"For Salvation is of the Jews" (John 42:2)
Copyright 2024 Joseph Shulam
How outrageous a statement. How politically incorrect! What a racist remark! G-d is not a respecter of persons! He would not set one people above another, or give special treatment to a group of people just because they are Jews, Blacks, Whites or Spanish!!! Would He?
The issue of Anti-Semitism is the issue of "Election" - "G-d's Election" to be more precise. if G-d did not elect Abraham and his seed forever, it would mean that the Jews have taken upon themselves an attitude of "election" out of turn. It would mean that Jews ought to be put back in their place and act just like any other group of people on G-d's good Earth.
I would like to touch on the essence of G-d's Election in order to introduce the issue of anti-Semitism in the Church today, and what can be done about it.
Election - G-d's Choice of a People.
The whole world, after the tower of Babel, was divided and in rebellion against the Creator. This happened in Genesis 1. Genesis 12 begins the story of G-d's calling for Abraham. The call of G-d for Abraham was not just for Abraham's own sake, nor only for the sake of Abraham's promised seed, it was for all the families of the Earth:
"And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." (Genesis 12:2-4)
The Lord repeats these promises to Abraham a number of times:
"That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; 18 And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice. (Genesis 22:17-18)
The blessing repeated to Isaac. (Genesis 26:3-6) The blessing repeated to Jacob. (Genesis 28:3-4)
Many Christians forget what Paul the Apostle made so clear in Galatians 3. Israel's election did not take place on Mt. Sinai at the giving of the Law of Moses. Israel's election took place with the covenant that G-d made with Abraham, long before the giving of the Torah in Mt. Sinai. Look at the following verses from Romans 11:
"26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: 27 For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. 28 As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes." (Romans 11:26-28)
Verse 28 is very clear. It speaks of Israel and states that the "election" is because of the love that G-d has for the "fathers." The "fathers'' referred to here are the fathers of the nation of Israel; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Of course, Paul asks the rhetorical question about Israel's election at the beginning of chapter 1 of Romans:
"I say then, Hath G-d cast away his people? G-d forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 G-d hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to G-d against Israel, saying, 3 Lord, they have killed the prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life." (Romans 11:1-3)
Romans 11:2 is so different from the standard teaching that Christians have received for centuries in their churches. What is so difficult to understand in the following words, "G-d hath not cast away his people which he foreknew." Who are the people of whom Paul is speaking about? Paul himself answers this question in the following verses. It is Israel, that same Israel that is right now in unbelief, but that will come to faith in the fullness of the time of the Gentiles.
The status of being an "elect" people by G-d does not give the Jewish people automatic "salvation." Election and Salvation are two different things. Salvation has always come to people by their personal faith and relationship with G-d. Election is for the "seed of Abraham." All Israel was taken by Moses out of the Land of Egypt, they all stood under the Mountain and heard G-d speak from the fire and smoke, but they did not all enter the Promised Land. The majority died in the wilderness of Sinai in their unbelief and rebellion.
We should know that the issue of Antisemitism is directly connected with the fact that Israel was "elected by G-d" to be a chosen people. This status of being "elect" carried with it some commandments that were not so easy to keep, but also were offensive to the nations surrounding Israel. The most difficult of these commandments was the command for Israel to stay "a nation set apart."
G-d commanded Israel not to mix with the nations around them.i This caused one of the major problems for the nations to relate to Israel. Note what Haman said to King Ahasuerus in the book of Esther 3:8,
"And Haman said unto king Ahasuerus, There is a certain
people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from all people; neither keep the king's laws: therefore it is not for the king's profit or suffer them."
In this pre-Christian statement we find the roots of Antisemitism in history. The Jews were a people who did not bow to foreign gods or to idolatrous kings or Caesar. The nations could not stand it that the Jews did not intermarry, or eat the same things, or go to the same pagan temples to worship their idols. The same problems that the Jews faced in their history, the early Church faced in the first centuries of it's history. In the letter from Pliny to the emperor Trajan, he accuses the Christians of being "a depraved and extravagant superstition."
Encyclopedia Britannica states:
"Antisemitism has existed to some degree wherever Jews have settled outside of Palestine. In the ancient Greco-Roman world, religious differences were the primary basis for anti- Semitism. In Hellenistic times, for instance, Jews' social segregation and their refusal to acknowledge the gods worshiped by other peoples aroused resentment among pagans, particularly in the 1st century BC-1st century AD. Similarly, Jews' refusal to participate in emperor worship was seen as a lack of patriotism in the Roman Empire.
As Christianity spread in the second century and later, most Jews continued to reject it. As a consequence, by the 4th century AD, Christians accused only the Jews as the crucifiers of Christ and as a people alien from G-d, because of their repudiation of Christ and his church. Jews had lost their homeland in the Bar-Kochba rebellion (135 A.D.) and were condemned to perpetual migration. When the Christian Church became dominant in the Roman Empire, its leaders inspired many laws from Christian believers and to curtail the Jews' religious rights when they appeared to threaten Christian religious domination.
In much of Europe during the Middle Ages, Jews were denied citizenship and its rights, barred from holding posts in government and the military, and excluded from membership in guilds and the professions. The ritual murder canard, or blood libel--i.e., Jews' alleged sacrifice of Christian children at Passover in order to obtain blood for unleavened bread--was first made in the 12th century. The legend was revived sporadically in eastern Europe and Poland and, in the 1930s, became part of Nazi anti Semitic propaganda, as did another instrument of 12th-century anti Semitism the compulsory yellow badge, which identified the wearer as a Jew. The practice of segregating the Jewish populations of towns and cities into ghettos dates from the Middle Ages and lasted until the 19th and early 20th centuries in much of Europe."
Today with the establishment of the State of Israel, and the return of the Jews back to their home land, many Christians are awakening to the guilt that the Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches in Europe have toward the Jews. I presume that World War I, and the Holocaust, have served more than any other event in History to awaken Christians all over the world to what the consequences of anti-Semitism are, for both the Jews and the Christian Civilization of Europe.
The awakening of so-called, "Christian Zionism," in fundamentalist Christian Churches is an interesting phenomenon. On the one hand the term "Christian Zionism" is an oxymoron. The two terms seem to be mutually exclusive of each other. Zionism as a secular Jewish National Movement is a reaction to Christian European anti- Jewishness. The whole Zionist movement started with Theodore Herzel as a reaction to the attitude of "Christian" Europe toward the Jews. On the other hand, "Christian" is a term used for the followers of Yeshua who ought not have an 'Earthly' Kingdom. Yeshua Himself said to Pontius Pilatus, "My Kingdom is not of this Earth." But, this interesting and strange marriage between
"Christianity" and "Zionism" is an indication of the new spirit that is blowing across the continents. This new spirit is the appreciation of God's Word, and the place that Israel, and the Jewish people hold in G-d's plan.
The position of the Jewish people today is not one that produces "salvation" for the Jewish people without faith in Yeshua as the Messiah. On the contrary, it is a situation of G-d's restoration for both the Church and Israel in a parallel historical development. The physical people of G-d, and the spiritual people of G-d, are being restored in parallel lines. In geometry they say that parallel lines never meet. However, in G-d's plan, I believe that the day will come when they will meet, and all Israel will be saved, by faith, and through obedience to God's commandments.
I believe that both the Jews and the Christians have much to gain from a relationship of mutual respect, love and understanding between the two peoples of G-d. As disciples of the Messiah, Christians have no way to justify how they treated their Jewish neighbors through a Via Dolorosa of more than 1500 years.
Now, at the end of this Millennium it is time for Christians to restore their relationship to Israel, learn about their roots, and above all, show true Christian love to the Jewish people, because after all, it was Yeshua the Messiah who said, "Salvation is of the Jews."