The Root of the Christian Faith is Judaism.
After God the Father, His Son Yeshua (Jesus), and the Holy Spirt, we owe everything to our Jewish brothers. Christianity is a sect of Judaism or it is nothing. All of our doctrine stands or falls upon the Jewish Torah, Writings, and Prophets. These "Old Testament" scriptures provide the only basis for the life of Messiah (Christ), His death, and His resurrection.
Jesus was a Jew. When He speaks of His brethren in Revelations He is referring to those to whom He has a blood tie. The Jews.
The Church has done much violence not only to the doctrines of The Faith, but have physically and spiritually killed and cursed those to whom a great debt of gratitude is due. After nearly 2000 years of history we seem to have learned very little. The Abrahamic Covenant is an eternal covenant. In this covenant God has promised he will curse those who curse Abraham and his descendants, and bless those who bless Abraham and his descendants. To spell it out, Abraham's descendants are the Jews.We have persecuted and killed the Jews in the name of Messiah (Christ). This is...not good.
The Council of Nicea was when the Church refuted Arianism and guarded the faith against this heresy by way of a formal creedal statement. Sadly however, it was also the council when the Christian faith turned its back on the foundations upon which it stood. By establishing within the body of Christian theology a supposedly scriptural basis for Jewish persecution it established the foundation for future acts of anti-Semitism and murder.
Two things have happened at the time of Nicea. The Church became a "State" entity with the full backing of the Emperor Constantine, and the Christian Church expelled Judaism from its ranks.
The Church was never meant to be coupled with political power. God looks upon this union as an infidelity. Sadly, historically, when reformers set upon the political organisation that the Church had become their answer was to establish another "State" Church. Thus the mistake was repeated. Also, and even more tragically, the reformers persisted in the rejection of Judaism.
Steve Maltz obverves the following of the proceedings at Nicea. The Council has just rejected Arianism.
There was another issue discussed at this Council. It was deemed so important that Emperor Constatine himself took a leading role in the discussion. It concerned the timing of Easter. Because of the growing animosity towards the Jews, there were movements seeking to strip away all connection between this festival and the Jewish festival of Passover, where it owes its origins. Constantine is now reading the letter that he was going to circulate to churches throughout the Christian world.
...When the question arose concerning the most holy day Easter it was decreed by common consent to be expedient, that his festival should be celebrated on the same day by all, in every place...And truly, in the first place, it seemed to every one a most unworthy thing we should follow the customs of the Jews in the celebration of this most holy solemnity, who polluted wretches, having stained their hands with a nefarious crime, are justly blinded in their minds...I is fit, therefore, that rejecting the practice of this people, we should perpetuate to all future ages the celebration of this rite, in a more legitimate order...Let us then have nothing in common with the most hostile rabble of the Jews.
The Council, the first great Council of the Christian Church, now takes a sinister turn and validates a policy that is going to result in nothing less than persecution, leading to genocide of the Jewish people for centuries to come. Our "One New Man" has been well and truly garotted.1
Thus the roots of the faith were dug out, and the branches convinced of their sufficiency marched happily into the period of time know as the Dark Ages, and the Church became a State Institution able to be used for political ends. Dr Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum observes around the end of the 4th century
...Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire.2
What Christianity has become over 2 millennia is so culturally and spiritually divorced from it's root that a first century gentile believer would never recognise it as the Faith which was handed down from the Apostles.
Having persecuted the Jews for killing the Messiah (Christ), which they did not do, and excluding them from the blessing that the JEWISH Messiah (Christ) opened up to Gentile believers, we can only confess our sin to them, and seek their forgiveness. One hopes that they are able to show more grace to us, than we have been able to demonstrate to them while using the name of their Messiah.
Footnotes:
- Maltz, Steve, How the Church Lost the Way, and how it can find it again, (Saffron Planet, United Kingdom, 2009) pp 47 - 48
- Fruchtenbaum, Dr Arnold G.The Local Church, downloaded from ariel.org, 24-Jan-2011, pp 7
