Was Jesus a Jew?
Was Jesus a Jew? Indeed He was - and the Scriptures make this very clear. For one thing, Jesus claimed to be a Jew:
"You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. "(John 4:22).
And Matthew 1:1 proclaims in no uncertain terms the Jewishness of Jesus:
"The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham:"
In addition, Jesus showed outward signs of being an observant Jew:
He wore tzitzit on His clothing (Luke 8:43) - and He observed Passover, Succoth and Hanukah (John 10:22).
So, why don't followers of Jesus (Yeshua) practice Judaism?
The Mosaic Covenant has been nullified due to Israel's failure to keep it. God promised a New Covenant; in the Hebrew Scriptures, Jeremiah prophesied about the New Covenant:
31 "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah- 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." (Jeremiah 31:31-34).
Jesus Christ is the foundation of the New Covenant (Hebrews 8:6); Indeed, He fulfilled the Mosaic Covenant, and has rendered it inoperative. (Matthew 5:17).
Both Jews and Gentiles can partake of the New Covenant.
Published by Hartley Engel
I was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada but raised in Los Angeles, California. I have a BA and MsEd degree from USC. View profile
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Yes, as you pointed out with your quote of Jeremiah 31:33-34, Christians show by sending out missionaries that this New Covenant has not come. They say that the Torah is not yet written in everyone's heart as Jeremiah states.
Likewise the claim is commonly made that was wrong for stating that the Commands of the Torah are profitable as doctrine. If the New Covenant writing of the Torah on their hearts had occurred then the Torah would be profitable for instruction in righteous living so that the person of God could be perfected for every good work. It makes a person wonder why the Christians would keep Paul's letters to Timothy in their Bible when they say that this is a false teaching.