At the Israelight Centre we are certain that the world is in need of light to show us the way. The multiplicity of different religions and philosophies, which frequently contradict each other, indicate that we are in the dark. To remedy this, God gave to the people of Israel the great gift of his written word. His purpose was that in due time it would spread to all of his world. That is now happening, and our concern is that it should shine out and especially that its central message should be known. Below is God's way of saving us, which briefly explains that central message, for Jew and for Gentile. Such a message raises many other issues and we have tried to look at them elsewhere in our website. Please freely browse and peruse the information and articles, but first read God's way of saving us, or you'll miss the wood for the trees.
God's way of saving us
"Saving us from what?" is a question you may be asking, or you may even be questioning if we need saving. Some would prefer words like "improving" or "enlightening". Well, it is surely fair to say that we all want a peaceful, truthful, happy and contented life, but it is also true to say that a lot seems to conspire to prevent it happening. Our hopes for such a life are frequently stifled by ourselves, or others, or events; no doubt we would all like to be saved from such things. Or is that being unreal? Should we not just accept that life is mostly a grind with no real hope at the end, in which we can only expect fleeting moments of pleasure before we shuffle off this mortal coil and sink into cold abstraction. We rebel against such a thought—and so we should.
Certain things we know. The hope for peace and happiness tells us there is such a thing as lasting peace and happiness. Our awareness of moral failure tells us there is a moral perfection we fall short of. Our readiness to approve or condemn tells us there is a perfect judgement to come. The design and beauty of the natural world tells us there is a God who is beautiful, wise and powerful. We know these things intuitively, just as we perceive things such as love, hope and despair without a word being spoken or a scientist to make measurements. God's written word confirms all these things. The revelation given to Israel by the one true God makes them clearer and tells us how we should live. But Israel and the nations have time and time again failed to recognise and obey this one God. For this there is a consequence and it is from this we need to be saved.
Can we save ourselves? Most seem to think so. Questionnaires reveal that most people answer the question, "Why should God let you into his heaven?" with something like, "I have done my best, not harmed anyone etc etc...." Jewish people would seem to have a strong case for such an answer. After all, did God not give them his Law? Presumably he thought they could keep it sufficiently well to meet his approval. That is a fatal misunderstanding, perpetuated by the rabbis. It was not how either Moses or David understood things. Moses wrote: "He (God) will provide atonement for His land and His people."1 King David understood this when he wrote: "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity."2 Atonement and forgiveness do not depend on our best efforts, even the diligent keeping of mitzvot, but on God providing atonement and deciding not to impute our sins to us (i.e. he treats us as if we have not sinned!)
But how just?
Does this not make God unjust? How can he simply forgive us when he has said disobedience must be punished (with death)? Is he going to ride roughshod over his own Law? Long ago he taught Israel the answer, but it is so often ignored today. A vast but essentially simple system of animal sacrifice made the point that our disobedience deserves death, but that God provides a substitute to die in our place3. By such a method His justice is upheld and mercy can be shown. His law is satisfied and the repentant sinner can be freely forgiven.
But with no sacrifices today, where does that leave us? Unsaveable? Or has God changed his mind and adopted another method, as the rabbis would have us believe? Does God change his mind on such things? Why bother with all those sacrifices in the first place if just obeying lots of other commands could be sufficient?
The prophet Isaiah made it clear that the principle of sacrifice has not been dropped. He prophesied of a sacrifice to come, the death of a particular individual, the Servant of the LORD. He describes this person as an asham4, the Hebrew word Moses uses for the guilt offering5. The Servant will come and suffer and die for our sin6.
The Servant of the Lord
And he has come! He summed up the purpose of his life in this way: "The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.7" His name is Jesus, or Yeshua to use his Hebrew name. He taught that he was the Servant of the LORD, who came to fulfil the way to forgiveness promised in the Law and the prophets by dying in our place. It happened when he willingly allowed himself to be crucified. What love! A sinless person made the sacrifice for sin. The final proof was his resurrection from the dead. If he was deluded or a deceiver God would have cast him away, left him dead, but God raised him, declaring that all he taught was true and that the sacrifice he made was acceptable. Subsequently he was seen by many eyewitnesses (all of them Jewish, and far more of them than Moses' law requires for capital punishment) and some took pains to write an accurate record. Some suffered painful deaths rather than deny what they knew. All who believed in him experienced the joy of sins forgiven, a hope of everlasting life, and a relationship with the God of Israel who had forgiven them. They then began to tell the world—who wouldn't!
That same experience is available today to all who repent of their sins and ask God to save them, trusting in the atonement made by Yeshua. This is God's way of saving you. It's the Jewish way, but it's for Gentiles too.
Here is God's light of understanding for us: light which saves us. It explains the bad state of the world; our own bad behaviour and frustrated hopes. It opens the way to forgiveness and a relationship of love, first with the God who made us, and then with others. Perhaps you have questions, some have perhaps arisen from what is written above. Our website aims to provide some answers, so please look around, or just contact us and we are ready to help. Whatever you do, do not put off to tomorrow what you can do now. None of us knows what a day will bring.
1Devarim 32:43
2Tehillim 32:1,2
3Vayikra 17:11
4Isaiah 53:10
5Vayikra 5
6Isaiah 53:6,8,12
7Mark 10:45
