JESUS IS A STUMBLING BLOCK
Lacking understanding about the law, or laws, Christians have an incomplete theology of Jesus that focuses on his humanity. Indeed they do allow that he is the son of God, but the fact that God is an invisible spirit effectively prevents them from thinking of him as a spirit — except they say that he now lives in heaven, that he will return again sometime, and that they will someday join him in heaven after they die.

STUDY TIPS: See Jesus, Second Coming and Kingdom of God/Heaven.

In the meantime, there is no respect or consideration of what Jesus represents as a spirit that always existed and was involved in creation. All the focus on Jesus is on his miraculous physical birth, his horrible physical death on a cross, and his miraculous resurrection from the dead — all to the exclusion of his invisible, eternal, spiritual qualities. Thus Jesus has become an icon and a personality to be worshiped (i.e. a stumbling block). This has happened even though Jesus always deferred to God and did not presume to be like him. He always directed people to the Kingdom of God (i.e. the Kingdom of Heaven) which is God’s home (i.e. in the hearts of New Covenant disciples).

Given the focus Christians place on the human, physical Jesus, it might be rightly said that the caricature of Jesus has become another god. All the emphasis is on Jesus as a physical man who had supernatural power to heal people and raise them from the dead. Lacking understanding of the spiritual Jesus, he is the subject of pictures, plaques, statues and Bible stories (e.g. Christmas, Easter, etc.) where his human characteristics are displayed with his supernatural power. Rarely does anyone try to explain  names and titles (e.g. Lamb of God, good shepherd, Lion of Judah, rock, vine, etc.) that symbolically refer to him. And rarely does anyone try to explain his difficult sayings and parables.

If Christians had any sense of what it means to be the image of the living God, they would never represent Jesus’ as a human person. Indeed, it is impossible to represent invisible things, but that is the point of criticizing the emphasis that Christianity places on the human Jesus.

Christians are not comfortable with things they cannot see and cannot manipulate in some way. They always need something that they can see, touch taste, hear or smell. They know that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, but they cannot resist giving form to their faith. They know, or should know, that God and Jesus are invisible spirits that cannot be seen, and they sincerely desire to be like God and Jesus, but  they can’t translate spirit and invisibility to themselves. And so, as always, Christians default to making something (i.e. religion) out of nothing (i.e. spirit).

The result of man’s inability to understand the intellectually obscure concepts of spirit and faith and apply them to themselves is religion which is the substance of things that are seen, touched, tasted, heard, codified, managed and repeated according to codes and traditions established by an historical succession of religious leaders.

Jews and Christians sincerely aspire to be like God and/or Jesus. Nevertheless, being incurably oriented to expressing themselves through their flesh (i.e. physical and mental activity), they can’t help representing their understanding of Godliness and Christ-likeness through their religion. They do not understand that God’s name, character and ways and Jesus’ name, character and ways are represented in God’s spiritual laws written on their hearts (i.e. New Covenant) — not in religious laws and not even in the literal law of Moses (i.e. Old/First Covenant).

Despite what they say, the Jesus that Christians admire and emulate is not the mediator of the New Covenant through whom the law is written on their hearts. If their eyes were opened to the truth, both Jews and Christians would realize that their religions are, and have always been, mediated by human religious leaders (e.g. rabbis, priests, pastors, etc.) whom God calls false prophets.  If Christians believed that God’s law was written on their hearts, and if they were able to differentiate one law from another, they would not say that they want to be under any law. If they had the kind of faith that God wants, they would uphold and establish God’s spiritual laws by their faith — not despise the law as they understand it. Being ignorant, confused and double-minded about these issues, however, they are vulnerable to any false prophet who comes along with teaching that seems to explain these puzzling issues.

In their disrespect of the law, Christians make the same mistake Jews have made for four thousand years: They have added to it and subtracted from it. As a result, religious traditions taught by men have superseded God’s laws taught by the spirit of God. Christians do not follow the same fussy little rules that Jews observe, but they have their own rules nonetheless. They don’t like to call them laws but that does not change the fact that the doctrines, rituals and traditions that determine their daily, weekly and annual religious activities are defacto laws based on traditions that God says are lip worship without the right heart attitude. Christianity, therefore, is a religion defined by religious laws just like Judaism is defined by its religious laws. Christians just have different laws.

Even though both religions are based on concepts of sacrifices, festivals and rituals mentioned often in the Old and New Testaments, God says the following about these human traditions:

• • • Sacrifices, offerings festivals and prayers are nothing to him.
    • He does not require sacrifices and offerings nor does he desire them.
    • He rejects festivals and solemn assemblies, will not accept offerings, and will not listen to music.
    • He takes no delight in burnt offerings.
    • Killing an ox is like killing a man; sacrificing a lamb is like breaking a dog’s neck; and burning incense (i.e. prayer) is like blessing an idol.
    • All religion (i.e. the ceremonies and offerings conducted in high places) is an abomination.
    • Traditions based on the law are stumbling blocks to faith.

God’s hatred of religious traditions extends to all religious traditions that are so important to Judaism (e.g. circumcision, Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, Simchat Torah, Hanukkah, Tu B’Shevat, etc.) and Christianity (e.g. Sunday, Easter, Pentecost, Christmas, weddings, funerals, baptism, communion, etc.) Even though many of these traditions are mentioned in the Bible, the are all man-made religious events that happen in religious places, often at times prescribed by calendars, and always accomplished by activating the flesh (i.e. physical body.)

Jews and Christians justify their traditions because they interpret the Bible literally — not symbolically. If they could hear God’s voice while reading the Bible, they would understand that all Biblical events are parables of spiritual events that occur in the heart. God uses symbolism of human activity in traditions to symbolically represent what he wants to happen in their hearts.

STUDY TIPS: See Literal or Symbolic Interpretation Part 1, Literal or Symbolic Interpretation Part 2, Literal or Symbolic Interpretation Part 3, Religion is not Faith, and this link for understanding of how God uses physical things and events to represent spiritual events.

Jews and Christians have taken the literal law and amended it to make it understandable and doable according to their own tastes, traditions, and physical and mental abilities. Thus they emphasize the literal word of God and do their best to integrate it with their traditions and sacraments, while ignoring the spiritual intent. Consistent with God’s intentions, they have stumbled over the law.

The root of the problem is that neither Jews nor Christians understand that there are two sets of laws that relate to two covenants. The first set of laws is written by men and enforced by men. These laws and the task of administering them is called religion and is the work of man’s flesh which can be seen. The second set of laws is all spiritual and are fulfilled by faith which cannot be seen.

Religious people stumble over the religious things that they can easily read and understand in the Bible. Jews stumble over Moses, and Christians stumble over Jesus. They do not understand that God’s written word and God’s spoken word are not the same.

STUDY TIP: See this link for more about stumbling over Jesus