Why do Jews still follow rabbis in their synagogues instead of the Messiah? To get to the bottom of this, I did some research. Here are four objections.
The first is from my late Jewish friend Barrie Schwortz, who was the photographer of the Shroud of Turin. He said that the Messiah was supposed to bring things like worldwide peace (Isa. 2:4, 11:6), yet Jesus did not. Rabbi Tovia Singer agrees: “If Jesus were the Messiah, you would know it from reading the newspaper, because the front page, instead of being about wars, would be about peace.”
The second objection states that Jesus failed to reunite the twelve tribes of Israel (from Jacob’s twelve sons in Genesis 49) after getting dispersed by Assyria and Babylon, as the Messiah was supposed to do (Bar. 5:5-7, Ezek. 36:24, etc.).
The third is that the Tanakh (Jewish scriptures) says to keep the Mosaic commandments (Torah) to be righteous (see Deut. 30:16), yet Jesus did not. Jesus abrogated aspects of the Torah, such as the kosher requirements to avoid foods like pork (Mark 7:19). Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz presented this objection in a YouTube video to explain why Jews do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah.
Fourth, the Messiah was not supposed to die. From a first-century point of view, Israel filtered out potential Messianic claimants by seeing if they died (see for example Acts 5:35-39). The Messiah was to liberate Israel from the Romans, not die an embarrassing crucifixion by them, so Jesus could not be the Messiah.
To sum up the reasons, Jesus did not (1) bring worldwide peace, (2) reunite the twelve tribes, (3) preach the Torah for salvation, or (4) live. In light of these objections, how could Jesus be the Messiah?
The Messiah Brings World Peace
Jesus did bring peace, but it was the deeper and more important peace in relation to God, not worldwide peace (Rom. 5:1).
But fine—on a more down-to-earth level, Jesus has not brought world peace. This is true. However, there are so many prophecies about the Messiah—why should we have expected him to fulfill them all at once? The prophecies never said how many times Jesus would come to earth, either.
If we take a step back and look at the evidence, Jesus clearly did fulfill many of the prophecies in his first coming. For example, he healed the blind (Isa. 35:4-5); came in the first century, as expected (Dan. 9:24-27); and revealed himself on the clouds of heaven as the prophesied “son of man” (Dan. 7:14-15, Luke 9:28-36, Acts 1:9-11).
Jesus implied that the messianic prophecies of peace would be fulfilled when he came to earth again at the end of time (see Matt. 24). Some Jews anticipated this idea of a Messiah bringing peace at the end of time. The Messianic website One for Israel says, “The Jewish community in Qumran during the third century BCE believed that ‘at first the Messiah will suffer and be defeated, but in the end he will rule and triumph in the last day.’” Christians are not alone in saying that certain messianic prophecies have a later fulfillment date.
The Twelve Tribes
It is true that Jesus did not reunite the twelve tribes instantaneously. However, he did it progressively. He started it during his preaching ministry, which began in the location where the exiles left—namely, Zebulun and Naphtali (Matt. 4:19). Jesus then chose not five or ten apostles, but twelve, in order to represent the twelve tribes being reunified (Luke 22:30).
Those twelve apostles started the new twelve tribes of Israel, the Catholic Church (James 1:1). That messianic community then went out to the places that the Jews had been dispersed to, finding their synagogues and bringing them to the Messiah. This is why the Church Fathers said that the twelve tribes were spiritually reunited when they converted to Christianity.
When Jesus returns at the end of time, he will finish the job of reuniting the tribes of Israel. As the previous objection-answer explained, the prophecies never specified if they all would be accomplished in one sitting or over the course of multiple messianic visits. Jesus chose the latter (Rev. 7:4-12).
To add one final thought, some Jews (i.e., Rabbis in the Talmud) say that the prophecy of reunifying the tribes was eliminated when Israel broke the covenant. For the ten lost tribes fell into idolatry, were overtaken by Assyria in 722 B.C., and lost their Jewish identity. Jesus might not have had to fulfill this prophecy.
The Torah
Jesus did abrogate certain aspects of the Torah. But who is to say that the Messiah could not have the authority to do that? In fact, it should have been expected that Jesus would eliminate certain aspects of the Torah, for Jeremiah said that a new covenant would be made that would not be like the previous one.
Have Jewish objectors forgotten that passage? It says,
Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord (31:31-32).
Jesus intended to fulfill that new covenant, so of course it would look different from the Mosaic covenant in Egypt. He took the eucharistic cup at the last supper, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). The New covenant has both certain overlaps with and certain divergences from the Mosaic covenant.
Death of the Messiah
Jesus died, yes, but that does not mean that he could not be the Messiah. That would be forgetting all of the other prophecies that specifically foretold the death of the Messiah.
Daniel 9:26 said the Messiah would be “cut off.” This, according to Brant Pitre and John Collins, was a “common Hebrew expression for being put to death.” Not only Daniel, but Isaiah too. Isaiah 53 portrayed the death of the Messiah as a victim to atone for the sins of the people. More passages could be brought up, but suffice it to say, Jesus is not eliminated from the potential Messianic options. In fact, Jesus went one step farther and rose from the dead. But that is a topic for another time.
Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do men say that the Son of Man is?” We have to answer with Peter, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (Matt. 16:16). These messianic objections do not hold weight against the overwhelming evidence that Jesus fulfilled many of the biblical prophecies. He did leave some to be completed at the end of time (e.g., world peace), and he invited us to participate in them by converting the world (implicitly reuniting the twelve tribes).
So let us remember the words of John the Baptist to Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come?” (Matt. 11:3). The answer is in the affirmative.