Immigrants & Immigration

I recently read an article by a conservative news commentator about immigrants who come to the United States. The author was comparing and contrasting the “old” immigrants who came in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the “new” immigrants who are now coming in the 21st century.

The immigrants who came here in the 19th and 20th centuries saw America as the land of golden opportunity. America was a place where they could build a new life for themselves and for their children. This wave of immigrants pursued the American dream by hard work, persistence, and self-reliance. They did not come here expecting free government handouts. They did not have a sense of entitlement like some modern-day immigrants do. Of course there are many 21st-century immigrants who believe in hard work and self-reliance, but there are also many “new” immigrants who now come here expecting free government handouts. They have no intention of ever becoming productive American citizens who contribute something positive to society.

Another significant difference between the “old” immigrants and the “new” immigrants was in regards to cultural identity. The immigrants of the 19th and 20th centuries wanted to identify as Americans, not as citizens of their former countries. Even though they still ate their ethnic foods and still retained some of their cultural customs from the old world, they wanted to identify primarily as Americans, as citizens of the new world, not as hyphenated Americans (Irish-Americans, Polish-Americans, Italian-Americans, etc.). Therefore they learned Standard American English. Some of them went so far as to quit speaking their native language around their children, because they did not want their children to grow up speaking English with a foreign accent. America was a “melting pot” where people from many different cultures blended together to become a people known as Americans.

Many 21st century immigrants do not want to identify primarily as Americans. They are not content to just eat their ethnic foods and retain a few cultural customs from their former nations. They want to impose their foreign culture and foreign values on America. They expect America to change its culture to accommodate them. Instead of learning Standard American English, they demand that schools teach their children in their native language. They demand that government tests and forms be in their native language, or that the government provide translators. They demand that public schools schedule events to accommodate their culture. This is the reason we now see public schools accommodating Ramadan, Cinco de Mayo, Count Polaski Day, and other holidays which were unknown to most Americans fifty years ago.

These 21st-century immigrants are not eager to identify primarily as Americans, as citizens of a new world. Rather, they are eager to change America, to remake American culture, to change times and laws to accommodate the foreign cultures that they have imported here.

“Daniel, you sound like a conservative political pundit, grousing about how foreigners in America are messing up our country. You’re supposed to be a scribe for the kingdom of heaven, not a political pundit. Shouldn’t you be writing about the kingdom of heaven?”

In case you missed it, I am writing about the kingdom of heaven, albeit in the form of a parable. The problems pointed out by the conservative news commentator - the problems that some 21st-century immigrants are currently causing in America - are the very same problems that some 2nd-century immigrants to the kingdom of heaven caused about a year after Yeshua first preached “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

You see, we are all immigrants to the kingdom of heaven. We have all been translated from darkness to light. We were all quickened when we were dead in sins. We were all raised from death to walk in newness of life. We have all been grafted into the commonwealth of Israel:

“And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience... Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that at that time ye were without Messiah, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world, but now in Messiah Yeshua ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Messiah. For He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us” (Eph. 2:1f, 11-14).

Gentiles of the 1st century who decided to follow Yeshua understood this. They understood that their status and identity as Gentiles was a part of their past (“remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles”). They understood that their decision to follow Israel’s Messiah made them members of the commonwealth of Israel. Even if they were biologically and genealogically of 100% Gentile ancestry, God no longer viewed them as Gentiles. They understood that they were no longer alienated from the commonwealth of Israel. Like Rahab, Ruth, and other Gentiles who forsook their pagan ways and followed the God of Israel, these 1st-century Gentiles knew that they were now full-fledged members of Israel. As Israelites, they knew that they were expected to forsake their pagan ways - their pagan sexual immorality, their pagan holidays that were rooted in idolatry, even their pagan dietary practices when those dietary practices were contrary to the laws of Israel. They understood that there was no dual citizenship in the kingdom of heaven. The citizenship and the loyalty of these former Gentiles belonged to Israel, to the kingdom of heaven, and to the Messianic King.

These 1st-century former Gentiles understood that they were immigrants who had become citizens of a new kingdom. They understood that this kingdom has a King, and the King has laws. But they are good laws, because He is a good King. The 1st-century former Gentiles knew that they were expected to be law-abiding citizens in the kingdom of heaven.

These 1st-century Gentiles were the first wave of immigrants to come into the kingdom of heaven. These were the “good seed” to which Yeshua referred when He said, “The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field” (Matt. 13:24).

But a second wave of Gentile immigrants came into the kingdom in the 2nd century, as Yeshua declared would happen in His very next statement: “But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way” (Matt. 13:25).

Like the current wave of foreign immigrants in 21st-century America today, these 2nd-century tares were not eager to forsake their former ways. They were not eager to identify primarily as citizens of the commonwealth of Israel. Just as some 21st-century immigrants in America want to change American culture, so these 2nd-century tares wanted to change the culture of the kingdom. They did this by imposing their foreign, pagan culture on the entire kingdom, just as some 21st-century immigrants in American try to impose their foreign culture on the entire country.

In the 1st century, the Romans viewed disciples of Yeshua as just another sect of Jews. There were Pharisees, there were Sadducees, there were Essenes, and there were the Nazarene Jews. Gentiles who followed the Nazarene were viewed as proselytes to Nazarene Judaism.

At first, the Romans made no distinction between the Nazarenes and the other Jewish sects. The followers of Yeshua were not viewed as something separate from Israel until after the so-called “Gentile church” had severed itself from the Jewish roots of its faith and changed the face and the culture of the kingdom by bringing in baggage from the Gentile world. The Gentile baggage brought in by these tares resulted in a different calendar with different holidays. The seventh-day Sabbath that Yahweh had given as one of the Ten Commandments was abandoned and replaced by Sunday. The seven annual holy festivals that Yahweh had commanded in Leviticus 23 were replaced by holidays that were rooted in the worship of pagan gods and pagan superstitions. God-given dietary laws and other miscellaneous commandments of God were labeled as “Jewish” and were abandoned.

Church leaders might have had good intentions when they made the decisions to accommodate the Gentile immigrants who were flooding into the kingdom. But regardless of good intentions, the foreign baggage that was brought into the Body of Messiah changed the Bible-based culture of the kingdom. It made it difficult to distinguish the wheat from the tares. So just as Yeshua said they would, the wheat and the tares have been growing together until the harvest, when the false believers will be separated from the true believers. And the false believers, the tares, are described by Yeshua as “them which do iniquity” (Matt. 13:41). Christians who insist that the law was just for the Jews, please take note that the word translated “iniquity” in this verse is anomia, “without law, without Torah,” the source of our English words anomian and antinomian, which Webster’s defines as “one who holds that under the gospel dispensation of grace the moral law is of no use or obligation because faith alone is necessary to salvation.”

As we approach harvest time, the end of the age, we need to be sure that we are not trying to impose our Gentile ways and Gentile customs on the kingdom of heaven. We need to be sure we are not trying to remake the kingdom of heaven to fit our own personal desires, the way that some 21st-century immigrants in America are trying to remake America by imposing their foreign cultures on the country.

As disciples of Yeshua, we are citizens of a Messianic kingdom called the Israel of God. We have a sovereign King who is going to smite the nations with a sharp sword and rule them with a rod of iron and dash them into pieces with His rod of iron. (See Revelation 19:15 and Psalm 2:9.)

Our King is not an elected leader who can be voted out of office. He will rule for all eternity. The government of God’s kingdom is not modeled after America’s three-branched system of a judicial branch with Supreme Court Judges, a legislative branch that makes laws, and an executive branch with a President and Vice President. In God’s government, the three branches of America’s government are all embodied in one Being, Yahweh Himself: “For Yahweh is our judge, Yahweh is our lawgiver, Yahweh is our King; He will save us” (Isa. 33:22).

Our King expects whole-hearted, faithful devotion and allegiance from the subjects of His kingdom. And when I talk about things like devotion, allegiance, commitment, etc., I am not talking only about obeying the King’s laws, as important as obedience to the law is. I am also talking about our devotion and commitment to spend time alone with the Lord in prayer.

Obedience to the law of the Lord is important, and should not be minimized. But obedience to the Spirit of the Lord is also important. If you do not spend time alone in prayer, you will not be spiritually alert nor spiritually sensitive enough to discern the will of the Holy Spirit. You cannot obey the promptings and nudges and leadings of the Holy Spirit if you do not know what the Spirit is prompting you and nudging you and leading you to do.

As immigrants to the kingdom of heaven, it is very important for us to obey the King’s laws. The laws are important. They tell us how we are to live after we have immigrated to the kingdom. But if we want to call lost sinners to come into the kingdom, we will not persuade them to come by telling them about all the laws we have.

Years ago at a conference, Angus Wootten pointed this out. If we wanted to convince foreigners to immigrate to the United States, we would not say to them, “You should come to America and become a citizen, because we have lots of laws in America. We have federal laws, state laws, county laws, and city laws. We have all kinds of laws. Zoning laws, tax laws, building laws, driving laws, laws for retailers and wholesalers, laws for home owners, gun owners and pet owners. We have thousands of laws. You should become an American citizen so that you can follow and obey all these swell laws.”

We would not try to convince foreigners to immigrate to America by talking about all the laws we have. And we should not try to persuade sinners to come into the kingdom by telling them about all the laws of the Torah. Just as we would have better success at persuading people to immigrate to America by telling them about all the benefits of living in America, so we will have better success at persuading sinners to come into the kingdom by telling them about the benefits of living in the kingdom. And just as immigrants to America usually learn and obey America’s laws after they come to America, so immigrants to God’s kingdom should learn and obey the King’s laws after they come into the kingdom. This in effect is what James was talking about when he said, “For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogue every sabbath day” (Acts 15:21). In other words: Let the Gentiles come in and be accepted as full-fledged citizens of the commonwealth of Israel. Then as they attend synagogue every Sabbath day and hear the Torah read and taught, they will learn the laws of the kingdom.

Knowing the laws of our heavenly Father is important, but just knowing and obeying the rules is no guarantee that you will know your heavenly Father’s heart. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the Prodigal’s elder brother knew the father’s rules, but he did not know his father’s heart. If he had known his father’s heart, he would have rejoiced when his younger brother came home. If he had known how grieved his father was, he might have even offered to go search for his wayward brother to tell him to return home.

The elder brother knew the father’s rules, but he did not know the father’s heart. In the same way, we can know and obey the commandments of the Torah without knowing our heavenly Father’s heart.

It’s even possible to live a strict, Torah-observant life and be an atheist. Ridiculous, you say? Well, yes, it is ridiculous for an atheist to live a strict, Torah-observant life. It might be ridiculous, but it’s not impossible. I know of two Orthodox Jews who strictly observed Shabbat and the dietary laws and all the rabbinic decrees. Yet they admitted they were atheists. I read about one of them in an article by Rick Chaimberlin in Petah Tikvah many years ago. I heard about the other one from his son, an American Jew I met in Israel in 2012. This American Jew told me that he was raised in a strict Orthodox family. After he grew up, his father confided to him that he was an atheist.

“You’re an atheist?” the son said to his father. “Then why do you pray?”

“Because I’m a Jew!” the father replied. “Praying is one of the things that a Jew is supposed to do, so I pray!”

When we leave our Gentile ways behind and immigrate to the commonwealth of Israel, it is important and necessary for us to learn and obey the laws of Israel. But our citizenship in Israel consists of much more than the laws of Israel. It also consists of the Holy Spirit that was given to Israel on the Day of Pentecost, the Spirit which empowers us to walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit, as it is written:

“For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3f).

Walking as citizens and as sons of the kingdom requires walking in obedience to the law, but it also requires walking in obedience to the Spirit, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Rom. 8:14).

As Messianic Israelites, let’s make sure we are walking within the boundaries of Israel’s laws, and let’s make sure we are walking after the Spirit and not being led by our own fleshly desires.

| DB

Image: 21st Century Exodus, a commissioned piece by Daniel Botkin. Click here to read the story behind this piece. See more of Daniel's artwork on his art website: DanielBotkin.com.