What Caused the Rift with the Jews?

The Pharisees' failure to recognize the date Daniel gave for Messiah's arrival had its consequences (Lk. 19:44), but at least 1 in 6 Jews alive then did follow Yeshua; only decades later did outsiders begin to think of what came to be known as Christianity as anything but a branch of Judaism. The few provisional differences are there because the ekklesia ("called-out community") was meant to be a form of Israel that could transcend cultures while people were being "called" from them all.

In The Mystery of Romans, Mark Nanos shows that Paul wrote the epistle chiefly to remind non-Jewish believers of the rules of conduct laid down in Acts 15 so observant Jews could continue to have table fellowship with them. Some apparently complained that they shouldn't be subject to the food and purity laws; after all, they weren't Jews. But Paul told them to submit so the two "buildings of Yahweh", though different by His design, could have the wall between them broken down, forming one new building (14:13-19; Eph. 2:14-21). The Greek terminology here depicts “selecting building materials compatible to both structures”, by using their freedom to choose behavior conducive to "fitting into" those whom Yahweh had given a less flexible standard in order to preserve the purity of His revelation. He was heeded for a while; the Roman ekklesia  (before it became “Catholic”) was known for at least a century to have a more distinctly Jewish flavor than in other Gentile cities.

When the Judeans revolted against Rome c. A.D. 135, the Jews who followed Yeshua helped fight, until the popular Rabbi Aqiva proclaimed Bar Kochba, the leader of the uprising, to be the Messiah. The disciples knew this was not true, and, once their support was lost, the Jews ended up being massacred. The believers were branded traitors and excluded from synagogues. But by this time Gentiles were becoming a majority in the “church”, and after the Jews were expelled from Rome due to the uprising, many were afraid to identify with them.  

Stan Telchin tells us that until A.D. 196 the resurrection was originally always commemorated on the feast of Firstfruits (Nisan 17). But the rest of the world didn't use this calendar, and wanted it on a date that had meaning to them. In a meeting to which no Jews were invited, they decided it was now always to be on a Sunday during the pagan feast of Ishtar (from which we get "Easter"). The Jews were mortified: "Yahweh gave us the date for Passover, and Yeshua rose on the third day after Passover! How can you change this date?!"  

This was ignored, and now it was easy to leave Passover behind altogether. By Constantine's day, anyone caught celebrating the Resurrection on Nisan 17 was excommunicated! One pope even boasted that changing the Sabbath to Sunday was evidence of the level of authority Christ had given him. A rivalry much like that of Jacob's two wives, Leah and Rachel, was created.

Yahweh's two chosen peoples went their separate ways, each ignoring half of their inheritance. To them, you were either Christian or Jewish. Faithful believers who belonged to both covenants became a very lonely lot. As Yeshua predicted, those (from both sides) who persecuted them thought they were doing Yahweh a favor. (Jn. 16:2)


Can the Two be Reconciled?

The season of unleavened bread highlights these "two flocks". Passover week included the Firstfruits of the Barley Harvest—the very day on which Yeshua, the firstfruits of the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20), was brought forth as "bread from the earth". Yahweh instructed Israel to count seven weeks, then celebrate a second Firstfruits—this time of the wheat harvest, called Shavuoth (the feast of "weeks"). At Shavuoth, two loaves of bread are offered. Unlike all other biblical grain offerings, this bread is permitted to contain leaven. It suggests the inclusion of Gentiles. (In Greek, Shavuoth is called "Pentecost".) Paul alludes to this counting (Heb., "measuring") of the days until the second harvest is mature (cf. Acts 2) in Ephesians, wherein he stresses the unity of the one body "built together" from two (2:11-22): "He gave some [to us all] as prophets, ...some as teachers [etc.] until we all attain to [being]...a mature man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Messiah" (4:11ff).

But which Gentiles are these? There was a group that were not always Gentiles, but who preferred to live like Gentiles rather than the Israelites that they were. (Hoshea 7:8)

"The fullness of the Gentiles" (Rom. 11:25) is an allusion to Jacob's prophecy that Ephraim's seed would become "the fullness of the nations" (Gen. 48:19). It was Ephraim (through King Jeroboam, who was from that tribe) that led the northern kingdom to mix with the nations, thus being scattered all around the world and required to become Gentiles (a punishment which fit the crime).

But the rift did not just come from one side; Judah and Israel were already seen as two different entities even when under a single king, Solomon (1 Kings 4:20, 25). Judah and the other tribes of Israel had already been estranged to the point that they were already considered two nations that had to be reunited when David became king! (1 Samuel 18:16) The rivalry goes all the way back to just after Joseph (Ephraim’s father) was taken to Egypt as a slave, when Judah separated himself from his brothers. (Gen. 38:1) He came back by the time the whole family went down to Egypt, and even became a leader.  

But the tenuous relationship between the two kept going back and forth between unity and enmity. A particular subset of Jews specifically called the curse of bloodguilt for Yeshua’s death down upon themselves and their descendants. (Mat. 27:25) But “his blood” is a frequent phrase in the Renewed Covenant, always speaking of redemption; might Yeshua’s “Father, forgive them” given new meaning to “his blood be upon us”—being permitted to mean “upon us” in the sense of the atoning for (covering over) the guilt of our sin “to as many as received him”?

In that same chapter, Roman 11, Paul speaks particularly of the stumbling of the House of Israel (not Judah in particular) which somehow set the stage for the nations to be grafted in. In v. 8 Paul speaks of a "spirit of insensibility" (related in Greek to the callous which forms over a graft) that has come over Israel. Yeshua's use of parables helped bring this about (Lk. 8:10).  

But Paul is quoting Isa. 29:10, in which this "insensibility" is the same term used for the deep sleep Yahweh brought over Adam in order to bring Eve out of him—so this is also what He did to Israel to bring about His bride! No wonder Paul says that when Israel "awakens" it will be "life from the dead"! Thus it is clear that this is a temporary arrangement, soon to end, for Ezekiel tells us that the Houses of Israel (which includes us) and Judah will be reunited! (37:15-23)

This does not mean we place ourselves under rabbinic authority, since that would require denying Yeshua, our kinsman-redeemer, who is already the Jewish king and authority that we need. There is a prophetic angle to the fact that Judah—David’s own tribe—was the last to reinstate David as king after the revolt of Absalom, a picture of the counterfeit, usurping messiah. (2 Samuel 19:11-14) Still, we should be building whatever bridges we legitimately can between the two houses of Israel in the meantime and learning all we can about our brother tribe, training our hearts to love its people and giving them every possible reason to love us, even “outdoing” them in Torah knowledge so as to “provoke them to jealousy” (Rom. 11:11) so that they will strive all the more to be who they are called to be as YHWH’s people, forerunners to the homeland. (Compare Gen. 46:28)