by Tim Hall

Mel Gibson's "The Passion Of The Christ" has provoked reactions from many quarters. One theme that has been pressed by some is the Jewishness of Jesus and Christianity's supposed disregard of that fact. This comment from the March 8, 2004 issue of "U.S. News & World Report" is an example: "Christians have always had to deal with the fact that Jesus of Nazareth - the founder of their religion, their Messiah, and the second part of the trinitarian God - was himself not a Christian but, indisputably, a Jew." The argument then suggests that Jesus' followers developed Christian doctrines in reaction to the persecution they endured at the hands of Jewish leaders. The result, Christianity, was the child of the early disciples, but not anything Jesus had envisioned.

To say that Christianity was not in the mind of the One claimed to be the head of the movement is a serious charge. It brands the early Christian leaders as renegades, usurpers - hijackers of an ideal. If they had more faithfully followed the teachings of Jesus, Christianity as we know it would never have been born.

Such a view of the illegitimacy of Christianity shows a failure to accept Jesus' own testimony about His mission. Consider His statement in John 7:16,17: "My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If anyone wants to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority" (NKJV). In saying this, Jesus was challenging observers (of all times) to investigate. Those who honestly consider the evidence "shall know" the veracity of His way.

Of particular interest is the testimony of Scripture that a change would occur in the covenant God had made with the Jews. Significantly, the prediction of this change came from God through a Jew: "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 - not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt . . ." (Jer. 31:31,32). Could honest observers fail to see that this was a prediction that God would somehow alter the covenant made with the Jews through Moses?

This prophecy was later affirmed to have been fulfilled by - again, significantly - a Hebrew. In speaking of Jesus and the "new and living way which He consecrated for us" (Heb. 10:20), he wrote: "But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises" (Heb. 8:6). After making that claim, the writer then quoted from Jeremiah 31, the prophecy of the change God would make to His covenant (vv. 8-12).

Here's the point: Jesus was a Jew. Of that there can be no doubt. But of even greater importance is the realization that Jesus was One who accepted and followed the will of God, whatever that happened to be. If His ministry had been conducted during the Christian age, He would have obediently submitted to the requirements of that covenant.

The fact that Jesus observed the Law of Moses does not make illegitimate the later activities of His apostles and disciples. They were merely imitating their Lord, of whom it was prophesied, "Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God" (Heb. 10:7,9). We now have the possibility of pure and simple Christianity because these early followers of Jesus did the will of God. They were acting entirely according to Jesus' plan.