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feelinahole
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Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 754

Posted 1/21/2004 6:50 AM (GMT -6)

I've been reading "The Gospel According To Moses" which is an excellant book, but it has brought a question to my mind:
In one part the author says about Jews and Christians: "In short, we continue to love the same God, in spite of two millennia spent growing in different directions from our mutual roots," but in the next chapter, he quotes a Jewish person as saying she couldn't worship Jesus because that would be idolatry. I guess my question is can a person be loving towards God (from a Christian perspective), if they reject Jesus?

DLW
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 1/21/2004 7:05 AM (GMT -6)

Short answer: Because the Jewish understanding of Christianity is colored by centuries of where the Christian ecclesiastical establishment had anti-semitism institutionalized.

And so to worship Jesus is misconstrued as accepting that the body that had persecuted them for so long was right and perhaps justified in seeking to convert them, one way or another.

In my interactions with Jewish people, I do not press for conversion but rather reconciliation. I also emphasize a thorough-going fallibilism among Christian leaders in the traditions, which are never derived from scripture and cannot simply be just like the early church, that inevitably guide how we let our lights shine in the world.

dlw

Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes."

feelinahole
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Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 754

Posted 1/21/2004 8:08 AM (GMT -6)

SO given your answer and given that Peter said in Acts that there is no other name under by which man may be saved (meaning Jesus), does view give Jews a pass as far as Jesus is concerned? Does it give anyone a pass who has ever been hurt by the church? It would seem that you are more concerned with recolcilaition than salvation.
Again, it comes back to my question: do Jews worship the one true God, if they reject Jesus?

Tigress
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Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252

Posted 1/21/2004 9:04 AM (GMT -6)

Jesus said that no one could go to the Father except by Him (Jesus). So, anyone who rejects Jesus' salvation for them will not be able to stand in the Father's Presence. Any person whether, Jew or Gentile, who rejects Jesus cannot be in God's Presence, which is heaven.

Many Gentiles believe in God or a god but they don't always believe in God's Son or that they need that plan (God's plan) for salvation. Their faith is therefore incomplete because they won't accept God's plan for their way to be close to Him. Any Jewish person who believes in God but does not accept His Son is no different. Their faith is incomplete as well, so they can't be close to the Father either.

Only a Jew or a Gentile who accepts God's Son, Jesus, and His work of salvation for us, can be in God's Presence.

Tigress

"Name a shrub after me. Preferably one that's prickly and difficult to eradicate."

-Captain Jack Aubrey
"Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World"

DLW
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 1/21/2004 9:54 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Originally posted by feelinahole

SO given your answer and given that Peter said in Acts that there is no other name under by which man may be saved (meaning Jesus), does view give Jews a pass as far as Jesus is concerned? Does it give anyone a pass who has ever been hurt by the church? It would seem that you are more concerned with recolcilaition than salvation.

It is only because of Jesus' atoning sacrifice that a Jew's relationship with G-d can be complete. However, G-d knows their hearts and whether they would have become "Christians" if it had not been for the cr-p-filled situation of Jewish-Christian relations due to our fallen history together.

quote:

Again, it comes back to my question: do Jews worship the one true God, if they reject Jesus?

Rejecting Jesus for many Jews practically means rejecting Christian ecclesiastical institutions. There are strong historical reasons they do this.

But one does not have to have right theology to have a right relationship with G-d. And the fact that it is possible for someone to have such a relationship outside of Christianity doesn't let us off the hook from being obedient to Jesus' command for us to go and make disciples of all nations. We just have to remember it doesn't mean go and make Swedish-Pietist-Baptists of all nations or get them to accept one very hierarchical ecclesiastical institution as God's main representative on earth.

dlw

feelinahole
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Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 754

Posted 1/21/2004 10:11 AM (GMT -6)

So are you saying that a person can reject Jesus for valid reasons and still be in a right relationship with God? I am not sure what "right theology," you are talking about, but are you saying that a person can reject Jesus and then get into heaven because they are rejecting Jesus because of what someone represented Jesus as? Don't you think that Jesus would make himself presentable to such a person? And given that Jews today do accept Jesus inspite of the past sins of the church make such discussions invalid (just as ancestors of slaves today are Christians even though the church of the time was overly racist).
And if Jesus is the only way, doesn't that make us want to convert all people including Jews, regardless of what happened in the past. And don't honest seekers regardless of what happened in the past, want to know the truth, regardless of its source?

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 1/21/2004 11:38 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Originally posted by feelinahole

So are you saying that a person can reject Jesus for valid reasons and still be in a right relationship with God?

I am saying that our past has affected the jewish people's perception of Christianity and led many to reject Jesus by association.

quote:
I am not sure what "right theology," you are talking about, but are you saying that a person can reject Jesus and then get into heaven because they are rejecting Jesus because of what someone represented Jesus as? Don't you think that Jesus would make himself presentable to such a person?

I'm sure Jesus would be able to do that, but given the long-standing problems, G-d does know their hearts and G-d's covenants with them have not been revoked and so their relationship is real and they will go to heaven.

quote:
And given that Jews today do accept Jesus inspite of the past sins of the church make such discussions invalid (just as ancestors of slaves today are Christians even though the church of the time was overly racist).

Sure there are more Christians of Jewish ethnic background today, but that doesn't mean the previous issues have gone away. I do think that messianic jews should be able to share their faith with other jews more openly than I could.

quote:
And if Jesus is the only way, doesn't that make us want to convert all people including Jews, regardless of what happened in the past. And don't honest seekers regardless of what happened in the past, want to know the truth, regardless of its source?

We are to make disciples of all nations. The issue is how to go about that. I said I don't try to convert Jewish people, that doesn't mean that I wouldn't share the Gospel with them if they approached me.

When you have so much baggage, you first need to deal with the baggage then later the witnessing through how one lives one's life will have an impact.

dlw

Laplace
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 138

Posted 2/11/2004 10:30 AM (GMT -6)

Interesting topic, and one I've thought a lot about.

I will say from those I've known to have lived in Israel, when they hear the word "Christian" most immediately equate that with the words "Roman Catholicism". A gasp of unbelief? It does explain a lot of the suspicion among Jews though.

Are Jews saved as a whole though, despite the fact they reject Jesus as the Messiah? Well, for one, I believe there is strong evidence that in general, not all Jews are saved. Jesus himself points this out that simply saying "We have Abraham as our father" does not qualify one into the Kingdom. And looking through the Bible we see many Jews who certainly weren't in favor with God.

It's interesting to note though that Jesus was sent to the Jews first, and I think this in part to reconcile Israel with God, to fulfill prophesy, and to be a light to the world for the Gentiles.

Jesus however laments the fact that many Jews have rejected Him as Messiah and because they have had more revalation from God would be judged more harshly than those who did not.

I believe the Bible makes it clear that without Jesus, one cannot be saved. "And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. (I John 5:11-13).

However, that does not automatically imply that all those who have never heard of Jesus will not be saved. Obvious examples are those before Jesus' arrival, and Romans states that everyone has some sense of God with sufficient light for salvation.

For many Jews though, they reject Jesus as the Son of God and as the Messiah. And Jesus Himself said that rejecting Him means rejecting the one who sent Him (The Father) who they do believe in.

So in the end as stated before, it all comes down to what a person has in his/her heart. Only God knows the eternal state of a person. It is ironic though that the one who will judge everyone (Jew and Gentile) will be Jesus Himself (John 5:22).

"I say we blast the meatbag, Master" -HK-47, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

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