Most adherence to the Torah disappeared from the ‘Church’ after 135AD, when Romans and Greeks (who were anti-Semites) began to be seen as the ‘the church fathers.’
Facts of the Early ‘Church’
Initially, the first Believers were Jewish until the Apostle Paul specifically targeted Gentiles (Acts 13:44-48).
* They did not see themselves as separate from Israel or Judaism – more like a sect.
* They attended the Temple (Acts 2:46) and met in the synagogues, kept the Sabbath, the Feasts, the dietary laws and they fully lived as Jews according to Torah. Acts 21:20 …….. You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are who believe, and they are all zealous of the Law. The only real difference was that they acknowledged Yeshua as the Messiah.
* The non-Jewish converts to the Messianic faith attended the synagogues as there were no Christian churches in those days.
* They embraced the standards of Judaism and the teachings of the Hebrew Scriptures as that was the only Word of God they had – the New Testament did not yet exist – because it was primarily Paul who wrote it.
* In those days, the main issue was what to do with non-Jews who were accepting Yeshua (Acts 15 Council meeting). The Apostle Paul addresses these issues in his letters to the Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and the Corinthians.
* The Believers were first called ‘Christians’ in Antioch – Acts 11:26). This was a name created to be an insult not a compliment.
How the Falling Away Began During the 1st and 2nd centuries, life was not easy for the Jewish nor the non-Jewish Believers. The Messianic Jews were rejected and ostracized for their faith in Yeshua. The non-Jews were often unwelcome in the synagogues and began to feel cut off from both the Jewish world and the Gentile world. Soon all Believers were expelled from synagogues. That is when the fellowship of Believers started to meet together.
The Romans resented the non-Jewish Believers as they appeared to be just like the Jews who they already hated, and unleashed vicious persecution against the Believers, and imposed cruel taxes on them. It was becoming very difficult to be associated with Israel and the Jewish people.
* By the beginning of the 2nd Century, most of the first generation of Believers had died and anti-Jewish sentiment was now so strong in the Church that the non-Jews no longer wanted to be associated with the Jewish Believers in any way.
* Soon the non-Jewish Believers decided that they had replaced the Jews as the true Israel of God – that God was forever finished with the Jewish people who were now accursed and doomed to eternal damnation.
* After the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD and the exile of the Jewish people to the nations around the year 130 AD, the Jewish gospel also went into exile and, as the Jewish leadership of the Church declined, Romans & Greeks took over the leadership.
* Most of the men who are seen as the Church Fathers were previously disciples of Plato, Socrates and other Greek philosophers. Most of them hated Israel and the Jewish people. Men like Ignatius, Origen, Justyn Martyr, Marcion and John Chrysostom.
* They began to teach what we today call Replacement Theology – that because most the Jewish people rejected Yeshua, God had rejected them, and now the Church was the true Israel, or the New Israel of God. They left the curses for the Jews and took the blessings and promises for the New Israel.
* They taught that the Torah had been superseded by the New Testament laws and that the Sabbath, the Feasts were now obsolete
What Some of the ‘Church Fathers’ said.
The men who theologians call the Church Fathers are imposters. The true New Testament Church Fathers were the 1st Century Jewish Apostles. The original Church Fathers are Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, the Patriarchs of the Jewish people, because as we saw in an earlier image, the true Church was grafted into Israel and became the seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:29). Apart from being imposters, the so called the ‘Church Fathers’ were also rabid anti-Semites. They hated the Jewish people with a vengeance. Let us look at some of the terrible things they said about the Jews …..
* Ignatius the Bishop of Antioch: Let us therefore no longer keep the Sabbath after the Jewish manner …. Not in relaxation nor eating food prepared the day before, not finding delight in dancing and clapping which have no sense.
* Justyn Martyr (2nd Century) stated in his letter to a Greek Jew named Trypho: God gave the Jews the Torah as punishment for their exceptional wickedness and because of His special hatred of the Jewish people. We too would observe your Sabbath days and Festivals if we were not aware of the reason they were imposed upon you, namely because of your wickedness and hard hearts.
* Marcion: taught that the Jesus of the New Testament had defeated and even unseated the evil God of the Jews.