The Highway to Perdition – June 2026 Outreach Israel News

John McKee delivers the June 2026 Outreach Israel News update. What is the devastating path many can take, in actually denying Yeshua the Messiah? What do each of us need to be aware of, so we make sure we do not venture onto a path toward apostasy?

The Highway to Perdition – June 2026 Outreach Israel News: YouTube

There is an old expression: “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” Many people in our contemporary Messianic community are walking on this road and are on the direct route toward eternal punishment. Yeshua the Messiah warned that “the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it” (Matthew 7:13, NASU). While this passage is primarily applied to those who do not claim faith in the Lord, very sadly in our day, some former Believers may be fulfilling Yeshua’s words better than atheists and agnostics and members of other religions.

How we got to where we are today is an area of profound occurrence. Hopefully, each one of us who has entered into the Messianic community—especially non-Jewish Believers who came to a realization of the importance of their faith heritage in Israel’s Scriptures—did so because they were seeking the most of God. Many of today’s Jewish Believers know what it is truly like to come to a saving knowledge of realizing that Yeshua is the Messiah, and the great peace and reconciliation which it brings. For the rest of us, we came into a Messianic understanding because we were seeking to grow and mature in our faith, and we were better seeking to emulate our Messiah Yeshua.

Sadly, this is not the case for everyone. Rather than encouraging people to grow and mature in their faith, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit—knowing the Lord and who He is in a more profound and deeper way—another motivation may instead be encouraged: “Question everything!” While asking questions is by no means a sin, and while searching for truth (and hopefully thinking deeply) should be encouraged, the fact of the matter remains that if you question everything for the expressed purpose of questioning everything—you will eventually ask questions which cannot be answered. If your mode of operation is to go out and slaughter so-called “sacred cows” of what other people, or even what “the establishment,” believe—you will eventually kill off something of profound importance. The possibility strongly exists that you may eventually deny the entire truth of the Scriptures, not only the Apostolic Writings (New Testament), but also the Tanach (Old Testament).

The Biblical pattern is to actually not “question everything,” but rather to seek confirmation of a fact or matter, to confirm whether or not something being said aligns with tenor of the Holy Scripture and can actually be proven as fact (cf. Deuteronomy 17:6; 19:15; Matthew 18:16; 2 Corinthians 13:1; 1 Timothy 5:19; Hebrews 10:28).

Much of the crisis that has come to the forefront, because of any number of varied factors, is that the path to perdition is being expanded into a major interstate highway. Thanks to sensationalistic teachings and spirits of doubt which are being sown into groups of people, there are some within our sphere of influence—who via the guise of being “truth seekers”—have denied the Divinity of Yeshua and His Messiahship. Of course, it should be noted that in the “big picture” this is not a unique problem, because there are liberal Christians who reject Yeshua’s Divinity, and/or believe that “all roads lead to God.” But can especially hit home for us, because of the small size of the Messianic community. For those of us who are seriously seeking to grow and mature in our faith, and who take our salvation experience very seriously, we must understand the spiritual root of what drives such people to apostasy, and thus to accept shoddy Biblical exegesis.

The three-stage path to perdition which we will examine in this article, is that people deny:

1. The plurality of the Godhead
2. The Divinity of Yeshua
3. The Messiahship of Yeshua

The Spiritual Root of the Apostasy

Whether certain individuals wish to recognize it or not, ultimately denying saving faith in the Messiah of Israel had a definitive spiritual root. Theology and Biblical interpretation can only go so far if a person has made up his or her mind that Yeshua (Jesus) is not the Savior. The dilemma which often exists for each of us, is how can people, who once claimed to know Yeshua as their Lord, quickly deny Him and His saving work? How can people literally regard “as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified [them]” (Hebrews 10:29, NIV)?

There will always be discussion as to whether or not those apostatizing from the faith were ever truly spiritually regenerated and thus truly “knew Him.” There will always be debate over verses like 2 Peter 2:20-22, Hebrews 6:4-6 and 10:26-31, as to whether or not someone who has been saved can fall from the faith. However, one thing which we should be conscious of, is the fact that none of us should ever take our salvation for granted. In all that we do, we must keep Yeshua and emulating His example as our primary focus. If we take our eyes off of Him and we do not seek to follow His example for us, ignoring what He says on certain matters, then we will not be able to stay the course and enter into the Kingdom of God.

Many of us who are Messianic today, came into this understanding through a variety of events and persuasions. Many simply had a desire to learn more about the “Old Testament,” and wondered why mainstream Christianity no longer kept the seventh-day Sabbath or Biblical holidays. Others read Yeshua’s words in Matthew 5:17-19 about the Torah or Law of Moses not passing away. Some entered into the Messianic movement to gain a better understanding of Israel in end-time prophecy. But the motivation should always be that we were seeking truth, and were seeking full compliance with Holy Scripture as Yeshua and His Apostles understood it, and how they would live it out were they among us today.

But others who came into the Messianic movement entered in for other reasons. The most commonly encountered, of these “other” reasons, is that people heard sensationalistic teachings denouncing everything which evangelical Protestantism (as opposed to Catholicism) taught them. It was all “utterly pagan” and a “lie” from Satan—they were told. The individuals who accept this point of view often “get mad at the Church,” have legalistic tendencies, and are easily swayed toward things which support their opinions—regardless of whether or not they are supported by the Bible, historical sources, and/or reasonable exegesis of the Scriptural text. It has been among this second group of people where the apostasy has mainly originated.

How do people get angry, and then take the side exit onto the highway to perdition?

If you are a non-Jewish Believer, consider some of the changes you have had to go through in your quest in transitioning to become a Messianic Believer. What happened when you started keeping the seventh-day Shabbat instead of Sunday Church? What happened when you started celebrating the Biblical holidays of Leviticus 23, instead of Christmas and Easter? What happened when you started eating a kosher style of diet? What happened when you realized that Yeshua returns for the holy ones/saints after the Tribulation, rather than before it? What happened when you started using the Messiah’s Hebrew name “Yeshua,” and did not really use “Jesus” that much any more?

Did you upset any friends or family when coming to these conclusions? Did you ever get criticized?

How did you respond to the criticism of others? Did you turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39; Luke 6:29), realizing that true justice only comes from the Lord? Or did you attack back in vehemence?

Sadly, many people attack back. Even more problematic, when they incur criticism because of their Messianic beliefs, they fail to forgive, forget, and move on. Yeshua issued some very hard words concerning what happens when one does not forgive others, because of wrongs done to them:

“But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions” (Matthew 6:15, NASU; cf. Mark 11:26).

If we do not forgive others, then our Heavenly Father cannot forgive us of our sins. If we do not forgive others, we give Satan and his forces legal right to harass us. It is through such demonic harassment that the enemy is able to lead people onto the highway to perdition. When people decide to take matters into their own hands—and not let God deal with others who offend or upset them—then they begin to have problems. The epitome of where these problems can lead for some within today’s Messianic community, is a full denial of the message of the Apostolic Scriptures (New Testament), because their motivation was not to grow in Yeshua, but rather to prove themselves “superior” to others. As Proverbs 16:18 should remind us, “Pride precedes destruction, and arrogance comes before failure” (NASU).

So what are the errant ideas which the enemy has been able to sow into those who have become embittered, and are harassed by his minions?

Stage #1: Denying a Plural Godhead

The first stage, toward complete apostasy from faith in Yeshua, is denying the reality of a plural Godhead. Often when a person enters into the Messianic community, and begins a study of the Torah, he or she finds a few issues with the widespread “Trinity” doctrine, the way most of historic Christianity has determined to define the uniqueness of our Creator. The basic explanation of the Trinity is that God has revealed Himself to human beings in the “persons” of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Any cursory reading of Scripture itself will show God the Father, Yeshua the Son, and then the Holy Spirit (Ruach HaKodesh) functioning. We should not have a problem with the fact that there is, Biblically, a revealed tri-unity of God. However, there are problems with how various theological schools have approached God’s tri-unity over the centuries, affecting other doctrinal issues. What has often happened is that outsiders, notably from Judaism, have come to the conclusion that Christians worship three gods, rather than the One Lord God of the Bible.

In examining the Godhead, we must take into serious consideration the fact that different Christian denominations and theologians have defined the Trinity in any number of different, and sometimes in contradicting, ways. Any criticism of, or at least questions issued toward, the Trinity, must fairly take into consideration that there is no single view of it in Christendom. Some denominations and traditions literally view Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as “three gods,” and then others view the Trinity as three different manifestations emanating from the same source. Others view the tri-unity of the Godhead as a mystery which cannot be fully understood, because there is no human frame of reference to understand the Eternal.

The widespread Messianic position on the Godhead tends to be slightly different than how the Trinity is perceived in much of today’s Christianity. Like theologically conservative Christians, most Messianics believe in a plural Godhead. This is most often based in how the Hebrew word for “God” most often used in the Tanach, Elohim, is a plural word. During the Creation week, the Lord Himself said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Genesis 1:26, NASU), indeed indicating a plurality of the Godhead, as in Genesis 1:27 human beings were created in the tzelem Elohim or “the image of God,” referring to the “Us.”

The difference between the plurality of God as presented by many in today’s Christianity, and much of the Messianic movement, is that we tend to view the Godhead as being more “fluidic,” than a rigid “three persons” of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believe that the plurality of the Godhead must be understood in the light of Biblical monotheism, which is the fact that the God of Israel is the One and only God who requires our loyalty and worship. This concept is understood well in the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4:“Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!” (NASU).

This verse has been interpreted variably in both Judaism and Christianity. The primary thrust of the Shema, though, is not necessarily a definition of the Godhead, but rather how the Lord is the “One and Only” (ATS) Creator God “alone” (NJPS/NRSV). It is a declaration of monotheism which the Ancient Israelites were to make as they were coming out of Egypt, a land of many gods, and into Canaan, likewise a land of many gods. Israel would be separate because it only acknowledged one Supreme Being, and this Deity was to be recognized in the actions of His people, not by any idol or carved image.

What the debate surrounding the Shema has become, is not one where we recognize the God of Israel as the One God of the Universe, but rather how we are to understand Him. Specifically, the argument surrounds how we are to understand the phrase “the LORD is one,” YHWH echad. Is this oneness an absolute oneness, or is it a composite oneness? Is Elohim absolutely singular, or is it plural?

Traditional Judaism holds that Elohim is an absolute oneness. Thus, any attempt to make Elohim a plurality in the context Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or anything else, is, in their view, a foreign understanding. Christianity, in contrast, holds to Elohim being a composite oneness, revealed in Scripture by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is what has often been termed the “Trinity,” although the term is extra-Biblical. Many Christians acknowledge this, and admit that to be able to fully understand our Creator is impossible for our human minds.

Many people entering into the Messianic community come from varied Christian backgrounds, where the Godhead has been defined in different ways. Some come from backgrounds where the Trinity was defined as three co-existent manifestations emanating from the same Source, yet united in substance and in purpose. Others, in contrast, were of the impression in their Christian setting that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were something like three separate “gods.” Because of this latter group, it is often very easy for some to be convinced that if they are worshipping Yeshua, that they are worshipping an entity separate from the Father.

As people such as this are exposed to their Jewish Roots, they often examine the writings of some of the Jewish Rabbis, who will denounce a belief in a plural Godhead. Seeing some flaws in how the doctrine of the Trinity is approached in contemporary Christianity—the foremost of which would be that some people actually believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit contradict one another—it is then easy to reject the belief in a plural Godhead. Furthermore, if people have opened themselves up to doubting any and all Christian theology, they will come up with excuses to deny a plural Godhead, especially as the denial of the Trinity is considered absolute heresy by the Roman Catholic Church.

Before continuing, let me state that generally all Messianics have a few issues with how the Trinity is widely taught or understood in much of modern Christendom. While Messianics such as myself certainly believe that the Godhead is plural, as is implied by the Hebrew term Elohim, we tend to think that it is wrong to put limits on our Eternal Creator by saying that He can only reveal Himself via the manifestations of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We cannot put absolute limits on God such as this, and it is possible that there are other manifestations of Him, which He has presently chosen not to reveal to us. The plurality of God is much more complicated and mind boggling than what the traditional doctrine of the Trinity can ever define for mortals, albeit the Trinity has probably been the best general human description which theologians have been able to use to define Him in the past two millennia.

But the bigger problem is what happens when a person accepts the belief that Elohim is an absolute oneness, meaning that there is no plurality in the Godhead, and thus there is no co-existence between the Father and Son, the Son and the Spirit, the Spirit and the Father, etc. If Yeshua is indeed God, and God is an absolute oneness, then how can Yeshua pray to the Father? How can the Father talk to Yeshua? How can Yeshua admonish people to entreat the Father, if there is no co-existence between the Father and the Son? This leads to people questioning whether or not Yeshua is God in human form, or just a man empowered by God. We must be reminded as mortals that we do not have the powers which God has:

“Who has ascended into heaven and descended? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who has wrapped the waters in His garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name or His son’s name? Surely you know!” (Proverbs 30:4, NASU).

Stage #2: Denying Yeshua’s Divinity

When people treat Elohim as being an absolute one, rather than a composite one, but then they read in the Scriptures how the Father and the Son clearly do co-exist, they can begin to doubt Yeshua’s Divinity and whether or not He truly is God manifest in the flesh. Some have extreme difficulties realizing the dual nature of Yeshua, as both the LORD in human form, but also as a man with bodily functions. People can run into problems, when they attempt to micro-manage every aspect of Yeshua’s existence, rather than just accepting Yeshua for who He said He is, demonstrated by His actions and His works.

The issue of Yeshua’s Divinity is an issue of salvation because of two critical factors:

1. The Bible says that only the Lord is our Savior.
2. The Bible says that only God can forgive our sins.

Failure to take into consideration these two critical factors, has led many onto the highway to perdition and toward eternal punishment.

In Isaiah 43:11, 45:15 we encounter the exclamation, “I, even I, am the LORD, and there is no savior besides Me…Truly, You are a God who hides Himself, O God of Israel, Savior!” (NASU). This same sentiment is repeated in Hosea 13:4: “Yet I have been the LORD your God since the land of Egypt; and you were not to know any god except Me, for there is no savior besides Me” (NASU).

The Hebrew term rendered as “savior” is derived from the verb yasha, which means “help, save, rescue” (CHALOT).[1] Isaiah 63:7-8 details how Lord functions as the Savior of Israel:

“I shall make mention of the lovingkindnesses of the LORD, the praises of the LORD, according to all that the LORD has granted us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which He has granted them according to His compassion and according to the abundance of His lovingkindnesses. For He said, ‘Surely, they are My people, sons who will not deal falsely.’ So He became their Savior” (Isaiah 63:7-8, NASU).[2]

The Psalmist was most candid when he said, “God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol; for He will receive me” (Psalm 49:15, NASU). Who can padah, that is “ransom” (BDB),[3] a person from the realm of death? Only a Divine Being can redeem a human being, as Psalm 49:7 makes it quite clear that “No man can by any means redeem [padah] his brother, or give to God a ransom for him” (NASU). The Hebrew Scriptures are most direct in that only the Lord can redeem one of His creations.

Mary, the mother of Yeshua, recognized that only the Lord could be her Savior, testifying “my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior” (Luke 1:47, NASU; cf. 1 Samuel 2:1). The Apostolic Scriptures fully affirm that Yeshua the Messiah is the Savior, and that salvation comes from God. The angels proclaimed at the birth of Yeshua, “for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Messiah the Lord” (Luke 2:11, NASU). In John 4:42, Yeshua is plainly called “the Savior of the world” (NASU).

The testimony seen in the General Epistles makes it clear that Yeshua is the Savior. The Apostle John wrote, “We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14, NASU). The Apostle Peter testified how the Father has “richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior,” Yeshua the Messiah (1 Peter 1:11, RSV). He also admonished, to “remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles” (2 Peter 3:2, NASU). Concerning Yeshua’s Divinity, Peter was very direct in 2 Peter 1:1 when referring to “our God and Savior, Yeshua the Messiah” (NASU).

The letters of Paul also make it clear that Yeshua the Messiah is the Savior. He wrote in Philippians 3:20, “our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.” He spoke “of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope” (1 Timothy 1:1, RSV/NIV). He also wrote that Believers “labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers” (1 Timothy 4:10, NASU). He considered the “Savior Messiah Yeshua, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10, NASU), and most importantly that Believers are “looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Messiah Yeshua” (Titus 2:13, NASU).

To those who would say that Yeshua the Messiah is not God made manifest in the flesh, what do you do about the testimony of the Apostles who believed in Him, recognized God as the only Savior, and then recognized Yeshua as the only Savior? If Yeshua is not God, and is just solely a normal human being, then how could He be the Savior of humanity, if the Tanach is clear that a mortal being is powerless to redeem another mortal being?

The issue of being saved from eternal punishment is directly tied with forgiveness of sins. Psalm 79:9 details, “Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Your name; and deliver us and forgive our sins for Your name’s sake.” The Hebrew verb kafar or “atone” (ATS), appearing in the Piel stem (intensive action, active voice) means, “cover over, pacify, propitiate” (BDB).[4] Ultimately, the covering or atonement for a human being’s sins must come from the Almighty.

The Apostolic Scriptures are clear that during the ministry of Messiah Yeshua that He forgave human beings of their sins: “And Yeshua seeing their faith said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven’” (Mark 2:5, NASU). In response to Yeshua’s forgiving people of their sins, the Pharisees present considered Him to be blaspheming: “Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming; who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:7, NASU). These Pharisees considered Yeshua to be blaspheming because of the authority that they recognized He was claiming to operate through. They knew from the Tanach that only God could forgive people of their sins. So if Yeshua was not God made manifest in the flesh, how could He have the power to forgive sins?

The facts that only God can redeem us and forgive us—are the principal salvific reasons why Yeshua must be Divine. However, at the same time, we must recognize that the Apostolic Scriptures also speak of “the Man Messiah Yeshua” (1 Timothy 2:5, NASU), and that the Word is clear that Yeshua was born, lived a human life, had bodily functions, and experienced execution and the death of His flesh. Yeshua experienced many of the same human challenges we face today. However, simply because this is true, does not make Him 100% human, 0% God. When the Lord appeared to Abraham in Genesis 18 as a human man, did He suddenly become something less than God? No! God can do anything that He wants to do, and it is not any mortal being’s right to define God in terms of what He can and cannot do.

The problem as it relates to some people in the Messianic community, who later deny Yeshua’s Divinity, is that traditional Judaism—in spite of what the Tanach says about God being our only Savior—emphatically believes that the messiah to come is not Divine. One of Judaism’s principal problems over the centuries with Christianity has been the so-called “deification” of Yeshua. Things get even more complicated when unstable people in the Messianic movement, who are resolved to reject any “Christian” teaching, read through the annals of Church history, and especially those councils and creeds of Catholicism which proclaim denying the Divinity of Christ is heresy. All of a sudden, what the canon of Scripture communicates to us does not become the primary focus, and instead one’s focus can become a vendetta against the past.

Has a person who has denied Yeshua’s Divinity—and instead believes that He is only a human man—lost hope of salvation? Of course, it is important for us to want to know the truth and evaluate Yeshua’s Divinity based on Scripture. But we should not question things with the expressed purpose of denying them. What happens to the person who denies Yeshua’s status as a part of the Godhead? In due time, because people have decided that He is simply a mortal being, they then begin to doubt His Messiahship. After all, they say, if God is our only Savior and then Yeshua is not God, why do we even need Him?

Stage #3: Denying Yeshua’s Messiahship

Once a person has denied Yeshua’s Divinity, and has decided to make Him just another mortal man, although often a mortal man who has been “empowered by God”—it is usually not surprising to see such a person be open to the arguments which have existed for centuries against Yeshua’s Messiahship. In recent days as many from Christian backgrounds have entered into various Messianic congregations and fellowships, they have encountered and examined the writings of the Sages and Rabbis of Judaism. While there is much good teaching and insight which can be gleaned from the Rabbinic tradition, the reality remains that these teachings largely come from people who often by their own testimony were not Believers in Yeshua as the Messiah.

Those who often make an effort to synthesize all of the viewpoints of Yeshua and the Apostles, with those of Rabbinic Judaism (as opposed to affording the Rabbinic tradition a consultative authority as historical reference material)—are those who are most susceptible to being open to contemporary Jewish beliefs concerning the Messiah, and why Jesus of Nazareth cannot be the Savior. One movement which has grown up as a counter to Messianic Judaism and its missionary outreaches in the Jewish community for presenting the good news, has been that of the Jewish anti-missionaries. The anti-missionaries are Jewish groups whose expressed goal is to disprove the Messiahship of Yeshua. To some who are not fully grounded in the Scriptures and ancient history—and often have little, if any spiritual discernment—the arguments made by anti-missionaries are often accepted by those who are seemingly looking for a reason to deny belief in Yeshua.

Most often, the arguments you will see from the anti-missionary groups focus on what they perceive to be contradictions in the Apostolic Scriptures, and then prophecies which the Messiah is supposed to fulfill, which they say Yeshua did not fulfill. To say that the anti-missionary arguments are completely objective is anything but true, as many anti-missionaries are sensationalistic and emotional, and they focus more on Christian anti-Semitism from the Middle Ages and why Jews should not “accept Jesus,” than on the text of Scripture itself and the actual issues themselves. Sadly, anti-missionaries are now seeing that many in the modern Christian Church are exploring their Jewish Roots and Torah study, and have begun to focus some of their efforts at non-Jewish people in the Messianic movement, in an attempt to see them convert to Judaism as proselytes.

In order to counter the arguments of the anti-missionaries, we must recognize one critical thing. Yeshua said in Luke 24:44, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (NASU). It is asserted that “beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures” (Luke 24:27, NASU). As we understand Yeshua coming as the promised Redeemer, we are required to do more than just examine the critical Messianic prophecies of Him being the Suffering Servant and the Conquering King, or Him being the Lamb which was slain, or Him being the Prophet greater than Moses.

We are also required to look at the recurring themes and patterns in the Tanach, recognizing how they all have Messianic significance. We need to look at the lives of Biblical characters like Joseph and Moses. We need to understand that themes in Scripture repeat themselves, finding their ultimate climax in the ministry of Yeshua. Most importantly, we must be in a position to answer the claims of the anti-missionaries who say that Yeshua violated the Torah, which is largely (and sadly) upheld in too much of Christianity, which absolutely goes against the prophecies of the Word going forth from Zion during His reign (Isaiah 2:2-4; Micah 4:1-3).

We Need to be Careful

As Believers who are pursuing the Messiah of Israel, it must be our job to be in full compliance with all of Scripture: both the Tanach and the Apostolic Writings. Certainly, as many of us have entered into the Messianic community, we have gleaned understanding from our Jewish Roots, and we know that there are many edifying truths in Judaism which are beneficial for us to incorporate into our faith practice and worldview. Too many, though, have turned their attention solely to the Torah in their regimen of Bible study, and have taken their eyes off of the Messiah who was supposed to have saved them from their sins.

The Torah is surely to be regarded as the foundation of Scripture, but not all of Scripture. The Lord has been in a state of revealing His plan to humanity progressively, and there are things in the Apostolic Writings not fully revealed in the Tanach (Hebrews 1:1). Most importantly, we have to recognize that God must call people to Himself, and they must be supernaturally revealed of who Yeshua is:

“Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote—Yeshua of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’ Nathanael said to him, ‘Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ Yeshua saw Nathanael coming to Him, and said of him, ‘Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!’” (John 1:45-47, NASU).

When Yeshua saw Nathanael coming toward Him, He said that he was an Israelite who had no guile. As Nathanael later became one of His Disciples, he had to be prepared by God and had to be shown by the Holy Spirit that Yeshua was the One of whom the Torah and the Prophets spoke.

Similarly, when one of us comes to faith in Yeshua, we must humble ourselves before our Creator, and be supernaturally wooed by the Holy Spirit regarding the Messiah of Israel. We must then confess our sins and repent, turning from our sinful ways. Our faith ultimately is our trust in God to see us through the unseen things which we will encounter in life. If we do not have Yeshua, our Divine Redeemer, as the focus of our life, we are likely to make a wrong turn onto the Highway to Perdition.

NOTES

[1] William L. Holladay, ed., A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden, the Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1988), 147.

[2] There are many other references in the Tanach indicating that only God is the Savior or salvation, including: 2 Samuel 22:3; Isaiah 43:3; 45:21; 49:26; 60:16; Jeremiah 14:7-8; Psalm 17:6-7.

[3] Francis Brown, S.R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 804.

[4] Ibid., 497.