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Benei Avraham
The Narrow Path · Lesson 2 · Study questions & answers

You Must Be Born Again

Parashat Noach (Genesis 6:9–11:32) · Discussed Sunday, October 18, 2026

When Yeshua told Nakdimon (Nicodemus) that he must be born again, he used a figure of speech Jewish teachers applied to converts. This lesson follows the idea from Yochanan’s immersion, through the debates over infant baptism and the Anabaptists, to the apostles’ link between immersion, rebirth and the resurrection. Being born again means a changed heart and a changed life, sealed by a pledge to walk with a good conscience before God.

All lesson answers
Illustration of Jerusalem at night: on a stone terrace lie an open Torah scroll, a tallit, books, a cup and a glowing oil lamp, beside stone steps leading down into a moonlit mikveh. In the distance Noach’s ark rests on a hilltop under a rainbow at dawn, a dove flies with an olive branch, and a narrow path winds up the hill. The banner reads “You Must Be Born Again: Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3).” The footer reads “Teens · Families · Arlington · On Zoom” and www.beneiavraham.com.

These are our answers to the Lesson 2 study questions for The Narrow Path, our teen and family Torah study: 21 study questions, 5 “Thinking About It” prompts, an information note and a prayer. The questions are summarized in our own words. Each answer gives the main point first, then supporting sources from the Tanakh, the Brit Hadashah and Jewish tradition.

Focus Section 1

You Must Be Born Again

Study question 1

Nicodemus had a Hebrew name. What was it?

Answer: Nakdimon, most likely the Nakdimon ben Gurion of the Talmud. He was one of the wealthiest men of first-century Jerusalem and a member of the Sanhedrin.

The identification of John’s Nicodemus with the Talmud’s Nakdimon is very likely but not certain. Both are wealthy, prominent Jerusalem leaders of the same period with the same name.

Brit Hadashah

  • John 3:1: “There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews”. John 7:50–51 has him defend Yeshua before the council, and John 19:39 has him bring about a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes for the burial.

Jewish tradition

  • b. Gittin 56a: names Nakdimon ben Gurion as one of three rich men who could have fed Jerusalem for years during the Roman siege.
  • b. Ta’anit 19b–20a: tells how the sun broke through (nikdera) for him, which the Talmud gives as the meaning of his name.
  • b. Ketubot 66b: describes the poverty of his daughter after the destruction, in an encounter with Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai.
Study question 2

When the Talmud says someone is like a newborn, whom is it talking about?

Answer: A Gentile who converts to Judaism. After circumcision (for men) and immersion, the convert is legally a new person, an Israelite in every respect, and former family ties are no longer counted.

Tanakh

  • Ruth 1:16: “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God”. Ruth is the classic model of a convert taking on a new identity.

Brit Hadashah

  • John 3:3–4: Yeshua uses this very image with Nakdimon, and Nakdimon’s reply shows he recognized it.

Jewish tradition

  • b. Yevamot 47b: when the convert comes up from immersion, “he is like an Israelite in all respects.”
  • b. Yevamot 48b: Rabbi Yose teaches that a convert who has converted is like a newborn child (ger shenitgayer k’katan shenolad dami). The same principle appears in b. Yevamot 22a and 62a.
Study question 3

Why did Yeshua’s words about being born again puzzle Nakdimon?

Answer: Nakdimon understood the figure of speech. What confused him was that it applied to converts, and he was already Jewish. He was born of a Jewish mother, so how could he be “born again” into Israel?

Tanakh

  • Ezekiel 18:31: “Make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” A teacher of Torah should have known the prophets’ call to inner renewal (see also Ezekiel 36:26).

Brit Hadashah

  • John 3:4: “How can a man be born when he is old?” He is speaking figuratively too, asking how a born Jew could become more Jewish.
  • John 3:10: “Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?”

Jewish tradition

  • b. Yevamot 22a: applies the “newborn” principle to the convert, the one who enters Israel from outside. Applied to a Jew from birth, the saying would naturally sound backward.
Information

The Talmud

The lesson pauses to introduce the Talmud: a vast record of rabbinic discussion about the Torah and Jewish law, gathered over many centuries, which also preserves much about life in the days of Yeshua.

Comment: The Talmud has two layers. The Mishnah, compiled by Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi around 200 CE, puts the Oral Torah into writing in six orders. The Gemara discusses the Mishnah: the Jerusalem Talmud was completed around 400 CE and the Babylonian Talmud around 500 CE. Because it was written down after Yeshua’s lifetime, it should be read with care as historical evidence. Still, it preserves traditions, sayings and customs from the Second Temple period, such as the conversion practices and the Nakdimon stories above. Hillel and Shammai taught just before Yeshua’s time, and Rabban Gamliel the Elder taught Paul.

Sources

  • m. Avot 1:1: traces the chain of tradition from Moshe (Moses) at Sinai to the sages.
  • Mark 7:3: “Holding the tradition of the elders” and Galatians 1:14, “the traditions of my fathers”: the oral teachings later gathered into the Mishnah.
  • Acts 22:3: “Brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel”. See also Acts 5:34.
Focus Section 2

Baptism Now Saves You

Study question 4

Why did some early Christians oppose baptizing infants?

Answer: Because babies cannot consent, confess or repent. They cannot choose to follow the Messiah, so baptizing them makes them Christians without any decision of their own.

Tanakh

  • Ezekiel 18:20: “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father”. Each person answers for his own choices.

Brit Hadashah

  • Acts 2:38: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you” and Acts 8:36–38: immersion follows repentance and faith.

Jewish tradition

  • b. Ketubot 11a: Jewish law shows a similar concern for consent: a child converted by a rabbinic court may renounce the conversion on reaching adulthood.

Church history

  • Tertullian, On Baptism 18: (about 200 CE) urged delay: let children come to baptism when they are old enough to know the Messiah.
Study question 5

What did Augustine mean by “original sin”?

Answer: Augustine (354–430) taught that every person is born guilty of Adam’s sin, so even a newborn is under condemnation. In his view, baptism washes away that inherited guilt.

Tanakh

  • Ezekiel 18:20: “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son”. See also Deuteronomy 24:16.
  • Genesis 8:21: “The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth”. This week’s portion describes an inclination toward evil, not inherited guilt; an inclination is something to master (Genesis 4:7).

Brit Hadashah

  • Romans 5:12: Augustine leaned on the Latin wording, “in whom all sinned.” The Greek is better rendered as the KJV has it: “for that all have sinned.”

Jewish tradition

  • Yetzer hara: Judaism teaches an inclination toward evil present from birth, which each person must master.
  • Genesis Rabbah 34:10: reads “from his youth” as “from when he stirs to leave the womb.”
Study question 6

What changed about being a Christian once babies were baptized?

Answer: It turned Christianity from a chosen way of life into a birth identity. Whole families, towns and eventually nations became Christian by default, which widened the gate Yeshua called narrow.

Tanakh

  • Jeremiah 7:4: “Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of Hashem”. Belonging to the right institution was never a guarantee.

Brit Hadashah

  • Matthew 7:13–14: “Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction … strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
  • Matthew 7:21: “Not every one that saith unto me, Master, Master, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father”
  • Luke 3:8: the same error Yochanan (John) confronted among Jews who relied on descent from Avraham (Abraham) alone.

Jewish tradition

  • m. Avot 2:4: Hillel taught, “Do not be sure of yourself until the day of your death.” No birth status replaces a faithful life.
Thinking about it

In what ways is infant baptism like a Jewish brit milah (circumcision), and how is it different?

Answer: Similar: both are performed on infants without their consent, and both bring the child into a covenant community. Church theologians drew the comparison directly, and Colossians 2:11–12 links the two images. Different: circumcision is commanded in the Torah. It marks a Jewish boy as part of Israel but does not remove sin or guarantee the World to Come, and Judaism expects the child to take on the commandments himself when he comes of age. The prophets always called for the inner reality too.

Tanakh

  • Genesis 17:10: “Every man child among you shall be circumcised.” See also Leviticus 12:3.
  • Deuteronomy 10:16: “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.” See also Deuteronomy 30:6 and Jeremiah 4:4.

Brit Hadashah

  • Colossians 2:11–12: “Ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands … buried with him in baptism”

Jewish tradition

  • m. Avot 5:21: “at thirteen, for the commandments”: a boy becomes responsible for the mitzvot himself.
Focus Section 3

Yochanan’s Immersion

Study question 7

What mistaken belief was Yochanan’s immersion meant to correct?

Answer: Many sinners assumed that being Jewish (descent from Avraham and circumcision) guaranteed them a place in the kingdom and the World to Come, whether or not they repented.

Tanakh

  • Micah 3:11: “Is not Hashem among us? none evil can come upon us.” The prophets condemned the same false security (see also Jeremiah 7:4).

Brit Hadashah

  • Luke 3:8: “Begin not to say within yourselves, We have Avraham to our father”. See also Matthew 3:9 and John 8:33, 39.

Jewish tradition

  • Genesis Rabbah 48:8: pictures Avraham at the entrance of Gehinnom, not letting a circumcised Israelite go down.
  • b. Eruvin 19a: says the fire of Gehinnom has no power over the sinners of Israel. Yochanan’s message warned against leaning on ideas like these without repentance.
Study question 8

What did many Jews of the first century think it took to enter the kingdom?

Answer: Most did not think they had to keep the Torah perfectly. The problem was the opposite: many sinners believed Jewish identity plus a few ceremonial observances was enough, while neglecting “the weightier matters of the Torah.”

Tanakh

  • Psalm 24:3–4: “Who shall ascend into the hill of Hashem? … He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart”. That is the biblical standard.

Brit Hadashah

  • Matthew 23:23: “Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the Torah, judgment, mercy, and faith”
  • Acts 15:1: “Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moshe, ye cannot be saved.” Some treated circumcision as the entry ticket.

Jewish tradition

  • m. Sanhedrin 10:1: “All Israel has a share in the World to Come,” citing Isaiah 60:21. But the same Mishnah immediately lists people who have no share, such as those who deny the resurrection or that the Torah is from heaven. The sages never taught an unconditional guarantee.
Study question 9

What did Yochanan say was truly needed?

Answer: Real repentance shown by changed conduct, and then immersion. Clean the inside of the cup first, and the outside follows.

Tanakh

  • Proverbs 28:13: “Whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.”
  • Ezekiel 36:25: “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean”

Brit Hadashah

  • Matthew 3:2, 8: “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand … Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance”
  • Luke 3:10–14: spells out the fruit: share your coat and food, collect no more than is owed, do no violence, and be content with your wages.

Jewish tradition

  • b. Ta’anit 16a: one who confesses a sin but does not abandon it is like a man immersing while holding a sheretz (an impure creature). All the waters in the world will not purify him until he throws it away (citing Proverbs 28:13).
  • Rambam, Hilchot Teshuvah 2:2: repentance means forsaking the sin, resolving never to repeat it, regretting it and confessing it.
  • Rambam, Hilchot Mikvaot 11:12: one who sets his heart to purify his soul from evil thoughts is purified, citing Ezekiel 36:25.
Thinking about it

Picture a school that promises every enrolled student a passing grade no matter what. How many would still come to class, do homework or learn the material?

Answer: Very few. A guaranteed outcome removes the reason to change. That was the sinners’ attitude toward the kingdom, and it is the same danger in any “once enrolled, always passed” view of salvation.

Tanakh

  • Ezekiel 18:24: “When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity … shall he live?” Standing with Hashem is a path we keep walking, not a certificate we hold.

Brit Hadashah

  • Matthew 7:24: “Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock”
  • James 2:17: “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”
  • Romans 6:1–2: “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid.”

Jewish tradition

  • m. Avot 1:17: study is not the main thing; the deed is.
Focus Section 4

Both the Inside and the Outside

Study question 10

What did Yeshua say a person must have to enter the kingdom of God?

Answer: One must be “born of water and of the Spirit”: outward immersion together with an inward transformation of the heart. Jewish birth, conversion or ritual alone is not enough.

Tanakh

  • Ezekiel 36:25–27: “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you … A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you … and cause you to walk in My statutes”. The new heart leads to obedience.
  • Psalm 51:10: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”

Brit Hadashah

  • John 3:5: “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

Jewish tradition

  • b. Berakhot 17a: Rabbi Alexandri prayed: it is revealed before You that our will is to do Your will, but the “leaven in the dough” (the evil inclination) holds us back; may it be Your will to save us from it. Outward intent is not enough without Hashem’s help within.
Study question 11

What do Isaiah and Ezekiel teach about turning from sin and being forgiven?

Answer: Isaiah calls Israel to wash, stop doing evil, learn to do good and seek justice for the oppressed, the orphan and the widow; then sins “as scarlet” become “white as snow.” Ezekiel promises that in the final redemption Hashem Himself will cleanse Israel and give a new heart and spirit. Together they show both sides: we turn, and Hashem cleanses and renews.

Tanakh

  • Isaiah 1:18: “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow”
  • Ezekiel 18:31: “Make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” The call is on us.
  • Isaiah 55:7: “Let the wicked forsake his way … and let him return unto Hashem, and He will have mercy upon him”

Brit Hadashah

  • Acts 3:19: “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out”. Peter preaches the same pattern.

Jewish tradition

  • m. Yoma 8:9: Rabbi Akiva says, “Happy are you, Israel! Before whom are you purified, and who purifies you? Your Father in heaven,” citing Ezekiel 36:25. He adds Jeremiah 17:13, reading “Hashem is the mikveh (hope) of Israel”: as a mikveh purifies the impure, Hashem purifies Israel.
Study question 12

When the Brit Hadashah says “flesh,” what longer Hebrew expression does it stand for, and what does that expression mean?

Answer: “Flesh” is short for “flesh and blood” (basar va-dam), meaning the mortal human body or human being. It is not evil in itself. It is simply the physical, perishable part of a person.

Tanakh

  • Isaiah 40:6: “All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field”

Brit Hadashah

  • Matthew 16:17: “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.”
  • 1 Corinthians 15:50: “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”. See also Galatians 1:16 and Hebrews 2:14.

Jewish tradition

  • Rabbinic parables: constantly contrast “a king of flesh and blood” (melech basar va-dam) with the King of kings.
  • Ben Sira 14:18: speaks of “the generation of flesh and blood: one dies and another is born.”
Thinking about it

How does a person’s inner life differ from their outward status?

Answer: The outward status is what can be seen or inherited: ancestry, circumcision, baptism, membership, ritual purity. The inner life is the heart: its loyalties, its motives, and whether it has truly turned to Hashem. Only the inner life determines a place in the resurrection of the righteous.

Tanakh

  • 1 Samuel 16:7: “Man looketh on the outward appearance, but Hashem looketh on the heart.”
  • Joel 2:13: “And rend your heart, and not your garments”

Brit Hadashah

  • Matthew 23:26: “Cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.”
  • Romans 2:29: “He is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart”

Jewish tradition

  • b. Sanhedrin 106b: “The Merciful One desires the heart.”
  • b. Berakhot 28a: Rabban Gamliel barred any student “whose inside is not like his outside” (tocho k’baro) from the study hall. b. Yoma 72b draws the same ideal from the Ark of the Covenant, overlaid with gold “within and without” (Exodus 25:11). This week’s portion gives Noach’s ark the same instruction: pitch “within and without” (Genesis 6:14).
Focus Section 5

The Re-baptizers

Study question 13

What does the name “Anabaptist” mean?

Answer: “One who baptizes again” (Greek ana, again, + baptizo, to immerse). Opponents gave them the name. They rejected it, saying infant baptism had never been a real baptism, so they were baptizing for the first time.

Tanakh

  • Exodus 24:7: “All that Hashem hath said will we do, and be obedient.” Covenant entry in the Torah is a conscious, spoken commitment.

Brit Hadashah

  • Acts 19:5: “When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Master Yeshua.” Paul immerses disciples of Yochanan again after they hear the full message. Anabaptists cited this as precedent.

Jewish tradition

  • b. Yevamot 47a–b: Jewish practice also ties immersion to adult acceptance: a convert is taught some of the light and weighty commandments and accepts them before immersing.
Study question 14

What was the Radical Reformation?

Answer: The 16th-century movement that said Luther and Zwingli had not gone far enough. It sought to restore the faith and practice of the apostolic community in Acts: believers’ baptism, discipleship, obedience to Yeshua’s teachings taken literally, mutual care, and separation from the world.

Tanakh

  • Jeremiah 6:16: “Ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein”

Brit Hadashah

  • Acts 2:42: “And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.” Acts 2:42–47 was the model: devotion to the apostles’ teaching and sharing with any in need.

Church history

  • The Schleitheim Confession: (1527) set out early Anabaptist convictions.
  • Sabbath-keeping Anabaptists: in Moravia and Silesia, leaders such as Oswald Glait and Andreas Fischer taught seventh-day Sabbath observance.
Study question 15

How did the early Anabaptists understand being born again?

Answer: As becoming a truly new person through faith and the Spirit’s transforming power. Menno Simons’s The New Birth describes it not as a one-time decision but as the start of an ongoing life of repentance, faith and obedience, publicly marked by immersion and lived out in an obedient community.

Tanakh

  • Ezekiel 36:26: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you”

Brit Hadashah

  • 2 Corinthians 5:17: “If any man be in Messiah, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” See also Ephesians 4:22–24 and Romans 12:2.

Jewish tradition

  • Rambam, Hilchot Teshuvah 2:4: the penitent may even change his name, as if to say, “I am another person, not the one who did those deeds.”
  • b. Rosh Hashanah 16b: a change of name and a change of deeds are among the things that tear up an evil decree.
Prayer

Our Father in heaven, make my heart clean and new by Your Spirit. As You raised Yeshua from the dead, raise me to a new life, and I commit to walk after him on the narrow path he taught.

Comment: This is the lesson’s prayer in our own words. “Make my heart clean and new” echoes David and Ezekiel. “Raise me to a new life” echoes Peter’s words about being begotten again through the resurrection, and “the narrow path” echoes Matthew 7:14. It is addressed to the Father alone, as Yeshua taught. It is also a pledge, not only a request: the same “appeal” and “pledge” pairing discussed in Focus Section 7. Consider praying it daily this week.

Sources

  • Psalm 51:10: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”
  • 1 Peter 1:3: “Hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Yeshua the Messiah from the dead”
  • Matthew 6:9: “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven”
Focus Section 6

Heavenly Things

Study question 16

Which two ideas did the apostles connect with immersion?

Answer: Rebirth and resurrection. Going down into the water pictures death and burial with the Messiah. Coming up pictures rising to new life now, and looks ahead to the literal resurrection to come.

Tanakh

  • Ezekiel 37:12: “I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves”. Rising out of the water anticipates rising out of the grave.

Brit Hadashah

  • Romans 6:4: “We are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Messiah was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
  • Titus 3:5: “By the washing of regeneration”. The same Greek word (palingenesia) appears in Matthew 19:28, “in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory,” meaning the renewal of the world in the kingdom.

Jewish tradition

  • The mikveh: Jewish tradition compares the mikveh both to a womb (rebirth) and to the grave (death and rising), as with the convert who comes up “like a newborn.”
Study question 17

What does it mean to be reborn as a child of God?

Answer: It means being raised in the resurrection of the righteous into an immortal life, “equal unto the angels.” Spiritual rebirth now points toward that final rebirth into the World to Come.

Tanakh

  • Daniel 12:2–3: “Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life … And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament”
  • Deuteronomy 14:1: “Ye are the children of Hashem your God” and Hosea 1:10, “Ye are the sons of the living God.”

Brit Hadashah

  • Luke 20:36: “Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.”
  • 1 John 3:2: “It doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him”. See also John 1:12–13 and Romans 1:4.

Jewish tradition

  • b. Berakhot 17a: in the World to Come there is no eating or drinking. The righteous sit with crowns on their heads, enjoying the radiance of the Shechinah.
Study question 18

What has to happen to mortal “flesh and blood” before it can share in the eternal life of the kingdom?

Answer: It must be resurrected and transformed from a mortal, perishable body into an immortal, imperishable one.

Tanakh

  • Isaiah 26:19: “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust”. See also Ezekiel 37:12–14.

Brit Hadashah

  • 1 Corinthians 15:53: “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”
  • Philippians 3:21: “Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body”

Jewish tradition

  • b. Sanhedrin 90b: asked whether the dead rise clothed, Rabbi Meir answers with a grain of wheat: buried bare, it comes up clothed in many coverings. Compare Paul’s seed image in 1 Corinthians 15:36–38.
  • The Amidah, second blessing: praises Hashem daily as mechayeh hametim, “who gives life to the dead.”
Thinking about it

Compare a person’s resurrection into a renewed, immortal body with the renewal the whole creation is waiting for.

Comment: They are two scales of the same rebirth. The individual is raised from a mortal to an immortal body, and creation is released from decay into the new heavens and new earth. Our resurrection is the first installment of what Hashem will do for the whole world. The same Hebrew word links them: Hashem gives a new heart (lev chadash, Ezekiel 36:26) and creates new heavens (shamayim chadashim, Isaiah 65:17).

Sources

  • Isaiah 65:17: “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth”. See also Isaiah 66:22.
  • Romans 8:21–23: “The creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God … waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” See also Revelation 21:1, 5, 2 Peter 3:13 and Acts 3:21.
  • Genesis Rabbah 30:8: “Noach saw a new world”: a picture, from this week’s portion, of the passage from this age to the age to come.
Focus Section 7

Pledge of a Good Conscience

Study question 19

The Greek word eperotema in 1 Peter 3:21 can be translated two ways. What are they?

Answer: “An appeal (or request) to God for a good conscience,” the common rendering; and “a pledge (or promise) to keep a good conscience toward God,” the sense the word carries in legal and contractual settings. The Complete Jewish Bible translates it this way. (The KJV has “the answer of a good conscience toward God.”)

Tanakh

  • Exodus 24:7: “All that Hashem hath said will we do, and be obedient.” The pledge reading fits the Jewish pattern of covenant entry (na’aseh v’nishma).

Brit Hadashah

  • 1 Peter 3:21: “Baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Yeshua the Messiah”

Jewish tradition

  • b. Yevamot 46b; b. Keritot 9a: the sages derive from Exodus 19:10 that Israel immersed before receiving the covenant at Sinai.
Study question 20

What connects Messianic Judaism in America to the “born again” revival of the 1970s?

Answer: That revival produced many “born-again” Jews who came to faith in Yeshua during that period. Some of them went on to pioneer the Messianic Jewish movement in the United States, insisting that following the Jewish Messiah did not require leaving Jewish identity and practice behind.

Benei Avraham’s Statement of Faith affirms that our faith “is not a new religion separated from Judaism, but a Torah-faithful Messianic Jewish path.”

Tanakh

  • Jeremiah 31:33: “I will put My Torah in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts”. Renewal of the heart leads back to the Torah, not away from it.

Brit Hadashah

  • Romans 1:16: “To the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”
  • Acts 21:20: “Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the Torah”. From the beginning, Jewish followers of Yeshua kept the Torah.
Study question 21

How does the Radical Reformation’s goal point toward Messianic Judaism?

Answer: By trying to restore the faith of the apostolic community, the Radical Reformation points back to where that community began: a Jewish movement of Yeshua’s disciples who kept the Torah, observed the Sabbath and worshiped Hashem in the Temple. Followed to its logical end, “back to the original” leads to the Judaism Yeshua and his disciples practiced.

Tanakh

  • Jeremiah 6:16: “Ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein”
  • Lamentations 5:21: “Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Hashem, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.”

Brit Hadashah

  • Acts 2:46: “And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple” and Acts 3:1: the first disciples kept the Temple hours of prayer.

Jewish tradition

  • Chadesh yameinu k’kedem: Lamentations 5:21 is sung in the synagogue as the Torah scroll returns to the ark.
Thinking about it

What is the difference between asking God for a good conscience and promising to keep one?

Answer: An appeal is a request: I ask God to cleanse me and give me a good conscience, so immersion is about what I receive. A pledge is a commitment: I promise to live with a good conscience toward God from now on, so immersion is about what I undertake. The Jewish pattern holds both together. Hashem purifies, and we pledge to obey. The pledge reading guards against the “wide path” of treating immersion as a one-time transaction.

Tanakh

  • Psalm 24:4: “He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart”
  • Exodus 24:7: “All that Hashem hath said will we do, and be obedient.”

Brit Hadashah

  • Acts 24:16: “And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men.”

Jewish tradition

  • m. Yoma 8:9: “Hashem is the mikveh of Israel”: He is the One who purifies.

Scripture quotations follow the King James Version, with Hashem for the Divine Name (LORD), Torah for “the law,” Hebrew names (Moshe, Yochanan, Avraham), Messiah for “Christ,” and Master for “Lord” when it refers to Yeshua. Abbreviations: m. = Mishnah, b. = Babylonian Talmud, Rambam = Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah. Rabbinic sources are given in short translation or paraphrase.

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