Sunday, 28 February 2010 16:03
Written by John Hellein
Ki Tisa and The Test of Messiah
Following Aharon’s and Israel’s sin of the golden calf at Sinai, God spoke to Moses:
"I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people. Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation" (Exodus 32:9-10, NAS).
If Moses’ wanted to see his ministry grow, this was his chance. All he had to do was agree with the Majestic Word of God that was speaking to him at that moment:
“You are right! These people are stiff-necked. Yes, go ahead and press the reset button: get rid of these people and let’s start all over.”
Later in the Scriptures, we can see such selfish ambition in Jeroboam, the King of Israel. In order to mitigate the risk of the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel turning to the Southern Kingdom of Judah for worship at the Temple in Jerusalem, Jeroboam established two golden calves in his kingdom and called them “the God who brought you up out of Egypt”. He also established separate festivals and built altars telling his people that it was too much for them to go up to Jerusalem (1 Kings 12:28). As a result of Jeroboam’s actions, the Northern Kingdom was cut off from the purposes of the God of Israel and went into dispersion at the hands of Assyria in 722 BC/BCE without a promise of corporate regathering.
Instead, Moses was concerned about the reputation of the God of Israel:
“Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, 'With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth'? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever" (Exodus 32:12-13, NAS).
Unfortunately for early Christianity, the so called “Church Fathers” adopted the attitude of Jeroboam, not Moses. In doing so, they failed the test of Messiah to be more concerned with God’s ministry than their own. In The Apology, Tertullian writes of his conclusion of Israel’s rejection by their God and His raising up of supposedly “more faithful worshippers”, that is, Christians:
“Scattered abroad, a race of wanderers, exiles from their own land and clime, they roam over the whole world without either a human or a heavenly king, not possessing even the stranger’s right to set so much as a simple footstep in their native country. The sacred writers withal, in giving previous warning of these things, all with equal clearness ever declared that, in the last days of the world, God would, out of every nation, and people, and country, choose for Himself more faithful worshippers, upon whom He would bestow His grace, and that indeed in ampler measure, in keeping with the enlarged capacities of a nobler dispensation” (The Apology, Chapter 21; Donaldson & Coxe).
It is unfortunate not only for early Christianity but also for Christians today who have inherited this “replacement theology” as a tacit presupposition of the faith. Unfortunate because in order for Christians to function in the God of Israel’s plan of Redemption – as they were intended to function – we will need to unlearn this doctrine and begin to learn to be an encouragement to the Circumcision (Romans 15:8). For more on this topic, read Chapter 4 of Hebraic Roots, “The Further Separation”.
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