When Yeshua came to earth, He was confronted by a completely new religion, that of Pharisaic or rabbinical Judaism which, in the Gospels He called, the tradition of the elders.
It was quite different from the faith and belief set forward by the Bible. Yeshua told them that they were transgressing the Word of God by way of these traditions (Matthew 15:3). He came to restore what had been lost. He did not bring a new religion, but He came to bring us back to our roots through the pure Scriptures.
This new religion of rabbinical Judaism came into development around 100 years before Yeshua’s coming. It began with two rabbis named Hillel and Shamai, and from them a new set of beliefs developed, what we find in the Talmud and referred to as traditions of the elders. While there are many good and wise analogies found here along with valuable historical facts to help us better understand the Brit Chadashah (New Testament), this Talmud is not the Torah. Neither is it a divinely inspired interpretation of the Torah or of the Hebrew Scriptures. This is what Jesus was pointing to in His Sermon on the Mount.
To them Yeshua said in John 5:46, For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. This means that if they knew the Torah they would believe in Jesus; this statement shows another great difference between rabbinical Judaism and biblical Judaism.
Today many in the Jewish community, just as it was at the time of Jesus, are often under the impression that the Talmud and the Torah or the Talmud and the Hebrew Scriptures are the same. They are not!
A couple of years ago, I was invited to a prominent synagogue not too far from our congregation. They heard about Beth Ariel from the radio, and they saw the evangelism team on the streets and going door to door and so they asked me to come and explain the reason for my faith.
I did, and I want to start by saying that it was a great experience. They are wonderful people. And so, as we began our time together, the very first question they asked was: If Jesus is really the Messiah, how come the rabbis did not believe in Him then? How come the rabbis today do not believe in Him?
I thanked God for I could not have expected a better question to open up our talk together. This is when I brought them to consider the history of Israel, the biblical history and told them that a very similar question could have been asked by every Jew because throughout time, the civil and religious leaders were always at odds with God; that is a major point in the history of Israel. Jewish tradition agrees that most of the prophets of God were constantly rejected and even killed. Who rejected them? The very religious and civil authorities themselves.
Didn’t Elijah think that he was the only believer left in Israel after they rejected and fired all the other prophets of God? Where then were the priests and the teachers of Israel? Look at Amos; he was asked to leave the land of Israel because he proclaimed the words of God, which so disturbed the king and the people. Jeremiah didn’t just fall into a pit, he was put there on account of the message from the Torah which he brought to the people.
But the very same thing happened with Yeshua. He spoke the same words as the prophets and was also rejected by the religious leaders. What we learn from the history of God’s chosen people is that God’s truth is often found in the small minority. When it comes to spiritual truth, the majority does not always hold the key to truth.
Taking a look at Matthew 5, let us read vss. 3-5.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Notice the word blessed, found 9 times in chapter 5. Like the nine gifts of the Spirit in 1Corinthians 12. These blessings and gifts are a present from God when we walk with Him.
Concerning the word blessed, we have much to learn not only from the Greek, but from the English root as well. The word blessed comes from the old English blestsian which itself comes from the word blodison where we get our word blood. The idea then is that the one who is blessed is one who has been hollowed through blood, or marked with blood, just as at the Passover. This is such a fitting word for all these great blessings contained in this sermon can become a reality only through the redemptive work of Yeshua.
Again, while the bar is set high, and the demand impossible for man to fulfill all these commandments, through Yeshua and his death and resurrection, we are able to come very close because we are blessed and empowered by the Spirit.
As for the Greek word, makarios, we see its more secular rendering; it defines happiness of a life beyond care (Kittel). It also describes a life with possessions as the word meant rich. But the Bible undertook to give it another rendering and uses it some 50 times, connecting it to the fruit, the outcome of salvation. We see this in 1Peter 4:14 where he tells us that we are blessed because the Spirit of Glory and of God rest on us. It is attributed to the one who endures, who works out his sanctification. Its last mention is found in Revelation 22:14 where we read, Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the Tree of Life.
And this is what Israel needed so much at the time because happiness, for the Jews was not running around in the streets as they were under Roman domination and under the very heavy load of the Pharisees. So, Yeshua here offers us the way to a deeper, more complete happiness, not through the sword but through love. Afterall, love defines Who He is.
The Hebrew equivalent of the word blessed is ashrei, and these are the first words found in the Book of the Psalms; אַשְׁרֵי־הָאִישׁ ashrei ha-ish, blessed is the man.
Psalm 1 emphasizes our relationship with God and so does the Sermon on the Mount. There is a strong correlation between the two as both bring us closer to understanding God’s will.
Click Here for the Teaching: The Sermon on the Mount – 2024: