|
The answer is "Yes - more like traditional Judaism". Please read our article about why we follow entitled Why we keep the feasts.
The Torah is composed of the 613 Mitzvot, or commandments, in the Tanach (Old Covenant) that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai involving the festivals, the Ten Commandments, sacrifices, kashrut (kosher laws), etc. Generally speaking, Gentile Christianity today maintains that Torah is completely dead now that Yeshua has come and that we should have nothing to do with it.
We, as Messianic believers, recognize that one cannot be saved through Torah, because the only way to be saved through the Law is to keep all of the commandments perfectly (Deuteronomy 27:26). This is impossible because we have a sinful nature (Ecclesiastes 7:20). At the same time, while the Law cannot save, it is far from being dead. (Attempting to gain salvation by following the Torah on your own without faith, and inevitably failing at some point, is the "curse of the Law" --not the Torah itself.) The moral precepts of the Ten Commandments are carried into the New Covenant.
The Festivals are for eternity. Shabbat (Sabbath) on the seventh day was instituted before the Law was given, as was tithing, which most believers practice today.
The OT doesn't use the "forever" phrase when referring to kashrut, but why would anyone think that it is done away with since God told us what was and was not considered food, in the first place? To this, day for instance, undercooked pork and shellfish will kill you. God had his reasons for telling us what we can and can't eat. And by the way, Abraham served both milk and meat to his heavenly visitors (Gen. 18:6-9). And he was not rebuked for this....
The difference between Traditional and Messianic Judaism is that we know we don't have to sit around fretting about our "works". God knows we do the best we can to observe the commandments that can be kept today, and to try to be as kosher as possible in this unkosher world. Nobody's going to hell for accidentally eating pork (i.e. at a restaurant where we didn't realize something we ordered might have contained pork). God knows our hearts and He sees us TRYING!
|