The first body of Yeshua believers were Jews. Yeshua (the Hebrew name for Jesus) was a Jew. Peter, Paul, Nicodemos, Matthew, John the Baptist and even Maria were Jews. People who came to cerebrate the birth of Yeshua were either Jews or gentiles who knew the Torah and the books of prophets who foretold the Messiah's advent. The concept of Messiah did already existed in the Old Testaments and in the traditional Jewish life style. For this obvious reason, the very first "church" consisted of Jewish believers who follows the commandments and Jewish tradition. Indeed the majority of the secular Jews refused Yeshua at that time, but still the majority of the Yeshua's believers were Jews. So, they were Messianic Jews!!

Yeshua did not come of the basis of denial of the Old Testaments by any means. It is traditionally taught in some Christian churches that Apostle Paul insisted abolishing the law in the New Testament. That is not correct. The law was fulfilled and completed according to the statement of Yeshua in Matthew 5:17-20. If Yeshua abolished the Law, he did not even have to die for us as a sacrificed lamb. So, the Messianic Jew has followed Yeshua Jesus and follow the Law; that was the way the Messianic Jews has been since that time.

The transitional change from the original Messianic Jews to the "Christian Church" occurred in the following steps:

(1) Many Jews, secular Jews, and who belonged to Jewish theocratic system had wished for coming of Messiah who could politically emancipate the Jews from oppression of the Roman Empire. However, they refused to believe that Jesus Christ (Yeshua) was the Messiah.

(2)Some Jews, despite persecution from the rest of Jewish people, started believing Yeshua. (i.e. Paul, Peter, John, Luke, etc.) And the Jewish belief and the worshipping traditions were kept and respected.

(3) Messianic Jews were ostracized from Rabbinical Jews group. That facilitate the Messianic Jews to diffuse toward outside communities and to spread the Gospel to the gentiles (= Gerim). As consequence, the Messianic Jews acquire potential to grow to world-wide religion.

(4) The Rabbinic Judaism were gone due to fierce persecution after the destruction of Jerusalem. The Messianic Judaism kept growing, and the non-Jewish members outnumbered. They were then called as "Christian" and they started losing its Jewishness. The Sabbath was switched over to Sunday, and respect to Torah was lost. Christian church then started persecuting Jews in a few centuries.

(5) Secular motivation predominated in Christian church for a little more than a thousand years. Jewish tradition was totally rejected with very small number of exceptions. Jews were persecuted. Jews tradition kept alive mainly in Islamic world. They build up the anti-Christ religious thought to defend their tribal identity.

(6) The Reform occurred by Martin Luther. No significant change in Jewish communities took place.

(7) French Revolution finally improve their life style. Jews were gradually recognized in the civilized society.

(8) Anti-Semetism kept escalated in Europe. It culminated at the Holocaust by Hitler. That evoked the rise of Israel nation and induce the Messianic Judaism.

Addendum: There was a small branch of Christian clan, called Nestrians. This group was announced heracy by Catholic because they did not accept the deity of the Holy Mother. Nestrius' clan moved to East and known as 'kei-kyo' ( Œi‹³ ) in ancient Chinese history. According to the research by archeologists in Andrews University, these people observed the seventh-day Sabbath. It is suspected that Nestrians might be "Messianic Jews."

The Jewish people did not frequently show up in the front line in the history of the non-Jewish civilization. They were kept under unfair prejudice as "Jesus Killers" and frequently became targets of social hatred. Time to time, they received spotlights in a few shameful scandal like Dreifuss incident or Ghetto raids. Nevertheless, there were many great Jewish people who contributed the western civilization, for example, Albert Einstein, Felix Mendelssohn. But their Jewish identities were not actively told to us possibly because of sort-of non-Jewish politics in the previous centuries. Jews really came on the headline news since the Holocaust. Six million Jews were massacred by insane anti-Semetist during the World War II. I am not able to fully describe how tremendously sad the series of experience of the Holocaust were. The atrocity of Nazi and the supporting anti-Semetists were beyond description. I do not blame you if you skeptically wonder how on earth the shameful Holocaust could contribute to the rest of human being?

First of all, we have to realize that these poor six million Jews were killed while they did not do anything wrong just like Yeshua (Jesus) was killed innocent. Jews, for the first time in large scale, shared the same experience with Yeshua who most of the Orthodox Jews refused to understand. It is not coincident that the modern Messianic Judaism sprang up in the countries after the World War II because some Jews realized the similarity of apocalyptic experience with Yeshua. A lot of Jews discovered Yeshua as Messiah after the WWII and even after the Yom Kippur War and even the most recent Gulf War when the Erez received a half dozen of Iraqi Scud missiles. Jews were destined to suffer since the time of Abraham. That was not because they betrayed Christ, but because they were chosen to invite Yeshua to the world. The Torah tells us that those who were blessed and chosen by God may experience suffering from the spirit of the world. The massive Holocaust experience reminded some Jews that Jews and Yeshua are to share the experience as long as they were chosen. The emerge of Messianic Judaism out of the traditional Judaism was, therefore, logical and inevitable consequence. A Jewish man taught me a joke, saying, "There are two fathers of the nation of Israel. One is Theodor Herzl and the other is Adolf Hitler." If this statement has at least 60% of truth, I could induce an axiom out of this, saying, "Adolf Hitler helped two great things to come to the world; one is the Nation of Israel and the other is the Messianic Jew Movement in the post-war era."

Have you ever heard the name of a church named "Seventh-day Adventist?" This small denomination is categorized as Protestant, but unique thing is that they followed the Seventh-day Sabbath (just like the Seventh-day Baptist) before the Messianic Jew emerge in the 20th century. The church was a product of the "Great Revival Movement" by William Miller in 1830's. Initially, the members came from varieties of the Protestant churches just like nowaday the MJ members come from varieties of Protestant, Catholic and Jewish denominations. This church also emphasized "Adventism" meaning that they prepare for the "Second coming of Christ" who return to the world for the final judgment in the so near future. The concept of the "second advent" and the judgment assumed striking similarity to the theme of Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur. Indeed, the Seventh-day Adventist church offered more extensive series of study for the Old Testament Prophecy and the Jewish atonement system than any other Christian church on the earth. I believe that SDA had the best and deepest study among the Christian churches regarding the sanctuary system and prophetic implications. I strongly recommend the reader of my homepage to take a look for some of the selected SDA homepage site which elaborate the sanctuary issue to enrich the Messianic background. (Let me know if you thought you found the good one.)

I would like to say one good thing and one bad thing about this church in thinking about its historical implication to the Messianic Jews. The good thing is that SDA church was the most aggressive Seventh-day Shabbat keeper in the Christian church since the 19th century. I believe that this church had a certain role prior to the emerge of the MJ. The most of Christian churches have disregarded the seventh day Sabbath since the second century despite the absence of the biblical statement suggesting its alteration to Sunday. The Seventh-day Adventist could have worked to reconcile such Protestant tradition to the Judaism. Such efforts were certainly deserves maximum appliciation.

The concept of the Jesus' second coming is the next important issue. The Jewish tradition, although they do not use a name of Yeshua or Jesus, awaited Messiah to come each time they cerebrated Rosh HaShana and Pass-over. The theme of these Jewish holidays has been the coming of Savior, Messiah. The Seventh-day Adventist Church most extensively functioned the best to realize the two such big mission, educating the seventh day Sabbath and the coming of Messiah. Furthermore, this church taught the health principles according to the Book of Leviticus; they developed health message propaganda and some food policy which seems equivalent to the Jewish Kosher.

Because of these Jewish flavored doctorines, the Seventh-day Adventist church had been under attack and harsh criticism from other Christian/ Evangelical churches saying that "You are Judaistic" or "You are not teaching Gospel but legalism." The SDA church, however, defended herself, saying, "No, No, we are not Jews. We are Bible believing Protestants. God's love is greater than the Law," and has tried to disemphasize the difference with other evangelical Protestant churches and diluted the Jewish component in her doctrine instead of accepting its Jewishness: that was the essense of unfortunate history of this denomination. It is fair to say that this church lacked the Jewish perspective just like other generic Protestant churches did.

Now, the bad thing is this church is dying. Can you imagine why? One reason is that the Sabbath keeping principle has been weaken because they do not have Jewishness. Observation of the seventh day Sabbath without Jewish motivation is like eating soup without salt. They taught to observe the seventh-day Sabbath as their own church identity without emphasizing respect to the Jewishness (I was surprised that general tone of the church was anti-Semitic[!] when I came to the Southern California where the most dense population of members is). There are now many diversity of opinion in the Sabbath observance in the SDA church. Some pastors and theologians recently started teaching laymen that Saturday worship may not be absolute commands and that creationism may not be either. Some pastors teach that Sabbath keeping is not necessary because Jesus loves you. It sounded that the church lost its salt. ( I saw a lot of sin in the institutions. Spiritual excitement was now history in the church. I do not want to tell you the further miserable detail of the current situation of this church and probably you don't want to hear them either.)

However, this is your take home message you have to remember! The decline of the SDA church inversely correlated the growth of the Messianic Jews. The Seventh-day Adventist church maximally blessed in the end of the 19th century with the reconciliation messages and the seventh day Sabbath. In 1888, the general church conference meeting was held in Minneapolis, MN and there was great legendary controversy regarding "the justification by faith." The documented agenda was, for some uncertain reason, lost altogether, but it was believed that there was a big conflict between two opinions; one advocate the Law, the other dispute it. In conclusion, the church became less active in advocating the unique reconciliation messages. The controversy smoldered until 1940's. Institutional confusion let the reconciliation messages and missions spontateously forgotten. You should remember that quite a number of German SDA pastors perished as German soldiers in Starlinglaad in 1944. There was no apology to Jews of course.

In the same year, 1944, in the United States, "Voice of Prophecy", the church broadcasting department issued a pamphlet saying, "Jews are cursed people until the end of the world. They have no hope in future." In 1947, the SDA editor, Dr. Roy F. Cottrell criticized Zionism in his own book published from Pasific Press, stating that "Herzl's international Zionism movement is trying to restore a Jewish nation in Palestine, but that they had impossible dream." In the next year, 1948, however, Jews established a country of Israel in the Erez of Israel. Voice of Prophecy got embarrassed but they did not believe that the Jewish nation would last more than a few years in front of the Arab's overwhelming military powers.

On the following year, 1949, the SDA church started minor alteration of the church doctorines over following 3 years. Robert J. Wieland and Donald K. Short submitted a report to the SDA general conference, suggesting reconsideration to the alteration of doctorines and reevaluation of the 1888 issues. The report was famous in the church as "1888 re-examined." But, the top of the church formally refused to accept the comment in 1967 after the all sort of procrastinations; and the interpretation of the bible verse at Luke 21:24 was fixed as if it has nothing to do with actual event taking place in Jerusalem. In the middle of internal confusion, "Six Day War" broke out in Palestine, and Israel took back Jerusalem from Islam. Remember, that was 1967.

Internal confusion further persisted to the point where some SDA theologians started defying against the authority of the church. In 1980, the church was terribly shaken by all kind of heretic phylosophy and secularism, and the spirituarity of the church started dwindling (SDA friends: You may still remember Desmond Ford and Robert Brinsmead). Now, do you remember what happened in Israel in 1980? The republic of Israel moved its capital city from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, realizing the bible prophecy (Please read Luke 21:24 and find out what Yeshua said about Jerusalem). Furthermore, Messianic Jews movement has grown slowly, but it hit exponential growth curve since 1980 as well! The Messianic Movements become remarkably more popular in the United States and Israel after 1985.

As mentioned above, retrospectively, the previous historical events in sequence seem to demonstrate that the receding process of the Seventh day Adventist church oppositely correlates to the growing of the Jewish movements. What do these things mean? Were they just coincidence? If not, does it mean that the Seventh-day Adventist could be like John the Baptist who prepared the way on which real one comes prior to the coming of it. Well, it may be so. If so, we should not hesitate to pay more respect to the SDA as an old great soldier. He indeed fought a good fight for 145 years before "Messianic Jews" come.

The comparative study of the SDA and the Messianic Jews was just beginning.

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