Old Testament and God
Why do we Christians hold the Old Testament to a different meaning than the Jewish faith has held for thousands of years regarding the coming of the Messiah? I have not come across a Jewish document, rabbi, or Jewish believer that does not hold the belief that when the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament) speaks of the coming Messiah, it clearly identifies a man who will establish an earthly kingdom and return Israel and its people to its proper place.
This is the subject for a book not for a brief reply. We would have to go through all the prophecies. The New Testament clearly shows how the prophecies were fulfilled in Christ.
The real issue is what kind of kingdom the Old Testament talks about, a kingdom of the gospel or a kingdom of the sword. The key question is: What is the way of salvation that God offered to people living then? As Paul shows in Romans 4, the way of salvation in the Old Testament was by faith not by works. When the Jews lost the view of salvation by faith alone, they could no longer understand the prophecies. Also Romans 9-11 teaches that not all Jews are the spiritual Israel, but only those who have the faith of Abraham are heirs of the promise.
There is actually very little about this in the Torah, so it is hard to know what you are referring to. Most Jewish millennial ideas come from the latter prophets not the Torah. Where in the Torah do you see these things?
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