In case you missed the alarms some have been raising, anti-Semitism is doing its best to creep into the hearts and minds of America's youth, and its most alarming successes are among disaffected young men who also claim to be Christians. Though much of it is found on the wildest fringes of the internet, some of it has moved into more mainstream areas, even finding converts among ethnically Jewish Christians.
If you're curious how on earth such a thing could happen, visit the above links. I want to think about what we should say to anyone in our lives who believes this drivel.
The idea of hating Jews should be immediately offensive to Christians on two accounts: First, we're not allowed to hate anybody. Our Lord, who prayed for mercy for those who were murdering him, taught us to love our enemies, to bless those who curse us, and to pray for those who persecute us (Luke 6:27-28). Hating anyone is rebellion against his teaching and his example.
But hating Jews should be especially offensive to us because our Lord was and is Jewish.
I have seen (and will not link to) video of a "pastor" mocking the notion that he will one day bow before a Jew. Yes, he will, as will everyone else. Jesus' Jewish bona fides should be obvious to anyone who's ever read a gospel, but let's lay out the evidence.
Jesus was Jewish by birth
Two of our gospels give us the bloodline of Jesus, but Matthew starts with it. It may be the most ignored passage in the New Testament; people want to read about Jesus, but the book starts with a genealogy. Who wants to read that? But Matthew's words are important:
This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham. (1:1)
In that one sentence, we learn that Jesus is a descendent of two of the biggest figures in Jewish history. But he is more than that: he is the fulfillment of God's promises to Abraham, to David, and to Israel as a whole.
Jesus was Jewish by religion and culture
Luke's account of the birth of Jesus is immediately followed by an account of his Jewishness:
On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived. When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.” (2:21-24)
Jesus was raised by pious Jewish parents in accordance with Jewish law and custom. He lived his life as a pious Jew. When the "woman with an issue of blood" reached out and touched him, she actually touched the "fringes of his garment" (8:44) — that is, the tassels faithful Jews (then and now) put at the corners of their garments (Num 15:38-39). He observed Hanukkah (John 10:22) and kept Passover (Luke 22:7-8).
Jesus claimed to be the Jewish Messiah
It amazes me that the first person Jesus appears to have been open with about his identity was a Samaritan. Samaritans and Jews got along about as well as Israelis and Palestinians today. When Jesus met "the woman at the well", she immediately launched into a theological debate between Jews and Samaritans. Then she said,
“I know that Messiah is coming.... When he comes, he will tell us all things.”
Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” (John 4:25-26)
Jesus' enemies claimed he was Jewish
Every gospel agrees on the charge that was made against Jesus. The complaint lodged by the Sanhedrin against him to the Romans is the charge they placed over his head on the cross:
The written notice of the charge against him read: the King of the Jews. (Mark 15:26)
The Jews didn't deny he was Jewish. The Romans knew he was Jewish. Their complaint was his claim to be the King of the Jews, the prophesied son of David.
So Jesus was Jewish. Very Jewish. Not only was Jesus Jewish, every Christian was Jewish until Acts 10. It was a big deal when they started getting Gentile converts.
Objections
Some have tried to make a distinction between "Hebrews" and "Jews", saying Jesus was the former but not the latter, that there were no "Jews" until after the destruction of the temple and the Pharisees became the dominant religious group. Nonsense. The terms were used interchangeably even in the Old Testament (eg, Jer 34:9). Jesus' people were called Jews in the New Testament well before the fall of Jerusalem (eg, John 4:9, Rom 1:16).
Others will say Jews today aren't the same as Jews then, that religious and cultural practices have changed dramatically since the first century. And water is wet. Yes, their religion and culture have changed; modern Christians wouldn't recognize first (or second or third) century Christian religious practices, either. Things change; that doesn't make it acceptable to hate Jesus' cousins.
Conclusion
We cannot make Jews out to be enemies of Christ or Christians, nor can we make them out to be subhuman or hate them in any way at all.
Yes, the New Testament authors accused "the Jews" of opposing Christ (eg, John 19:14-15). And today we speak of "the Americans" or "the British" knowing full well we do not mean all Americans or all Brits but a group of them, and usually just the leaders. There were bad people among the Jews of Jesus' day; there are bad people among the Jews of our day. There are bad people who claim to be Christians. All humans are sinful, and there are evil people in every group in every generation. That does not justify broad brushing any group.
Jesus does not give us the privilege of hating anyone. Common decency does not give us the right to hate anyone. Good sense says we should not hate the people our Lord came from. We should do everything we can to send this pernicious error back to the shadows.
Recommended reading:
How the Gospel Drives Out Antisemitism
This article addresses the claim that the Bible says "the Jews" were responsible for killing Jesus.
Image via Pexels
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