Don Stewart :: Can a Person Reach the True God through Judaism?

In the Old Testament God divinely revealed Himself to the nation Israel. He put in place a system of worship that looked forward to a time when it would be fulfilled in a person known as the Messiah or the Christ. The Scripture said.

A voice is calling, "Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for our God" (Isaiah 40:3).

The Prophecies Were Fulfilled By Jesus

The coming of Jesus Christ fulfilled the predictions of the Old Testament. We read in John's gospel.

Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph" (John 1:45).

When Jesus died upon the cross, He declared His work finished.

When Jesus therefore had received the sour wine, he said, "It is finished!" And he bowed his head, and gave up his spirit (John 19:30).

Jesus Brought In A New Age

With Jesus' death, resurrection, ascension, and the sending of the Holy Spirit to live inside each believer God instituted a new age. The former was the age of law; today we are living in the age of grace. The Bible says.

For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ (John 1:17)

The Old System Was Abolished

Today God is not working through this system because the coming of Christ has abolished it. The sacrifices that God instituted have been fulfilled in the coming of Christ. The writer to the Hebrews stated.

The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven (Hebrews 1:3).

Jesus sat down because His work was finished. The writer to the Hebrews also stated.

For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never by the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near . . . By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Hebrews 10:1,10).

The law was only a shadow; Jesus Christ is the reality. Consequently the Old Testament law, with all its ceremonies and commandments, has been abolished with the coming of Christ. Believers are now under the law of Christ in this age of grace.

A Person Cannot Have The Father Without The Son

The Bible is clear that a person cannot have a relationship with God the Father without a relationship with God the Son. Those who are presently rejecting Jesus have also rejected God the Father.

No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also (1 John 2:23).

Summary

The Old Testament represents God's revelation to humanity concerning His person and plan. In that plan He predicted that a Messiah or Christ would come and deliver His people from sin and from their enemies. God set up an elaborate system of law, sacrifice, and behavior that looked forward to the coming of the Messiah.

The New Testament says that the Christ has now come in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth. With the coming of Jesus those laws, ceremonies and rules had had their fulfillment. They were only a shadow of what was to come. The old system has been abolished and a new one put in its place. Judaism attempts to live under the old system. Consequently it does not represent what God is doing on earth today.

Judaism rejects the complete revelation of God in the Person of Jesus Christ. In this present age, only Christianity provides the truth concerning how a person can know the one, true God. Although the God of the Old Testament is the same God as the New Testament, God has made the way through Jesus Christ as the only way in which He can be known.