Shalom! The question I ask a lot of Jewish people is, “Do you have the assurance that your name is written in the Book of Life?”

I know that I did not have the assurance until I was about 30 years old. That’s the age that I re-dedicated my life to the Lord. I do not know too many Jewish people that think they have this assurance.

Most tell me that praying and repenting every year once a year on Yom Kippur does not give them the full assurance of forgiveness or having their names secured in the Book. I don’t know too many Jewish people that think they have peace with our God simply because they attended a service and prayed with the mishpochah (family).

I would like to ask you another question that goes along with the first one, “If you were to die tonight, God forbid, and you went before God and He asked you, ‘Why should I write your name in the Book of Life?’ what would you answer?

Most Jewish people say that they are good and have never killed anyone or robbed the local 7/11 convenience store! They say this as if never killing and never robbing anyone have anything to do with being good and getting in the Book! I thought I was a good person for the same reasons but I was pretty much deceived. I was not a good person according to God’s Word. Most people in my world were just putting up with me for one reason or another.

The prophet Isaiah did not think too many Jewish people were good people either. He called us all sinners in Isa. 59:1-3:

1Behold, the LORD'S hand is not so short That it cannot save;
Nor is His ear so dull
That it cannot hear.
2But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God,
And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear. 3For your hands are defiled with blood
And your fingers with iniquity;
Your lips have spoken falsehood,
Your tongue mutters wickedness.

It does not take a rocket scientist or a Hebrew scholar to see that Isaiah’s God, the God of Israel, wants to save His chosen people. V.1 tells us plainly that He wants to save us and He will listen to our prayers for salvation. But V.2 shows us that our sins have caused a separation between us and our Lord! Our sins have caused Him to shy away from us so that He does not have to even hear our prayers! This is a very serious situation – Jewish people not having a direct link to our God because of our personal sins! How can this be? Aren’t we the chosen people? Yes, but God treats us the same as everyone else when it comes to sinning against Him! V.3 tells us our actions show our sins, our lips speak lies and wickedness.

Isn’t it obvious? We Jewish people have personally sinned against God because we have broken His commandments. His Torah (the Law; Moses’ 5 Books) has precisely 613 commandments. How many Jewish people know all of the 613 commandments? For that matter, how many Rabbis know all 613? Well, let’s cut it down to 10. How many Jewish people even know the top 10 commandments? I didn’t know all 10 growing up. I could rattle off a few… love the Lord with all your heart, soul and mind, honor your mother and father, don’t steal and don’t lie. This is only four and I broke all four many times in my life! I don’t know how many you can name, but I would imagine if I could have named more then I would only know more commandments that I broke. And I thought I was doing okay with the Lord but the Jewish Bible says that once I broke one of His commandments, I have broken them all! He then looks at me with defiled bloody hands like Isa. 59:3 states. This is certainly not the best place to be with the Lord.

God is a holy God and has asked us Jewish people to be holy like Him. I know we all try to be good but this is impossible to do! We break His commandments and sin against Him. The problem here is that God has to do something about our sin. Unfortunately, the Tenach tells us we are going to be harshly punished much like our forefathers were punished in the desert. The prophet Daniel makes it pretty clear what happens in Dan. 12:2,

2"Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.

Daniel vividly shows that there are two kinds of Jewish people resurrecting at the end of time: those to everlasting life and those to everlasting contempt (or death). Those who have everlasting life are the ones who are righteous and have their names written in the Book of Life. You know, names like Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, King David and Daniel to name a few. So how do you measure up with these folks? Then there are those Jewish people who rise to disgrace and everlasting contempt. Everlasting contempt is just another name for Sheol or Hell. It is the place where all people who live without God in their lives now, will live without God for eternity. Unfortunately, this place is a horrible place to live and most people would not want to live there if they knew they were going there! But who are these Jewish people headed for disgrace and everlasting contempt?

I believe these Jewish people who will live without God in everlasting contempt are those who do not get their names written in the Book of Life. Do you remember the story about Moses on Mt. Sinai making intercession on behalf of the people with the Lord? The Jewish people had already created and worshiped the golden calf and God had judged them. About 3,000 men of the people died. Then, Exo. 32:30-33 states,

30On the next day Moses said to the people, "You yourselves have committed a great sin; and now I am going up to the LORD, perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” 31Then Moses returned to the LORD, and said, "Alas, this people has committed a great sin, and they have made a god of gold for themselves. 32"But now, if You will, forgive their sin--and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written!" 33The LORD said to Moses, "Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book.

What is truly amazing to me when speaking with Jewish people about the Meshiach (Messiah), many say they don’t need an intercessor but that they can go straight to God. Here in V.30, Moses plainly states he is the intercessor for the Jewish people! He’s going to the Lord on the mountain to plead with Him to forgive their iniquity. This first generation Jewish people were very happy to have an intercessor! Oh, how things have changed.

Moses is certainly a wonderful intercessor because in V.32 he asks for God’s forgiveness and then states that if God will not forgive their sin then he wants his name out of the Book of Life! He basically says that if God is not a forgiving God then he does not want to have anything to do with Him even for eternity! The Lord’s response is quite remarkable!

He says in V.33 that whoever has sinned against Him will be blotted out of the Book of Life! Did you get that! Whoever sins against God is erased from the Book of Life! We’ve already established the fact that all people have broken God’s commandments and are sinners in His sight. So where does that leave all of us Jewish people? We have been erased from the Book of Life! Some might say, “But what about all those services and prayers on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah?” “Doesn’t that help us get into the Book?” No! Isaiah says that God does not have to listen to those prayers if we do not have a personal relationship with Him. This is the bad news but there is good news as well. God is not only the Judge but the God of love, joy, peace, mercy, salvation and deliverance. He wants all to live with Him for eternity and none to perish.

In Exo. 33:17-19, Moses is back on Mt. Sinai talking with the Lord and even makes a dramatic request to see His Glory:

17The LORD said to Moses, "I will also do this thing of which you have spoken; for you have found favor in My sight and I have known you by name." 18Then Moses said, "I pray You, show me Your glory!" 19And He said, "I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion."

The Lord responds to Moses’ request by saying that He will be gracious and compassionate to whomever He chooses. The God of Israel is a merciful and compassionate God who loves you and wants to be close to you. Do you want to be close to Him? Do you want a loving relationship with Him like Abraham and Moses had where they walked and talked with the Lord? Yes, it is possible to actually meet and talk with the Lord on a personal level! But how can this be done? Isaiah has the answer in V.20 of the same chapter 59 where he told all of us Jewish people that we are sinners separated from Him. Isa. 59:20 states,

20“And a Redeemer will come to Zion, And to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,” declares the LORD.

God’s promise is that the Redeemer who is the Messiah will come to Zion or the city of Jerusalem. But the promise is individual as well. The Redeemer will come to “those who turn from transgression.” The Redeemer will come to those who humble themselves and repent from their sin. Repent simply means to “change one’s mind.”

So the humble of heart need to change their minds about their sin against God, turn away from their sin and turn to God for deliverance. This is the kind of prayer spoken about in Isa. 59:1 that the Lord hears! However, there is something else that needs to be done about our sin. There needs to be a blood sacrifice of atonement for our sin for us to be clean before the Lord and have a personal relationship. Lev. 17:11 states,

11‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.’

God instituted the animal sacrificial system for the Jewish people so we could have our sins atoned for. The animal’s blood and life were taken so we could have spiritual life with the Lord. However, you might be saying that there is a big problem with this because we do not have a Temple today to sacrifice in. You are quite right! In 70 C.E. (A.D.), Titus and the Romans destroyed the 2nd Temple and from that time to the present the Jewish people have not been able to atone for sins using the animal sacrificial system! So how do we sacrifice for our sins today? Since God allowed all this to happen, then God is the one who has to provide the answer for us. And the answer is the Messiah (Meshiach)! He would be the Suffering

Servant for us so that our sins could not only be atoned for but completely forgiven so that we could enter into a personal relationship with God and have our names written in the Book of Life forever! Isa. 53:3-6 states,

3He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face,
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
5But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.
6All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all
To fall on Him.

The Suffering Servant passage of Isaiah actually begins in Isa. 52:13 and runs through 53:12 (the whole passage is posted at the end of this article). These four verses tell us much about the Suffering Servant Messiah! V.3 shows us the Messiah is a “man of sorrows” who was despised and forsaken of men. We Jewish people thought He was afflicted by God for His own sins but He was innocent and bore our griefs and sorrows upon Himself (V.4). V.5 continues to tell us that the Messiah made intercession on our behalf. He was pierced through or wounded and crushed for our sins! He took our punishment for our sins upon Himself! By his physical scourging or injuries we are spiritually healed! Once again, God shows us in V.6 how all of us Jewish people have turned away and gone astray from Him and His ways. Our fleeing the Lord is caused by our sin against Him. But the good news is that the Lord (YHVH) caused our sins to fall upon the Suffering Servant Messiah. This passage is very clear that we Jewish people have an intercessor Messiah who died so that our sins could be forgiven! Who is this Messiah?

Every time I have a Jewish person read this whole chapter out loud they inevitably tell me the person spoken of here is Jesus! Yeshua (Jesus’ Hebrew name) is the only one who could have fulfilled this prophecy and the many other Messianic prophecies of the Tenach as well. After proclaiming that Jesus is the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, most Jewish people tell me that they must be reading from the New Testament! But I show it to them from the Tenach (the Jewish Bible)! The Jewish prophet Isaiah wrote it from about 739 – 681 B.C.E.! This is about 700 years before Yeshua came to earth to show not only the Jewish people but the world that He is the Jewish Messiah!

The good news continues in that Messiah not only died for the forgiveness of the sins of the Jewish people but He rose from the dead to show us how to have everlasting life and have our names written in the Book of Life. The same Suffering Servant passage in Isaiah confirms this. Isa. 53:10 states,

10But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief;
If He would render Himself as a guilt offering,
He will see His offspring,
He will prolong His days,
And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand.

The Messiah’s death is seen by the Lord as a guilt offering. The guilt offering in the Torah (Law) was a sin offering that also took care of the guilt associated with the sin. So the sin and the guilt were forgiven – talk about being cleansed! By the way, it is the same thing with us when we accept Yeshua’s sacrifice for us – our sin and guilt are wiped away clean! So after the Messiah is crushed by the Lord as a guilt offering, the Scripture says the Lord will prolong the Messiah’s days. How can the Messiah’s life be prolonged after He died? The answer is through the Resurrection! Ps. 16:9-11 actually shows that the “Holy One” will resurrect and His body will not suffer decay after death!

9Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices;
My flesh also will dwell securely. 10For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol;
Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.
11You will make known to me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.

Some believe the “Holy One” of V.10 is talking about King David because he is the one who wrote the Psalm. However, the Psalm says his flesh will “dwell securely” and will not “undergo decay.” David’s body was in David’s tomb for at a minimum of 1,000 years! David’s Tomb still rests today in Jerusalem (although it is believed his body is not in it) while many people from around the world visit the site to pray unto the Lord. I believe after all this time his body decayed! So this “Holy One” could not be talking about David. I believe the “Holy One” is talking about the same Suffering Servant Messiah of Isaiah. Any body that does not decay after death has to be resurrected! This is exactly what is spoken of in Isa. 53:10 – the resurrection of the Messiah!