What is the Christian Message?


It is twofold.
First there is the moral message of Jesus Christ, "The first commandment of all is 'Hear O Israel,! The Lord our God is one God; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength' [Deuteronomy 6:4-5] This is the first commandment.  And the second is like it 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself' [Leviticus 19:18] There is no other commandment greater than these" (Mark 12:28-31).

Then there is the lesson of the resurrection, "If Christ has not risen, vain then is our preaching, vain too is your faith.  Yes and we are found false witnesses as to God, in that we have borne witness against God that he raised Christ--whom he did not raid, if the dead do not rise.  For if the dead do not rise, neither has Christ risen; and if Christ has not risen, vain is your faith, for you are still in your sins.  Hence they also who have fallen asleep in Christ, have perished. If with this life only in view we have had hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable!" (I Corinthians 15:14-19).

Whoever follows the moral message and believes in the resurrection is a Christian in the barest, but most essential, way. Any religion that incorporates this essential message is Christian.
 
 

Are the Jews Christians?


The answer is yes, or rather, the Christians are Jews because their messages are identical, but the Jews came first.  Christ picked the moral message right out of Deuteronomy and Leviticus.  The message of the resurrection is contained in Isaiah 26:12-21 and Ezechiel 37:1-14. Christ's resurrection is evidence of the Lord's power to resurrect the dead, and for that reason it was important that he be executed publicly, so that there could be no doubt about his actual death, and so no doubt about his actual resurrection.  Those who have no doubt about the power of God, as Ezechiel demonstrates when he says "You alone know that" (Ezechiel 37:3) when God asks if the bones can return to life, do not need the evidence that Christ provides, but they are few indeed.  Christ came to save mankind, but not to save the Jews, because the Jews were already saved.  To say that the Jews need Christ for salvation is like saying the Coast Guard needs a lifepreserver, "For Salvation is from the Jews" (John 4:22), and preaching Christ to the Jews is like sending a raft to the rescue boat.  The message of Christ was sent from the Jews to the world, what, then, would be the point of sending it to the Jews from the world?

In Isaiah 26:12-21, we read: O Lord, You mete out peace to us, for it is You who have accomplished all we have done. O Lord, our God, other lords than You have ruled us; it is from You only that we can call upon Your name.  Dead they are, they have no life, shades that can not rise; for You have punished and destroyed them, and wiped out all memory of them.  You have increased the nation, O Lord, increased the nation to Your own glory, and extended far all the borders of the land.  O Lord, oppressed by Your punishment, we cried out in anguish under your chastising.  As a woman about to give birth writhes and cries out in her pains, so were we in Your presence, O Lord.  We conceived and writhed in pain, giving birth to wind; salvation we have not achieved for the earth, the inhabitants of the world can not bring it forth.  But Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. Awake and sing, you who lie in the dust!  For Your dew is a dew of light, and the land of the shades gives birth.  Go my people, enter your chambers, and close your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a brief moment, until the wrath is past.  See, the Lord goes forth from His place, to punish the wickedness of the Earth's inhabitants; the Earth will reveral the blood upon her, and no longer conceal her slain.

In Ezechiel 37:1-14 we read: The hand of the Lord came upon me and He led me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me in the center of the plain, which was now filled with bones.  He made me walk among them in every direction so that I saw how many they were on the surface of the plain.  How dry they were! He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones come to life?"  "Lord God," I answered, "You alone know that."  Then He said to me, "Prophesy over these bones, and say to them: Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!  Thus says the Lord God to these bones, 'See! I will bring spirit into you, that you may come to life.  I will put sinews upon you, make flesh grow over you, cover you with skin, and put spirit in you so that you may come to life and know that I am the Lord.'"  I prophesied as I had been told, and even as I was prophesying I heard a noise.  It was the rattling as the bones came together, bone joining bone.  I saw the sinews and the flesh come upon them, and the skin cover them, but there was no spirit in them.  Then He said to me, "Prophesy to the spirit, prophesy, son of man, and say to the spirit: Thus says the Lord God, 'From the four winds come, O spirit, and breathe into these slain that they may come to life.'"  I prophesied as He told me, and the spirit came into them.  They came alive and stood upright, a vast army.  Then He said to me, "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.  They have been saying, 'Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost, and we are cut off.' Therefore prophesy and say to them: Thus says the Lord God, 'O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel.  Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and have you rise from them. O my people!  I will put my spirit in you that you may live, and I will settle you upon your land; thus you shall know that I am the Lord.  I have promised, and I will do it,' says the Lord."

What could be more plain?
 
 

What of the Adherents of Other Religions?

To any religion does not meet the criteria for being a Christian sect as defined above, the words of Christ have been applied, "He who is not with me is against me" (Luke 11:23).   For the purposes of proslytizing to the pagans of the ancient world (Romans, Greeks, Celts, Germanic tribes, etc.) and those discovered in the New World, this was an important teaching.  Its time has now passed as the message of Christ has been preached throughout the entire world.  It is time now to reverse course and adopt the way which Christ advocated twice, "He who is not against you is for you" (Mark 9:39, Luke 9:50) because the Lord God is like the master in the parable of the Talents who boasts, "I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed" (Matthew 25:26, see also Luke 19:22), but while the master collects money and goods, the Lord God gathers good people to himself; and the time for the harvest is near (see my interpretation of the Book of Revelation).

These are the other gods whom they have followed.  They are dead and can not rise because either they were agents of the devil who have been subdued or they were figments of the people's imagination who do not exist and never existed. Back to Isaiah 26.
These are the people of the world who have died and whom the Lord has chosen to be his own and to share eternal life. Back to Isaiah 26.