How Does a Jew and Righteous Gentiles Attain Salvation?
The Jewish community has 613 laws to fulfill.
A righteous gentile has 7 Noahide laws to fulfill that are the moral and ethical laws binding upon all humanity, Jews and Gentiles alike as far as moral and ethical laws are concern. Beside the moral and ethical laws, Jews have more laws to fulfill because they are the chosen one to be a Nation of Priesthood and be a light to the world.
Christianity maintains that all men are doomed to sin, and everyone will go to everlasting hell unless they accept jesus as their savior.
Judaism has always uphold that we do not need that sort of salvation, for we are not doomed or damned at birth. We are not doomed or damned to sin. Quite the contrary.
Psalms 119:9-10:- How can a man purify his path? By observing Your word. With all my heart I sought You, do not let me stray from Your commandants.
The Torah says:”If you do good, won’t there be special previlege? And if you do not do good, sin awaits at the door. It lusts after you, but you can dominate it.” Genesis 4:7. In other words, you can do good,and if you do, things will be better for you. If you do not do good, sin wants to be partners with you. But you can control sin, you can control your evil desires, and you can be good.
So we have free will, and that is what Judaism and Noahidism has always believed, because that is what the Torah teaches. The Torah does not teach — or even mention — that we are “born in sin,” or that we are fated to sin as what christianity erroneously preaches about the falsehood of “original sin.” Just the opposite. We have the ability to choose to do good or to do evil.
Which means that we can be good, or we can be evil. It is up to us. For God have created within us a good inclination as well as a evil inclination. And we are given the power to choose. And if we choose to be good, that means we can be righteous. I cannot understand how or why christians like to say that no one can be righteous in the eyes of God. The Torah says otherwise. Rabbis often say to christian missionaries that if they choose to believe that all gentiles are sinful, they the Rabbis would have to disagree, but Rabbis won’t bother to argue the point. It is their own people, let them say what they want.
But if they choose to say that all people, including Jews, are sinful and cannot be righteous, the Rabbis collectively strongly disagree, because the Torah says quite the opposite:” All your nation is righteous, they will inherit the earth eternally; the shoot that I have planted, the work of My hands, something to be proud of”( Isaiah 60:21). So the Jews are righteous, and Hashem is proud of the Jewish peoples.
And it says, “Open the gates, so that the righteous nation that keep the faith may enter.” (Isaiah 26:2.)
The Children of Israel are righteous. For the Torah says so. Of course, the Jews must uphold the Torah, or otherwise we might cease to be righteous. But as long as the Jews keep the Torah, we are righteous.
The Prophets of the Torah warned the Jews about these many times. They often called the Jews wicked. When? When the Jews did not obey the the Commandments of the Torah. Yet never once in all of the Jewish Bible did the Prophets chastise the Jews for not believing in jesus! Not once. When Prophet Jonah reluctantly went to Nineveh, being send by God to preach, He the Prophet wasn’t sent to preach about jesus, but to tell about repentance from sins, for they did not practice what was morally right(7 Noahide Laws)
I also have wonder: if no one can be righteous in the eyes of God, how can the Torah called Noah righteous.
Genesis 6:9:- “These are the offspring of Noah — Noah was a righteous man, perfect in his generations; Noah walked with God.”;
Genesis7:1:- “Then Hashem said to Noah, ‘Come to the Ark, you and all your household, for it is you that I have seen to be righteous before Me in this generation'”, as one example? “Noah walked with God,” the Torah says. Obviously you can be righteous and you can walk with God without the help of jesus.
Other examples like Abel, he worshipped God with the whole-hearted sacrifices and his action was pleasing to God.Genesis 4:4. Enoch walked with God: then he was no more, for God had taken him. Genesis 5:24. Then we had Shem, the most righteous of the 3 sons of Noah, then Eber, Abram(Abraham), then Isaac, then Jacob, the 12 Children of Israel(Jacob’s name change to Israel), of the 12 children, we have highlighted stories of Joseph and Judah. Amram(Moses’father) Then we have the Greatest Prophet Moses and also his brother Aaron, then Joshua, Caleb, Phinehas, Boaz, Gideon and the various names of all the judges found in the book of Judges. Then we have all the names of all the prophets like Samuel, Nathan, Isaiah,Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Elijah, Elisha, the Twelve Prophets like Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. Not forgetting Job, Daniel, Nehemiah, Ezra, Mordecai. And also some of the Righteous Kings like King David, King Solomon, King Asa of Judea, King Hezekiah of Judea, King Jehoshaphat of Judea, King Josiah of Judea, Asaph( King David’s chief musician), and also the righteous female Bible Characters like Sarah, Rebekah, Leah, Rachel, Jocebed(Moses’mother), Miriam(Moses’ sister), the five daughters of Zelophehad were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah. Rahad, Deborah, Hannah, Ruth, Esther, Hephzibah(wife of King Hezekiah), all these are names of righteous characters in the Bible. They all lives righteous lives without the help of jesus. So you can see that you don’t have to trust in jesus. But they trusted in the Creator God as it is mentioned in Psalms 121:2:- “My help is from Hashem, maker of heaven and earth.”
Hashem called Moses as the most trusted servant, and closer to Him than any other prophets. Moses spoke directly to God, and God spoke directly to Moses(Numbers 12:6-8). No mention was made of jesus. As what the new testament erroneously proclaimed that “jesus was the way, the truth and the life, no one can come to the Father except through jesus”(john 14:6) and also another verse that proclaimed wrongly that “jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever”(hebrews 13:8). When did you ever heard of the name ‘jesus’ in the Tanakh(Old Testament)? All the recordings in the new testament are violation of these verses:- Deuteronomy 4:2; Proverbs 30:6; Ecclesiastes 3:14.
“You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor shall you subtract from it, to observe the commandments of Hashem, your God, that I command you(Duet. 4:2),
“Do not add to His words, lest He test you and find that you deceived”(Proverbs 30:6).
“I realised that whatever God does will endure forever: Nothing can be added to it and nothing can be subtracted to it”(Eccl 3:14).
The Jewish people never accept the new testament as the words of God, that why they use the Tanakh without the new testament. If the Tanakh is use together with the new testament, then the whole holy bible is no longer kosher.
The problem is that christian do not understand the meaning of the concept “righteousness”. They think it means that one has never sinned. Never sinning is almost impossible. The Torah says that “There is no person on earth so righteous that he does only good and never sins”(Eccl. 7:20).
Rather, the defination of a righteous person is as taught in Proverbs 24:16:- “The righteous fall seven times and still get up, but the wicked stumble in evil”.
Being righteous does not mean that one never sins. It means that after you sin you get back up again. You keep on trying. THAT is being righteous.
Not only that, but even if you keep on trying, and you don’t succeed very well, and you have many sins, you can still be forgiven and go to Heaven. In the Book of Job(33:23-24), it says that if someone has even only one merit and 1,000 sins, he is rescued from hell. So we are not doomed to hell as what christianity erroneously preach.
“If there will be for someone but a single defending angel out of a thousand to declare a man’s uprightness on his behalf, then God will be gracious to him and say, ‘Redeem him from going down to the grave. I have found him atonement'(Job 33:23-24).
That’s what Judaism teaches, as we see from the Torah. The christian bible, on the other hand, teaches that there is no repentance after sinning.
Here is what it says in the christian bible:-“For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the lord and savior jesus christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them(2 Peter 2:20-21)
In other words, if anyone accepted jesus as savior, and then sins, they are in worse trouble than they were before they accepted jesus.
That why I came out of christianity. So what then is the advantage of accepting jesus? It seems better to stay with Hashem! Hashem accepts repentance, and loves all those who turn away from sin(Psalms 145:14) says:- “Hashem support the fallen one, and straighten the bend.” No matter how many times they have sinned and repented. “For the righteous stumble even seven times, but they get up again!” (Proverbs 24:16a)
“AND THEY ARE CALLED RIGHTEOUS!”
And the wicked who repent are no longer called wicked.
“EVEN when I have told the wicked that he will die, but then he repents, and does justice and righteousness; he returns the collateral when he is supposed to, he repays what he stole, he begins to live by the Laws of life, and does not do evil, he will live, and he will not die. All the sins that he committed will not be held against him, for he has begun to do judgment and righteousness; he shall surely live.”(Ezekiel 33:14-16)
We see, therefore another fallacy of the christians, who argue that “sin had separated us from a perfectly holy God.” We are not separated from Hashem at all. All we need to do is repent.
But no, says the christians. Repentance won’t work, for some reason that we cannot understand. They claim that “no one can be close to God without jesus”.
This is completely wrong. The righteous live by their OWN faith(Habbukuk 2:4). We do not gain life or atonement by the faith or righteousness of jesus. We are master of our own fate, because the choice to do good or bad is our own.
Was King David separated from God? Yet the Torah says about him that he did one thing wrong. 1 Kings 15:5:- “Because David had done what is proper in the eyes of Hashem, and did not veer from all that He had commanded him all the days of his life except for the matter of Uriah the Hittite.” and yet he was considered righteous and Hashem was with him. 1Kings 11:34:- “But I shall not take away any of the kingdom from his own hand, for I shall set him as ruler all the days of his life, for the sake of My servant David whom I chose, who observed My commandments and My decrees.”
Whenever a royal descendant of King David did the right things, the Torah says about him that he follow in the ways of his ancestor David. See example of King Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18:3:- “He did what was proper in the eyes of Hashem, just as his forefather David had done.” and also another example of King Josiah in 2 Kings 22:2:- ” He did what was proper in the eyes of Hashem, following the ways of his forefather David; he did not veer right or left.”
Did Moses sin? Was he close to God or not? Did Abraham sin? Was he close to God or not?
And if you examine the christian belief in this matter, you will find that many denominations believe that God only chooses those that God has prevoiusly decided to choose. In other words, God will accept into Heaven only those whom He has decided to accept into Heaven, and we have no free will or choice! That means that we cannot even be good people if we try! It’s all up to God! “Many are called, but few are chosen”.
How is this merciful?
What about all those people who are not chosen? How do they attain “salvation?” Why can they not attain salvation, when it isn’t even their fault? That is possibly the creulest doctrine I have ever heard! No matter what a person does, he will only get to Heaven only if God had previously chosen him to get to Heaven! Everyone else goes to eternal hell! Everlasting Fire! “Very Cruel”.
In Judaism, it is entirely up to you. If you do good, you will get good. Very simple doctrine, even a small child will understand.
Everyday when we wake up, we are given a choice to choose to respond to the Good Inclination or the Evil Inclination that God had created within us. We can draw strength from God through prayers. I will suggest that to be a good righteous gentile, try to say this morning prayer.
MORNING PRAYER:- “O my God, the soul which You has given is pure. You did create it within me, and You will take it from me, but will restore it to me hereafter. So long as the soul is within me, I will give thanks to You. O Lord my God and God of all mankind, Sovereign of all worlds, Lord of all souls. Blessed areYou, O Lord Who restorest souls unto dead bodies. Blessed are You, O Lord, Who revivest the dead.
My Lord, I have sinned before You, Please forgive me and help me to forgive others who offended me. May it be acceptable before You, O Lord my bGod, that You grant me a good heart, a happy lot, a good inclination, to be for example (a good husband, a good wife, a good father, a good mother, a good son, a good daughter, a good friend, a good name. a generous eye, a liberal soul and a humble spirit.) May not Your Name ever be profaned through me and let me not become a byword among my fellow creatures. May my fate not be cut off by You through sinfulness, nor my hope turn yo despair, Let me not be in want of the help of others and let not my sustenance be dependent upon them. Set my portion in Your Torah pertaining to the 7 Noahide Laws with those who perform Your will.
On behalf of the Children of Israel, rebuild Your Temple and Your City Jerusalem speedily in our days so that Your people, the Children of Israel worldwide can return from the final exile back to the Land of Israel.
May it be acceptable before You, O Lord my God and God of all flesh, that You break and cause to cease the yoke of the evil impulse from my heart, for You has created me to perform Your will and so I am bound to do so, such is Your desire and such is my desire too, but what impedes me? The leaven in the dough. It is revealed and known before You that I have not the strength to resist it; may it therefore be acceptable before You, O Lord my God and God of all flesh, that You cause it to cease from upon me and subdue it so that I may do Your will as my will with a perfect heart, May I considered prayer to be something greater than the mere petitioning for material needs. While not overlooking the claims of the physical life, may I used prayer as the medium for enjoyimg fellowship with You and the development of what was purest and highest in human nature. The act of praying will be my spiritual exercise for increasing the power of my soul to the very end of my life that it may become a dorminant force in my life, the master of the flesh and overcoming my selfish desires.” Amen