The Jews: Special Vocation and Spiritual Need

Recent discussions have focused widespread attention on the degree of Jewish responsibility for the crucifixion of Christ. A pronouncement by the Archbishop of Canterbury, a resolution of the World Council of Churches, and the proposed schema discussed at the last session of the Vatican Council have all condemned as unjust and irrational the stigmatizing of the Jewish people as sinners above all men because of the participation, along with Gentiles, of some of their fathers in the rejection of Jesus Christ. It has been rightly pointed out by many that in so far as the Jewish leaders were guilty (and if we accept the New Testament accounts it is impossible to exonerate them completely), they acted as representatives of the entire fallen human race. This is all to the good and may do something to counter, all too late in the day, some of the utterly unchristian propaganda of the past that has proved so effective a stumbling block in the commendation of the Gospel to the Jewish people.

There are, however, dangers that, one error having been pointed out, others will follow in the drawing of false conclusions from the established fact, namely, the common guilt of Jews and Gentiles. Some are already beginning to argue from this premise that there is nothing special about the Jews after all; that all the talk about the special position of Israel is just poppycock; and that they represent just another religious denomination which, with a little ironing out of minor differences, might well be brought into the ecumenical movement.

More and more frequently on both sides of the Atlantic it is beginning to be said that Jews are not proper subjects for evangelism and that certainly any specifically missionary approach to them is altogether mistaken and foredoomed to failure. In the past some have objected to Jewish evangelism on the grounds that the Jew is different from all other men. God deals with him in another way. The day for his incorporation into Christ is not yet. One day, in God’s good time, without any human effort “all Israel shall be saved.” Until then the Christian Church has quite enough to do with the Gentile world, whose need is far more urgent. It is difficult to see how such ideas could ever be reconciled with the New Testament picture of the apostolic missionaries, who inevitably went to the Jew first, or with the teaching of St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans, unless one isolated statement is taken out of its context. But at least those who advanced such ideas did recognize that Israel was in some sense a peculiar people. Only a generation of Christians brought up in almost complete ignorance of the Old Testament could possibly lose sight of this fact.

Dr. Jacob Gartenhaus has said truly enough, “In all your dealings with the Jew, remember that, although he affirms that he wants to be treated like any other human being, he was, is, and ever will be aware of being a peculiar people.” However much Jews may seek to assimilate themselves to the customs and habits of their Gentile neighbors, the sense of difference remains, and, however unwillingly, the Jew cannot fail in some way or other to reveal his distinctiveness. There is no way in which he can evade his peculiar vocation as a member of the people with whom God made his solemn covenant. So long as the Jew remains in the world he is a living reminder of the age-long purposes of God. It will be recalled that as a young man Nicolai Berdyaev sought to apply the materialistic theory of history to the development of one people after another and found that it broke down completely in the case of the Jews. It is considerations of this sort that prompted Jacques Maritain to speak of “the Mystery of Israel,” a mystery which he likened to the Mystery of the Church and which caused Karl Barth to say that the Jew and his history provided the only possible “natural” proof of the existence of God.

The dealings of God with Israel reveal in microcosmic form the pattern of his dealings with mankind as a whole. Israel is chosen to fulfill the special mission of revealing the will and purpose of God to mankind. It is the ideal will of God that she should do this freely and willingly; but when she fails to cooperate voluntarily, her very disobedience is woven into the eternal plan of the God who makes even the wrath of man to praise him. Abraham, the man of faith, responds willingly to the call of God and becomes known as his friend. In Jacob, the divine wrestler has to struggle with self-will and deceit before Jacob can become Israel, the soldier of God. But the deeds of the self-willed Jacob, the deception of his brother Esau, and the flight to Laban are all woven into the divine purpose. So too the treachery of Joseph’s brethren, inexcusably criminal in itself, is turned to good account by the all-wise God. When his brethren feared that he might take vengeance upon them after the death of Jacob he replied, “… am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Gen. 50:19, 20, RSV).

This principle runs throughout the whole history of Israel in the Old Testament. Good kings like Josiah and Hezekiah have the joy of seeing the blessing come to their people through their obedience. But even the wickedness of an Ahab cannot defeat the purposes of God. Jerusalem may be laid waste, the temple destroyed, the people carried away captive into Babylon; but even these disasters can be used by the God who cries through his prophet, “I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I am the Lord, who do all these things” (Isa. 45:6b, 7, RSV). Cyrus the heathen tyrant becomes the unconscious instrument for the deliverance of His people; he is even described as the Lord’s “anointed” (Isa. 45:1).

So too in the time of Christ. John the Baptist, the last of the prophets, sounded the authentic prophetic note: “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” There were those who heeded the warning and were thus ready to welcome the true Messiah. It is noteworthy that the first disciples—Andrew, Simon Peter, James, and John—were among those who heard John the Baptist preach. Theirs was to be the joy of willingly and consciously cooperating in the mission of the Messiah. But even the treachery of Judas, the envy of the priests, and the blind opposition of Annas and Caiaphas was used by God for the fulfillment of his purpose. Pontius Pilate might seek to wash his hands of the whole matter, but he could not thus escape the role in the great drama of redemption for which alone posterity remembers him. Nor could he avoid being the unconscious instrument of Providence. Jesus rightly reminded him, “Thou couldest have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above” (John 19:11a). Pilate was a Gentile, but the principle of God’s dealing with Israel was extended to him. No one who had anything to do with God’s Christ could avoid a share in the divine plan—some willingly by their obedience, others unwillingly by their very rejection of him.

What is true of individuals is true also of the nation Israel. St. Paul makes clear that the partial blindness of Israel according to the flesh, though it cannot have been the ideal will of God, has nevertheless been used by him for the inclusion of the Gentiles. Ultimately Israel according to the flesh will also be brought in, “and so all Israel shall be saved” (Rom. 11:26a). It was the vision of the majesty and immensity of God’s plan, including both human obedience and disobedience in its sweep, that caused St. Paul to exclaim, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” (Rom. 11:33).

There is, however, another sense in which the Jew is like other men. He is like them in being a sinner, needing just as much as his Gentile brother the redeeming love of God in Christ. In this sense, “There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek” (Rom. 10:12a). The Gospel of Christ “is the power of God unto salvation … to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16). St. Paul would have given short shrift to those who suggested that it was best not to disturb the Jew, that the Jew is likely to find God more easily through rabbinical tradition than through the Gospel of Christ. Whether they realize it or not, those who advance such views have in reality finished with the Gospel. To deny the Jew’s need of salvation through Christ is in the end to deny this necessity for any man. Better to leave the Hindu to the Vedas, the Muslim to the Koran, the Buddhist to his Noble Eight-Fold Path. If we are to accept the modern relativist position, this is the logical outcome, and not only missions to Jews but missions to all who profess another faith should on this basis be regarded not only as rather bad form but also as mistaken in both policy and practice.

We have not heard the last of this issue. The question will be raised again and again, and it may well be that our attitude to the Jew and his spiritual need will prove the touchstone of our faith in the Gospel.

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