E12-7: The same Torah applies both to the native-born Hebrew and the foreigner

“A foreigner residing among you who wants to celebrate the Lord’s Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised; then he may take part like one born in the land. No uncircumcised male may eat it. The same law applies both to the native-born and to the foreigner residing among you.”-Exodus 12:48-49

I’ve met a lot of fellow believers from both the Christian and Messianic Judaism camps that hold to a curious position.

They believe that God has two menus concerning how one is to live out his or her life AFTER coming to faith in Yeshua.

According to them, there’s one lifestyle prescription for the Jews and another separate one for the Gentiles.

They say that while saved Jews should still keep the Feasts of Israel, the dietary laws and the Seventh Day Sabbath, gentile believers are free from such obligations. 

There’s also a hardcore sector of Christianity which teaches that everybody including the Jews are free from keeping the feasts, the Sabbath and the dietary laws etcetera because they mistakenly believe “the Law of Moses was nullified by Yeshua’s sacrifice”. 

Putting aside whether there is any validity to this argument or not, if one is to go by what God has established in His Torah alone, no such notion exists.

The Scripture makes it clear that whether one is a foreigner or a citizen of Israel, the SAME law is to apply.

I’m not talking about subtle nuances here.

Of course, within the Camp of Israel, there are some laws that only apply to the Levites, some laws that only apply to the High Priest, and the application of certain laws may differ depending on whether one is in the land of Israel or not, or whether the temple is still standing or not etcetera.

I’m not talking about such minutiae.

I’m saying that as a general and non-negotiable principle, any foreigner who has been circumcised and thus grafted into Israel is under the same jurisdiction as a native-born Israelite.

God makes it clear there is but ONE ritual and ONE law concerning the Passover.

Unlike those ugly days when segregation was still the law in the Southern part of the United States, there is NOT a “Jewish Passover” for natural born Israelites and a “Gentile Passover” for those foreigners who have been grafted into the covenants of Israel.

God has no second class citizens in His Kingdom.

ALL who become citizens of Israel whether or not they have the blood of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob flowing through their veins are to be considered the same before God.

I’ve said this before but it bears repeating.

For those who are born outside of the genealogical line of Abraham, in other words born outside the natural family of Israel, you are grafted into, enjoined with, the nation of people who are of the line of Abraham once you accept Yeshua.

Having said that, although God makes no spiritual distinction between those who are natural born Hebrews versus the “foreigners” who are now grafted into Israel, the physical or ethnic distinction between Jews and gentiles remains.

A gentile doesn’t somehow magically become a physical or ethnic Jew once he or she accepts Yeshua.

But then again, who cares?

Does it really matter?

To God, the TRUE members of HIS ideal Israel are all those who place their trust in Him.

And this means accepting Yeshua as Messiah.

CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT

Therefore, remember your former state:
you Gentiles by birth —
called the Uncircumcised by those who,
merely because of an operation on their flesh, are called the Circumcised —
at that time had no Messiah.
You were estranged from the national life of Isra’el.
You were foreigners to the covenants embodying God’s promise.
You were in this world without hope and without God.
But now,
you who were once far off have been brought near
through the shedding of the Messiah’s blood.
For he himself is our shalom —
he has made us both one and has broken down the m’chitzah which divided us
by destroying in his own body the enmity occasioned by the Torah,
with its commands set forth in the form of ordinances.
He did this in order to create in union with himself
from the two groups a single new humanity |
and thus make shalom, and in order to reconcile to God
both in a single body by being executed on a stake as a criminal
and thus in himself killing that enmity.
-Ephesians 2:11-16

There is neither Jew nor Gentile,
neither slave nor free,
nor is there male and female,
for you are all one in the body of Messiah.
-Galatians 3:28