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.
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?
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.