Perhaps you've wondered why Messianic Jews don't call themselves Christians, and reasonably so. After all, don't we believe the same thing, and aren't we are part of the same family? Why the distinction?
If you find yourself puzzled, just imagine how confusing it is for Jewish people who come to realize that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah all along! What does that make them? Are they no longer Jewish? Or are Christians the new Israel in some meaning of the word? The way we understand our identity as believers is crucial to the way we live out our lives, and liberates us to become united as One New Man in Messiah.