"For the Sake of Their Forefathers"

"Christ Killers" and Antisemitism

Antisemitism is a grotesque affliction.  Unfortunately it seems to lurk just beneath the surface of the West, ready to spring out in full force, when times and conditions are opportune.  Antisemitism, however, requires a number of correlated beliefs in order to become a true social movement.  

One such belief is that Jewish people (abstracted into a collective noun with a definite article--"the Jews") control and manipulate most of world affairs.  Antisemitism cannot arise or survive as a movement in the West until it is linked with a conspiracy theory about Jewish influence, if not control, over virtually everything.  It goes further than the assertion that Jews control money, and banking, and international finance.  It mushrooms into the belief that "Jewish money" buys influence everywhere to the extent that all political institutions and powers do the bidding of their Jewish paymasters.

Another corollary of European antisemitism has the Jews as being ultimately responsible for all evil.  Disease, crime, public disorder, drunkenness, poverty, debauchery, and so forth--all social ills can be ultimately traced back to the insidious influence of Jewish morals, practices, and funding.  Is Greece teetering on the edge of bankruptcy?  The Jews are bleeding the country dry.  Is Europe now bailing out Greece?  The Jews have secretly influenced the bailout so as to ramp up their ruinous exploitation of Greece.  Is zika virus infecting the world?  The Jews have carefully nurtured the disease deep in their caverns of Isengard,  waiting for the right moment to infect humanity.

In the nineteenth century, as Western society rapidly became more secularised, the Jews became causally associated with all that was wrong with society.  Goldhagen comments:

The language and accusations of racist antisemitism leave no doubt that the Jew was the source of, and was more lr less identified with, everything awry in society.  As it had in medieval times, the antisemitic litany included virtually every social, political, and economic ill in Germany.  Yet in its modern form, German antisemitism attributed to Jews a new and still greater cosmological centrality.

In medieval times, to be sure, the Jews were seen to be responsible for many ills, but they remained always somewhat peripheral, on the fringes, spatially and theologically, of the Christian world, not central to its understanding of the world's troubles.  Because modern German antisemites  believes that the Jews were the prime source of disorder and decay they could assert that until the Jews were vanquished, the world would never see peace.  [Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York: Abacus, 1996),  p.67.]

It was a small step from this view to the Nazi's Ultimate Solution.

The ideology of antisemitism is a perfidious nonsense--about as perfidious and nonsensical as the doctrine that the human rights of a female justify the murder (elimination) of her unborn child.  Both alike are moral monstrosities.  Both alike have resulted in the murder of millions upon millions of people.

 The Christian faith, as ordered by Scripture, reserves a special place of respectful humility towards the Jewish people.  Romans 11 is the hammer that smashes all negative animus with respect to the physical descendants of Abraham:

So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!

Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant towards the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity towards those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.  [Romans 11: 11-22]

The hardness of the historical Jewish people towards Jeshua, their Messiah was intended by God so that the Gospel of God's mercy would extend to the entire world of the Gentiles.  We Gentiles are supported by the original root and trunk; we have been grafted in.

If we Gentiles are not faithful to Christ, like our Jewish fathers of all, we will be cut off.  Part of our faithful obedience to Christ is to maintain an attitude of humility and thankfulness towards the descendants of Abraham.

Secondly, the Bible declares that the present hardness towards Christ amongst the Jewish people is a temporary phenomenon.  They will be re-grafted back into the covenant people of God.  The mien of the Church therefore toward the Jewish people is to honour them by urging and pleading with them to receive Jeshua, their (and our) Messiah.

Lest you be wise in your own sight, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written,

“The Deliverer will come from Zion,
    he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;
“and this will be my covenant with them
    when I take away their sins.”

As regards the gospel, they are enemies of God for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.  [Romans 11: 22-32]

In the past some Christians have sought to denigrate the Jews as being particularly obdurate and pernicious.  Slogans like "Christ killers" have reverberated in the echo-chamber.  Such sentiments have no place in the light of Romans 11.  They also overlook one minor matter: the charge, if it is to be made at all, must rest firmly upon all humanity, not just upon the Jewish people.  After all the Bible leaves us in no doubt that the death of Jesus resulted from an infamous conspiracy of both Jews and Gentiles.  It could not have happened without, not just the passive consent, but the command of the Gentile authorities.  And in that complicity and command, all Gentiles were represented.

Moreover, the Gentile Christian, fearing God, knows that he is the guilty cause of the death of Christ, for "it was my sin that held Him there" on the Cross, as the poet has it.

How deep the Father's love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory

Behold the man upon a cross
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection
Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

Stuart Christopher Townend

Not a scintilla of room for antisemitism there.