What are Messianic congregations and how do you relate to them? Print

Messianic congregations are formed by people who have discovered the Jewish aspects of the New Testament that traditional Christian churches have neglected. Sometimes they are Jews who have come to a faith in Christ, but do not want to give up their Jewish customs. Sometimes they are Christians who find Jewish customs meaningful. The Messianic movement is also a vehicle of Evangelical Christianity for propagation of their faith among Jews in what they think is a more palatable form.

As such, Messianic congregations usually preserve all or most of the beliefs of Evangelical Christianity, such as the Trinity, unconditional immortality of the soul, the rapture, and other errors of eschatology or end-time beliefs. They differ from the Evangelical churches only in the addition of varying amounts of Jewish customs.

There are essential beliefs that are also missing. The realization that Jesus is the Son of God, the Word of God made flesh, who died a sacrificial death on behalf of humankind, was raised to life and has gone to heaven to perform the final atonement for sin, thus blotting out the sins of the faithful forever, is missing from essentially all Messianic congregations. There is no sanctuary doctrine. While the Sabbath is sometimes kept, it is generally buried beneath a mass of Jewish customs, so that people do not relate to it as an essential, but as merely one of the optional trappings.

Our response to Messianic Judaism would be the same as our response to Evangelical Christianity, for that is what it most often is. We would encourage them to understand the signs of the times, the closeness of Christ's literal and visible return to put an end to this sinful world, and to act on that knowledge to prepare themselves for the crisis ahead.