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.
No comments:
Post a Comment