As everyone will be well aware, the country of
Israel is often in the news. When it is,
usually the focus is on Israel’s disputes with Arab people-groups and countries,
and with non-Arab Muslim-majority countries like Iran.
Ever since the creation of the modern-day state
of Israel in 1948, huge numbers of Arabs and Muslims have been unhappy that
this state exists. And even those who
accept its existence are usually highly critical of many of its policies.
Christian support for the state of Israel
In this context, it is very common to hear
evangelical Christians, especially in the United States, speaking out in
support of the state of Israel. Many
evangelicals believe that the re-establishment of this state is prophesied in
the Bible as something that is the will of God.
So they therefore take a dim view of those who reject the existence of
the Israeli state, and they often speak out in support of its policies.
I think it would be fair to say that many
evangelicals today seem to view non-Christian Jews as sort of allies of
Christians. They seem to see these Jews
as basically on the same page as Christians, even though they would prefer them
to believe in Jesus.
Israel in Bible prophecy
In this article I don’t want to get into a long
discussion of the place of Israel in Bible prophecy. For me personally, it is a topic where I am
uncertain on a number of points. Nevertheless,
I will make a few brief comments.
First, I think it is highly likely that the
Bible prophesies a mass turning of Jews to Christ. In Romans 11:25-26 the apostle Paul writes:
“25 So that you will not be conceited, brothers, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery: A partial hardening has come to Israel until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written: The Liberator will come from Zion; He will turn away godlessness from Jacob.”
(Scripture
readings in this article are from the Holman Christian Standard Bible.)
It
is very difficult to interpret this passage in any other way than as a prophecy
that Jews will turn to Christ in large numbers.
Second,
I prefer the view that the Bible prophesies the re-establishment of the state
of Israel as something that is God’s will.
In Luke 21:24 the Lord Jesus predicts:
“. . . Jerusalem will be trampled by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”
The
context of this prophecy is literal Jerusalem, and Jesus does most naturally
seem to be implying that a time will come when Jews will regain sovereignty
over the city and that this is the will of God.
Third,
we should firmly reject the view that there will be a 1000-year-long earthly
kingdom centred on Jerusalem after Jesus returns. There are too many biblical passages which
contradict this idea (e.g., Matt 25:31-46; 2 Thess 1:6-10; 2 Pet 3:3-13). Instead, all end-times events involving Jews
will take place before He returns.
Fourth,
we should also reject the dangerous idea that it is God’s will for there ever
to be another literal temple in Jerusalem.
That would involve going from the substance in Christ back to the
shadows that paved the way for Him (Heb 8:1-13), and we can be sure that this
is not God’s plan.
Christians
and non-Christian Jews are poles apart
My main aim in this article is simply to oppose
the idea that non-Christian Jews should be seen as allies of Christians in a
general sense. This idea sharply
contradicts the Bible.
To begin with, we need to understand how
different Christians and non-Christians actually are.
Christians
are people who have been born again (e.g., John 1:12-13; 3:3-8) and in a sense
created again (2 Cor 5:17 ),
and who have the Holy Spirit (e.g., Acts 2:38; Rom 8:9). By contrast, non-Christians are people who
have not been born or created again, and who don’t have the Holy Spirit.
Importantly,
Scripture uses the image of light and darkness to compare Christians and
non-Christians. For example, in John
12:46 Jesus states:
“I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me would not remain in darkness.”
This
clearly implies that Christians are in light, and it just as clearly implies
that non-Christians remain in darkness. In
the natural world, the difference between light and darkness can hardly be
overstated, and Jesus’ words must mean that there is a huge difference between
believers and non-believers.
Similarly,
the Bible distinguishes between Christians and non-Christians in terms of their
liability to condemnation. For example, in John 3:18 we read:
“Anyone who believes in Him [Jesus] is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the One and Only Son of God.”
This
is clear that Christians are on track for final salvation, whereas
non-Christians are on track for final punishment.
It
is impossible that those in light and those in darkness could be allies of each
other in a general sense, or that those who are not condemned could be on the
same page as those who are condemned.
In
fact, in Luke 11:23 Jesus says:
“Anyone who is not with Me is against Me, and anyone who does not gather with Me scatters.”
This
makes it plain that non-Christian Jews are against the Lord Jesus. And because they
are against Him, they must also be against us His followers. So they can’t be our allies.
Of
course, in individual issues of various kinds, Christians may find themselves
with the same goal as other groups of people.
And in such cases alliances of limited scope for a specific purpose will
form. In this sense it will be true from
time to time that Christians are the allies of non-Christian Jews.
However,
to see Christians as allies of non-Christian Jews more generally is a big
mistake.
The
destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD
One
thing that shows how far non-Christian Jews are from the will of God is the
destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. This
is one of the most significant events in all of Jewish history.
In
66 AD the Jews rebelled against Roman rule, resulting in an extremely bloody
war that cost probably hundreds of thousands of lives. In 70 Jerusalem was captured and destroyed.
Luke
tells us in Luke 19:41-44 that when Jesus visited Jerusalem just before His
crucifixion He prophesied about the city:
“41 As He approached and saw the city, He wept over it, 42 saying, ‘If you knew this day what would bring peace — but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43 For the days will come on you when your enemies will build an embankment against you, surround you, and hem you in on every side. 44 They will crush you and your children within you to the ground, and they will not leave one stone on another in you, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.’”
In
verses 43-44 Jesus predicts the destruction of Jerusalem that took place in 70
AD.
Verse
44 also makes it clear that the destruction happened because the Jews failed to
recognise God’s visitation of them. In
other words, Jerusalem was destroyed because the majority of Jews in the time
of Jesus’ earthly ministry, and in the immediately following decades, failed to
accept Him as the promised Messiah.
Luke
13:34-35 and Matt 23:37-24:2 also connect the destruction of Jerusalem with
Jewish rejection of Jesus.
The
Romans were the actual ones who destroyed the city, but God was working through
them to judge the Jewish people. This is
closely parallel to the way that God used the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem
in the 6th century BC as a punishment for Jewish sins.
If
we want to know what God thinks about non-Christian Judaism, He has given His
verdict in what He did through the Romans in 70 AD! Failing to accept Jesus as Messiah is quite
simply one of the worst sins that a person can commit. So the idea that non-Christian Jews are
allies of Christians in a general sense is completely wrong.
No
excuse for anti-Semitism
Throughout
Christian history, more than a few people calling themselves Christians have
used Jewish rejection of Christ as an excuse to mistreat Jews. Some have claimed that because the Jews
crucified Him, Christians are justified in treating Jews harshly.
At
the present time, anti-Semitism seems to be on the rise, so I want to spend a
little time trying to counter this sort of thinking. In short, to see Jewish rejection of Jesus as
a good reason for being harsh to Jews is not only morally wrong but also logically
nonsensical. There are several points to
make here:
(1)
Throughout history, some Jews have accepted Christ as Saviour, just as some
Gentiles have done.
(2)
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus teaches us to be radical in how we love people
(Matt 5:43-47). We are to love everyone. Even when people do bad things, there is no
place for Christians treating them badly in return.
(3) At
the most fundamental level, all human beings are guilty of the crucifixion, not
Jews alone. It was the sins of all
people that drove Jesus to the cross.
(4)
It is true that Jesus came first and foremost to the Jewish people (Matt 15:24). So there is a sense in which Jews in
the first century were guilty of the crucifixion in a way that Gentiles were
not (Matt 27:25; 1 Thess 2:14-15). However,
it is not clear that today rejection of Christ is any worse from a Jew
than from a Gentile.
Just
as importantly, even if rejection of Jesus today is worse from a Jew
than from a Gentile, this is essentially a private matter between Jews and God. When a Jew rejects Christ, they are sinning
against God, not against Gentiles. It is
not the job of Gentiles to try to avenge God in this.
(5)
Not only have Gentiles not been treated badly by Jews rejecting Christ, but the
Bible says that Gentile Christians have actually benefited from this sin! In his letter to the Romans Paul makes it
clear that God has offered salvation to Gentiles precisely because Jews
rejected Christ (Rom 11:11-32).
Let
me give an analogy. Imagine the
following situation:
A
father has two sons, and he is planning to take his older son to a football
game. But this boy seriously disrespects
his father in some way, so the father decides he is no longer going to take him
to the game.
However,
he still has the ticket that he was going to use for his older son, and he decides
to take his younger son to the game instead.
So father and younger son go to the game and have a great time.
In
this situation, the younger son is hardly going to bear a grudge against his
older brother. The older boy misbehaved,
but not against his younger brother, and the misbehaviour only led to a benefit
coming to the younger boy.
Similarly,
it is completely nonsensical for Gentile Christians to bear a grudge against
Jews for rejecting Christ. Their sin in
rejecting Him was against God, not against Gentiles, and it has led to the
infinite blessing of salvation being offered to us. How can we possibly bear a grudge against
Jews for that?
For
various reasons, then, it is both immoral and absurd for Gentile Christians to
want to treat non-Christian Jews harshly for rejecting Jesus. On the other hand, however, we certainly
shouldn’t see non-Christian Jews as our allies in a general sense.
Christian
attitudes to non-Christian Jews
How,
then, should Christians relate to non-Christian Jews?
Well,
first, we are duty bound to love all people, and that goes for Jews as much as
anyone. Above all else, love for Jews
will mean praying for them to accept the salvation that is in Jesus Christ, and
persuading them to do this when we have the opportunity.
Second,
to the extent that we are convinced that events surrounding the state of Israel
are the will of God, we should speak out in support of them.
I have
worded the previous sentence quite vaguely, because personally I am very unsure
about how much of the land the Jews possessed in ancient times it is God’s will
for them to regain. This question isn’t
made any easier by the fact that in Old Testament times the amount of land the
Jews controlled varied enormously from time to time. But anyway, each Christian should follow
their conscience in this matter.
Third,
Christians need to avoid uncritically accepting the policies of the state of
Israel. And we need to speak out when we
are opposed to these policies.
For
example, persecution of Christians in Israel seems to be on the increase. There has been the recent scandalous
treatment of Eritrean Christians, who have fled to Israel from persecution in
Eritrea, only to be harshly treated there too.
And there are also recent examples of Jewish believers being persecuted
too.
Perhaps
most shocking of all is the Israeli state’s outrageous policy to refuse Jewish
Christians from elsewhere in the world the right to immigrate. Other Jews, even atheists, are allowed to
immigrate and become Israeli citizens. But
if a Jew believes in Jesus, he or she is barred. This is a policy that underlines just how hostile
the modern-day state of Israel is towards God.
Finally,
Christians should be ready to criticise some common Jewish practices too.
For
example, we know that Jesus sharply criticised the scribes and Pharisees for
weighing people down with rules and regulations that were never the will of God
(e.g., Matt 23:4). Ultra-orthodox Jews
today do exactly this, maybe even more than the scribes and Pharisees did. And we can be sure that the Lord is just as
unhappy about this now as He was in the first century.
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