I think that 'anyone' who does the 'Will of God' is a brother or a sister or a mother of our Lord and Saviour. I do believe He said this himself... Just look at my signiture.
Yes, yes. But that doesn't really mean anything, in so far as 'anyone' can claim they are doing the 'Will of God'. Who determines what is and what isn't the 'Will of God'? And, more importantly, what is the 'Will of God' in this particular case?
For example, does a Jew who confesses Jesus of Nazereth as the Messiah just need to do the 'Will of God', or does he need to accept the New Testament Scriptures as authoritative? Does he need to be baptized? Does he need to gather together with two or three other believers in the name of Jesus on a regular basis? Does he need to submit himself to the authority of a Christian teacher/community that holds fast to the apostolic doctrines "traditioned" to them (as the NT repeatedly stipulates), or can he just do the 'Will of God' as he, the Jewish convert, sees fit in every case?
Furthermore (and this is what I was really interested in), does he need to stop going to Jewish Temple, participating in Jewish Passovers, etc.? Does he need to abandon the
shabbat for the Lord's Supper? Should he, in fact, stop being a Jew (in terms of religious profession, practice, etc.) and start being a Christian (in terms of the same), or need he only do the 'Will of God' as a practicing Jew or some kind of hybrid Jew/Christian?
[This is where Stanley Stowers comes in, because he argues, based on a close reading of Romans, that such is more or less what St. Paul wrote to the Romans. In fact, Stowers calls for theologians to move beyond setting Paul over and against the "Judaism" of his time, especially because so many modern Christian scholars incorrectly identify ancient "Judaism" with three reified varieties (rabbinic, apocalyptic and Hellenistic), all three of which are anachronistically treated as sets or systems of theological positions about salvation. Such a reductionist understanding of ancient Judaism, while very popular after Aquinas, is, according to Stowers et al., a completely unfounded re-interpretation of the OT (and Judaic praxis) according to Christian exegetical traditions created after the Late Antique period.]
If a Jew only needs to do the 'Will of God' as a practicing Jew or some kind of hybrid Jew/Christian, are the confessions and life-styles of "Christianity" and "Judaism" just artificial, man-made labels/traditions which, in reality, confuse the real issue, i.e. doing the 'Will of God'?