Indeed Pastor John!
Evangelical Messianics or Original Messianics are those who rightly embrace the Lordship (i.e. Jesus is God in the flesh) of Christ and yet still affirm the right and option of real Jews (or anyone else) to keep the Jewish heritage and culture even while being in the body of Christ.
False Messianics or Non-Evangelical Messianics or merely Judaic legalists who sometimes use the term Messianic are those who affirm in word/theory the truth of the whole Bible but deny its substance as they deny the substance of Christ being God in the flesh. Often if not always they demand that every person must obey the entire OC law code.
Having studied under over 7 theologians who were Messianic in seminary I can testify to the differences among the various Messianic groups yet even so, the two key issues that make up the largest difference have been: (1) Is Jesus Christ truly Lord (God in the flesh), and (2) does one have to obey the entire OC law in order to be rightly related to the Lord.
Dr. Steven Ger, Dr. Goldberg, Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Dr. Barry Levanthal, Dr. Charles Feinberg, Dr. Paul Feinberg, and Dr. John Feinberg (all Jews who also believe in Jesus Christ) have addressed this issue for many many years about the corruption that has crept into the various so-called Messianic assemblies. What started out as a godly Evangelical movement designed to evangelize Jews into Christ and mature them into the Messiah was and still is under severe attack by Judaizers who distort the truth about Christ and about salvation. Satan, the god of this age (2: Cor. 4:4), has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they might not see the gospel and in that effort he has in particular focused on derailing the original Messianic movement by inserting into that movement false ideas about both Christ and salvation. As he does with any group trying to focus on the gospel he undermines it with all of his might. In his efforts the nature of Christ and the nature of grace are always his first point of attacks.
In this case today we are left with many who are using the name Messianic but in reality deny the substance of who Christ is and also reject the doctrine of salvation by grace alone for the non-evangelical view that one must "keep the entire OC Torah" to be rightly related to God.
Granted many of these are moral people. They remind me of Cornelius in Acts 10. They often seek to do right and they desire to be moral people. But those failing to embrace the gospel lack the Spirit and thus are still enslaved to a different religion.
This is dangerous for families because many fine, honorable, godly, and evangelically based believers desire to maintain the Jewish customs (which can be done righteously), not for salvation or sanctification, but then when they meet these non-evangelical so-called Messianics they either get confused, derailed, or stunted in their growth in grace as they become enslaved to an ideology that is devoid of both true Christ and the gospel.
Many women are even deluded and ruined by men claiming to be Messianic yet in reality are enemies of the gospel of grace. Thus when they are lured in, especially into a union with such a man who becomes their head, they are enslaved not to Christ Jesus as Lord but rather to legalism and to a different faith that is lacking in the true substance of Christ as Lord.
When Christ Jesus is re-defined to something other than God in the flesh the entire spiritual organism is flawed and no matter what name one attaches to it, Messianic, Presbyterian, Protestant, Baptist, Pentecostal, Methodist, Anglican, etc. etc. such a position is the antithesis of the Lord and his gospel of grace. Anyone, woman, man, boy, or girl who aligns with such a message that redefines who is Christ is a "chained person," i.e. one chained to an unbiblical idea and to the yoke of Judaism. Judeo-Christianity affirms the Lordship of Jesus and the gospel of salvation and sanctification in grace. It is there where one can build on the rock and disciple a family in the ways of the Messiah.
I was talking about Steve's "signature" line. It goes back to another post where I tried to show him (and others) that what they were saying was no different than some of the things that the Judaisers were saying/doing and the Pharisees were saying/doing. Christ fulfilled the law, and while that did not remove the law (or there would be no sin) we are not under the law anymore. The Judaisers and Pharisees both used circumcision (keeping the law) as a requirement to be either a Christian (in the case of the Judaizers), or a Jew (as in the case of the Pharisees). These religions that teach Jesus + whatever we decide to add = salvation are indeed putting God to the test as Peter aptly points out.
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