Among the 14 million Jewish people there is a group of perhaps twenty or thirty thousand people, born Jews, who believe in the Torah and the rest of the Tenach and practice Jewish customs and religion. They also believe in Jesus. Some, if not most of them, prefer to call Him by His Jewish name, Yeshua...
We believe in Yeshua (Jesus) as Messiah because He alone gives sense to the words of our Jewish prophets. There is Isaiah 53 with its minute description of the suffering servant who was despised and rejected, afflicted with pain and stripes, by whose "stripes we are healed." He then dies, is buried, yet is revived and suffers all this "for the affliction of my (Isaiah the prophet's) people." All this can best be applied to one person only - Yeshua of Nazareth. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 98) teaches that this chapter refers to Messiah. The Targum of Jonathan begins the passage with the words Ha yatslakh avdee Mashikha, "Behold my servant the Messiah shall prosper
From the first book, Bereshit, to the last prophet in the Tonach, Malachi, the Messiah's activity involves "the people" or the nations. Yaacov Aveenoo foresees it and says:
The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet,
until Shiloh come; and unto Him shall the gathering of the people be. (
Genesis 49:10)
Isaiah the prophet sees Him as the
"root of Jesse which shall stand for an ensign of the people;
to Him shall the Gentiles seek" (
Isaiah 11:10).
In Isaiah 49:6 Messiah is proclaimed with these words:
It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob,
and to restore the preserved of Israel:
I will also give thee a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth. Malachi says of Him (1:11):
For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same
my name shall be great among the Gentiles. PEACE THAT MESSIAH GIVES
Jewish believers in Messiah Yeshua found that only in Him they have rest, peace, and satisfaction. They heard Messiah's invitation,
"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (
Matthew 11:28). They verified it in their own lives. They read the record of His promise,
"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid" (
John 14:27). They found Messiah to be the Great Gentleman who always keeps His promise. The result is that we can say together with one of the first hosidim of Messiah Yeshua, Simon bar Jonah, called Simon Peter:
Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.
And we believe and are sure that thou art the Messiah, the Ben Elohim.
(John 6:68-69)