Days, Chose Easter instead of Passover.
Christmas was added later to Christianize Saturnalia.
6.
Agreed that the day of rest would be Sunday, Constantine had already decreed to his
Army their day of worship and would not change it.
As
the Catholic Church grew in numbers and uniformity, it became the only
recognizable religion in the Empire. The
Church got their first pope with Leo.
Pope
Leo I, or Leo the Great, was an aristocrat who was Bishop of Rome from 440 to
461. There were five major areas of the Roman Empire, each with their own
Bishop, called Papa or Pope: Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, Constanople, and
Rome. In 452, by the persuasive power of his words, he stopped Attila the Hun
from pillaging Italy. Leo persuaded him not to pillage the city, burn buildings,
nor spill blood.
Leo
argued that while he was talking with Attila they saw Peter and Paul in the sky overlooking the meeting.
They were there to ensure that Attila agreed to Leo’s wishes to turn
away from Rome. This proved that
Rome was greater and the seat of Peter was established there and therefore Rome should be the
authority over all the church. Thus, Leo became the recognized authority and was
actually the first Pope.
Through
the leadership of each succeeding Pope, the Church became the most powerful
force, politically, religiously, and legally in the world.
With the Crowning of Charles the First, a King could not officially sit
on his thrown without being crowned by the Pope.
In effect, the King of the World was the Pope, which is reflected in our
period of history known as the “Holy Roman Empire.”
Each
Pope after Leo tried to leave their own legacy. With the claimed authority of sitting at the seat of Peter
and “VICAR” for God on Earth, they added new church doctrine and voided
others. Take a look at the
dictionary definition of Vicar.
Vicar
VIC’AR,
n. [L. vicarius, from vicis, a turn, or its root.]
In
a general sense, a person deputed or authorized to perform the functions of
another; a substitute in office. The pope pretends to be vicar of Jesus
Christ on earth. He has under him a grand vicar, who is a cardinal, and whose
jurisdiction extends over all priests, regular and secular.
Some
Popes have even claimed that they are “Jesus Christ” on Earth in the flesh
again. As time elapsed, each Pope would add a pagan worship ritual to the list
as Catholic Holy Days:
Saturnalia
became Christmas. The pagan calendar was a solar calendar beginning after the
winter festival after the shortest day of the year on the 21st of December.
The year consisted of 12 numbered months (with the Julian calendar most
of the months were named after their gods or emperors) each 30 days long with
five or six days for Saturnalia. Sun
worship begins with the first day of the year, and the pagan calendar began with
the re-birth of the sun.
Mardi
Gras Day is also known as Fat or Shrove Tuesday. It’s origin is in the ancient
Roman festival of Lupercalia which
was an annual feasting and celebration by the Romans to keep fearful wolves at
bay from damaging their crops in the coming spring. They wanted to also insure
fertility for the coming year. The first day of spring for those of us who live
above the Equator is usually March 21.
Lent
is the 40 days of weeping for Tammuz. The
first day of Lent, AshWednesday is a function of 40 weekdays plus seven Sundays.
Valentine’s
Day has shadows and mixtures of both the Christian and Roman traditions.
Celebrated famously on February 14 every year, Valentine’s Day has its history
and origin in the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia, which was an annual feasting and celebration by the
Romans to keep fearful wolves at bay from damaging their crops in the coming
spring. They wanted to also insure fertility for the coming year.
Like Saturnalia and Easter, the Catholics did not want to denounce this
holiday from the church so Pope Gelasius I recast this pagan festival as a
Christian feast day circa 496 AD, declaring February 14 to be St. Valentine’s
Day. Which St. Valentine this early pope intended to honor remains a mystery:
according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, there were at least three early
Christian saints by that name. One was a priest in Rome, another a bishop in
Terni, and of a third St. Valentine almost nothing is known except that he met
his end in Africa. Rather surprisingly, all three Valentines were martyred on
Febuary Fourteen.
All
Hallows Day: Druids
and Scandinavians held this holiday celebrating nature, black magic and
witchcraft. It was not part of sun
worship, but became accepted by the Catholics. Idols were added to the Church by
making statues of Yeshua on the cross and placing it in a prominent place within
their church buildings for people to pray to.
Idols
were also made of Peter and the apostles, and many famous Catholic Church
leaders were made Saints and are prayed to.
Also added was the rosary from the Hindus. Mary, the mother of Yeshua was elevated to the status of a
goddess and special prayers were created for her.
Popes
claimed authority of forgiveness of sin and pronouncing salvation on a person.
They found the more affluent members of the Church were willing to pay
for their salvation so they began to sell this blessing.
This grew to where they even sold sanctification. As this privilege
evolved the act of selling indulgences become not only a common practice but
were pursued. One could buy an
indulgence for a future sin and do what ever he wanted for the rest of his life
with complete immunity. It even went so far that rich people could pay enough money
and have their whole family blessed including their ancestors long gone.
These
changes continue to evolve from Pope Leo until the mid-1400s when Martin Luther
nailed his protests to the church door in Wittenberg. All the while anyone not adhering exactly to their church
doctrine was persecuted. Not only
the Jews were persecuted for their faith but also any Christian that stepped
outside of the bounds of the church was burned at the stake. Including the indigenous natives of America and Asia, it is
estimated that between 350 AD and 1850 AD that 150 million people died by the
hands of the Catholic Church in the name of Jesus, and about fifty million were
fellow Christians.
Luther’s
complaint was against the authority of the priesthood, selling of indulgence and
baptizing infants. At the beginning of his career, Luther was apparently
sympathetic to Jewish resistance to the Catholic Church. He wrote, early in his
career of protest:
“The
Jews are blood-relations of our Lord; if it were proper to boast of flesh and
blood, the Jews belong more to Christ than we. I beg, therefore, my dear Papist,
if you become tired of abusing me as a heretic, that you begin to revile me as a
Jew.”
But
Luther expected the Jews to convert to his new purified Christianity. When they
did not, he turned violently against them.
What Luther did not see was that the Jew knew his history and he knew the
scriptures. They have studied the
scriptures since birth and knew the “Old Testament” very well.
The Jews looked at Christianity and saw the practice of pagan
holidays, Sunday worship, graven
images in the churches, Nimrod's
phallic symbol topping the church building, not
keeping the feast days, and many heathen
worship rituals forbidden by Yeh-ho-vee’.
They know what Yeh-ho-vee’
did in the Torah when the Israelites mixed
their worship system. They had
finally learned their lesson and wanted no part of a mixed religion.
Here
is some of Luther's writing:
“I
had made up my mind to write no more either about the Jews or against them. But
since I learned that these miserable and accursed people do not cease to lure to
themselves even us, that is, the Christians, I have published this little book,
so that I might be found among those who opposed such poisonous activities of
the Jews
who warned the Christians to be on their guard against them. I would not
have believed that a Christian could be duped by the Jews into taking their
exile and wretchedness upon himself. However, the devil is the god of the world,
and wherever God’s word is absent he has an easy task, not only with the weak
but also with the strong. May God help us. Amen.
Moreover,
they are nothing but thieves and robbers who daily eat no morsel and wear no
thread of clothing, which they have not stolen and pilfered from us by means of
their accursed usury. Thus they live from day to day, together with wife and
child, by theft and robbery, as arch thieves and robbers, in the most
impenitent security.
But
then eject them forever from this country. For, as we have heard, God’s anger
with them is so intense that gentle mercy will only tend to make them worse and
worse, while sharp mercy will reform them but little. Therefore, in any case,
away with them!
I
brief, dear princes and lords, those of you who have Jews under your rule if
my counsel does not please you, find better advice, so that you and we all can
be rid of the unbearable, devilish burden of the Jews, lest we become guilty
sharers before God in the lies, blasphemy, the defamation, and the curses which
the mad Jews indulge in so freely and wantonly against the person of our Lord
Jesus Christ, His dear mother, all Christians, all authority, and ourselves. Do
not grant them protection, safe conduct, or communion with us.... .With this
faithful counsel and warning I wish to cleanse and exonerate my conscience.”
Here
is what he advised to do with the Jews:
“First
to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt
whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of
them.
Second,
I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them
the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof
or in a barn, like the gypsies.
Third,
I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such
idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them.
Fourth,
I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of
life and limb. For they have justly forfeited the right to such an office by
holding the poor Jews captive with the saying of Moses (Deuteronomy 17 [:10
ff.]) in which he commands them to obey their teachers on penalty of death,
although Moses clearly adds: “what they teach you in accord with the law of
the Lord.”
Fifth,
I advise that safe conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the
Jews. For they have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords,
officials, tradesmen, or the like. Let they stay at home.
Sixth,
I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of
silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. The reason for
such a measure is that, as said above, they have no other means of earning a
livelihood than usury, and by it they have stolen and robbed from us all they
possess.
Seventh,
I commend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into
the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread
in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Gen
3:19)”300 years later Adolph Hitler used Luther’s words to excuse the
holocaust. The Pope in Rome
supported Hitler and all the Bishops and Cardinals in Germany and Austria.
Luther taught his lessons well to future generations and to the whole
world.
Luther’s
ninety-five points began the Protestant Reformation. Besides the Lutheran Church, his break from the Catholics
gave us the 3,000 denominations we have in the United States alone.
Protestant means one who protests. As
Pope John Paul said in 1993 when asked about what to do with the Protestants and
how to get them back into the Church; “Don’t worry about the Protestants, as
long as they keep Sunday worship, Easter and Christmas, they are still
Catholic.”
Today
this anti-Jewish move is still with us in both the Protestant Churches and the
Catholic Church. It is not covert
as in the days of old, but still manifest it self in under lying doctrines and
tenants. The doctrine that the
Church has replaced the Jew in God’s favor is the predominate teaching.
This is “Replacement Theology” and is actually anti-Semitic. What the
Church does not see is that we are Ephraim and that the Jew is our brother, our
cousin. We are one people.
It is all in the Covenants. The
covenants were promised to the Jew and Ephraim alike.
The difference is that the Church does not recognize their Hebrew roots
and the Jew does not recognize their Messiah.
That is a promise of God; He will bring us back together again, into one
nation. So in answer to the first
question of this section: No! The Church has not replaced the Jew!