Eschatology and Jewish Evangelism @2024 Joseph Shulam
Eschatology, the part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and humankind, has played a significant role in Evangelism worldwide.
Eschatology has been essential in all areas related to Israel and the Jewish people. Since the 15 century CE, Christian theologians have related Jewish Evangelism to the end of days (Acharit HaYamim). John Milton, George Eliot, John Toland, and Ephraim Gothold Lessing believed that the return of the Jews to the Land of Israel was a sign that the return of Jesus was imminent. In Germany, Michael Hanh also held that God would fulfill his promises to Israel and establish once more the Jewish Reich in Israel with the coming of the Messiah. All these great men and women loved God and His Word - they believed in God's Word and His promises and, therefore, believed that God would fulfill the prophetic word to Israel. Today, we are witnessing the phenomena of Christian Zionism - which is also based on latent or not-so-latent eschatological motives. I have profound concerns related to eschatology and the Jewish people.
Christian eschatology has a history of disappointments.
The tension that erroneus eschatology creates in people is dangerous and can boomerang and devour those who partake of it. Evangelical Christianity's love affair with Israel is a very young phenomenon that became popular only after the 1967 Six-Day War. Young love affairs tend to disappear just as fast as they appear on the stage of history. Dealing with this subject is both important and dangerous.
Evangelism and Charity should be done only for their own sake!
Mark 16:15-16:
"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he that does not believe will be condemned."
This command has no other reason or motive attached to it than teaching the Good News. Any time we attach to Evangelism other reasons or motivations than those given to us in the Word of God, we are treading on thin ice.
In Jewish Evangelism, one should be careful not to reinforce the classic accusation the Jewish community has against those who have believed in Yeshua as the Messiah: that they believe for ulterior motives. Evangelism is a valuable enough commandment of our Lord that we do not need even eschatological reasons to preach the Good News to Jews or, for that matter, to anyone else. We do not give Charity or love for ulterior reasons, and we ought not engage in Evangelism for other reasons than our love for people and obedience to the Lord.
The message of the New Testament is straightforward.
Matthew 18:11-14:
" What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? 13 And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. 14 So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost."
We are servants of God, and we have the calling and the responsibility for His sheep. This is why we preach the Good News and want to see souls saved. What would happen if we knew that the Messiah was not coming soon? Would we stop preaching the Good News that Israel and the World have a Savior?
Maimonides's statements in Mishne Torah has great merit for Christians as well:
" King Messiah will arise and restore David's realm to its former status, its original sovereignty."
"Do not suppose that King Messiah will have to perform signs and wonders, create new things in the world, revive the dead, or similar acts. It is not so. Rabbi Akiva was a great sage, one of the authors of the Mishnah, yet he was the right-hand man of Ben Koziva, the ruler, whom he thought would be King Messiah. Unfortunately, he and all the sages of his generation imagined Bar Kohkba to be King Messiah until he was slain.
Only after Bar Kohba's death did it dawn on them that he was not the Messiah. However, the sages had not asked him for an omen or wonder. Things are as follows: This Torah of ours, its statutes and laws, will never be subject to change. Nothing is to be added to or taken away from them. Whoever has added or taken away anything or has misinterpreted the Torah and rendered the commands in opposition to their literal sense is an impostor, a sinful man, a heretic.
If a king arises from the house of David, a student of the Torah, performing good deeds like his ancestor David, in the spirit of both the Written and the Oral Torah, and prevail upon all Israel to reinstate the Torah and to follow its direction, and will fight the battles of the Lord, he will presumably be the Messiah. He will undoubtedly be the Messiah when he has done these things and succeeded, having overcome the surrounding enemy nations, rebuilt the sanctuary on its site, and gathered dispersed Israel. If he has not succeeded to such an extent or has been slain, he is not the one concerning whom the Torah has assured us.
The sages have declared: "The only difference between the present world and the Messianic era is our present subjection to foreign power" (Berachoth 34b). From a literal interpretation of the Prophets, it appears that at the beginning of the messianic age, the war of God and Magog will be launched and that prior to that war, a prophet will arise among
the people of Israel to keep their heart steadfast, as it is written: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet" (Malachi 3:23). - - He will come only to establish peace in the world, as it is written: " He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers."
Some of the sages declare that Elijah will appear before the advent of King Messiah. People can only know how all these things will eventually happen once they eventually occur. The prophets mention them vaguely, not explicitly. Nor have the sages any traditional knowledge concerning these matters, except what they gather from the implications of the biblical verses. Hence, there is disagreement among them on this subject. At any rate, neither the sequences of these events nor their minute details are of basic importance in religion.
One should never deal with legendary topics nor stretch midrashic statements on these and similar subjects. Do not consider them essential since they do not lead to love and reverence for God. Nor should one reckon the end of days from biblical indications. The sages have said: "Let despair come to those who make calculations of the end of days ."(Sanh. 97b) One should rather wait hopefully, and believe in the principles of things, as we have explained."
The above concept is the standard Jewish position on eschatology and a healthy position.
Jewish people, in general, are not involved in extreme eschatological expectations - they are involved in planting olive trees and in rebuilding the land of Israel from a wasteland into a blooming garden. Christians would do much better and be more successful in their outreach to Israel if they joined with the Jewish people in helping the Jewish nation build up the land and also supporting the Messianic Jews in their witness of Yeshua as the lover of Israel, not only the "savior of Israel."
Evangelism has only one Method - Teach God's Living Word!
All commands and examples of Evangelism in the New Testament are examples of proclaiming the world of God.
We do not have any example of the New Testament preaching a message other than the death, burial, and resurrection of Yeshua, the Messiah of Israel.
The message that made the Jews and the Greeks stand up and listen was the message of the cross of Yeshua. There was no "doomsday" eschatological manipulation of the crowds in Jerusalem, Antioch, or Corinth; what was preached was One God who loved the world and sent His Son to Save us all by His faith and Mercy to all. Why can we not repeat the same message with the exact expectations and the same success? The 2000 years of division and hate spread by Christian Churches. Until the Christian churches and denominations change their attitude toward Israel and the Jewish people and toward the Torah, the people of Israel will not want to listen to their offer of "Salvation."
Even if we knew for sure that the Lord is not coming for the next 1000 years - we should still evangelize the Jews and all humanity. Building artificial eschatological expectations based on speculative interpretations of the Scriptures has yet to prove effective or beneficial to any group of people and much less so to the Jewish people. Every time such expectation has been fostered in our history, calamity was what was waiting for us at the door. We should wait for the Messiah to come at any moment like a thief in the night - we should be ready and have our lamps full of oil in case he delays. However, we should not use our speculations of the Messiah's second coming as a tool to scare people into believing that Yeshua is the Messiah.
Evangelizing the Jews is different only because of the special relationship that God has with our history.
Preaching the Good News to Israel and the Jewish people is not like preaching to all the other nations in the following ways.
1. Jews are the elect people of God, and they have promises of salvation given to them as a nation. These promises are in both the New and the Old Testaments, meaning the evangelist should be much more humble in bringing the Good News to Israel.
Jews have seen the ugly side of so-called "Christianity" for more than a millennium. When we preach to Jews, we ought to make every effort to present the Messiah without influencing Jews to break the Laws of the Torah or Jewish Tradition. It is wrong to teach Jews against keeping and observing their Traditions and the Torah. It is Yeshua himself who said in Matthew. 5:19:
"Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
2 Jews should preach to Jews in a Jewish way. Many of the present leaders of the Messianic Movement are non-Jews, and non-Jews witnessed evangelical churches. Nevertheless, teaching Jews is still the ideal situation that should change some of our attitudes toward Jewish Evangelism. We should first seek the good of the Kingdom of God and only second, third, or fourth the good of our particular ministry and denomination.
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