1. Can someone who is Jewish but don’t believe in Jesus still make it to Heaven?
***First question before answering this is; “what are the eternal promises from God to Israel?”
****Next. Were these promises/covenants revocable?
****How do these covenants align with the gospel of Christ?
According to Judaism, the afterlife is called Paradise and is guarded by angels and overshadowed by clouds of glory. In the center of Paradise is the tree of life. Jewish theology is incompatible with the belief that Jesus is God, the Son of God, or a person of the Trinity. Jews also believe that Jesus didn’t fulfill the messianic prophecies that establish the criteria for the coming of the messiah. Judaism doesn’t accept Jesus as a divine being, a messiah, or holy.
Let’s look at the covenants.
The Noahic Covenant
From Genesis 9, this is a covenant God establishes with Noah after the flood in which he resets and renews the blessings of creation, reaffirming God’s image in humanity and the work of dominion. This covenant promises the preservation of humanity and provides for the restraint of human evil and violence.
The Abrahamic Covenant
See Genesis 12 and 15. This is the most central to the biblical story. In it, God promises Abraham a land, descendants and blessing. This blessing promised to Abraham would extend through him to all the peoples of the earth. Understanding the Abrahamic Covenant is paramount to understanding theological concepts like a Promised Land, election, the people of God, inheritance and so on. It provides context for understanding practices like circumcision, conflicts with surrounding nations and divisions between Jews and Gentiles.
The Mosaic Covenant
See Exodus 19 and 24. This is the covenant God establishes with the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai after he led them out of Egyptian slavery. With it, God supplies the Law that is meant to govern and shape the people of Israel in the Promised Land. This Law was not a means of salvation but would distinguish the people from the surrounding nations as a special kingdom of priests (Exodus 19:1-7).
This covenant was conditional and defined blessings and curses based on obedience or disobedience (see Deuteronomy 28-29).
Understanding the Mosaic Covenant is foundational to understanding the cycles of blessing and curse in the Old Testament, the exiles of Israel and Judah, the disputes between Jesus and the Pharisees and Paul’s pastoral teachings about law and grace.
The Davidic Covenant
See 2 Samuel 7. This is the covenant where God promises a descendant of David to reign on the throne over the people of God. It is a continuation of the earlier covenants in that it promises a Davidic king as the figure through whom God would secure the promises of land, descendants, and blessing. This covenant becomes the basis for hope of a Messiah and makes sense of the Gospels’ concern to show Jesus was the rightful King of the Jews.
The New Covenant
See Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Luke 22:14-23. This is language first used in Jeremiah’s promise of rescue and renewal of the exiled people of God in Babylon. It promises a coming day when God would make a new covenant unlike the one which Israel had broken. This coming day would bring forgiveness of sin, internal renewal of the heart, and intimate knowledge of God. On the night of Jesus’s Last Supper, Jesus takes the cup and declares that his death would be the inauguration of this new covenant.
These five covenants provide the skeletal framework and context for practically every page of the Bible. They are fundamental to understanding the Bible rightly. The Old Testament covenants establish promises that look forward to fulfillment. Much of the New Testament is concerned to show how Jesus Christ fulfills these covenant promises and what life should look like for a people living in the New Covenant inaugurated by his death and resurrection. Essentially it is a safe deduction that Jew nor Gentile can make it to Heaven without Christ. Jesus made it plain when He said:
John 14:6
King James Version
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
2. What did Jesus mean when He said, “I did not come to do away with The Law, but through Me The Law might be fulfilled”?
Matthew 5:17
17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
Verse 17. Think not that I am come, etc. Our Saviour was just entering on his work. It was important for him to state what he came to do. By his setting up to be a teacher in opposition to the Scribes and Pharisees, some might charge him with an intention to destroy their law, and abolish the customs of the nation. He therefore told them that he did not come for that end, but really to fulfil or accomplish what was in the law and the prophets. To destroy. To abrogate; to deny their Divine authority; to set men free from the obligation to obey them.
The law. The five books of Moses, called the law. Cmt. on Lu 24:44.
The prophets. The books which the prophets wrote. These two divisions here seem to comprehend the Old Testament; and Jesus says that he came not to do away or destroy the authority of the Old Testament.
But to fulfil. To complete the design; to fill up what was predicted; to accomplish what was intended in them. The word fulfil, also, means sometimes to teach or inculcate, Col 1:25. The law of Moses contained many sacrifices and rites which were designed to shadow forth the Messiah, Heb 9. These were fulfilled when he came and offered himself a sacrifice to God–
“A sacrifice of nobler name, And richer blood than they.”
The prophets contained many predictions respecting his coming and death. These were all to be fulfilled and fully accomplished by his life and his sufferings.
3. What does it mean when the scriptures say, “He came to His own, but His own received Him not?”
John 1:11
He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
Verse 11. He came unto his own. His own land or country. It was called his land because it was the place of his birth, and also because it was the chosen land where God delighted to dwell and to manifest his favour. See Isa 5:1-7. Over that land the laws of God had been extended, and that land had been regarded as peculiarly his, Ps 147:19-20.
His own. His own people. There is a distinction here in the original words which is not preserved in the translation. It may be thus expressed: “He came to his own land and his own people received him not.” They were his @people, because God had chosen them to be his above all other nations; had given to them his laws; and had signally protected and favored them, De 7:6; 14:2.
Received him not. Did not acknowledge him to be the Messiah. They rejected him and put him to death, agreeably to the prophecy, Isa 53:3-4. From this we learn,
1st. That it is reasonable to expect that those who have been peculiarly favored should welcome the message of God. God had a right to expect, after all that had been done for the Jews, that they would receive the message of eternal life. So he has a right to expect that we should embrace him and be saved.
2nd. It is not the abundance of mercies that inclines men to seek God. The Jews had been signally favored, but they rejected him. So, many in Christian lands live and die rejecting the Lord Jesus.
3rd. Men are alike in every age. All would reject the Savior if left to themselves. All men are by nature wicked. There is no more certain and universal proof of this than the universal rejection of the Lord Jesus.
{o} “He came unto his own” Ac 3:26; 13:46
Acts 3:26
King James Version
26 Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.
Acts 13:46
King James Version
46 Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.