Christianity is not an offshoot of the Jewish faith but rather its fulfilment. Its spiritual strength comes from its connection to its Abrahamic roots (Romans 11:16). But for the purpose of this article, building terms suit better, so I’ll do what the apostle Paul did and switch metaphors in mid-stream (1 Corinthians 3:9). This will allow me to inspect the foundation of our Christian Faith.
Jesus Christ is the foundation of our Faith, and the ground on which that faith stands is the Hebrew truth of the One True God. When Jesus was asked which commandment was the greatest, he began by quoting the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear O Israel, the LORD our God is one Lord.” (Mark 12:29 ; James 2:19. (The correct translation of James 2:19 is: “You believe that God is One…”)
“If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3) If Christianity as we know it is crumbling at the edges, we should inspect it to see whether it is still as soundly fixed to the truth on which it was founded, which is that God is the Father. (1 Corinthians 8:6) “Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us?” (Malachi 2:10)
The final restoration before the return of Jesus Christ (referred to by Peter in Acts 3:21) may well be that the true God is the Father, and that Jesus is the Divine Son of God; that “God was manifested in the flesh”. That “God was in Christ…”
Sadly, the knowledge that the One God is the Father is still unknown by many Christians. This despite the writings of pagan poets more than 2000 years ago that “in Him we live and move, and have our being” — words that match Paul’s “one God…and we in him” statement. (Acts 17:28) Were God’s chosen people ignorant of His identity and nature? Of course not! Jesus told the Samaritan woman, “We Jews know what we believe.” (John 4:22)
If the Jews do not know God as intimately as they might, it is because they reject the truth that Jesus is His Son. This limits them to knowing Him only through the names that express his nature and attributes rather than through His Divine yet also human Son, who those names describe perfectly!
Jesus said, “No man can come to me unless the Father who has sent me draws him. So everyone who has heard, and has learned from the Father, comes to me.” (John 6:45) We have a relationship, not just a religion. If it is true that for 2,000 years the Jewish people on the whole have rejected Jesus as Messiah, it is also true that if the church had taught that Jesus was the Son of God by divine nature through the virgin birth and “the image of the invisible God” — who knows how many more Jews might have believed?
Moses wanted the “crooked and perverse generation” of his time to know that the Most High was their Father (Deuteronomy 32:6); and the LORD had earlier in time spoken of Israel as “My son, my firstborn.” (Exodus 4:22, 23)
It was Jesus who first called God “Father” in the personal sense, and taught his disciples to pray, “Our Father in heaven…” (Luke 11:2) He also said, “I ascend to my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.” (John 20:17) “The God of our Lord Jesus Christ [is] the Father of glory.” (Ephesians 1:17)
If the foundation remains immovable, then the building will be also. But if the ground of that foundation is one of tradition based on Greek philosophy, then the Church as an institution will fall. However, if the ground of the Christian faith is that the God of Jews and of Christians is one and the same, and that Jesus is the Son of God, the righteous will remain immovable, and the best days of the Church — days during which Christians confess that God is One and Jews confess that Jesus is His Son — will prove very exciting!