09-12-2008, 02:33 PM
Shlama Akhi Runggold,
I want to be very careful how I answer this question as it may touch on certain theological controversies. I will try to stick to what I think most of us here would agree on.
My first point to you is this: I don't think my Jewish background made it more likely I would be saved. Actually, if you think about it, the opposite is true. My family 100 years ago was Orthodox. I have rabbis and cantors on both sides of my family tree, and from Eastern Europe to boot where centuries of pogroms hardened us against the Gospel. I have Holocaust survivors in my family (my Aunt Marika for example) and many others (scholars and lay people, workers, etc) who perished in the ovens of Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen. We were burned in Torah scrolls while bystanders sang Christian hymns.
By the time I was born, my family was firmly the other way, Reform, but that made the more religious trends in Judaism (as opposed to socio-political) less relevant. If the JEWISH sprituality was less relevant, how much more so was this the case with Messiah? I mean how much further removed could I have been from Messiah's message?
Now what about the rest of the world? My answer is this. That is what the Great Commisssion was for. That is why in Matti 28:19-20 Y'shua commanded the apostles to go out of Israel and to the rest of the world. We can argue as to what that message ultimately was, but it was Y'shua's message nevertheless. If you feel that so many do not have a chance at the Gospel, then it falls to YOU (not them) to reach them with the Good News.
I can find ample evidence of Christian and Messianic outreach in every part of the world. Three apostles went in each of the four directions. They reached the Roman and Persian Empires and got into India, China, the Russian steppes and of course, Europe. They penetrated the heart of Africa and the deep forrests of South America. They reached Arabia with their first taste of monthesim 400 years before Mohammed was born. Everyone has had a shot in the last 2000 years, but it has been regrettable that many Native cultures had such a horrible experience with shall we say some bad people cloaked in false Western religious righteousness. Still, the basics of the Gospel are easily seen.
But what if folks live in neolithic conditions or are truly cut off from the rest of the world? It is a fair question. My answer is to reach these folks of course, but if we can't, then we have to hope for YHWH's grace and that is no faint hope. We have to rely on YHWH to know people's hearts and look fairly if they live, as Rav Shaul said, "as a Torah unto themselves". Does that mean that they know Y'shua directly, who he was, why he came, what he did??? NO. But I read the Scripture as saying "he who HEARS the Word" and obeys or disobeys. If they don't HEAR it, I think that is somehow taken into account, even though the rules command immersion, faith knowledge in the basics of John 3:16, etc. YHWH may also defer judgment UNTIL they get the Word; we cannot know otherwise for certain. But I do think if we as believers and teachers don't try to reach them, then it is more on us for not telling them. YHWH may delay penalty but he never takes the rules off the table.
He who has ears, let him hear!
Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth
I want to be very careful how I answer this question as it may touch on certain theological controversies. I will try to stick to what I think most of us here would agree on.
My first point to you is this: I don't think my Jewish background made it more likely I would be saved. Actually, if you think about it, the opposite is true. My family 100 years ago was Orthodox. I have rabbis and cantors on both sides of my family tree, and from Eastern Europe to boot where centuries of pogroms hardened us against the Gospel. I have Holocaust survivors in my family (my Aunt Marika for example) and many others (scholars and lay people, workers, etc) who perished in the ovens of Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen. We were burned in Torah scrolls while bystanders sang Christian hymns.
By the time I was born, my family was firmly the other way, Reform, but that made the more religious trends in Judaism (as opposed to socio-political) less relevant. If the JEWISH sprituality was less relevant, how much more so was this the case with Messiah? I mean how much further removed could I have been from Messiah's message?
Now what about the rest of the world? My answer is this. That is what the Great Commisssion was for. That is why in Matti 28:19-20 Y'shua commanded the apostles to go out of Israel and to the rest of the world. We can argue as to what that message ultimately was, but it was Y'shua's message nevertheless. If you feel that so many do not have a chance at the Gospel, then it falls to YOU (not them) to reach them with the Good News.
I can find ample evidence of Christian and Messianic outreach in every part of the world. Three apostles went in each of the four directions. They reached the Roman and Persian Empires and got into India, China, the Russian steppes and of course, Europe. They penetrated the heart of Africa and the deep forrests of South America. They reached Arabia with their first taste of monthesim 400 years before Mohammed was born. Everyone has had a shot in the last 2000 years, but it has been regrettable that many Native cultures had such a horrible experience with shall we say some bad people cloaked in false Western religious righteousness. Still, the basics of the Gospel are easily seen.
But what if folks live in neolithic conditions or are truly cut off from the rest of the world? It is a fair question. My answer is to reach these folks of course, but if we can't, then we have to hope for YHWH's grace and that is no faint hope. We have to rely on YHWH to know people's hearts and look fairly if they live, as Rav Shaul said, "as a Torah unto themselves". Does that mean that they know Y'shua directly, who he was, why he came, what he did??? NO. But I read the Scripture as saying "he who HEARS the Word" and obeys or disobeys. If they don't HEAR it, I think that is somehow taken into account, even though the rules command immersion, faith knowledge in the basics of John 3:16, etc. YHWH may also defer judgment UNTIL they get the Word; we cannot know otherwise for certain. But I do think if we as believers and teachers don't try to reach them, then it is more on us for not telling them. YHWH may delay penalty but he never takes the rules off the table.
He who has ears, let him hear!
Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth