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.