I’ve been asked to provide a broader scriptural background for my teaching about Jews. I’ll try to summarize critical parts of the Bible for this.
You may recall the story of King Josiah. He succeeded to the throne after Manasseh’s long paganized reign and the short, paganized reign of his father, Amon. Josiah was just the opposite of those two, having a strong zeal for Jehovah. He ordered repairs to the Temple. During the process, they stumbled across one or more of the Books of Moses, which had not been seen in at least half a century. When it was read before Josiah, he tore his robe in shock and penitence. Unsure if the text was genuine, he commanded a prophet be consulted.
That turned out to be Huldah, a prophetess. She declared (2 Kings 22:14-20) that it was the Word of God, and that the warnings God declared therein were going to fall on Judah. However, Josiah would not see the wrath first hand. Instead, it came after he died in battle.
Babylon was the agent of that wrath. We have the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, among others, fully and eloquently declaring God’s wrath as justified by the sins of the nation. Both prophets lament the hardness of heart amply displayed by the people’s actions, rejecting the warnings.
Fast forward to Stephen in his defense before the Sanhedrin (Acts 7). He recounts the long history of Israel, ignoring the grand privilege of being the one and only Chosen Nation of Jehovah, rescued from the fate of all the other nations turned over to the Divine Council at Babylon. Every step of the way, the people kept fighting God’s plans for them, not least starting at the foot of Mount Sinai with the Golden Calf. Who can comprehend the heartbreak Moses endured with the nation during the exodus?
Stephen briefly refers to the messy path of the Conquest, the rise of the Davidic Dynasty, and how Israel never quite understood that the Temple was purely symbolic. Jeremiah noted that it was the existence of the Temple that made them so arrogant, suggesting they had Jehovah over a barrel, since His house was in Jerusalem. How could He destroy His own home?
Then Stephen lowers the boom: The Sanhedrin were no better than Israel during the worst periods of her history. They kept pushing away the Holy Spirit and rejecting God’s will for their own fleshly desires. Here they were, rejecting His own Son as their promised Messiah. They didn’t even know God anymore. It was like the Sin of Jeroboam again, raising up an image of some false deity more to their liking and calling it “Jehovah”.
In Matthew 11, John the Baptist sent a pair of his disciples to Jesus. His cousin John was in prison by then, knowing he would die soon, and wanted reassurance it would come for the right reason. Had John ministered in vain? By no means; Jesus pointed out how He fulfilled the prophecies about the Messiah. Then, He turned around and praised John to the crowd near Him.
Yet, the Jewish leadership said John had a demon and Jesus was a sinner. Jesus chose a trio of towns near His current residence – Chorazin, Capernaum and Bethsaida. They symbolized the Jewish rejection of Jesus’ answer to the same question John had asked. Had Jesus been sent to the Gentiles first, like Tyre and Sidon, they would have embraced His miracles and repented immediately. Even Sodom would have responded more readily to the gospel message.
In John 8, Jesus warned the Pharisees how wrong they were about everything. They didn’t have a clue about the God who had chosen them. Instead, they had made the Devil their father (verse 44). They had left the Covenant of Moses in the dust long ago, substituting their own fleshly desires in its place. In Revelation 2:8-9 and 3:7-9, John says they were the synagogue of Satan. The religion of Judaism/Talmudism is simply the doctrine of the Pharisees carried forward.
The Covenant of Moses was nailed to the Cross. It was finished. God moved all His operations over to the Kingdom of His Son. Now, Jews must renounce their heritage, same as the Gentiles, in order to enter the Covenant of Christ. Paul insists they have one advantage: It was their home first. If they truly submit to the Messiah, they are welcomed as long-lost family. We cannot justify any bitterness toward them once they enter. By the same token, neither can they justify contempt for us Gentiles who submit to Christ as Lord.
Many Christian scholars have dug through the Talmud. There is a mountain of evidence that Judaism asserts that Gentiles are less than human. Oddly enough, secular/atheistic Jewish people still hold to that one doctrine. As far as they are concerned, the only way a Gentile deserves to live is as a slave of Jews. Their accusations of “anti-Semitism” refer simply to our failure to prostrate ourselves at their feet. Rare is the person of Jewish heritage who is humble enough to hold themselves accountable to the same standards they hold forth for Gentiles.
We will not worship them, but we will welcome them home. Until they humble themselves under Christ’s reign, we will watch and declare their wicked plans for the rest of the world and their spite for Christian faith in particular.
