Cryptosupersessionism exists wherever there is an unconscious and entrenched cluster of presuppositions assuming the expiration or setting aside of identity markers that formerly applied to the Jewish people, effectively nullifying Israel’s covenantal uniqueness in whole or in part. 

Cryptosupersessionism is the more powerful because it is unconscious. In our ranks it is often those who speak loudest about the Jewish people and their chosenness who embrace cryptosupersessionist theological commitments vitiating Jewishness of its substance.

An Example: Some Implications of the Law of Christ Doctrine

Consider the teaching, widely represented in our circles, that with the coming of Messiah/the New Covenant, the Law of Moses is categorically rendered inoperative, and that the only Law that applies to Jewish Yeshua-believers is the Law of Christ.

Since the church too is subject only to the Law of Christ, is it not clear that this teaching postulates the expiration of a major identity marker that formerly differentiated the Jewish people? Some protest that Jewish covenantal uniqueness is preserved through the Abrahamic Covenant, but it is highly questionable that Jewish covenantal identity can be successfully transmitted intergenerationally on such a basis, even if supported by a variety of seasonal celebrations.

When challenged on this by a Jewish missionary who insisted the Abrahamic covenant provided a sufficient foundation for such intergenerational transmission, I reminded him that he had just bragged to me about his son having participated in a Bar Mitzvah ceremony. I pointed out that this observance does not come out of the Abrahamic covenant but out the fabric of Jewish Torah living. His own actions demonstrated how he needed more to sustain his son’s Jewishness than reminders about the Abrahamic covenant. Inevitably, jettisoning the Law of Moses and substituting the “the Law of Christ” means reducing Jewishness to genetics and nostalgia, while assimilating Jews into a code of conduct and way of life indistinguishable from Gentile Christians—the same Law, the Law of Christ.

We in the Messianic Movement have declared seriously defective One Law Movements which postulate that both Jewish and Gentiles must keep the Law of Moses. However, whenever and wherever the Jewish Missions community insists that Jews and Gentiles are only responsible to adhere to “the Law of Christ,” this too is a One Law Movement, and equally defective.

Commenting on One Law Movements in a paper for the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, Russ Resnik and Dan Juster write:

Paradoxically, One Law people undermine their own vision for “One People,” by basing unity on a common response to Torah. In other words, they hope to achieve unity by producing unified Torah-based behavior among all believers. Scripture, however, portrays our unity as accomplished in Messiah himself. *

The letter to the Ephesians, which includes some of the strongest statements of unity within the Body of believers, never posits the idea of One Law. Instead, it calls us to maintain “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” for 

“there is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (4:4-6).

The beauty of this God-given unity is that it honors and preserves biblical distinctions between diverse groups, particularly Jews and Gentiles.

Their critique applies equally to the One Law Movement via the alleged One Law of Christ binding on Jew and Gentile as widely assumed in the Jewish Missions Movement. The unity into which Messiah brings us is a differentiated unity, wherein Jews and Gentiles remain essentially different, distinct but not separate, and reconciled to one another despite their continuing distinctions. This is the marvelous reconciling unity that Messiah effects: not uniformity, lopping off distinctives, not some sort of enforced conformity, nor some utopian unanimity where all agree on every jot and tittle. 

In fact, the unity in Messiah of which Paul speaks is only represented where and when Messianic Jews live differently, in the context of Jewish covenantal life, and yet in unity with their Gentile brothers and sisters, who accept them in their differentness and who recognize that while such a lifestyle is not their own covenantal calling, they ought always to refrain from disparaging Jewish covenantal distinctives, or casting aspersions on those who adhere to them. Unfortunately, such affirmation of Jewish observance by Jewish Yeshua-believers is often lacking in Jewish mission and even Messianic congregational circles. Instead, negativity about Torah-based Jewish covenantal distinctives is the more frequently encountered norm.

This should not be!

This position consigns Jews to assimilation and, within two or three generations at most, communal extinction in almost every case. Although we all know exceptions, these are exceptions. The rule is assimilation and communal disintegration.

If we accept that Jewish Yeshua believers are subject to no religious law other than the same Law of Christ to which the average white-bread Gentile in Tulsa subscribes, then we are fitting Jewish community and continuity into a plain pine box. It is time to say Kaddish.

* Daniel Juster and Russ Resnik, “One Law Movements: A Challenge to the Messianic Jewish Community,” p. 8, found on line March 15, 2010, at http://umjc.net/home-mainmenu-1/faqs-mainmenu- 58/14-umjc-faq/24-is-the-torah-only-for-jews

Recently I received a letter inquiring about my views on Torah observance for Gentiles, and Gentile participation in Messianic Jewish congregations.  Here is an edited version of what I said. 

Although the Torah has applications for Gentiles in the moral realm, and in terms of principles of life, clearly the Torah was given to Israel.  As Deuteronomy states, "Moses charged us with a law, A possession for the assembly of Jacob” (33:4).  (See also Ps 147:19-20; Dt 4:5-9). Acts 21:17-26 demonstrates that first century Jewish Yeshua believers assumed they, and not Gentiles, had a responsibility to keep Torah, and Paul associates Torah keeping with those who are ritually circumcised, that is, Jews (Gal 5:3).  Richard Bauckham, professor of New Testament studies at St. Mary's College, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and an expert on Yeshua’s family, states, “As far as we can tell, the vast majority of Jewish Christians in the NT period continued to observe the whole law, taking for granted that they were still obligated to do so.” This was not so of Gentile Christians, a fact ignored by proponents of Torah observance for Gentiles. 

My congregation is a family-friendly community of Jews and Intermarrieds. Gentiles not intermarried who are members of my congregation are a distinct minority, and must be people with a demonstrated calling to and involvement with the Jewish people, and not just those who "love the feasts," who want to keep the Sabbath and Torah.   

When Gentiles presume that Torah is as much given to them as to the Jews, it fosters a reverse supersessionism:  if everyone is a de facto Jew, then the Jews lose their distinctive and disappear as a distinct people.  This is contrary to the Bible and to the will of God.  It is also contrary to the liturgy of Jewish prayer which highlights the distinctiveness of the descendants of Jacob.  Congregations that are majority Gentile, with Gentiles who keep Torah in their fashion, cease to be a sign, demonstration and catalyst of God's consummating purposes for the descendants of Jacob.  Jews find such congregations cultish. 

Recently I heard a leader whom I respect suggest that the following questions be used with Gentiles who seek membership in Messianic Jewish congregations.  These questions reflect his conviction that most Gentiles who want to bond with the Messianic Movement do so out of unresolved conflict with the Church, or out of a naive assumption that Messianic Judaism is the more perfect religion for all. 

1. Do you believe in the basic legitimacy of the Church, in its many varieties, when it confesses the historic creeds; that its celebrations and sacraments are legitimate?

2. Do you believe that Gentiles have a different relationship to the Torah than Jews and are not responsible as Jews for the Jewish patterns of life within the Mosaic revelation but only responsible for the universal ethical teachings of Torah as also expressed an applied in New Covenant teaching?

3. Do you believe that as a Gentile believer in Yeshua, joining a Messianic Jewish congregation, you have a special calling to the Jewish people but reject the view that the Messianic Jewish congregation is a more ideal form of congregational life for all?

What do you think?