For Love of Jewish Neighbor

On Evangelism and Hatred

Introduction

It should be uncontroversial to say that, on the one hand, Christians must be sober-minded—realist, even—about depraved human nature. On the other hand, Christians should be big-hearted for the love of the one true God and all our neighbors. Whether our neighbors (whoever they may be) deserve or want our love is immaterial. Whether they can be said to need, humanly speaking, our love does not matter. We are called by divine precept and approved example to show them the love of Christ. These biblical sentiments must animate our evangelistic outreach, public discourse, and personal relations.

Somewhat provocatively, I believe that this is especially true regarding what the one true and living God—the Triune God of the Bible—requires of Christians in relation to our Jewish neighbors.

New Testament Mandate & Models

One of the great themes of Christ’s Messianic life and ministry is the salvation of those at whose hands He suffered, bled, and died. The Protestant expositor Matthew Henry (1662-1714), commenting on Matthew 20:17-19—and referencing Ephesians 2:16—wrote, “Christ suffered from the malice both of Jews and Gentiles, because He was to suffer for the salvation both of Jews and Gentiles; both had a hand in His death, because He was to reconcile both by His cross.”  And so, in His dying, our Savior spoke no imprecations, no curses, no malicious utterances of hatred and vengeance. Instead, He said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). In His living, He said, “the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10), and He faithfully prosecuted that mission to His dying breath “for the joy set before Him” (Heb. 12:2). In this, Christ perfected a model dimly foreshadowed by Moses (Exod. 32:31-32) and David (2 Sam. 18:33) before Him.

This model of self-denying, self-sacrificing ministry to Jew and Gentile alike did not end with Christ’s death, resurrection, or ascension. Indeed, it continues in the mandate He gave to His disciples as the leaders of a nascent New Covenant church. Speaking with resurrection power, Christ declared to His worshipful—yet doubtful—followers (all ethnic Jews), “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:18-20). The mission to the Jews took historical priority in this mandate (Luke 24:45–47; Acts 1:8).

The book of Acts is loosely structured around the apostolic mission first to the Jews (chs. 1-9) and then to the Gentiles (chs. 10-28). But even in the mission to the Gentiles, the apostolic pattern was to engage initially with the Jews—thoroughly Hellenized Jews in most cases, which is to say, those “traitors” to tradition—in various locales before proceeding to neighboring pagans.

The mission to the Gentiles largely belonged to the Apostle Paul. Paul described himself as “a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee” (Phil. 3:5) and “one untimely born… the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” (1 Cor. 15:8, 9), and yet a recipient of divine “apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake” (Rom. 1:5; Gal. 2:7-9). But his heart for the Jewish people, his people—who vehemently persecuted and conspired against him—was large.

It was Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles who said,

I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen (Rom. 9:1-5).

This passage is not without significant interpretive difficulty, but it seems as though Paul was motivated (at least in part) to reach the Gentiles for the sake of his Jewish “kinsmen according to the flesh.” He wrote, “For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, ‘The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob.’ ‘This is My Covenant with them, when I take away their sins’” (Rom. 11:25-27). Ben Dunson has recently (and quite ably) written on this passage and its wider context to defend the view “that in the time somewhat near the return of Christ, we should expect a dramatic and widespread conversion of Jews the world over. This will be the very means of God bringing to pass what he promised in his ancient covenants to Israel.”

Though there is an epochal gulf, theological and historic, separating the ancient Jews of Paul’s day and the Jews of modern times, the Pauline concern for the salvation of the Jews has maintained currency throughout the history of the church (for example, see Dunson’s observations toward the end of his article). It is to the pages of Christian history that we now turn to examine the tension between regarding committed Jews as religious adversaries and regarding Jews as uniquely situated neighbors in need evangelistic concern.

Historic Christian Conviction & Confusion

Generally speaking, there are two types of Christian response to the biblical passages cited above.

Some writers in Christian history have regarded Talmudic Judaism and the various iterations of modern-day Jewish faith and religion as woefully, uniquely even, opposed to Christ and His church. It must be admitted that such writers have a point. The logic of this response is that of all nations and peoples, the Jews should embrace Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, forsake their man-made traditions and hypocritical legalisms or vain innovations, and follow the Jewish Savior. Because they have not yet done so, adherents of Judaism must be decided (if not intractable) foes of Christ. However much Jews and Christians may be co-belligerents and partners in politics, culture, society, or commerce, they are not co-religionists.

Moreover, this view argues that Talmudic developments are predicated on the rejection of Christ and Christianity in a way unique among other religions. For example, even Islam claims Jesus of Nazareth (referred to as ʿĪsā rather than as Yasū’, the name preferred by Arabic-speaking Christians) as an important prophet, even if reduced to second-order status.

This response has at times expressed itself in relatively careful treatments of political theology or philosophy which sought a more-or-less limited place for Jewish religious expression and social coexistence within a majority or dominant Christian culture. Under the Cromwellian Protectorate in England, this theological appraisal of Judaism did not stop the Lord Protector from extending at least de facto tolerance to England’s Jewish populace, beginning around 1656.

At other times, this response has been coopted by hateful demagogues (i.e., antisemites) who have twisted the undeniable religious point-counterpoint of Christianity and Judaism into sensationalistic allegations of blood libel and demonization of ethnic Jews. In any case, this posture emphasizes and reiterates the belief that “the Jews” are enemies of Christians. This is the posture that might lead some to keep quiet when their Jewish neighbors are being physically assaulted by pro-Hamas rioters or berated by online trolls.

Other writers in the Christian tradition regard Jews of all varieties and degrees of religious seriousness as partners in furthering Western civilization and stand alongside them in opposition to the common foe of violent Islamism. The logic of this response is that Jews and Christians have much in common from some kind of civilizational perspective, similar fundamental cultural or civic values, religious commitment, and investment in the future through family, security, and prosperity. Sometimes this posture is political and practical, other times it is more enthusiastic and cast in religious language. This perspective is one of political and cultural co-belligerence.

The seventeenth-century Dutch diplomat and political philosopher Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) believed that “Jewish worship could be consistent with the state interest in religion, as Judaism accepted the fundamental doctrines regarding God’s existence and concern for human conduct.” Closer to home for Americans, no less a figure than President George Washington (1732-99) wrote to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island in 1790 the following benediction: “May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

Among some Christians, however, this favorable response has metastasized into an erroneous theological bifurcation of the sole way of salvation for both Jews and Gentiles. This is the posture that—when taken to an unbalanced extreme—leads some Christians into nonchalance about the spiritual condition of their Jewish neighbors and leads others to become uncritical champions of the modern nation-state of Israel and to theological errors of their own (i.e., so-called Christian Zionists, usually committed to Dispensationalism of one variety or another). But loving our Jewish neighbors by no means entails uncritical support of the state of Israel or any other foreign policy position–an obvious distinction between the private or personal and public or political, or ecclesial and secular realms.

To avoid confusion, we must avoid extremes and instead adopt a settled biblical conviction about Jews and Judaism and our evangelical, cultural, and apologetical duties regarding them.

The Westminster Larger Catechism in its teaching on what we are to pray for in the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come,” tells us that, “acknowledging ourselves and all mankind to be by nature under the dominion of sin and Satan, we pray, that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed, the gospel propagated throughout the world, the Jews called, the fullness of the Gentiles brought in” and so on (WLC 191). The proof text for the specific petition about the calling of the Jews is Romans 10:1: “Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.” The Apostle here refers to the great pulsebeat of his heart for the Jews, his “great sorrow and unceasing grief” (Rom. 9:2).

This is what the heart filled with love of Jewish neighbor looks like. Such a heart is not complacent while Jewish neighbors die in their sins and alienated from Christ, and such a heart does not tolerate violence, literal and figurative. Such a heart does not express itself in the granting of uncritical political favor to the state of Israel or in Dispensationalist fever dreams of a third Temple. A settled biblical conviction about what it means to love our Jewish neighbors will express itself in vigorous opposition to ethnic hatred of Jews without uncritically acquiescing to particular foreign policy interests or theological syncretism and compromise.

All ethnic hatred (i.e., pride) is—to adapt a phrase from the great Presbyterian Free Churchman Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847)—expelled by the new affection of truly biblical love of neighbor, including our Jewish neighbor. One of the star pupils of Dr. Chalmers was Robert Murray M’Cheyne (1813-1843), famous for his rigorous and devotional annual reading plan through the Bible. On November 17, 1839, after returning from a “Mission of Inquiry into the State of the Jewish People” commissioned by the Church of Scotland, M’Cheyne delivered a stirring sermon on Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” M’Cheyne entitled the sermon, “Our Duty to Israel,” referring, of course, to the covenantal Jewish people, not to any modern nation state yet to exist or to any political or eschatological program.

M’Cheyne organized his sermon under five headings:

1. Because judgment will begin with them (i.e., the Jews).
2. It is like God to care first for the Jewish people.
3. Because there is unusual access to the Jewish people.
4. Because they will give life to the dead world.
5. Because there is a great reward.

Nowhere in the sermon does M’Cheyne suggest that Christians should be naïve about the spiritual realities in play. Though our Jewish neighbors may scorn the Christian gospel and true religion, we are to regard them first and foremost as neighbors to love rather than as enemies to hate.

M’Cheyne says under his second point, referring to the Jewish people in the diaspora as Israel, “It is true that Israel is given for a brief moment into the hand of her enemies, but it is just as true that they are still the dearly beloved of His soul… Now the simple question for each of us (and for our beloved Church) is, Shouldn’t we participate with God in His exceptional affection for Israel? If we are filled with the Spirit of God, shouldn’t we love as He loves? Shouldn’t we engrave Israel upon the palms of our hands, and resolve that through our mercy they also may obtain mercy? (Isa. 49:16; Rom. 11:31).” This is a properly ordered and biblically defined love of Jewish neighbor as one necessary part of seeking the good (and preeminently, the spiritual rebirth and well-being) of all our neighbors.

Conclusion

I am no mighty or accomplished evangelist to the Jews. I have known of just a few Jewish men and women who have come to believe in Jesus of Nazareth as the long-awaited and prophesied Messiah. But I pray for the Jewish people, even as I pray for other people groups around the world and various missionary endeavors to reach them. And while I am no fan of the state of Israel’s foreign policy—which has too often been to the disadvantage of persecuted Christians in the Caucasus, Levant, and elsewhere—I am alarmed at what seems to be a new enthusiasm for genuine ethnic hatred directed toward Jews as a people group, especially as manifested in violent protests and physical assaults from the Left in front of synagogues and on American university campuses last year. What has especially shocked me is the apparent tolerance of such hatred in other avenues of social, cultural, and political discourse, especially from the supposed party of “tolerance,” equity, and inclusion.

What these developments showcase to me is a disturbing trend that affects far more than our Jewish neighbors. While it may be challenging to navigate present social and political tensions, we must hold fast to biblical conviction. Consider Christ’s command: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matt 22:39). Even: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:44, emphasis added).

The love advocated for here is what American Presbyterian pastor and theologian Archibald Alexander (1772-1851) referred to as the “love of benevolence.” This love is not an affection for the character of its object, but an active desiring of the happiness or overall good of its object, which necessarily and fundamentally includes spiritual good. Alexander writes, “God’s love to sinners is of this kind; and this is the kind of love which Christians are bound to exercise to all men in the world, even to those that hate and persecute them.” This is a love about which the world is utterly unfamiliar. It is a love that Christians should show to all their neighbors, without exception.

The corrupting desires and ways of this world exemplified in all forms of ethnically motivated misanthropy bear forth the fruit of “immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these… [and] those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:19-21). By the grace of God and in the power of His Spirit, wherever we open our mouths or put our hands to the work to which God has called us—in the home, the workplace, the church, or in the public square—let us reject that which is rotten, and rather embrace “the fruit of the Spirit [which] is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23).

Reject ethnic hatred and embrace a wholehearted love of neighbor and desire for his spiritual good. Reject misanthropy and pursue a properly ordered Christian philanthropy, including in that general love of man a particular love for our Jewish neighbors. Reject death and choose life. “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:24-25).

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