SUMMARY…contd…

    The supervising or over-riding intelligence manipulating such hostile groups and generating this enduring animus against the Jews is an evil one. Could it be that Satan is currently using human agencies to vent his malice towards the Jewish people, of whom is Jesus, Messiah and King of the Jews ? He understands the Biblical promises of the coming of the Messiah, born of the Jews and that all human “ salvation is of the Jews.”  The enduring hatred, now re-named “anti-Zionism “ does seem to originate with Satan and his minions. He knows, although many Christians in the western world seem unaware of this,-as were the five foolish virgins in the parable,- that the final days are near to completion. Demonic powers are vainly seeking to turn the eyes of men away from the only Champion of our whole race and from His victory upon the cross and His resurrection.

    In regard to the hatred which led directly to the Holocaust, I quote :

“It was a diabolical hatred, in reality directed not against a particular race but against God Himself . ( A purely racial issue could never have generated such an intensity of hatred) Behind it all was envy – diabolical envy- because the Jewish people, not the Nordic race, bore the mark of divine election and had been chosen for a world mission.” (  Basilea Schlink, “My Chosen People.”,p13-14; Kanaan Publications, 2000.)

SUMMARY… continued…COMFORT, MY PEOPLE….

That literary censure issued from many church teachers and clergy  against the Jews is most strange and grievous in the light of the debt which the church owes to Israel: every Jew, by his very existence is a sign post to God. The Jew is the subject of divine election, the recipient of God-given covenants, the law, the promises of God, the words of the prophets and all the heralds of the Messiah in the Torah. Their Messiah and the Christian’s Christ  is the theme of their scriptures too,- either latent or patent throughout the sacred writings. The New Testament is built upon the Old, and completes it ; The church has among its foundations the prophets and the apostles who were Jewish, and Jesus , the chief cornerstone of the household of God, was born of the Jews. The debt which the church and the world owes is eternally obvious : every Jew is a living reminder that God lives, that He is the Creator and Sustainer of all life, that He orders the destinies of men and nations according to His purposes to bring glory to His name, that He is holy and gracious, that He is an ethical God who authorises standards of human behaviour, that He pronounces blessings and curses and fulfils both. History shows that a sovereign and superintending power, His power, has preserved the people of Israel over four thousand years,when other ancient people groups have passed into oblivion.…   

It is some defence of these first Christian teachers and theologians, “ the fathers”,- that they were eager that the anathemas which Paul hurled at the young church in Galatia should not be  forgotten. They were well aware of the bane which could infect the church through a reversion to legalism and ritualism. Judaism had these attractions as a refuge for those who were weak in faith and lacked assurance of full salvation through the grace of God. The Judaising of the faithful was seen as a constant threat.

      Apart from the eternal benefits and status received by all who have faith in Jesus Christ as God and Saviour, even the sceptic and agnostic may admit to the immense gifts which the Jewish people have conferred upon mankind ,-far too many to list in this simple precis. How remarkable that the greatest number of Nobel prize winners  are Jewish. Before the Holocaust had developed eleven out  of thirty-eight winners were Jewish, and yet, as God had said in ancient times,-“you were the fewest of all peoples.”- Deut.ch.7,v.7.

   But even so, the very presence of the Jew in society is an offence to those who reject the immanence of God in His world and His sovereign, transcendent rights in the lives of men and women. The Jew has received a God-given calling and destiny. He has also received a moral code from God; this troubles the guilty conscience of the unbeliever and those who jealously guard their independence of God. Such a self-reliant and Godless one has chosen to cling to gods of his own creating or his own traditions.

       There are other unrecognised benefits which are transmitted to all posterity from the Old Testament and the religion of the Jews. The progressive revelation of God, concerning His being, nature, character and purposes for His created order and the life of mankind are found in no other faith,where the sole source of inspiration is a defective self-hood and corrupted imagination. The unfolding revelation of God in the whole of the Bible makes clear the validity of linear time, in total distinction from the cyclical theory of time common in Eastern and animist religions. Uncongenial as it is for modern man, all human history has a beginning in time, and it is moving in a linear motion towards a finite end, and “ in keeping with His promises ( every Christian is ) looking forward to a new heaven and new earth, the home of righteousness.”) –2  Peter,ch.3,v.13. This promise contrasts diametrically with the escapist longings and dreams of offered by Eastern mystical religions which propose an endless cycle of meaningless existences in which personal responsibility and human sinfulness is muted and discounted. Another uncomfortable goad in the conscience of modern man is that there will be a final accountability ,- it is written into all the scriptures. There is a future judgement which carries rewards and punishments; this accounting will be decreed in a spiritual, eternal dimension, outside of our present framework of time and space. It is only against this forbidding background that God’s amazing love and grace towards erring mankind becomes meaningful and highly relevant for all men and women, who desperately need God’s forgiveness and the eternal life offered to any  who receive Jesus Christ, the only appointed Saviour and Friend of sinners. Without the new life offered to all who receive Him personally, men and women remain under condemnation, lost, spiritually dead and eternal orphans.

     The presence of Judeo-Christianity raised uneasy questions in the minds of the secularists, humanists and rationalists who came to the fore in the Enlightenment of 18th. century Europe. Their natural successors were the amoral theorists who ushered in the Nazi ideology. For the latter, the ten commandments were anathema . The Jew became an unacceptable presence in Nazi theory  because of his so-called “slave mentality “- the adherence to a moral code. “Conscience is a Jewish invention.”- Hitler speaking to Rauschning

     The rejection of the Jews and the continuing antagonism against them which is welling-up from a dark abyss is not a purely human phenomenon, although mankind is fully implicated in the age-long sufferings of the Jews. Differing pretexts for this hostility have been offered throughout history, but there seems to be an underlying spiritual  energy. The Jews have suffered from the period of the captivity in Egypt until the present day, and even now, in their homeland. Human agents have been used,- pagans,idolatrous  tribes in Canaan, Christian and Islamic leaders, rationalists, agnostics, apostate Jews, uncontrollable mobs, tyrants, and peace-loving humanists. The malignant authors of yesterday have now been succeeded by the anti-Zionist  Arab media.

“ COMFORT, MY PEOPLE…”

HERE IS A LIST OF OTHER TOPICS WHICH COULD BE BROADCAST UNDER THIS HEADING, BUT I HOPE TO PUT OUT FIRST MY SUMMARY OR  CONCLUSION, that is in case some viewers find the whole subject irrelevant, boring and merely academic.

LIST OF OTHER  SUBJECTS WHICH I HOPE TO ISSUE LATER :-

MEDIEVAL LAWS  AND EDICTS.

THE  ATTITUDE  OF  THE  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  TOWARDS  THE  JEWS.

UNDER  ISLAM-  LAWS CONTROLLING  JEWS  AND   CHRISTIANS.

MEDIEVAL  MYTHS  AND  SUPERSTITIONS.

A  DIGEST- HOSTILE  MODERN  AUTHORS, CHRISTIAN AND SECULAR.

THE  DREYFUS  AFFAIR.

THE  PROTOCOLS  OF  THE  ELDERS  OF  ZION.

THE  REACTIONS  OF  THE NATIONS  DURING  THE  HOLOCAUST,-  AN  OVERVIEW.

THE  OPENING AND  CLOSING  OF  A  WAY  OF  ESCAPE.

HATRED  OF  THE   JEWS,-  A  RANDOM  COLLECTION  OF  PRETEXTS  USED.

A  SHORT  CHRONICLE  OF  ISRAEL’S   PAIN  AND  ANGUISH.

A  CONCLUSION  AND  A  CALL  TO  THE   CHURCHES  OF  EUROPE.

APPENDICES,-  SOME  VOICES  CALLING  THE  CHURCHES  TO  REPENTANCE.

A  BREIF  BIBLIOGAPHY.

 

          A   CONCLUSION, AND A  CALL  TO  THE  CHURCHES  OF  EUROPE.

“ To be at  once  an anti-Semite  and  a  Christian  is  to  try  to  marry  reverence  with  abuse.”-      Jules Isaac, –“The Teaching of  Contempt.”( McGraw-Hill  Book  Co., 1965, p.150.)

 

      Never in the whole of recorded history has there been such a continuous stream of abuse and calumny directed against one people or race as there has been against the Jews. A literary hostility has been singular and unprovoked  : no other people  group has been  subject to such opprobrium,= the Romany, the Kurds, the Lapps, the Basques and other minority peoples have never suffered without relief as have the Jews. That hostility has persisted through many centuries, despite the several dispersals and many expulsions of the Jews into other lands. Almost always, their sufferings have been marked by their passivity and absence of retaliation. Most remarkably, the hostility towards this people is baseless, and springs from misunderstanding, myth, misinformation and mis-reading of the scriptures. It has been perpetuated by nameless fears and rumour, supported by discriminatory laws and decrees issued by rulers, Christian and Islamic authorities, autocrats and tyrants.

    That stream of vitriol arose long before the Christian era began, but then it was little more than a simple literary device ,- the gratuitous mockery of academics directed towards a strange, exclusive minority . In the centuries which followed secular writers and some Christian teachers of the church built up intense accusations against the Jews. The secular authors inveighed against the Jews because of their unconformity, unusual religious customs and the practice of money-lending. The latter activity was a last resort for many Jews, who were excluded from many trade guilds and the ownership of land. Christian writers saw the Jews as the one group of people who were guilty of the crucifixion of the Son of God, that they were also slaves to a legalistic use of the scriptures. They were thought to be a race who were to remain under the curse of God until the end of the age, and that they were deservedly rejected by God in favour of the church ,- which was thought to be the “new Israel.”

 

     TO BE CONTINUED…

SOME OF THE ROOTS OF ANTI-JEWISH TEACHINGS IN THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH.

  SOME OF THE CHURCH “ FATHERS” TAUGHT THAT THE JEWS HAD MISUNDERSTOOD AND FAILED TO  TAKE ADVANTAGE  OF THE OLD COVENANT, AND THAT THIS HAD LED TO THEIR REJECTION OF THEIR MESSIAH. THE GOD-GIVEN PROMISES GIVEN TO THEM WERE NOW FORFEITED. THE OLD COVENANT WAS DEAD AND EMPTY OF MEANING, AND THE JEWS LIVE UNDER AN  ENDURING CONDEMNATION.

     AGAINST THIS :-

      Israel since her rejection of her Messiah in 30 A.D. has been held in a period of suspension, discipline and judgement because of her unbelief. That period, in which God’s dealings with her have been kept in abeyance,has now closed with the return of the Jews to their homeland. That restoration began towards the end of the 19th. century when the first Jewish settlements arose in Israel, and since that time an increasing number of Jews are turning to the Lord Jesus as the true Messiah,- e.g. in 2010 there were about out 40,000 Messiah Jews living in the land.

     This restoration to the land and to the Messiah was clearly foreseen,-See Amos,ch.9,v11/14; Hosea,ch.3,v.4/5; Romans,,ch.11,v. 25/31.

     Israel under the covenant announced by Jeremiah has a perpetual entitlement to the land, and that land is in reality God’s own special possession. That land is His, and He gives it to whom He wills, –See Jeremiah,ch.31,v.1/4; Lev.ch.25,v.23.

    The time is now coming, and has already begun, when Israel and Gentile believers in Jesus will be united in Him as “ one new man out of the two… through the cross, by which He put to death their hostility..Eph.ch.2,v.16.

   The covenant with Israel is a perpetual one, and it preceded the covenant of the Law, which is now aged and obsolete.-Gen.ch.17,v.7/9; Romans ch.11,v1/2; Hebrews ch.8,v.13.

  The first Abrahamic covenant is intact today, and it is this which created the Jewish people as the chosen nation of God, –See Gen.ch.22,v15/18. This choice was confirmed by Paul, who insisted that God’s calling of Israel is irrevocable, –See Gal.ch.3,v16/29; Romans ch.11,v.28/29. God’s promises to Israel are never retracted, See Jer.ch.31,v.35/37.

The Old Covenant of the Law has now been replaced for Gentile believers by the New Covenant made by the blood shed by Jesus Christ. The Old Covenant for Jewish believers in the Messiah has been brought into a deeper and spiritual reality known in the heart and mind , not only as a religious exercise. That “ religion “ exists as a dead army, awaiting the anointing of the Holy Spirit ,- See Jer.31,v.31/34; Ezek.ch.37,v.24/28.

 

   For the Jews also, “everyone who believes (in Jesus as God and Saviour) is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses,- ACTS,Ch.13,v 39.

SOME OF THE ROOTS OF ANTI-JEWISH HOSTILITY IN THE TEACHINGS OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH.

A THEORY EXPOUNDED  BY LACTANIUS AND AUGUSTINE THAT THE SOLE REASON FOR THE CONTINUED EXISTENCE OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE AFTER THEIR REJECTION OF CHRIST WAS THAT THEY REMAIN AS A  “WITNESS PEOPLE” TO  THE  TRUTHS OF SCRIPTURE  AND THAT THE CHURCH IS THE GUARDIAN OF THOSE TRUTHS .

     It was thought that the existence of the Jewish race was a proof of God’s judgement upon unbelievers, and that judgement took the form of subjection  and domination by other nations. The depressed status of Judaism compared with the ascendancy of the church was another proof that the church alone contained the truths of scripture.

    AGAINST  THIS :-

     The Jews, whatever their beliefs, are a testimony to the reality of God as their Creator and His election of that race. That race continues to live as a sign of God’s grace towards who still persist in unbelief towards their Messiah, not a s sign of His judgement upon unbelievers . The Jews are still a testimony to the truth that God sent His Son, born of Jews, and that He is the end of the Law and the prophets.

    The witness of the Jewish people is that their survival points to the faithfulness of God in regard to His promises and of the everlasting covenant He made with the ancestor of that race,- See Gen.ch,17,v.19; Ezek. ch,37,v.24/28.

    Any judgement upon unbelieving Israel is a spiritual hardening and resistance towards His Messiah, not a human judgement, such as oppression and persecution,- See Isaiah,ch,6,v.9/10; ch.29,v.10 and Romans ,ch.11,v.7/10.

Some of the roots of anti-Jewish hostility in he teachings of the medieval church.

A  FALSE ALLEGORICAL SYSTEM OF THOUGHT WAS DEVELOPED BY SOME OF THE TEACHERS IN THE EARLY CHURCH. This equated many of the Jews with unfaithful characters in the history of the Old Testament.

  The Jews were thought to be the “elder son”, the children of Hagar , carnal children.

  Christians were thought to be the “younger sons”, the children of Sarah and Abraham, spiritual children.

The Jews were thought to be represented by Cain, and Jesus was represented by faithful Abel, the good shepherd.

The Jews were considered to be the sons of Esau. Christians were seen as the sons of Jacob.

The Jews were seen as the sons of Manasseh, the elder son of Joseph, while Christians were thought to be the sons of Ephraim, the younger son who received the first blessing given by Jacob.

The Jews were thought to be derived from the family of Judas, the betrayer,- the carnal disciple; Christians were seen as the true, faithful Jewish disciples.

  The Jews were even thought to be incarnations of Satan, based solely on the words found in John, ch.8,v.44.

AGAINST THIS TEACHING :-

    These allegories are unsubstantiated in scripture.

    The words spoken by Jesus in John, ch.8,v.44.could apply to those in mankind who remain in violent opposition to God and His Messiah, and who are in constant rebellion against God and His will,- See examples in Romans,ch.1, v.18-32, and Ephesians ch.2,v.1-3.

   The Jews, as every other person in other races, have every possibility of receiving forgiveness through the grace and mercy of God and so become children of God by faith in the Lord Jesus, as He made plain in John, ch. 8,v.12.

SOME OF THE ROOTS OF ANTI-JEWISH HOSTILITY IN THE TEACHINGS OF THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH.

        THE  THEORY  THAT  THE   JEWS  ARE  UNIQUELY  GUILTY  OF DEICIDE,-  THE  CRUCIFIXION  OF  THE  SON  OF GOD.  THIS WAS FIRST SUGGESTED BY MELITO OF  SARDIS, AND WAS  DEVELOPED BY ORIGEN, TERTULLIAN, CHRYSOSTOM, IRENAEUS AND OTHERS, WHO CONSIDERED THAT THE JEWS WERE THEREFORE SUBJECT TO AN IRREVOCABLE  CURSE.

  AGAINST THIS TEACHING  CONSIDER  THE  FOLLOWING :-

The cry of the crowd in Matt.ch.27,v25 could be an invitation to accept guilt or a statement by which Jews normally took responsibility for an action ,-c.f .Joshua ch.2,v.19.

The Jews had acted in ignorance…Luke ch.23,v.34; Acts ch.3,v.17, ch.13,v.27.

Those Jews called out for the crucifixion were a hastily assembled mob in the early morning, not the whole of the Jewish race …Matt.ch.27,v.15.

The judgement which fell on the Jewish people in 70 A.D. was the outcome of continued unbelief,- the refusal to accept Jesus as the Messiah.- Luke ch.19, v41-44. It was not a  perpetual curse from God.

The crowd who had assembled before Pilate could not invoke guilt upon their children,-Ezekiel ch.18,v20.

The Jewish crowds who had followed Jesus had not usually  been hostile towards Him,-Luke ch.19,v.47; 20,v.19; 21,v38; 22,v.2  and Mark ch,12,v12.

The crowd who had cried out at the time of the decision to crucify Jesus included Gentiles who were visiting Jerusalem for the Passover, and this was the crowd who took responsibility, according to Paul,-Acts,ch. 13,v27.

Herod, Pilate and the assembled Jews and Gentiles could all be deemed guilty of deicide ,- Acts,ch,4,v.27.

There is the gracious promise of God to forgive all who repent of their sin and believe in Jesus as their God and Saviour, as the Messiah (Christ), both Jews and Gentiles,- “ all whom the Lord our God will call…”Acts,ch.2,v.39.   God was in Christ Jesus, and His death was the centre and only means of salvation for all men, Jews and Gentiles…Acts,ch.2,v 23; ch.4,v.12. This was God’s plan of salvation.-Acts,ch4,v.28.

The Jews living in Jerusalem were only a small proportion of all the Jews alive at that time ; many were living in the Dispersion around the Mediterranean since the time of the Assyrian conquests in the 8th. century.

           If guilt attaches to any particular group, it adheres to the teachers of the law, the priests, and the elders ( see John ch.19.v.11), and to Judas,who together handed Jesus over to the Roman authority. It is not possible to assign collective guilt to the whole of the Jewish people, but only to those groups mentioned, who allowed themselves to be blinded by intolerance, fear and the lust for complete religious power, –that is, the majority of the Sanhedrin.(See Mark,ch.15,v.1.)

     There is a view that rabbinic Judaism has perpetuated its guilt down through the ensuing centuries by creating a scholastic,ethical, logical and spiritless religion, in which atonement for sin is sought through prayer, repentance and the duties of good works and almsgiving - “tzedakah”.  The sole prescribed means of acceptance by God is the trust of a believer in the one perfect sacrifice Who was prepared and given by God Himself, and was foreshadowed in the Old Testament, –Jesus, the Lamb of God and the King of the Jews. “For God so loved the world (Jews and Gentiles) that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish (eternal death) but have eternal life.”-John ch.3,v.16.

   All the people living at the time of His crucifixion and all the countless millions who have lived since who persist in rejecting Jesus Christ and refuse to surrender to Him as a personal Saviour and Lord and God so that they may receive God’s forgiveness,- they are the guilty ones who raise sinful hands against the Son of God.

   Jewish responsibility for His death is subordinated to the collective responsibility of the whole of sinful humanity, The Jewish people are an image of humanity as a whole, and the whole of sinful humanity is guilty of deicide. The Jewish leaders were guilty of an infamous homicide, but they were the unwitting authors of the crucifixion of the Son of God, and the instruments in God’s plan of salvation.

Misconstrued scriptures…contd…

 

The covenant with Abram and his seed is an everlasting one, and is symbolised with circumcision…”I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you…”Genesis ch17,v.7.

These first covenants initiated by God are unconditional  and ante-date the Mosaic covenant based on the Law,which Israel broke repeatedly. God’s covenant relationship of grace towards Israel has never been withdrawn:- “ Though the mountains be shaken…yet My unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor My covenant of peace be removed.”-Isaiah,ch.54,v10.

  “I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David..-Isaiah,ch.55,v3.  “I will make an everlasting covenant with them; I will never stop doing good to them.”-Jer.ch.32,v40.   “Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.”-Ezek.ch.16,v.60.   “I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant .”-Ezek.ch.37,v26.

   God’s covenant and His faithful dealings with Israel have continued despite their three exiles ( in Egypt,Babylon and the Dispersion.), and despite their unfaithfulness and law-breaking.

   There is the promise of salvation for the people of Israel, as for all other peoples.-“For if their rejection is reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead.”-Romans,ch11,v.15.

  For the Jew, the Old Covenant based on the Law has been made obsolete because it has been replaced by the New Covenant made by the shed blood of Christ, in which the law is written within the heart of every believer.,-“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel … I will put My laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.”-Heb.ch.8,v.10.

   The Gentiles who have faith in Christ are, in fact, grafted into the cultivated olive tree, which is the Israel of faith, which is those Jews who are “inwardly “ of faith, having  the circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code..”-Romans,ch.2,v29.

   There are clearly two distinct groups  who are being saved now through faith in the atoning sacrifice made by Christ :- the church composed of Gentile believers, and the Israel of faith in Him as their Messiah.- “This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus..”-Eph,ch.3,v.6.

     This same though is brought out in Galatians,ch.6,v.15-16…”Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation. Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God.” NOTE,- The conjuction here translated as “even” should read “ and “( which is how “ kai” is always translated.)  There are two groups of believers, as the context of the previous verses make clear.

   The two groups are :” all who follow this rule”( Gentile believers),and “ the Israel of God”, – those Jews who have a personal trust in Jesus as the Messiah.

    This latter group are referred to again in Romans,ch.9,cv.6-8., which speaks of those Jews who are not merely descended from the line of Israel, but those who have faith in Jesus the Messiah,- these are “the children of the promise, who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.”

    These are the two groups written about in Romans,ch.3,v.29-30,- the circumcised who are justified by faith,and “ the uncircumcised “ Gentlies who are justified “ through that same faith.”

       IN THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE CONCERNING THE PLACE OF THE JEWS, THESE TWO GROUPS HAVE BEEN CONFLATED, WHEREAS THE TRUTH IS THAT THERE ARE TWO DISTINCT GROUPS OF BELIEVERS :- THE CHURCH COMPRISING GENTILE BELIEVERS, AND THE “ ISREAL OF GOD”. – all those Jews who have now believed in Jesus as their Messiah.

 

      (TO BE CONTINUED….)