Identity Theft (28 page)

   Paul was actually a Jewish rabbi named Shaul.

   Peter was not a pope, but one of the greatest Messianic Jewish communicators in history.

In fact, I was shocked to discover that Gentiles didn’t even begin to believe in Yeshua until many years after He was raised from the dead—and virtually the entire early Church was Jewish!

I have a litmus test on how to come to the right conclusion on controversial theological issues. I ask myself a simple question: If I were untainted by either view, and I was given a Bible and locked in a room, what conclusion would I come to? So let’s apply that test to the nature of the person of Jesus.

If a Jewish person, unspoiled by the anti-Yeshua bias in modern Judaism, were locked in a room and given the Gospel narratives to read (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), would that person come out of that room concluding that Yeshua was a Gentile, anti-Semitic, or the father of a new religion apart from Judaism?

I contend not only would the person not see Him in that light, but the person would fall in love with Him! He or she would see Him as a hero who stood up to the religious establishment of His day (like Jeremiah and the other prophets did) as well as the political rulers, and ultimately demonstrated His love in the greatest way possible. And that is why I wrote this book—to present the real Yeshua, a Jewish Man from Israel, to my people. But not only that! Gentiles have much to unlearn as well.

The Church’s guilt in obscuring the Jewish nature of this Man from Galilee is well documented. Church fathers taught their followers the most bizarre and unscriptural doctrines, such as:

   God hates the Jews.

   It is your duty to hate the Jews.

   The Jews are cursed and will never return to be God’s people.

   The Church is the new Israel.

   The Jews must suffer as a nation for the killing of Jesus.

   No one can be both Christian and Jew.

They changed the Gospel and they changed the Savior. The tragic result is that Jewish people see Yeshua “through a glass, darkly,” but they must see Him “face to face” (see 1 Cor. 13:12).
Identity Theft
seeks to do that; to allow my Jewish brothers and sisters to see Him as He truly is—King of the Jews. And for my non-Jewish brothers and sisters, get ready to meet your Savior in a new and honest way.

I originally wrote this book in three parts. The first was to:

   Show you emphatically that neither Yeshua nor the New Covenant writers ever intended to start a new religion;

   Explore the Jewishness of the first Messianic believers;

   Prove that there has been a demonic conspiracy to rid the New Covenant of its Jewishness—to ethnically cleanse the faith.

The second was to:

   Expose the roots of Replacement Theology—the idea that the Church has replaced Israel as God’s chosen, Covenant people;