As the Jewish Messiah, Jesus did not come to Earth to start a new religion called Christianity. He was here to bring Judaism back to its roots, where a person was justified by their faith, like Abraham was, not by their works.

⁶ Then he [Abraham] believed in the Lord; and He credited [lit imputed] it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:6 NASV)

And for decades, the Romans looked upon the early church as a sect of Judaism.

Unfortunately, it was the Roman Catholic Church that fundamentally changed all that as it drove a wedge creating two faiths.

But I recently read an interesting testimony about a Jewish man, Tamir Kugman.

Though raised in an orthodox Jewish home in Israel, he slid away from his faith and became very secular, God TV reports.

However, he tells the story of how at 15 years of age a friend gave him a New Testament. Though Tamir mocked his friend and his gift, he did not throw it out, but neither did he read it.

In Israel, Jewish men and women are required to join the Israel Defence Forces for a two-year stint when they turn 18. During his compulsory military training, Tamir ended up befriending a Messianic Jew, who believed in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.

He challenged Tamir about his faith.

This resulted in Tamir digging up the New Testament that he had been given years earlier and to start reading it.

When I go through the Gospels the passages that often cause my eyes to glaze over are the genealogies of Christ presented in Matthew and Luke.

In fact, the very first chapter in the first book of the New Testament, Matthew, starts with Jesus’ genealogy:

The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham: ² Abraham fathered Isaac, Isaac fathered Jacob, and Jacob fathered Judah and his brothers. (Matthew 1:1-2 NASV)

And though my mind numbs reading through the list of names, it was this genealogy that immediately caught Tamir’s attention when he started reading the New Testament.

Because, for the first time in his life, he realized that Jesus was a Jew and this was quickly followed by the revelation that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah.

“I never felt that my Jewishness really had a purpose until I met Jesus, until I believed in the Gospel,” Tamir stated in his testimony for Jews for Jesus.

“If you don’t find Jesus to be the Messiah, then the Hebrew Scriptures have no ending. But Jesus, his life, death, and resurrection are the solution and the resolution of the Hebrew Scriptures,” he continued.

When his family and friends questioned his decision to become a Messianic Jew, one who believed, Jesus was the Messiah, Tamir told them: “You can be Jewish and be for Jesus because Jesus was a Jew. He came to save the Jewish nation.”

And while today we look at Christianity as being completely separate from Judaism, it was never intended to be that way.

This is why the Apostle Paul referred to the church as the Israel of God (Galatians 6:16) and why Stephen just before his martyrdom referred to Israel as the church (lit. ekklesia) in the wilderness (Acts 7:38).

As the Israel of God, the church is simply a continuation of the Jewish faith.

READ: Jewish Man Testified, ‘My Jewishness never had a Purpose until I Met Jesus