The Messiah Our Redeemer: Part 4 of 12

IV. One Salvation For The Jew And Gentile Through Faith

Another fundamental principle in scripture is the unity of God’s nature, God is one. When asked what the greatest commandment was in the Bible, Yeshua responded, by reciting the Shema,

“Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the Lord is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength" (Mark 12:29)(Deut 6:4).

The prophet Zechariah spoke of the nature of God in this way…

“And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one” (Zech 14:9).

The apostle Paul further testified, there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph 4:5). The culmination of God’s unity is further rendered by Paul who prophesized of a future time when…

“The end will come, when He (Yeshua) hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For He "has put everything under his feet." (Psa 47:3) Now when it says that "everything" has been put under Him, it is clear that this does not include God Himself, who put everything under Christ. When He has done this, then the Son Himself (Yeshua) will be made subject to Him (God the Father) who put everything under Him (Yeshua), so that God may be all in all.” (1 Cor 15:24-28)

The promise that “God may be all in all” is the ultimate apostolic proclamation of the future restoration of the unity of God in creation as it was in the beginning.

Therefore, if God is one, His salvation must be one salvation for both the Jew and the Gentile. The popular world-view that speaks of multiple paths of salvation to God is contrary to the…

 fundamental character of God’s nature (His unity),
 promises of the prophets, and
 history of common salvation of Jew and Gentile demonstrated during the Exodus and repeated throughout scripture.

If God is just and the God of all men, He must offer salvation to both the Jew and the Gentile and that salvation must be one. But what can be the path of common salvation among two peoples who seem so different? The answer comes from both the Jewish Sages and the Apostolic Writers.

In Jewish tradition, the Torah contains 613 commandments. As extensive as the words of the Torah are, men still developed questions that were not specifically addressed in the Torah. In the wilderness, Moses took some of these questions directly to the LORD. However, after his death, and with the loss of the Urim and Thummin during the Babylonian conquest (Ex 28:30)(Ezra 2:59-63), men found it more difficult to determine the complete will of the LORD in changing times.

The Jewish Sages set about grouping the 613 commandments into common themes to understand the foundational precepts of God’s word. If the underlying principles could be identified, then an appropriate course of action could be determined for questions not addressed by specific commandments. The thought process of the Sages is recorded in the Talmud (Jewish traditions and commentary) (Makkot 23b-24a) as follows…

“David came and established the number of commandments at eleven, as it is written, ‘A psalm of David, LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? He whose walk is blameless (1) and who does what is righteous (2), who speaks the truth from his heart (3) and has no slander on his tongue (4), who does his neighbor no wrong (5) and casts no slur on his fellowman (6), who despise a vile man (7) but honors those who fear the LORD (8), who keeps his oath even when it hurts (9), who leans his money without usury (10) and does not accept a bribe against the innocent (11). He who does these things will never be shaken’
(Psa 15:1-6)

Isaiah then came and established the number of commandments at six, as it is written, ‘He who walks righteously (1) and speaks what is right (2), who rejects gain from extortion (3) and keeps his hand from accepting bribes (4), who stops his ears against plots of murder (5) and shuts his eyes against contemplating evil (6)’
(Isa 33:14).

Micah then came and established the number of commandments at three, as it is written, ‘He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly (1) and to love mercy (2) and to walk humbly (3) with your God’ (Micah 6:8).

Amos then came and established the number of commandments at one, as it is written, ‘Seek the LORD and live’ (Amos 5:6).”

But the Talmudic discussion was not quite over. Rav Nachman bar Yitzhaq took exception to this citation from Amos, claiming that the divine commandment to “seek me” runs throughout the entire Torah. Rather, it is Habakkuk who came and established the number of commandments at one, as it is written,

“The righteous will live by faith“ (Hab 2:4).

From this discussion, the Jewish Sages concluded that the entire law can be summarized by a single commandment, “The righteous will live by faith”. It is those who live by faith that are sons of Abraham.

This principle is also central to the apostolic text, as it is written,

“For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith’”
(Rom 1:17).

Therefore, the underlying principle of God’s salvation is faith produced through the Word of God. Faith is a call to action from a reverence and adoration of the LORD. All who attain to this faith can enter into the common salvation, as it is written…

Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. (Rom 3:29-30)