The REAL Reason Why Jewish People Reject Jesus As The Messiah

when Jesus came he gave overwhelming evidence that he was the Messiah he healed the sick he made the death here he made the lame walk he cured the lepers from their disease and he even raised dead people from the grave all of this in front of the Jewish leaders and they also had access to all of the Old Testament prophecies about the promised Messiah and yet they still rejected Jesus as the Messiah the question remains why why in the midst of all the evidence did the Jewish people reject Jesus that's what we're going to talk

about today in this video there are many reasons why the Jewish people by and large rejected Jesus as the Messiah but in this video I'm going to give you four of them and the first one is that they pretty much confused the Old Testament prophecies that talked about Jesus first coming with Jesus second coming there were many prophecy is about the Messiah that Jesus fulfilled at his first coming prophecies like the character of the Messiah in Isaiah chapter 11. prophecies about where the Messiah would be born in Micah 5 2 exactly how the Messiah would

suffer and die Isaiah 53 and also down to the precise timing of when the Messiah was going to come in Daniel chapter 9 verses 24-27 we know all about those but the problem is in spite of all of these in addition to all of these there were all sorts of other prophecies in the Old Testament that Jesus did not fulfill at his first coming and these were the ones that the Jewish leaders were looking at and focusing on and when they saw that Jesus wasn't fulfilling these they said nah man he can't be the Messiah

we need to reject him because the Messiah is going to do the following things now the key to understand this is to know that at the Old Testament prophets did not understand that there was going to be a gap or an interval of time between the first coming or first Advent of the Messiah and the second this was a concept that was hidden from them and so when Jesus came and he did not fulfill all of the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah it is first coming they said this guy cannot be the Messiah as

a matter of fact this gap between Jesus first coming and second coming was something that Paul referred to as a mystery that was kept hidden from all previous generations and was only revealed to Paul notice what he says he says when you read this you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ here it is which was not made known to the sons of men in other Generations as it has now been revealed to His Holy Apostles and Prophets by the spirit now what is the mystery this mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow

heirs members of the same body and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus Through The Gospel so in a first century Jewish mind and also in centuries past they expected a messiah to do all of the things that the Old Testament prophesied not split it up into two comings now let me give you a few examples of some of the things that they expected Jesus to do that Jesus did not fulfill at his first coming but before I do context is very very important to this discussion so at the time in which Jesus started his

Earthly Ministry really when he was born the Jewish people were under severe Roman oppression they were not free to govern their land the way they had wanted to and so there was this expectation this Messianic expectation that when the Messiah would come he would then free Israel from all of their Roman oppression he would set up an Earthly Kingdom where the Jewish people would be the main people group who would be reigning and ruling with the Messiah in their own land and obviously we know Jesus didn't do this during his first coming but he will

at his second coming now with that background let's talk about a couple of things they expected Jesus to do the first thing they expected him to do is to restore the kingdom to Israel you can look at scriptures like Joel chapter 3 verses 1 through 17 which talks about how when the Messiah comes he will Purge evil from the world you can look at also other um uh prophecies like Psalm chapter 2 verses 6 and 9 which talks about the Messiah who's going to Reign and Rule with a rod of uh iron right you can

also look at other prophecies like Isaiah chapter 2 verse 4 which talks about when the Messiah comes he is going to bring this sort of peace to the kingdom so that people will not trained for war anymore as a matter of fact even Jesus own apostles were wondering and questioning whether Jesus was going to fulfill these prophecies in the Old Testament before he ascended into heaven notice in Acts chapter 1 shortly after Jesus rose from the dead and before he ascended into heaven they said this they said John baptized with water but in just a

few days you will be baptized with the holy spirit so when the apostles were with Jesus they kept asking him Lord has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom listen even these Apostles these people who had been following Jesus for some time they even understood that one of the things that the Messiah was going to do according to the Old Testament prophecies was to free Israel from Roman oppression and set up an Earthly Kingdom but what they didn't realize is that Jesus was coming to bring in or Usher a kingdom

but it just wasn't the type of Kingdom that they were expecting notice what Jesus said he said from then on Jesus began to preach repent of your sins and turn to God why for the Kingdom of Heaven is near see the people in Jesus day were expecting the Messiah to bring forth a Kingdom that involved physical and material blessings and Jesus like no no no no you're you're not getting it the most important Kingdom that I need to usher in is a kingdom that includes spiritual blessings and for that reason Jesus spent much of his

Earthly Ministry teaching on the principles of his kingdom and how you could obtain these spiritual blessings not so much focused on the material and physical blessings of a kingdom not only were they expecting the Messiah to restore Israel but they were also expecting the Messiah to regenerate Israel's spiritual life because in prophecies like Jeremiah chapter 31 which talks about the New Covenant where they would receive these new hearts and they would Rule and Reign and they would obey the Messiah and obey the Lord and so there was supposed to be some spiritual regeneration and Central

to that experience was the temple but here Jesus comes and he predicts that the temple is going to be destroyed so all of these things if you're kind of following the the Jews were like no this guy cannot be the Messiah because here he is predicting that the central focus of our worship where we're going to be regenerated is going to be destroyed and so for this reason and many other reasons they rejected Jesus as the Messiah the second major reason that the Jewish people by and large rejected Jesus as the Messiah is if I'm

being honest they saw him as a blasphemer right so within the Jewish faith there is a prayer called the Shema and this comes from Deuteronomy chapter 6 Verses 4 and 5 and following and it says this hear o Israel the Lord Our God the Lord is one you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might listen this prayer is the central affirmation of the people of the Jewish faith so much so that even from a young age this was drilled into them and so

they had to recite this prayer in the morning and in the evening at least twice a day in their services because they understood from a young age that God is one there is no other God other than Yahweh worship Him and love him alone and here Jesus comes talking about no you need to worship me you need to serve me you need to love me right you need to honor me and they were like no no no no no no no this this goes against what I've been taught as a young Jewish person that you

are God that God could actually come down from heaven and take on the form of a man all of this was just too much for the Jewish people then Jesus comes on the scene and makes statements like this in John 8 58. Jesus answered I tell you the truth before Abraham was even born I am hold on for Jesus to suggest that he was born before Abraham they knew exactly what he was talking about he was making a claim that he was God because how could you be born before Abraham right which implies that you

have been uh eternally existing but not only that when he said the words I am they understood that he was claiming Divinity for himself because those two words are What's called the Divine name in the Jewish faith Yahweh when God said to Moses Moses said who shall I say will send me and God said look you don't need to worry about that just tell them that Yahweh I am that I am so every time Jesus used the word Yahweh to refer to himself they saw him as a blasphemer how do we know because the next

verse says this at that point they picked up stones to throw at him but Jesus was hidden from them and left the temple you see blasphemy in the Jewish faith was punishable by death by stoning now later on in the Book of John it says this Jesus says the father and I are one now they knew exactly what Jesus was saying here because once again going back to the Shema where it says the Lord our God is one and now Jesus is coming back and saying no no the father and I are one they saw

that as blasphemy and once again in the next verse once again the people picked up stones to kill him so the second reason why they rejected Jesus as the Messiah was because they saw him as a straight up blasphemer the third reason why Jewish people by and large rejected Jesus as a messiah was because Jesus was challenging some of their religious teachings and some of their religious Traditions many of Jesus teachings they considered to have contradicted much of the Old Testament you have to remember that these rabbis were passing down laws outside of the Old

Testament from generation down to generation so when Jesus comes in and starts challenging some of their sacred laws and some of their sacred traditions and practices this put them immediately on the defensive as if to say who is this guy to come and now bring some sort of new law or new teaching to our hearing let me give you an example in Matthew chapter 15 it says some Pharisees and teachers of religious law now arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus they asked him why do your disciples disobey our age-old tradition for they ignore our tradition

of ceremonial hand washing before they eat and so here it is that Jesus once again is bringing this idea that you know what it's not so much about the dirt on the outside of your hands yeah that's important but what's more important is to make sure that your hearts are clean right and so for that Jesus now challenges them and he says okay look I'm not going to ask answer your question but let me ask you a question why is it essentially that you think that you're righteous by making a vow and pledging to give

a certain amount of money but then when your parents need that money you dis obey the most basic commandment of helping and honoring your parents because you say hey I've already committed this money to give to uh the local religious system of that day so Jesus is challenging some of their practices and some of their Traditions Jesus is also trying to redefine what it actually means to work on the Sabbath day Jesus is also telling them that they need to love their enemies and pray for them which was totally contradictory to the Old Testament uh

idea of purging evil specifically in the context where they were under this Roman oppression and so these teachings were just rubbing them the wrong way now here's another way where Jesus was bringing a new teaching to them and they were like nah this dude can't be the Messiah in Mark chapter 2 Jesus heals a paralyzed man and notice it says here in verse 5 seeing their faith Jesus said led to the paralyzed man my child your sins are forgiven now right away this put the religious leaders on the defense because they're like wait a second

matter of fact they say but some of the teachers of religious law who were sitting there thought to themselves what is he saying this is blasphemy only God can forgive sins you have to understand in their system the way that you were atoned for your sins was through sacrifice through going through a priest through bringing the proper uh animal to the priest so you can atone for your sins and also the day of atonement Yom Kippur Leviticus 16 all of this was what was prescribed in the Old Testament as the only way to be forgiven

of your sins and now this dude comes on the scene and he's like yeah uh you can be forgiven for your sins why because I said so because it came out of my mouth they were like what in the world who is this who does he think he is so the more Jesus started teaching these things that were contrary referred to what their religious leaders were teaching the leaders started to feel threatened and felt the need to control because they did not want members of the Jewish faith to start following Jesus now as I said

there are many other reasons as to why Jesus was rejected as the Messiah but let me give you the fourth and final one we're going to talk about in this video and that is simply that their hearts were hardened towards the truth and one of the ways that we can see this is in John chapter 11 where Jesus raises a dead man from the grave who had been dead for four days his name is Lazarus so notice the response of the Jewish people after Jesus raises a man from the dead something that you would think

if you saw this only God can do such a miracle but notice how they responded many of the people who were with Mary believed in Jesus when they saw this happen but some went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done so instead of saying hey you know what I just saw something that I've never seen before something that only God can do so you know what regardless of what I've believed before this dude has just proven that he is God In the Flesh he is the Messiah so let me place my faith

in him no instead of that they had this long drawn out conversation about how they could stop Jesus how they could control him and ultimately how they could kill him notice it says here from that time I'm on the Jewish leaders began to plot Jesus death listen the reality as to why the Jewish people rejected Jesus as the Messiah was because they did not want to believe their hearts were hardened towards the truth they even went as far as to claim that Jesus was doing all of these miraculous things by the power of Satan himself

and so because of all of these reasons Jesus becomes what Paul says is a stumbling Stone he is a stone that the Jews have continued to stumble over but then elsewhere the Bible says that this stone that the builders rejected that's Jesus the builders were the Jewish people they rejected has now become the Cornerstone of the Christian faith because Paul says in Romans chapters 9 through 11 that because of the fall of the Jewish people now that opens the door for people like you people like me Gentiles who have now been able to be included

or grafted into the family of God why all of that happened largely because the Jewish people rejected Jesus Christ as the Messiah and so now God is raising up a generation of Gentiles who will now carry the torch and fulfill his divine plan of being a light for the world so what should we do as Gentiles as it relates to how we can pray for our Jewish friends well I will leave you with this in Romans chapter 10 verses 1 through 4 Paul put it this way he said dear brothers and sisters the longing of

my heart and my prayer to God is for the people of Israel to be saved I know what enthusiasm they have for God but it is misdirected Zeal listen whenever I went over to Israel in November this past year I saw a people there who had Zeal who had hunger who had thirst they were praying day and night over at the Wailing Wall they were reading their Bibles their Old Testament uh Jewish Bible they were praying they were worshiping but as Paul said they have an uh have a Zeal for God but they lack the

true knowledge for they don't understand God's way of making people right with himself refusing to accept God's way they cling to their own way of getting right with God by trying to keep the law for Christ has already accomplished the purpose for which the law was given as a result all who believe in him are made right with God so what should it be our heart posture towards our Jewish friends that we should join with Paul in the longing of his heart that all Israel will be saved now I said earlier that there were two

comings of Jesus Christ and that many of the Prophecies of the Messiah were fulfilled in the first coming but all of the prophecies in the Old Testament about the Messiah that were not fulfilled at Jesus first coming will ultimately be fulfilled at the second coming of Jesus Christ specifically during the 1 000 year Millennial reign of Jesus where he will set up an Earthly Kingdom and he will regather all of the Jews and he will put a heart within his own people to want to worship Him and follow him but this is not the reality

in the first coming these will see their fulfillment in the second coming of Christ which has yet to happen so I'd love to hear from you what are your thoughts what do you think are some other reasons why the Jewish people rejected Jesus as the Messiah let me know in the comment section below I'll see you in the next video bye for now [Music]