Are Jewish People Who Believe In Jesus Still Jewish?

"So you jumped the train?" 

I was talking with a Russian Jew from New York the other day. It was a great conversation. When he found out that I was both Jewish and have a relationship with Jesus, he assumed I "jumped the train." But have I? What he's really saying is that I jumped off the Jewish train and am now riding aboard the Christian express. 

But is that accurate? Have I given up my heritage, my Jewishness?

Over the years, I've heard some versions of this question, and unfortunately, every one of them is wrong. It comes in many forms:

So you're a Christian now?

So you're no longer Jewish?

When did you convert?

The assumption is always that when a Jew believes in Jesus, they are no longer Jewish. But this simply isn't the case. Faith in Jesus doesn't make someone any less Jewish. In fact, for many of us, our faith in Jesus has actually made us more Jewish.

But this misunderstanding, on both sides, is what has kept Christians from intentionally reaching out to Jewish people and what has kept Jews from understanding that Jesus is for them. It’s why most Jews won’t set foot in a Christian church building. The offer on the table for the Jewish people is that if you want to come to Jesus (the Jewish Messiah), you essentially have to switch teams, put on a new jersey, and go to the other clubhouse.

Go back to the conversation God had with Abraham in Genesis 12. He said to Abraham,

"I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed." 

This promise, known as the Abrahamic Covenant, is repeated multiple times throughout Scripture. It is an everlasting and unconditional covenant God made with Abraham and his descendants.

In other words, God is saying to Abraham, "You are my people, and I am your God." This relationship between God and the Jewish people has never been dependent on our faithfulness or lack thereof. It's an everlasting covenant. God has always been "on track" with His people, even when they seemed to have jumped the rails.

Something interesting happens to the Israelites in their wilderness journey. Because of their lack of faith and refusal to trust God to help them defeat the "giants" in the promised land, God re-routed them, and the generation that came out of Egypt ended up wandering in the desert for 40 years. But even then, God was still faithful to His covenant with Abraham and His people.

Fast forward to Jesus showing up on the scene some 1,400 years later. The promised Messiah came to offer the kingdom of God to His people. But what did the Jewish people do? The religious leaders of that day lead the nation in rejection of their Messiah. Because of unbelief, the offer of the kingdom was rescinded from that Jewish generation. It will be offered to another Jewish generation, those recognizing the Messiah and proclaiming “BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD” (Matthew 23:39). That is because, as mentioned above, God made an unconditional covenant with Abraham and his descendants (Israel). 

They were and still are His covenant people.

God has kept His covenant with Abraham and with the Jewish people. However, the gospel message of salvation has now been commissioned to all who would follow and put their trust in the Messiah Jesus in this present age. God still has His covenant people, Israel. And at this time, God not only has His covenant people, but He also has a “commissioned” people - Jewish and Gentile believers who make up the Body of Messiah (the church) and are committed to bringing the message of salvation to the world. 

And one day, He will fulfill His promise to restore the kingdom to that Jewish generation that believes and recognizes the messiahship of Jesus at His Second Coming.  

This is a crucially important distinction. The Apostle Paul makes this clear in Romans 11:1-2 when he says, 

"Has God rejected His people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew."  

God is not done with His people. God has not replaced the Jewish people. Rather, in this age, God has a “commissioned” people (Jew and Gentile, one in the Messiah) as well as His “covenant” people, Israel. He’s just waiting for them to pick up their end of the line so He can talk to them. 

Back to the train illustration, the Jewish people were not derailed but simply put on a different track. God has never forgotten His covenant with Abraham or His people. And one day, He will make good on His promise to give the kingdom back to the Jewish people.

As we have made abundantly clear on many podcast episodes, the early church was initially entirely Jewish. It was only after the kingdom was rescinded from that generation due to unbelief that we see eventually see the gospel extending to the Gentiles. 

But even then, God did not break His covenant with Abraham or the Jewish people. The Gentiles, when they become followers of Jesus, are grafted into the olive tree that is Israel (Romans 11). In fact, the question the early Jewish church was asking was, "What do we do with these Gentiles who are now coming to faith in our Messiah?" Questions about circumcision and whether or not these Gentiles should now become Jews were hotly debated.

So, two thousand years later, the situation has reversed. We see Gentiles in the church who meet me, a Jew, completely surprised that I not only follow Jesus but that I am still Jewish.

So if we are going to reach out to the Jewish people, we have to share the gospel in such a way that acknowledges their covenant with God. We have to start with the fact that they are still His chosen people, not because of anything they have done but because of God's faithfulness to His covenant. And we need to be careful not to communicate, either intentionally or unintentionally, that in order for them to follow Jesus, they need to stop being Jewish.

Some may say the best way to do this is to contextualize the gospel so it "makes sense" for the Jewish people. While this is a great step in the right direction, it's lacking. 

What is needed in reaching out to the Jewish people is not a contextualized gospel - but a restored gospel. What's the difference?  A contextualized gospel has been modified to fit the current culture. A restored gospel, on the other hand, is a return to the original message and intent of the gospel.

The good news is that we don't have to guess what this looks like because we have a perfect example in Jesus Himself. When He came onto the scene, He didn't contextualize the gospel for His generation. He didn’t have to. He proclaimed to them within the context of the Hebrew Scriptures (The Law and the Prophets) His messiahship. 

Paul came along and contextualized it for the Gentiles. We don’t need to contextualize a contextualized gospel for the Jews. We only need to restore the good news that Jesus declared to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. 

And in doing so, He fulfilled all the Jewish people had been waiting for. Jesus is the ultimate expression of what it means to be Jewish. Gentiles do not need to become Jews. But if you are Jewish, to follow Him is to fulfill the intention of being Jewish. It is to return, not to a modified gospel, but to the original message and intent of the gospel. 

And that is good news for both Jew and Gentile alike.

Have I switched teams and jumped the train? No. I am still very much Jewish. 

• My mother and father and grandparents were all Jewish, going back to my great, great grandfather, Sholom Kanterovich, who was a chief rabbi in Eastern Europe. 

• I grew up in a messianic family where we celebrated Shabbat and all the Jewish holidays. And we still celebrate Shabbat on Fridays. 

• As I write here, our third child is in a lesson with her Israeli Hebrew teacher studying for her upcoming Bat Mitzvah next year. 

• And if all that doesn’t cinch the deal, my oldest kid's favorite breakfast item is a bagel with a shmear from Noah’s New York Bagels. 

I mean, what could be more Jewish than all of that? 
That we also believe in Jesus, Yeshua, the Jewish Messiah. 

So are Jews who follow Jesus still Jewish? Absolutely! In fact, they are the fulfillment of what it means to be Jewish. We are living out the ultimate intention of the Jewish gospel. And that is something we can all celebrate.