Sinai

For what mortal ever heard the voice of the living God speak out of the fire, as we did, and lived? You go closer and hear all that the Lord our God says, and then you tell us everything that the Lord our God tells you, and we will willingly do it." The Lord heard the plea that you made to me, and the Lord said to me, "I have heard the plea that this people made to you; they did well to speak thus. May they always be of such mind, to revere Me and follow all My commandments, that it may go well with them and with their children forever! Go, say to them, 'Return to your tents.' -Deuteronomy 5:23-27 JPS Tanakh

Up until recently, I used to compare the Sinai experience of the Children of Israel with the personal experience of each person who has received Yeshua/Jesus as Lord, Savior, and Messiah, but recent conversations have made me question this concept. In both instances, a person, or millions of people "speaking as one", in the case of Beis Yisrael, stood before God and accepted His rule over their lives. For most of us who have accepted Yeshua, at the moment we first called him "Lord", we didn't have much of an idea how our lives would truly be affected. Certainly at the moment of my own personal acceptance, I couldn't have predicted what would be happening to me as a result five or ten years hence. In teaching this, I usually mention that the Children of Israel accept Hashem as their God and accept their status as His chosen people before God formally begins giving the Torah. Did each and every man, woman, and child standing at the foot of this burning mountain really know what was going to happen to them next?

Now I'm at the point of asking myself if the two events are related in any way at all. When God calls Israel Am Segulah, His treasured, splendorous people, does He subsequently experience anything even remotely similar for the rest of humanity, collectively or individually?

Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"

"Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked.

"I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied. "Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do."

The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything. -Acts 9:1-9

I've just rendered the famous "conversation" of Saul on the road to Damascus, but in fact, this young Pharisee, a Jew by birth and zealous for the Torah, was having his eyes opened to the reality of the Jewish Messiah by having them temporarily closed. Paul thus began his long journey into truth and as the emissary to the pagan Gentiles, which would be his mission for the rest of his life.

I suppose, to the degree that Saul/Paul was Jewish, his encounter with the Master in a vision can't be applied to the experience of the Gentile God-fearers and pagans of that day in their own encounters with the Jewish Messiah and the Spirit of God. Also, to the degree that Paul was Jewish, he was already a member of the covenant and belonged to God's chosen people, so the "road to Damascus" experience really tells us nothing about Gentile conversion. This next scene however, should be more illuminating.

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.

Then Peter said, "Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water? They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have." So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days. -Acts 10:44-48

This rendition of the Roman Cornelius and his household (all Gentiles) receiving the Holy Spirit of God is something all non-Jewish believers can attach themselves to, yet the experience is substantially similar to what happened to Yeshua's Jewish disciples here:

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. -Acts 2:1-4

Again, the Jewish disciples were already among God's chosen while the Acts 10 experience of the Gentiles shows them being brought into the household of God for the first time. Can we say that Cornelius had a "Sinai" experience when he received the Spirit, or was it something else? If the latter, was what happened to Cornelius the same as what occurred with the disciples in Acts 2?

While a great deal of discussion happens in Messianic Jewish and One Law circles relative to the differences between believing Jews and Gentiles, just what are the similarities? While obligations and duties may be distinct between these two populations, what are our common responsibilities? Consider the following:

And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God demand of you? Only this: to revere the Lord your God, to walk only in His paths, to love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, keeping the Lord's commandments and laws, which I enjoin upon you today, for your good. -Deuteronomy 10:12-13 JPS Tanakh

Beyond the sweeping intent of the covenant and the details of the 613 commandments, the words "...to revere the Lord your God, to walk only in His paths, to love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and soul" communicate a simplicity of holiness, purity, and companionship with God that every living person desires at some level of our being. It also sounds something like this:

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"

"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'There is no commandment greater than these."

"Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."

When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions. -Mark 12:28-34

While a rigorous Messianic Jewish interpretation would be quick to point out that Yeshua was addressing a strictly Jewish audience, the directives to love the Lord your God with everything you are and to love your neighbor as yourself do not seem like something God would withhold from the rest of humanity. Certainly all of Creation has a duty to worship God and loving our neighbor is an extension, not only of God's love, but of our faith in the Messiah.

While the commandments to love God and to love our neighbor seem to be reasonably applied to both Jewish and Gentile believers, what about God's love? The Torah and Prophets seem to make it abundantly clear that Hashem has a boundless love for the Children of Israel:

Zion says,
"The Lord has forsaken me,
My Lord has forgotten me."
Can a woman forget her baby,
Or disown the child of her womb?
Though she might forget,
I never could forget you.
See, I have engraved you
On the palms of My hands,
Your walls are ever before Me.
Swiftly your children are coming;
Those who ravaged and ruined you shall leave you.
Look up all around you and see:
They are all assembled, and come to you!
As I live declares the Lord
You shall don them all like jewels,
Deck yourself with them like a bride. -Isaiah 49:14-18 JPS Tanakh

There is a virtually inexhaustible amount of scripture that declares God's love for the Jewish people and, while many a Christian Pastor may freely lift such passages from the Tanakh and liberally apply them to the Gentiles in the church, does God speak uniquely of His love to the nations of the world?

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died — more than that, who was raised to life — is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
"For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. -Romans 8:31-39

Most Bible experts agree that Paul is addressing a mixed Jewish and Gentile Messianic congregation in Rome, so I can confidently say that the Messiah (at least from Paul's point of view) does have an inseparable love for us, too. Of course, depending on how you define the word "world", there's also this famous statement:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. -John 3:16-17

While, for the sake of many Jews in the Messianic movement, I may have to modify some of the particulars of my teaching, the Spirit of God's love is available not only to the Jew but to the Gentile believer as well. While traditionally, anyone who is Jewish is to consider themselves as having personally stood at the foot of Sinai and received the Torah, we as individual Gentiles, when we accept the Jewish Messiah's offer of salvation and peace, can also stand at the foot of the Throne of God. Paul confirms this here:

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. -Galatians 3:26-29

Afterword: Most of my research, at least that which is immediately available, is done. I still have to finish Mark Kinzer's book and make a few other inquiries, but I've finished most of the conversations I needed to have with specific individuals, including my wife. What's left is whatever input God chooses to provide, but the time is coming when I need to make some decisions, perhaps some very hard decisions. I'm looking forward to achieving a measure of closure on this process, but like many such journeys into the wilderness, I must proceed through the darkness and await the dawn.