The earliest and most dangerous heresy to threaten the church was Judaizing. Nearly every New Testament epistle addresses it. It provoked the first council in church history (Acts 15) and nearly tore apart the early fellowship of believers. The Judaizers insisted that Christianity maintain a sort of Jewish flavor, built upon the notion that God was a “respecter of persons” and that the lineage of Abraham had Covenant promises outside of Christ.
The Judaizers were a thorn in Paul’s side, insisting to Gentile Christians that their must either become Jewish, or at the least consider Jews special before God. Paul’s letters are filled with warnings against this poison. He called it “another gospel” (Galatians 1:6–9), accused its teachers of “bewitching” the Galatians (3:1), and even confronted Peter “to his face” for yielding to it.
Judaizing, at its heart, is Jewish Supremacy, claiming they are still God’s “chosen people” even in unbelief. The Apostles rejected this completely. Paul wrote that the true children of Abraham are those of faith (Galatians 3:7), that there is “no distinction between Jew and Greek” in Christ (Romans 10:12), and that unbelieving Jews are “broken off” branches (Romans 11:17–20). In every letter, the early church fought against the idea that the gospel was a continuation of Judaism. It was its replacement, the fulfillment that rendered the old covenant obsolete (Hebrews 8:13).
How tragic it is that modern evangelicalism, particularly in America, has resurrected this very heresy as its eschatology. The same idea the Apostles fought to the death (literally, because the Judaizers killed them) now fills prophecy conferences, sermon series, and political platforms. What the first Christians condemned as blasphemy, American evangelicals now defend as orthodoxy.
THE LANGUAGE OF FALSE REVERENCE
The so-called “Yeshua movement” presents itself as a correction to Western ignorance, a recovery of Christ’s “true” Jewish identity. Its followers insist that saying “Jesus” dishonors Him, and that only by using “Yeshua” can believers express authentic faith. It sounds pious, even scholarly, but it is nothing of the sort. It is linguistic idolatry wearing the perfume of reverence. This fixation on Semitic pronunciation is not about devotion to Christ but about devotion to an ethnicity. It is the same impulse that animated the first Judaizers who demanded Gentiles sound Jewish before being accepted as Christians.
What the Yeshua Cult does not understand is that the name of Jesus was never a product of translation error. It was given by divine intention. Matthew 1:21 records the angel’s command to Joseph: “You shall call His name Jesus (Ἰησοῦν), for He shall save His people from their sins.” That is Greek, not Hebrew, and every manuscript of the New Testament preserves it that way. The Holy Spirit did not inspire a Hebrew Gospel and later let translators corrupt it into Greek. The New Testament was written in Greek from the start, the language of the Gentile world. That is the language God chose for His revelation because the Gospel was not to remain trapped in the dialect of one nation. The universal name of the Savior is Jesus, not Yeshua, and the attempt to reverse that is an attack on the authority of Scripture itself.
If Matthew had wanted to retain a Semitic form, he easily could have. He does so in many other places. He records “Raca” (Matthew 5:22), “Mammon” (6:24), “Golgotha” (27:33), and “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani” (27:46). He was fluent in Aramaic and Hebrew, but when the angel pronounced the Savior’s name, Matthew left it in Greek. He did not forget to use Hebrew. He refused to. The distinction matters because the inspiration of the Spirit includes the choice of language. To insist on restoring a Hebrew name is to claim the Holy Spirit made a mistake in the text He authored. That is not reverence; it is unbelief.
THE MULTILINGUAL WORLD OF JESUS
Palestine in the first century was not a Hebrew-speaking ghetto. It was a crossroads of Greek, Aramaic, and Latin culture. Coins were minted in Greek. Government edicts were posted in Greek. The Scriptures most commonly read in the synagogues were from the Septuagint, which was Greek. The disciples themselves bore Greek names. James was the Greek form of Jacob. John was the Greek form of Yohanan. Peter was the Greek form of Shimon, and his new name Cephas was translated directly into the Greek Petros by Christ Himself. Andrew and Philip had names that were entirely Greek, not derived from Hebrew at all. Stephen, the first martyr, bore a Greek name meaning “crown.” Even Paul, once called Saul, adopted a Greek name after his conversion.
So when the Yeshua Cult insists that Christ must be called by His “original Hebrew name,” they ignore the historical reality that first-century Jews did not live in a purely Hebrew environment. The common tongue of trade, law, and daily speech was Greek. When the angel named the Savior in Greek, it was not an act of cultural accommodation but of divine sovereignty. The Son of God was given a name that could be spoken in every nation under Heaven. To re-Hebraize that name is to reverse Pentecost and retreat back into Babel.
Had someone shouted “Yeshua!” in a Galilean marketplace, the Lord likely would not have turned His head. That was not the name by which He was known. He was Jesus to Jew and Gentile alike, the one name recognized in every tongue. It is not a translation of a Hebrew name; it is the name itself as chosen by God for a world that no longer divided sacred and secular by race or tribe. The Yeshua Cult’s attempt to resurrect Hebrew exclusivity betrays the very universality that Christ purchased with His blood.
JUDAIZING 2.0
The Apostles condemned the old Judaizers as false brothers (Galatians 2:4). They warned the church not to let anyone judge them by festivals or Sabbaths (Colossians 2:16–17). They declared that the old covenant was obsolete and vanishing away (Hebrews 8:13). Yet here we are, two thousand years later, watching evangelicals re-enact the same heresy with the same blind zeal. The Yeshua Cult is not honoring Christ’s heritage but denying His victory. They are saying that the world must come back under the shadow of Sinai instead of living in the light of Calvary.
This movement thrives because modern evangelicals have confused sentiment with scholarship. They think pronouncing a few guttural syllables makes them more authentic than the “Greek” Christians who gave us the canon. In truth, they are no different from the Galatians who thought salvation could be improved with a little cultural authenticity. But God has already spoken. The name He gave is the name that saves, and that name is Jesus.
The Yeshua Cult is not a return to roots. It is a return to bondage. It takes the freedom of the New Covenant and buries it under the rubble of the old. It makes the universal faith provincial again. It replaces the cross with a circumcision knife of language. And it proves that the Judaizing heresy, though two millennia old, has never truly died. It only changes costumes.
THE GREEK OF GOD
The name of Jesus is not incidental in Scripture but central to salvation itself. Peter declared, “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Paul wrote that God exalted Him and gave Him “the name that is above every name” (Philippians 2:9–10). Demons tremble at His name (Luke 10:17). The sick are healed by it (Acts 3:6). Sins are forgiven through it (Acts 10:43). To suggest Matthew’s recording of that name was casual or unimportant is absurd. The angelic naming was a divine act, and its preservation in Greek was deliberate.
To claim that “Jesus” is a mistranslation or a downgrade is to accuse the Holy Spirit of mishandling inspiration. It is to say that God gave His Word in Greek, but we must correct Him. That is not reverence for Scripture. It is rebellion against it. The Yeshua Cult, in its obsession with linguistic authenticity, treats the inspired Greek text as though it were an inferior copy, as if God needs help recovering what He supposedly meant. But God does not need translators. He wrote what He meant the first time.
The idea that “Yeshua” is more holy or authentic than “Jesus” is a kind of spiritual cosplay. It imagines that holiness can be achieved through pronunciation. The poison of Judaizing is so dark and awful that not even Jesus is Jewish enough for them. Despite Mary having a Greek name, and his blood-brother James having a Greek name, they insist that Jesus be called something other than his given name so as to emphasize his Jewishness more than He did. It’s no wonder he preferred the title “Son of Man,” but never used “King of the Jews” to refer to himself (not that it wasn’t true, but that his Jewishness was just not something he cared that much about). He came as the Messiah to all men, not just the Jews.
Jesus didn’t come to the Jews because they’re special. He came to the Jews because His purpose was to die as an atonement for our sins, and the Jews were the most likely people on Earth to murder Him. His rescue mission required dying. The Jews were chosen, but in the same way Judas was chosen and Christ told him on the night of his betrayal to go do that which he was destined to do.
CONTINUED BELOW…
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