Question:

Dear Rabbi,

I would agree with most of what you said in the above noted commentary ["Has God Divorced Israel? What Is the Meaning of the 'New Covenant' Promised in Jeremiah?"], except your broad sense of rejection of when the Lord did or did not establish the new covenant. My overriding concern and question for you to consider is this. Will God only save the Jews? You never ever show any salvation path for gentiles. It is here where your arguments hit the deepest rooted question. Were the Jews chosen by God as the only people to be saved? Surely this cannot be so. I would further add, your concern only for the Jews is understandable from a human perspective, but shows a rather hard hearted and unspiritual approach to God who has done so much for all of us.

Finally, your reference to the Christian commentary was rather limited as the author is only saying that the Jew does not have to abandon Judaism to believe in Jesus. It is in fact that Jesus, as you have heard and rejected, was the fulfillment of the Law so that God would bring us to a new covenant of Grace through His Son and place His Spirit in the hearts of all mankind who believe in Jesus.... The Law has NOT been set aside but has been fulfilled by the only one who could keep the Law. For surely neither you nor I nor any man is righteous enough to keep God's law in full...and one cannot stand in the judgement if he has violated any of the Law. So these issues need to be addressed in your heart and between you and God. I have come to my own deep and personal resolution with our Creator. I wish you all the rich blessings of God, especially His salvation which I feel is intended for all mankind.

Answer:

After reading your question carefully, it became abundantly clear that you have a skewed understanding of the Jewish people and our faith. You charge Judaism with holding out salvation to the Jew alone, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. Quite the contrary, it is the church which has no room in heaven for those who do not believe in Jesus, and instead of spending eternity in a lush paradise, non-Christians are relegated by the New Testament and its church to an eternal lake of hell-fire. (2 Thessalonians 1:8) Such narrow teachings, however, are alien and utterly abhorrent to the Jewish people. The faith of Israel proclaims that the merciful Redeemer holds out a distinct salvation program both for the Jew and the gentile. The faith of the children of Israel does not condemn the masses of non-Jewish humanity to everlasting separation from God, as your question suggests. Rather, our people hold out the path of righteousness to all of humanity - both Jew and gentile. I have written an article which addresses this subject in much greater detail entitled, "What is a Former Christian Minister to Do, Convert?"

Are the Jewish people proud? Yes, but we want all men to be proud. Were we chosen? Yes, but for what purpose? For power, happiness, for rest and security in our possessions? No. Rather to be a light to the nations - to show all nations an example of a people who are not afraid to stand upright on the earth. To regard no man as God, and to be the protectors and teachers of the divine oracles of the Torah. This is why we are the chosen people of God.

With respect to my comment regarding the anti-dispensationalist author Arthur W. Pink, you are being overly charitable when you defend his supersessionist position. I am going to assume that your defense of this Calvinist writer is born out of a lack of familiarity with his Christology. Bear in mind that Pink's quote1 from his An Exposition of Hebrews appears in chapter 102 which is entitled, "The Passing of Judaism." This title is quite revealing. Other section names in his book are equally telling as well. Some of his unsubtle chapter titles include "The Inferiority of Judaism" and "The Superiority of Christianity." To further illustrate this point, in his chapter, "The Passing of Judaism," Pink applauds the Bible commentator and advocate of replacement theology Matthew Henry (17-18th century) when he writes,

"We believe that Matthew Henry was on the right track when he said, 'It is by the Gospel from heaven that God shook to pieces the civil and ecclesiastical state of the Jewish nation, and introduced a new state of the church, that cannot be removed, shall never be changed for any other on earth, but shall remain till it be made perfect in heaven.' The apostle [Paul] is still supplying proof that the Hebrew believers were no longer connected with Judaism, but were to come to the antitypical Zion."2

Finally, your letter defiantly proclaims that man is unable and unfit to keep the Torah. The readers of this letter can rest assure that you did not derive this cynical teaching from the Jewish scriptures, for such an idea is unknown to the timeless message of Tanach. The Hebrew scriptures are filled with testimonials proudly describing the towering character of godly men like Abraham whom God tenderly called "My friend."3 Calev and Josiah, to name a few, knew righteousness throughout their faithful lives.4 Your statement, "neither you nor I nor any man is righteous enough to keep God's law in full" could only have been derived from the Greek letters of Paul, not the Hebrew letters of the Jewish prophets.

The fundamentalist church blindly labels the human condition as depraved, utterly incapable of meriting salvation by their own action. But shall we call ourselves wretchedly sinful? Were we not created in the image of God? Is it not an insult to God to call ourselves spiritually defective and utterly sinful? Self-criticism is good, but what is the purpose of humility and self-criticism? Is it not to learn from one's errors and do better in the future? But if we carry humility to such a point that one says that I am utterly lost and no action of mine can ever be good, then the incentive to improvement has been abolished, and excessive humility becomes an excuse for lack of effort. This is the ultimate consequence of grim Christian doctrines such as Total Depravity.

You proclaim that "Jesus was the fulfillment of the Law," but what does that really mean? Are we to understand that statement as a declaration that a Jew need not observe the life-giving commandments of the Torah? What do you mean when you assert that the Jew does not have to abandon Judaism to believe in Jesus? When you refer to "Judaism" you most certainly do not mean Jewish culture or customs such as eating bagels and lox and donning a yarmulke. We all know that Christianity has no doctrine or opinion on such matters. In fact, there have been a number of popes who have been known to put on a yarmulke every now and then and, if my sources are correct, bagels and lox are becoming a pretty big hit amongst Protestants. Clearly, when you refer to the Jew and his Judaism, you must therefore be saying that the Jew is to continue to dedicatedly observe the mitzvot of the Torah just as he was commanded. What does Jesus' alleged fulfillment of the Torah have to do with the nation who were charged to keep the Torah for ever and ever? When you reassure the Jew that he need not abandon his Jewishness, does this mean that the converted Jew is to keep the mitzvot with devotion, or can he abandon his Jewishness because "Jesus fulfilled the Law"? You can't have it both ways. This is a crucial question because a meaningful message must be attached to the statement that the Jew doesn't have to "abandon Judaism to believe in Jesus." Well, which is it? Are we to continue to observe the Torah or has Jesus somehow fulfilled the commandments so we no longer have to keep them?

I ask these questions in order to give you some insight into the spiritual schizophrenia that Christianity displays as it grapples with Jews and Judaism. And this sort of playing both sides of the fence manifests itself repeatedly when Jews are converted to Christianity. I have seen many pastors squirm in discomfort as they are confronted with this unsettling question.

I am unsure whether this letter has opened your eyes, or perhaps given you some insight into the Jew and his faith. If you ever wondered why or how the faithful remnant of Israel so stubbornly refuse to worship any man as God or abandon the precious commandments of the Torah, remember what we saw and heard more than 3,300 years ago. Before his death our teacher Moses stood at the border of the Promised Land and looked at Joshua in front of the entire nation of Israel and said, "Be strong and of good courage."

Very sincerely yours,

Rabbi Tovia Singer

Footnotes:

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1"It is exceedingly difficult, if not quite impossible, for us to form any adequate conception of the serious obstacles presented to the mind of a pious Jew, when any one sought to persuade him that Judaism had been set aside by God and that he must turn his own back upon it." (Pink, Arthur W., An Exposition of Hebrews, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI; 1984: pp. 1065.)

2Ibid., p. 1069-1070.

3Isaiah 41:8

4Numbers 14:24; II Kings 22:2


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