Old Wine

Purging All Foods

What did Jesus think about the dietary laws of the Hebrew Bible? In Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 the Israelites are told not to eat any detestable thing. Then the various animals are listed that are not to be eaten.

It’s notable that nowhere in scripture is it recorded that Jesus ate any of these forbidden meats. But that could be considered an argument from silence. What did Jesus teach his disciples about these food laws?

We don’t have any examples in the gospels of Jesus addressing these laws specifically. But we do have an example in Acts of Peter, one of Jesus’ closest followers during his years of teaching, and his view of the food laws after sitting under Jesus’ teaching for years.

In Acts 10 Peter is on his roof praying, and he has a vision of a large sheet full of animals, and hears a voice telling him to kill and eat. He refuses to do so, saying that he has never eaten anything unclean. The voice then says, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”

This is repeated two more times. Clearly Peter does not think that this is God telling him to eat. When he replies, “No way, lord”, the word for “lord”, as with the Spanish “Senor”, can also mean “sir”. Peter replies politely to the source of the voice, telling him that he’s not going to do it.

The next verse says that Peter was wondering about the meaning of the vision. Was it really about food, or something else. After being summoned to the house of Cornelius, Peter realizes that the vision is not about food, but about men. “God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean.” But it’s clear from Peter’s response to the vision that Jesus had not taught his disciples to disregard the food laws.

There is, however, a passage in Mark 7 that looks at first glance like Jesus is abolishing the food laws. In Mark 7:19 some translations say something like, “in saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.” There are a number of reasons why this cannot possibly be the meaning of the passage.

In the broader context Jesus has been criticized by some Pharisees because his disciples did not do a ceremonial hand-washing before eating. This was not a biblical command, but an oral tradition. Jesus points out that while they are sticklers for their tradition, they are breaking the actual commands of God by using a weasel-word, “corban”, to evade their responsibility to the Law to honor their parents. Jesus’ whole theme in this context is to follow the bibical Law. He’s not going to turn around a few verses later and abrogate the food laws.

Jesus teaches the crowd that nothing outside a man can make him “unclean”. The uncleanness that he is talking about is a heart condition. Later his disciples ask him about this statement. He replies to them, “Are you so dull? Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’? For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body, purging all foods.”

It is this last phrase, “purging all foods”, that some translators take as a parenthetical comment by the author saying that Jesus was nullifying the food laws. It’s a real stretch grammatically to go back two or three verses to find an antecedent for “purging” in Jesus making a statement. It’s much more natural to consider the phrase, “purging all foods” to be part of Jesus’ statement. Besides that, forbidden meats were not considered to be foods at all.

It’s also clear that Jesus isn’t talking about forbidden foods. He’s not even talking about ceremonial uncleanness. The kind of uncleanness that Jesus is talking about comes from the heart, the uncleanness of sin, of setting aside God’s Laws, as the Pharisees were doing. Sometimes the translators come to a passage with a particular agenda of what they think a passage means, and they let their preconceptions color their translation, and it ends up misleading people about what the passage actually says.

But it should be clear to an unbiased observer that Jesus held and taught the laws of God, including the food laws. Remember that he insisted that not a jot or tittle of the Law would pass away until heaven and earth disappear.

Jesus and Sabbath

Many Christians are of the opinion that Jesus broke the Sabbath commandments regularly, and thus endorsed the ignoring of the Law. I used to think that myself. But a closer study of the relevent passages changed my mind.

In every case where Jesus is accused of breaking the Sabbath, he responds to his accusers. And his response in never along the lines of “The Sabbath is no longer operational.” He always comes back with something that implies, “I know the Sabbath laws better than you do.”

Let’s look at a couple of examples. In Luke 6 there are two instances of the Pharisees accusing Jesus of breaking Sabbath laws. In the first, some of his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands, and eat the kernels. It was not Jesus doing this, but his disciples. Nevertheless, it drew an accusation from the religious leaders.

Jesus responded with a story from I Samuel 21 about David and his hungry companions receiving permission to eat the consecrated bread that was supposed to go to the priests. (Lev. 24:5-9) The point Jesus was making here was that the Sabbath regulations are flexible enough to meet human need. The moral he draws is that, “The son of man is lord of the Sabbath.” I don’t think he is referring to himself by using that title, although he does elsewhere. He clarifies in the parallel passage in Mark 2 that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” The term “son of man” is a Hebrew idiom that means the human one. He is saying that the Sabbath is not intended to cause hardship for humans, but to be a blessing.

Also in Luke 6 is the story of Jesus encountering a man with a shriveled hand while he was teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath. He knew that the religious leaders were looking to accuse him. So he asks them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?” His question is specifically about biblical Sabbath laws.

Here he is making the same point as in the previous instance, that the intention of the Sabbath is to help people, not to harm them. He knew the intent behind the laws better than they did.

There are several other examples in the gospels of the leaders being skeptical of Jesus healing on the Sabbath. But Jesus points out that they feed their animals on the Sabbath, which he parallels to his healing work.

Lest we think that Jesus really did ignore the idea of the Sabbath, or taught his followers to do so, we should note what happens after his crucifixion. At the end of Luke 23 the women who had been following him “went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.”

These were women who had been listening to Jesus teaching for months or years. If Jesus had even hinted that Sabbath commands need not be followed, they would have been the first to go to the tomb on the Sabbath, but the actions of his followers are a pretty reliable indicator of the content of his teaching.

Jesus taught his followers to observe the seventh-day Sabbath, although according to his understanding, not that of many of the religious leaders. Those who claim to follow him today should continue to follow his teaching and example in this area.

Jesus and Torah

What was Jesus’ position on the Torah, the Law of God given through Moses? It’s a question that we don’t often ask, but it’s crucial for understanding Jesus and being a follower of his.

First, Jesus was a fully Torah-observant Jew. If he were not, he wouldn’t qualify to be a sinless sacrifice. The first epistle of John (3:4) states that “Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness… And in him is no sin.” So it’s clear that Jesus kept the law in its entirety.

But did he advocate for others to keep it? There are certainly instances like when he healed a man of leprosy (Matt. 8:4), and then sent him to the priest to offer the gift Moses commanded. And after his resurrection, when he commissioned the apostles to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:19-20), the essence of that discipleship was obeying the commandments.

But the signature teaching of Jesus concerning the law is found in his Sermon on the Mount, recorded in Matthew 5. In verses 17 and 18 he says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” I can’t imagine a stronger statement of the Law’s continuity than that.

Some would say that Jesus “fulfilled” the Law by his death and resurrection, and after that it was abolished. Certainly Jesus fulfilled the Law by keeping it completely. But there are a few things to note here. One is that the Greek word for “accomplished” is not the word for prophecy being fulfilled; it literally means “until everything happens,” presumably until the end of time.

In connection with this, we should note that the time frame that Jesus refers to is not two or three years until his passion, but “until heaven and earth disappear.” If you are reading this, that hasn’t happened yet.

In addition, Jesus resorts to extreme language. He talks about the smallest letter or stroke of a letter, a jot or tittle in the old terminology. This clearly is done to add emphasis to his statement of the Law’s continuity.

There are some things that Jesus says or does at other times that some take as changing or abrogating the Law. We will look at them in subsequent postings. But his intent in this passage is so clear and emphatic that it’s impossible to mistake.

But just in case it could, Jesus continues by saying, “Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, (sounds like a lot of the Christian church) but whosoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” I want that to apply to me! Do you?

Ruth’s Example

In the book of Ruth we are introduced to a young woman who is a Gentile, a Moabite, yet she joined herself to Israel and to Israel’s God. She provides an example for those of us Gentiles who have embraced the God of Israel today.

Ruth never becomes a Jew; she is referred to throughout the book as “Ruth the Moabitess.” Yet she very specifically identifies with at least two things, the God of Israel, and the people of Israel. “Your people will be my people, and your God my God.” She becomes fully part of the covenant people to the extent that she becomes an ancestor of King David, and by extension, of the Messiah.

We see something similar in the New Testament. In Ephesians 2 Paul reminds Gentile believers in Jesus that they were once separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of the promise. But now in Christ they are brought near to God, included in citizenship in Israel, and beneficiaries of the covenants.

Paul expresses the same thing a little differently in Romans 11 where he represents believing Gentiles as wild olive branches being grafted into a cultivated olive tree. The olive tree clearly represents Israel, and through faith these Gentiles become a part of that. But they are not Jews, not cultivated olive branches. They are always wild branches that have been grafted in.

I used to think that the idea of Gentiles identifying with Israel and becoming part of the covenant people was exclusively a New Testament concept. After all, Paul emphasizes that the mystery of the gospel “is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel.” (Eph. 3:6)

But then I discovered, by the reading of an excellent book, “fellowHeirs” by Tim Hegg, that to some extent this situation had been the norm throughout the life of Israel. When Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, they were a mixed multitude. (Exodus 12:38) There were both native-born and foreigners. The Hebrew word “ger” is used to designate foreigners who had joined themselves to Israel. Many times in the books of Torah it is mentioned that there is one law for both the native-born and the foreigner. (e.g. Num. 15:14-16; Lev. 24:22)

These foreigners living among Israel and embracing God and his commands and people were analogous to the Gentile believers in Jesus in the first century. They were recipients of God’s grace and members of the covenant community.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that during the wilderness wanderings, these foreigners had multiplied and become far more numerous than the native-born Israelites. Suppose further that these foreigners turned against the native-born and started considering them as their opponents. Suppose also that these foreigners abandoned God’s Law, considering it obsolete, but still considered themselves followers of God and his promises. That would have been a major disaster. But that was essentially what happened to the Gentile church in the second and third centuries.

If we Gentile believers in Jesus understood that our identity, like Ruth and the foreigners in Israel, depended on our connection with Israel, as well as with Israel’s God, we would be less likely to, as Paul says in Romans 11:18, “boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.”

Resurrection Timing

All four canonical gospels record the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Can we determine from these accounts when during the week the resurrection occurred? I think we can.

Of the four gospels, Matthew is the only one that seems to mention actual resurrection events. The other three gospels talk about effects of the resurrection, the moved stone, the empty tomb, and appearences of Jesus. These things could have been encountered at any time subsequent to the resurrection. Matthew alone mentions the earthquake, which would have marked the time of the resurrection. So it’s to Matthew that we should go for chronological details.

Most translations of Matthew 28:1 say something like, “After the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week…”. The translators here tend to render the words based on their assumptions, rather than the underlying Greek text. There are two words in particular that they tend to translate unnaturally, to fit what they think happened.

The first of these is the word that is often translated “after”. In all the other occurrences this word means “late”, specifically, “in the evening”. If it were translated faithfully here, it would almost certainly say, “late on the Sabbath”, that is, on Saturday evening toward sunset.

Often translation errors and misunderstandings occur because we don’t understand the Jewish concept of the day as starting and ending at sunset. This is consistent with the account in Genesis where each day of creation is described as, “the evening and the morning”. That concept is key here.

The other word that is commonly mistranslated is a Greek word that only occurs twice in the New Testament. It contains the Greek word for “light”, and that makes translators think it refers to “dawning”. In reality, it is a Greek idiom that means “draw near” or “approach”. This is made clear by its only other use, in Luke 23:54. This passage refers to Jesus being taken down from the cross because the Sabbath was approaching. It was evening, and the word can’t possibly be referring to dawn.

I light of this (so to speak), the passage in Matthew 28:1 would be more naturally rendered, “Late on the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was approaching.” This would point to a time around sunset on Saturday evening. Luke points out (23:56) that after preparing spices, the women rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment. It’s only natural that they would have set out as early as they could, once the Sabbath was over, or almost over.

Another factor in favor of understanding the resurrection taking place Saturday evening is that it makes sense of Jesus’ discussion of the sign of Jonah in Matthew 12:40. “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

It’s impossible to get three days and three nights into a time frame of a Friday evening crucifixion and a Sunday morning resurrection. But with a Saturday evening resurrection, we can calculate backwards to a Wednesday evening crucifixion, and have three days and three nights.

But wasn’t Jesus removed from the cross because the Sabbath was approaching? Yes, but this wasn’t necessarily the weekly Sabbath (Saturday). The first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (the day after Passover) was to be regarded as a Sabbath, and no work was to be done on it. This day was apparently on a Thursday that year.

From the account in the gospel of Matthew, we see that it’s very likely that the resurrection of Jesus occurred shortly after sunset on Saturday evening. There were no doubt encounters and appearances to various people at several times during the night and morning, as recorded in the gospel accounts. But it makes sense to think of the resurrection actually occurring immediately after the Sabbath, on Saturday evening.

Sunday Observance

It comes as a surprise to many, but there is not even a hint in the New Testament of Sunday being a special day, let alone a replacement for God’s chosen Sabbath. Certainly the first day of the week is mentioned a few times, but every time, without exception, the significance of the mention is that it is not the Sabbath.

The first day is mentioned in the gospels in connection with the resurrection narrative. I can’t prove it, but it seems very likely to me that the reason God waited until after the Sabbath to raise Jesus is that he didn’t think it was appropriate to do on the Sabbath. It did represent his day of rest, after all.

But aside from the resurrection accounts, there are only two mentions of the first day in the New Testament, one in Acts 20:7 and the other in I Cor. 16:2. Neither one involves a gathering for worship.

In the Acts 20 passage we see Paul arriving to join his companions at Troas. Paul was in a hurry to continue on to Jerusalem for the feast of Shavuot (Pentecost), as all Jewish men were commanded in Deuteronomy 16:16 to go to Jerusalem three times a year. He wouldn’t be leaving on the Sabbath, so he planned to set sail the day after the Sabbath, what we would think of as Sunday.

Acts 20:7 says, “On the first day of the week we came together to break bread.” Our first reaction, given our culture, is often that this was a Sunday morning communion service. But we need to remember a couple of things. First, the Jews reckoned a day as being from sunset to the next sunset, consistent with the Genesis account of creation, where “the evening and the morning” were the first day. This gathering in Acts 20 occurs fairly late in the evening, since Paul continues talking until midnight. It seems obvious that this is a late Saturday evening gathering.

The second thing we need to be aware of is that preparation of cooked food was forbidden on the Sabbath. In order to have a banquet for Paul’s going-away, they needed to wait until after the Sabbath to prepare the food. Since this was in early spring, just after the feast of unleavened bread, sunset would bave occurred about six o’clock. Then, with an hour or two to cook the food, they could have gathered about eight or nine in the evening.

We also need to be aware that the phrase “break bread” is an idiom for having a meal together. It is used several times in the gospels and Acts. Nowhere does it clearly mean taking communion, and in some places it can’t possibly mean that. It’s more natural to take this event as a pot-luck supper on Saturday evening to celebrate Paul’s departure.

The passage does say that Paul talked until midnight, which might make us think of a long sermon, especially since somebody fell asleep and fell from a window. But the primary Greek word for Paul talking is the word from which we get the word “dialogue”. It’s likely that Paul was not giving a speech, but just conversing with other people there.

To repeat, the reason this gathering was held on the “first day of the week” was because hot food was not to be prepared on the Sabbath, so another day had to be chosen.

The other mention of the first day is in I Cor. 16:2 and the circumstance is similar. It was the understanding of Jews that money was not to be handled on the Sabbath. So Paul instructs his readers to put aside money weekly, i.e. on the first day of the week, so it will be ready when he comes.

This is not an offering in a meeting, but a setting aside of money at home on a regular basis, perhaps on payday. Paul is encouraging people to make a voluntary contribution toward the needy in Jerusalem.

There is one more passage that bears mentioning. In Revelation 1:10 the author writes, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” It’s true that Sunday began to be called “the Lord’s day”, but that was considerably later than this time. Since the subject of the book of Revelation is the events of the time the prophets called the “day of the Lord”, it seems best to take the statement as John saying that he was spiritually transported to a future day of judgment.

Those who try to use these passages to support a practice of revering Sunday as a special, divinely-favored day are doing it without any biblical warrant whatsoever. God designated the seventh day as the Sabbath at the time of creation, and reiterated it at the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai. Jesus and the apostles kept the seventh-day Sabbath, and as his followers, we are expected to do so as well. Even the writer to the Hebrews reminds us of this when he writes, “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God.” (Heb.4:9)

Jesus and the Pharisees

In the gospels and Acts we run into a group of people called Pharisees. The accounts of them are mixed. Jesus had interactions, both positive and negative with them, and had some harsh things to say about some of them. But many of us tend to form our opinions based on the negative things, and disregard the positive things.

In the gospels we see Jesus accepting the hospitality of the Pharisees on more than one occasion. In Luke 7 a Pharisee named Simon invited Jesus to eat with him, and they had a fruitful discussion. Again in Luke 14 Jesus was invited for a Sabbath dinner in the house of a prominant Pharisee.

Jesus does have some harsh things to say about some of the Pharisees. But we need to notice that the Pharisees are mostly absent from the accounts of Jesus’ final days. His opponents at that time were mostly the scribes and priests, the temple authorities.

In the book of Acts, Pharisees are mostly the good guys. In Acts 5 the disciples were being persecuted by the Sadducees and priests, and a Pharisee named Gamaliel stands up to defend them and persuades the priests not to jail them.

In Acts 15 many of the believers in Jerusalem were said to be Pharisees. They do try to make a point that Gentile believers should convert to Judaism, which Paul and the apostles refute.

Later in Acts Paul visits Jerusalem again, and is arrested and brought before the Sanhedrin. Here he makes the statement that he is a Pharisee (present tense), and is being accused for defending things that the Pharisees support. (23:6)

In another place in Acts he is talking to Agrippa about the Jews accusing him, and says, “They have known me for a long time and can testify, if they are willing, that according to the strictest sect of our religion, I lived as a Pharisee.” (26:5) Paul here not only claims a background as a Pharisee, but describes Pharisaism as a “sect of our religion”. Clearly the “our religion” that he is talking about is Judaism.

But the main point that I want to make is how Jesus talks about the Pharisees. We often get the impression that the Pharisees were pushing for people to follow the law strictly, while Jesus was more lenient. That, however, is not what the text tells us. In fact, if we look closely, we see almost the opposite.

In Matthew 23, where Jesus gives a lengthy speech calling some of the Pharisees hypocrites, we often pass over what Jesus says at the beginning of this portion. “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.” (23:2-3)

Most Christian readers tend not to take this statement of Jesus seriously. But as Jesus calls them hypocrites, we need to remember what a hypocrite is. It is commonly accepted to be someone who claims to uphold a certain standard, but doesn’t live by it. And that was exactly what Jesus was accusing the Pharisees of doing, claiming to live according to God’s law, but falling short of that in practice.

In Matthew 23:23 Jesus says that they tithe their spices, which they ought to do. But they neglect the more important matters of the law, justice, mercy and faithfulness. Yes, Jesus is accusing these Pharisees of not following the law closely enough.

The same thing happens in Mark 7 when some Pharisees accuse the disciples of not doing a ceremonial hand-washing before they ate. Jesus points out that these were traditions, not scripture. But he accuses the Pharisees of avoiding the commands of God in the law. The example he gives is that instead of supporting aging parents, they claim to be piously giving that money to the temple. Jesus calls this nullifying the word of God.

This image of Jesus pushing for closer obedience to the Torah than the Pharisees did runs contrary to the picture of Jesus that many of us hold. But that is how the gospels portray him. In Matthew 5, after commending the law and those who practice and teach it, he says, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees…, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (5:20)

It’s certainly true that one point he’s making is that nobody is good enough to earn his way to heaven. But Jesus is also clearly holding up the law of God as a model for how his followers ought to live.

Fiscus Judaicus

We’ve seen that by early in the second century, many believers in Jesus, especially Gentiles, no longer considered their faith to be a branch of Judaism, as Paul had considered it. What would account for such a drastic change in perspective in so short a time?

One of the main causes of this about-face seems to be the Fiscus Judaicus, a tax that Rome imposed on Jews. Shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., Rome, under emperor Vespasian, enacted this tax, which amounted to two days wages per year for everyone between three and sixty years of age. For a family, this would have been the equivalent of thousands of dollars in our currency.

The important thing to consider is, “Who was a Jew?” The collectors of the tax had every incentive to collect the tax from as many as possible. It was purposely targeted toward those who lived Jewishly, even if they claimed not to be Jews.

Many believers in Jesus who were ethnically Jews would have seen no option but to pay the tax, since they would have been considered traitors to their people if they refused. The big issue is how Gentile believers would have responded. They had been living Jewishly, biblically, but they didn’t consider themselves Jews. The temptation would have been great to distance themselves from Judaism in order to save a lot of money.

It’s almost inevitable that under these circumstances the trend would be toward developing non-Jewish, even anti-Jewish traditions. They would need to leave the synagogues and find a justification for worshiping on a different day of the week than the biblical (Jewish) Sabbath. They would need to develop different holy days than the biblical festivals. They would even need to define their religion as something different from, even opposed to, Judaism.

All of these things occurred within a remarkably short span of time. Some of the writings of Paul were ambiguous enough that they could be taken as teaching against Torah obedience. These were embraced and made the core of anti-Torah theology.

One of the evidences for this quick change in lifestyles of Gentile believers was a letter written to the Emperor Trajan by Pliny the Younger, a provincial governor, about 110 C.E. This letter describes Christians without any references to Jews or Jewish practices. It’s clear that by this time they were considered a totally separate religion from Judaism.

There is a really helpful in-depth treatment of the Fiscus Judaicus and its effects. It is by Christopher O’Quin and it can be found at https://www.torahresource.com/EnglishArticles/Fiscus%20Judaicus.pdf .

It is really sad that so many believers in Jesus were willing to deny such a large part of their spiritual identity, and doom centuries of their descendents into doing the same. But economic pressures are powerful incentives.

It is up to each one of us to study the New Testament to determine what Jesus and the apostles taught, rather than relying on centuries of Christian tradition.

Christianity’s Wrong Turn

We’ve seen how the New Testament, as well as the Hebrew scripture, views the Jewish people as God’s chosen people. Jesus was seen as the culmination of the prophetic expectations of the Jewish people and God’s covenants with them. Non-Jews could, like Ruth of old, become identified with the covenant community by embracing its God and its people.

This was the view that was held during apostolic times. Paul warned the Gentile believers in Rome not to be arrogant in regard to the Jews, because they were metaphorically grafted into the Jewish olive tree. They did not support the root, but the root supported them. (Romans 11:18-20)

Unfortunately, as the number of Gentile believers grew in the first few centuries, the bulk of believers began to identify their faith as “Christianity”, a faith separate from, and even opposed to, Judaism. The people with whom they were made fellow citizens through Christ’s death (Eph. 2:19) were now considered to be hated enemies. There were several reasons for this turn of events that we will consider in later posts. But we need to realize that nascent Christianity embraced an anti-Jewish, anti-Torah theology within the first few centuries of its life, in contrast to the New Testament viewpoint.

In 325 C.E. the emperor Constantine called a council at Nicea. One of the purposes of this council was to establish a way of calculating the date for Easter that had nothing to do with Passover. In his letter to the churches after the council, Constantine writes, “Let us then have nothing in common with the most hostile rabble of the Jews… Let us withdraw ourselves… from that most odious fellowship… that we may have nothing in common with the usage of these parracides and murderers of our Lord.” In this letter Constantine essentially ordered the churches to ignore the biblical dating of the 14th of the lunar month of Nisan for the basic reason that it was Jewish, and therefore evil.

These anti-Jewish views appeared even earlier in the history of the church, including in the Epistle of Barnabas and the writings of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Marcion in the second century.

During much of its history, the church was one of the foremost persecutors of the Jews, which was no doubt responsible for the fact that few Jews acknowledged Jesus as the promised Messiah. This persecution was especially strong during the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition.

The Reformation, though it brought some positive results, did not significantly affect the view within Christianity regarding Jews. Martin Luther was one of the strongest Jew-haters. Toward the end of his life, he published a pamphlet titled, “Concerning the Jews and Their Lies”, in which he urged people to burn synagogues and destroy Jewish dwellings. His writings in many ways anticipate the actions taken during the Nazi Holocost in the 20th century.

Much of current Christianity does not hold such negative views of Jews, but these views are not hard to find. It’s a far cry from a Jesus and Paul who lived and taught entirely within 1st century Judaism and thought of their faith as a branch of Judaism. (Acts 24:14) It is so ironic that God’s people, who received the covenants that believing Gentiles were invited to share, came to be regarded as a hated enemy. May God forgive us.

New Testament View of Jews

It should go without saying that the Jews are God’s chosen people. Both the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament attest to that.

In Genesis 12 God spoke to Abram, told him to go to Canaan, and promised to make him into a great nation, bless him, and bless all peoples through him. After he separated from Lot in chapter 13, God promised him the eternal possession of all the land he could see. Similar promises were made to Isaac and Jacob (Israel).

In speaking to Moses, God introduced himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Ex. 3:15). He said he would take Israel as his own people and be their God (Ex. 6:7). He promised not to reject them in spite of their sin (Lev. 26:44).

Fast forward to the prophets. Virtually all of the prophets envision the ultimate triumph of God’s kingdom through Israel in Jerusalem and the surrounding area.

Perhaps the most specific is the prophet Jeremiah. Immediately after sharing God’s plan for a new covenant, he assures Israel of God’s faithfulness to them. “‘Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done,’ declares the Lord.” (Jer. 31:37)

He goes on to repeat this promise several times in chapter 33. “This is what the Lord says, ‘If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed laws of heaven and earth, then I will reject the descendants of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of his sons to rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.'” (Jer. 33:25-26)

It is perhaps no surprise that the Hebrew scriptures portray the Jews as God’s covenant people. But many people are surprised to find that the New Testament conveys the same message.

From his birth, Jesus is portrayed as a Jew, as the King of the Jews. (Luke 1:32-33) In his visit with the Samaritan woman, Jesus told her that salvation is from the Jews. (Jn. 4:22) Before his ascension, the disciples, who had listened to his teaching for years, asked him if he was now going to restore the kingdom to Israel. He had proclaimed himself as the son of David. His answer basically amounted to, “Not yet, but later.”

The apostle Paul was very affirming of the Jewish people and their culture. His religious self-identification was as a Jew (Acts 24:14) and even a Pharisee (Acts 23:6)

In his epistle to the Romans, Paul starts out by declaring that the gospel is first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. In chapter 3 he affirms that there is much value in being a Jew, because they were entrusted with the very words of God.

In chapter 11 of Romans he devotes an extended passage to the position of the Jews. First, he denies in the strongest possible terms that God has rejected Israel as his people. Certainly, not all of Israel was embracing Jesus as Messiah, but Paul pointed out that that was God’s doing in order to give the Gentiles a chance to come to him. In fact, Paul predicts that in the future all Israel will turn to Jesus. God’s calling of Israel is irrevocable.

Paul portrays Israel as an olive tree. Those Jews who don’t acknowledge the Messiah are like branches that are broken off. Gentiles who believe in Jesus are like wild olive branches that are grafted into the tree. They are still wild branches, but they become a part of the tree. Paul specifically warns the Gentiles not to boast or be arrogant in relation to Jews. They are beloved of God on account of the patriarchs.

In his epistle to the Ephesians Paul strikes the same chord. He explains that Gentiles were without citizenship in Israel, and thus without God. (Eph. 2:12) But in Jesus they are brought near to Israel and to God. They are combined with Israel into one people of God, here represented as a building. He describes this idea of Gentile believers being co-heirs with Israel as the mystery of the gospel, which had not been previously revealed.

It should be clear from the entirety of scripture that the Jewish people are God’s special people, selected by his mercy, and promised that they as a nation would never be otherwise. Followers of Jesus have not always held that view, but it’s clearly the teaching of the New Testament.