When we take this olive tree theology to heart, it not only has an expansive effect on how we view the Father but also on how we view His Son. That is my second point.

Just as the Bible speaks of a specific God, YHWH, so it introduces us to a particular person in space and time named Yeshua. He is not just the universal Christ, the cosmic creator and ruler. He is Jesus of Nazareth. When the word became flesh, it became flesh in a Jewish man, born of a Jewish mother, reared in a Jewish home, who was taught the Jewish scriptures. He walked in the holiness of God’s revelation in those scriptures and took up the uniquely Jewish enterprise of a Jewish rabbi (teacher) by raising many disciples.

If you want to read, study, and even preach and teach the New Testament from the Hebraic worldview of Jesus and his earliest followers, you must always start by taking the life of the Messiah seriously.

When you do, you will come to understand that the life of the Son of God as a man is as important as the death of the Son of Man. Let me be clear. I am not, nor would I ever diminish or negate, the atoning benefits of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. I am simply trying to emphasize and thereby balance—contrary to nineteen centuries of church history—how the Messiah’s life as a man is just as redemptive and just as crucial to our ongoing Spirit-walk with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time (1 Tim 2:5-6).

We affirm that Jesus was fully man. We affirm that at the same time, YHWH was fully in this man, reconciling the world to himself: God our Savior desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4). We take his call to discipleship personally because his mission as the Son of Man was to die a propitiating death for you and me, but his mission as a man was to raise up many disciples. We need both.

His disciple John says that Yeshua of Nazareth is the Torah incarnate in a person: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). That is exactly my point. Jesus enfleshes holy Scripture—God’s teaching, instruction, and wisdom. He goes throughout Israel very intentionally and methodically, embodying and explaining that teaching for three and a half years. He was not biding time until his appointed destiny in Jerusalem; he was (and is!) on a mission to make disciples, students, learners. Those who will continue his kingdom work on earth as it is in heaven.

When you take the man Jesus seriously, not only do you emphasize the importance of creed, but you also emphasize the importance of conduct, just as he did.

From the Hebraic perspective of the Bible, even the loftiest of thoughts must always find expression in what we say and do. When the Son of Man comes back, he will judge us according to our deeds. When he teaches us to pray, “Father may your name be sanctified,” he’s telling us to conduct ourselves in such a way that people would see our good works and honor our holy Father.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:14-16).

Your conduct in every area of life counts with God. Not only by your confession that He is holy, but by the life you live in accordance with the teachings of Rav Yeshua, you should show forth the holiness and exclusivity of the one true God of Israel.

For Jesus the Christ, the simplicity of the gospel is this:

First, take verse 5 of Deuteronomy 6: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Second, take verse 18 of Leviticus 19: You shall love your neighbor as yourself—I am the LORD. Now, make the two one and bang, you’ve got it: On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 22:40).

You love your God by engaging in loving actions toward your fellow man, even as you care for yourself. By taking the humanity of Jesus to heart, you learn not only to obey him but to obey like him. He was a man saturated with the Holy Spirit. And in Jesus our holy Father pours out his Spirit upon our lives for that very reason: Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the Torah of Christ (Galatians 6:2).

My appeal to you and every disciple of the Messiah is to take his life just as seriously as his death on the cross. When we do, we are responding to his mission, which he now gives to us as our co-mission with him. In your going, raise up disciples and show them how to live my way: And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20).