A lot of people fight over the origin of the “church”. Clearly, Yeshua is its founder, and He did so through the Twelve, plus one. It’s important first to realize that Yeshua is Jewish, lived as a Jew, and worshipped as a Jew with His Jewish people. And, those thirteen founders, to a man, were Jews. And they remained observant Jews for the rest of their lives.
refer to these verses to affirm the above assertions: Mat 1:17 :: Luk 3:21-34 :: Acts 2:5, 22,29 :: Acts 21:39 :: Acts 22:3 :: I Cor 11:1-2 :: 2 Thess 2:15 :: 2 Thess 3:6
It was not until about sixteen years after the founding of the Congregation of Messiah in Jerusalem that the first gentile was brought into the Congregation, given the gift of Salvation and the Power and Presence of God: His Spirit. And right around the same time, Yeshua called a man who was killing the followers of “The Way” on behalf of the Jewish leadership, and commissioned him instead to go to the gentiles and bring them Salvation. This same man was a young student of Judaism when the first person was executed for declaring the Good News of Messiah Yeshua. The young man named Sha’ul stood by and watched as the leaders of the religious community of Jews stoned Stephen to death. [Acts 7, (8:1)] A few short years later, in 46 AD, that same Sha’ul was confronted by Messiah, and commissioned to bring His Good News to the other nations.
What a perfect choice he was: he was a Jewish “Pharisee of Pharisees”, a leader, fast becoming the most advanced theologian in 1st century Judaism; and, he was born a Roman citizen, had a gentile, greek name [Paul] as well as his Hebrew name [Sha’ul], and understood the customs of both of the extremes: Jew versus Gentile.
But, the Congregation itself, by that time, had been firmly established in Jerusalem, and had made its way through Judea and Samaria, just as Yeshua had instructed His followers to do.
In 48 AD, a mere two years after Paul declared the good news to the first gentile communities to hear it [Acts 13, 14] , a dust-up occurred in the congregations. Jews who were pretending to believe in Yeshua started telling gentiles in the Synagogues in Galatia, the first communities of Gentiles to receive the gospel, that they must get circumcised and become Jewish in order to be saved. What most people miss, however, is that the Gentiles were already worshipping God the Creator with the Jews in the Synagogues when they heard the gospel. And they continued to do so. And Ya’akov, James, Yeshua’s own brother, counted on the gentiles remaining in the Synagogues and hearing the Torah each week [Acts 15:21], in order that their faith my grow, only laying a minimum of Torah instructions on them, which included about six chapters of the Torah.
So, the Jewish community is the clear origin of the Congregation of Messiah Yeshua. And the Jewish people remained its leaders for quite some time. Yes, there were greek leaders in certain cities, but until 325 AD, many of the congregations’ ‘leaders/elders’, known later in greek circles as ‘bishops’, were Jewish.
In 325 AD, Constantine was ruling the newly-unified Roman empire. He was half greek, and half Illyrian. His mother was a Christian, but he was not. Illyria was a region in the Balkans, near modern Arminia and Montenegro. It was a barbarian region subdued by Rome in the first century. But, what happened before the unification of Rome and the first “Ecumenical Council” is critical to understand.
Constantine was one of four rulers in Rome. His brother in law, Maxentius, was trying to take the western side of the Empire. Constantine was waiting before the Milvian Bridge, where the battle would ensue, and he claimed to have first a vision, and then a dream. The story goes that he first saw a ‘sign’ in the sky, what most infer was the Chi-Rho, the first two greek letters of ‘christ’ superimposed over one another; and then, his dream was supposedly that ‘christ’ came to him and told him ‘by this sign conquer’. It must be noted here that it was common for Roman generals to tell their armies about dreams or visions that foretold their victory. This was not a ‘surprise’, and certainly not ‘new’. There is no true way to assert the veracity of the vision or the dream. Eusebius, a leader in the churches, whom Constantine had excommunicated and banished, wrote the story some time later, but he was not there when it supposedly occurred.
One must understand the mind of Constantine, as best we can, at this point in history. In 312 AD, when this battle happened, Constantine was a pagan; more than half his army, however, was christian. But he was still living under the notion that he himself was a god:
In 310 AD, Constantine claimed that he and his father were descendants of the emperor Claudius II Gothicus, whose patron god was Sol Invictus. Sol was an eastern version of Apollo, and so by “claiming the patronage of SOL/APOLLO,” Constantine distanced himself from the claims that he was Maximian’s true son and heir,” as well as rumors that he was a bastard, born of a concubine. Constantine disavowed his own father to claim to be a demigod. For some historians, the vision of Sol/Apollo in 310 allowed Constantine to view himself in the form of Augustus, who had associated himself with Apollo [Sol]. Whatever the motivation, Constantine was still pagan in 310 AD. And he also was still pagan in 312 AD. In fact, he did not himself even claim to be ‘christian’ until 313 when he created the “Edict of Milan”. It is important to remember that one of the very basic tenets of faith in Messiah [Christ] is that one must CONFESS to be a believer. He did not until 313, even after this supposed ‘vision/dream’ in 312 AD.
His ‘confession’ in Milan is highly suspect. Especially given that that person who wrote his story, and his baptizer, tells us that he did not get baptized until a week before his death. It is interesting that the Catholic church overlook the fact that Eusebius baptized the creator of the ‘catholic church’. They view Eusebius as a heretic, since he followed the Aryan doctrine, the likes of whom they executed if they could.
Of course, most staunch Catholics will insist that Peter is the founder of the church. Certainly Kefa played a huge part in it, as he did declare the Gospel for the very first time [Acts 2:36], before any of the others did. And in so doing, he declared Yeshua as the Messiah:
“Therefore let all The House of Israel know assuredly that God has made this very Yeshua, whom you have executed, both יהוה and Messiah.” [Acts 2:36]
THAT is the ‘rock’ upon which the Congregation of Messiah is built; not the man, Peter, but the Confession of Yeshua as the Messiah, the SON of God. The declaration that Yeshua is the Messiah of the Jewish people, the Son of God, is the foundation of the Congregation of Messiah. That is why Yeshua told Kefa what He told him:
“When Yeshua came to the country of Keysarya of Filipi, He asked His Talmidim saying, “What do the men say concerning me, that I am merely a son of a man?” They said, “There are some who say [You are] Yokhanan HaMatbil [John the Immerser], others Eli-Yahu [Elijah], and still others Yirme-Yahu [Jeremiah], or one of the Prophets.” He said to them, “Who do you say that I am?” Shimon Kefa [Peter] answered and said, “You are the Messiah, The Son of the Living God.” Yeshua answered and said to him, “Happy are you, Shimon Bar [Son of] Yonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but My Father who is IN HEAVEN. I tell you also that you are a stone, and upon this stone I will build my Congregation; and the gates of She’ol shall not shut in on it.” [Mat 16:13-20]
Notice that Peter said She’ol could not hold Yeshua in the grave? Because He is the Son of God, and God raised Him from the dead!
Everyone today goes around saying “Jesus is God”; and He is the perfect, express image of His Father [Heb 1:1-3], but they fail to preach that Yeshua is a man, as did Peter:
“Men of Yisra’el, hear these words: Yeshua The Nazarene, a man who is from God, who appeared among you by miracles and signs and wonders which God did by Him among you, as you yourselves know, this man, who was consecrated for this purpose by the foreknowledge and will of God, you have delivered into the hands of wicked men, and you have executed and murdered Him, whom God has raised up, having destroyed the pains of Death, because it was not possible for She’ol to hold Him.” [Acts 2:22-24]
The foundation of the Congregation of Messiah is the declaration that the Son of God died and that God raised Him from the dead. God cannot die. Yeshua’s divine nature did not die; but His Body did; and his Soul went into She’ol, while God His Father remained on His throne, and it is He who raised Yeshua from the dead. That is the foundation of all the congregations established in Scripture. That is not what much of christianity teaches any more.
Constantine was not a believer when he started the Catholic church; even catholics believe that a man must be baptized into the church in order to be ‘saved’. Yet in an unrepentant state, Constantine called the ‘ecumenical [worldwide] council’ in order to unite the ‘churches’ and make one ‘universal [catholic] church’; it was a move in order to unify his empire, and his confession of belief with the Edict of Milan is still held suspect by most. And again, given that he did not even consider immersion until a week before his death, and he called a man declared a heretic by the very council that established his universal church to do so, puts any confession of faith years later in 337 AD [Edict of Milan] in question.
Never mind the fact that Constantine was an anti-Semite, and de-Judaized his ‘universal church’ utterly. He is the one who officially changed all the days of worship.
“On the venerable day of the sun [‘Day of Sol Invictus‘, whom he still worshipped] let the magistrate and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed.” – Schaff’s History of the Christian Church, vol. III, chap. 75.
Later, he also moved Pesakh/Passover, because he despised the Jewish people. Mind you, he HAD to move it, because ALL of the congregations still kept PASSOVER:
“…it appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast [Passover] we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin, and are, therefore, deservedly afflicted with blindness of soul … Let us no longer have anything in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Saviour a different way.”
No, we did NOT receive from our Savior a different way. Yeshua gave us the Confession of His Body and His Blood during His official Passover Seder:
“So Yeshua sent Kefa and Yokhanan, and said to them, “Go and prepare the Pesakh/Passover for us to eat.” They said to Him, “Where do you wish us to prepare?” He said to them, “Behold, when you enter the city, you will meet a man carrying a waterskin; follow him. And wherever he enters, say to the Master of the house, ‘Our Master says, ‘Where is the guest room where I may eat the Pesakh with my Talmidim?” And behold, he will show you an upper room, large and furnished; there make ready.” And they went and found it just as He had said to them; and they prepared the Pesakh/Passover. And when it was time, Yeshua came and sat down, and the twelve Apostles with Him. And He said to them, “I have greatly desired to eat this Pesakh [they were eating that Passover] with you before I suffer; for I say to you that henceforth I will not eat it [Pesakh] again until The Kingdom of God is completed.” And He took bread and gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them and said, “This is my body, which is given for your sake; this do in remembrance of me.” And likewise also He took the cup, after they had eaten supper [the third cup of the Passover Seder], and He said, “This is the cup of the Renewed Covenant in my blood, which is shed for you.” [Luke 22:8-20]
So, Constantine, a man who had not as yet taken steps to follow the Messiah into immersion, and who weakly confessed faith 25 years after his supposed ‘vision’, changed both the Sabbath and the Passover, largely because he did not like the Jewish nature of the rites. This was also true of SOME of the early believers before Constantine, like Justin Martyr, and others who were anti-Semitic, and moved their day of worship, trying to retrofit scriptures over their practices. Galatians tells us there were already pagans returning to their pagan days of worship; Paul tells us in several of his letters, as does Peter, that people were leaving the Truth, leaving the Torah [2 Peter 3:17] There are mainly two scriptures they used, and still do today, to justify the abrogation of the Sabbath:
“And at the beginning of the week, when we assembled to break bread, Pavlos declared [teaching] to them, and because he was going to leave the next day, he prolonged his speech until midnight.” [Acts 20:7]
and
“I was in HaRu’akh [The Spirit] on The Day of יהוה , and I heard behind me a great voice, as of a shofar, saying…” [Rev 1:10]
In the first verse above, Acts 20:7, in most translations, the translation is dishonest. It does not say in greek “And on the first day of the week” as most English Bibles do; but it has ‘day’ in italics, as shown, because ‘day’ is not in the greek text [check your Bible’s notes in the front or back; they used to tell you what italics meant]! The greek, however, reads just like it does in the Aramaic, and in our English rendering from Aramaic above. It was a Saturday night, the official, Biblical beginning of the week.
This was not an assembly for worship, but a gathering for breaking bread together, eating dinner. This was [and is still for us] a ceremony to officially end the Sabbath, called “Havdalah” where ‘lapidot’ are used, “lamps”… as verse 8 reads, “Now there was a great glow of light from the lapidot in the upper chamber where we were gathered together.” These were Jews and Gentiles getting together to hear a Jew teach the depth of scripture to them after the Sabbath ended on a Saturday night; this is the moment Yeshua actually rose from the dead, at the very end of the Sabbath, and we [Messianic Jews] celebrate it every week; and look, Paul raised someone from the dead! [vs Acts 20:7] Paul had refused to travel until the next day, because it was the Sabbath.
The other verse they use as an anchor to justify Sunday as the “Day of the Lord” was in the Hitgalut, The Revelation, chapter 1:10:
“I was in HaRu’akh [The Spirit] on The Day of יהוה , and I heard behind me a great voice, as of a shofar, saying…” [Rev 1:10]
This was Yom Kippur, the day the “Great Shofar” is blown in all synagogues around the world, foreshadowing the Shofar that will herald the judgment of God upon the wicked. This is a great day of fasting and repentance in scripture, and would certainly have had Yokhanan/John ‘in the Spirit’; it shows that he was still an observant Jew, even in prison! And God chose this day to reveal End Things, from a Jewish framework.
There is no other scripture in the Bible that can be used to justify moving the Sabbath. The two that all the world references do not even refer to the Sabbath, but to two Jewish Ceremonies: Havdalah and Yom Kippur. Constantine moved the Sabbath, kicked out ALL the Jewish ‘bishops’, not letting them participate in the ‘worldwide council’ of the congregations, and thus more than 1,000 gentile bishops did not show up for his circus, his kangaroo court. There were around 3,000 bishops in the fourth century, when Constantine put out the call, AND the mandate that Jewish Bishops should not come, to the council… So, only 220 ‘yes men‘ showed up.
Dr. James Parkes, a prominent historian, describes the faith of the fourth century congregations this way, in dealing with the coming Council of Nicaea:
“The early, and primarily Jewish Christian church was content with a simple expression of her belief”.
He goes on to describe that Constantine and his followers moved the rites of the Synagogue into Sunday worship. And later, rites from the various pagan cults around Europe were inculcated and mixed into it.
The point of all of this, is that Christianity as we know it today is only loosely Biblical. Are there saved people in it? Absolutely! Because of the compassion and patience of a loving Father! But, throughout the centuries there have been those who have tried to return to the SIMPLE truth of Messiah and His Congregation, many times at their peril, some within the framework of Christianity, some cast outside of it. Lutherans and Calvinists were considered heretics by Catholicism, and they in turn considered anyone that did not follow their way heretics, killing people in the name of their Jesus in the same way as the popes. But, Luther and Calvin only broke away partly from Christianity, still maintaining that God moved the Sabbath and the Passover when Constantine did it, in spite of not finding a single verse in scripture where it happened. So much for ‘sola scriptura’! Most protestants are thus still papist in their form of worship! They are not imitating Messiah. [1 Cor 11:1]
It is our contention that God is indeed calling those whom He loves out of this mixture of religions, this twisting of the scriptures [2 Peter 3:14-18] , and into a simple, pure form of worship that looks like how Yeshua worshipped in Israel in some way. Messiah’s congregation has not died, and has not been defeated. It is not, however, the Catholic church, the Lutheran church, the Mormon church, the Church of Christ, or any other institution that claims to be the “Original” church. Those are lies. Neither is it “Messianic Judaism”. It is the collection of people worldwide that decide to follow God and His word, based on the simplicity of this fact:
“You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God”.
“Men of Yisra’el, hear these words: Yeshua The Nazarene, a man who is from God, who appeared among you by miracles and signs and wonders which God did by Him among you, as you yourselves know, this man, who was consecrated for this purpose by the foreknowledge and will of God, you have delivered into the hands of wicked men, and you have executed and murdered Him, whom God has raised up, having destroyed the pains of Death, because it was not possible for She’ol to hold Him.” [Acts 2:22-24]