The Gospel and the Jew

The recent strictures of Professor Niebuhr on Jewish missions have touched off a controversy on both sides of the Atlantic which as yet shows no signs of dying down. This is hardly surprising since the issues involved are even greater than might at first have been supposed. At stake is not only the justification of missions to the Jews but, ultimately, of all Christian missionary activity. It requires only slight adaptation of Niebuhr’s argument to suggest that the missionary approach is unsuitable for Moslems (as has been “proved” by the results, possibly more meager even than in the case of the Jews) and that the Moslem is more likely to find God within the pages of the Koran than in the environment of the Christian Church to which he has inherited a deep-rooted hostility. It would not be difficult to pass on to Buddhism and say that while Buddhism is very different indeed from Christianity, having in fact no doctrine of God at all, its founder was a man of conspicuous holiness whom some have not felt able to compare unfavorably with the Founder of Christianity. Some will claim that Buddhism has produced many saintly characters and that it may well stand for an alternative world view, perhaps contradictory on the surface but actually complementary to that of Christianity and more suited to the mystical temperament of the Oriental.

THE WAY OR A WAY?

The vital question, therefore, is whether the Christian Gospel is fundamental, a message vital to all men which must be passed on at all costs, or whether it is one of a number of alternative methods of approach to God. Briefly, was Jesus Christ “the Way” or “a way” (in which case there might well be others)?

The paramount importance of this question came home to the present writer a few weeks ago as guest speaker at the Sabbath “Kiddush” (Friday evening ceremonial meal) of the Cambridge University Jewish Society. After the meal, as the Sabbath candles burned low and the “Hallel” had been sung, I was allowed to stand and speak of my faith for about half an hour. So far as I knew I was the only Christian in a room filled with 70 to 80 Jews. When the address was over the questions began, and from one after another came the inquiry, “What is it in your Christian faith that we cannot find in Judaism at its best?” A question like that forces a man to think furiously and searches him to the depths of his soul. Yet there is no doubt about the answer. It is Jesus Christ, not “What?” but “Who?” It is he who is all in all to the Christian believer; it is he who cannot be found in any other religion, not even in Judaism, despite its roots in the Old Testament.

THE GREAT CLIMAX

What is true of the Jew is true also of the Moslem, the Buddhist, and all the others, however sincere and earnest they may be in their “search for truth.” They do not know Jesus Christ. Since, however, the Jew has so much—the Old Testament, the Psalter, belief in the one true and living God, and much else in common with the Christian, it is by examining what he lacks that we can best illustrate the point we are making.

It is frequently argued that the need of the Jew is less urgent than that of other men since he has the Bible to guide him. This is a very dangerous half-truth.

He has the Old Testament, that is true; however, it is chiefly the Pentateuch with which he is most familiar. He will sing the Psalms in Hebrew if he attends the Synagogue. He may hear passages from the Prophets, though some of the most significant, Isaiah 53 for example, are seldom if ever read.

But without a knowledge of Christ, he will find the Old Testament a jig-saw puzzle without the clue that gives it any real meaning. Since it is the inspired Word of God the Jew may indeed hear the voice of God in its pages, and the law may still be a “schoolmaster to bring him to Christ.” However as a rule, the veil is upon his eyes “when Moses is read.”

More than this he lacks the fuller revelation of the New Testament. It is true that more Jews are reading this book today than ever before. It is even used as a textbook in some of the secular Israeli schools. But the Jew is all too often blinded by prejudice to its true meaning. To the Christian who has so often heard the voice of the Spirit through its inspired pages, the New Testament has become one of the most treasured possessions. How can he justify a policy which would deny the Jew access to this book, or at least would prevent his having its true meaning explained to him? Yet this is surely what abandonment of the missionary approach would mean.

IGNORANCE OF JESUS CHRIST

The Jew does not know Jesus Christ. True, he may know of Jesus of Nazareth as an historical personage. Nearly every educated Jew has some knowledge of him today and a surprising number have read the New Testament. But he does not know Jesus Christ.

He does not know him as the Supreme Revealer of God. The Old Testament prepared the way for that revelation “line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little.” But if no more were needed, the Incarnation was surely superfluous and we may well ask with Anselm “Cur Deus homo?” The Christian must ask himself whether he takes seriously such words as “no man cometh unto the Father but by me” and “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” If he does then surely there can be no doubt of the urgency of passing on the knowledge of Christ to all men, whatever their race or creed.

Furthermore the Jew does not know Christ as Redeemer. Before the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70, the people of Israel had their priesthood and sacrificial system. For the Christian it is no coincidence that so soon after the offering of the “One true, perfect, and sufficient offering and satisfaction” the symbolic sacrifices ceased to be. “Types and shadows have their ending for the newer rite is here.” For the Jews, however, the disappearance of the Temple and its sacrifices constituted a formidable problem. Even though Judaism is often said to deny original sin, the Jew has never doubted that man is a sinner who cannot lightly approach an all holy God. What then is to be done? First he must seek to keep the divine Law in its entirety. Thus the Decalogue is broken down into the 613 precepts which the pious Jew is required to keep every day. It is of this obligation that he reminds himself every time he binds his phylacteries on his arm and forehead, every time he places “the mezuzah” on his door post or wraps his “talith” around his shoulders. Yet, knowing the frailty of man he can but fail. The experience of Saul of Tarsus, “the good that I would I do not and the evil that I would not that I do,” is common to all men and the Jew is no exception. Hence he keeps his annual Day of Atonement after 10 days of heart searching at the start of the New Year, when it is believed, his record is being examined by the all holy God.

Robbed of its sacrificial character (although in some places that is recalled by the ceremonial slaughter of a cock for a man and a hen for a woman), the Day is one of fasting and prayer. After 24 hours of penitence the Jew must go back to the world with all its temptations, trusting that he is “sealed for the New Year” but in the last resort flinging himself upon the mercy of God who, he trusts, will not lay his sin to his charge. There is no clear message of forgiveness such as that heard by the Christian in the words, “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.”

Yet again the Jew does not know Christ as Risen Lord. For the Jew he is a figure of history, a man who has been dead for nineteen hundred years. He has no knowledge at all of the risen Christ. No Jew can understand what the Christian means when he sings that “warm, sweet, tender even yet a present help is he.” Still less has he any comprehension of the doctrine of the indwelling Christ which lay at the heart of the spiritual experience of St. Paul: “I live yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Anyone who for years has fought a losing battle against temptation and then at last has discovered the secret of victory contained in this doctrine will realize the parlous state of those to whom the doctrine is entirely foreign.

Finally the Jew does not know Jesus Christ as Returning King. For him the Messiah has not yet come though, in his creed, he still confesses his faith in his coming. “I believe,” says the Creed of Moses Maimonides, “that Messiah shall come and though he tarry yet will I wait for him.” He clings almost pathetically to his belief that Judaism has a future mission to the world and that the Messianic age, whatever form it may take, will yet bring peace and prosperity to mankind. One finds, however, the hope becoming desperately thin—particularly since the awful possibility of nuclear catastrophe has become recognized. True, the Christian has often been unsure of his own ground in this matter. Yet, if he is true to the message of the New Testament, however much room there may be for disagreement over details he cannot doubt that in the end Jesus Christ, the true Messiah will come again to set up his Kingdom. This and this alone is the true ground of hope in the face of the menace of the bomb.

Here then is the unavoidable question: Are these doctrines of Christ as Revealer, Redeemer, Risen Lord and Returning King fundamental or optional? If the latter, then indeed we have no Gospel to preach. But if the former, then faced with Jew, Moslem, Buddhist, or anyone else, the convinced Christian must surely cry, “Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel!”

Jacob J. Vellenga served on the National Board of Administration of the United Presbyterian Church from 1948–54. Since 1958 he has served the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. as Associate Executive. He holds the A.B. degree from Monmouth College, the B.D. from Pittsburgh-Xenia Seminary, Th.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and D.D. from Monmouth College, Illinois.

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