How should we treat Jews? Simple question, right? Yet it has been a problem for centuries. The Israelites were taken captive several times, then kicked out of Israel for good in 70 AD, launching the Diaspora or “dispersal” of Jews around the world.
Ever a minority, Jewish people tend to have strong families and communities, and to work hard in businesses like banking, trade, law, and medicine. Such traits have made them successful and thus the object of envy. So-called Christians have been persecuting Jews for 2,000 years.
Paul is filled with intense sorrow over the people of Israel. He notes their eight blessings:
“To them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple service, and the promises. The ancestors are theirs and from them came the Messiah” Romans 9:4-5.
But Jewish people–like all people everywhere–wanted to earn salvation by works of the law. Those who reject Christ will be lost, but God will save a remnant.
“The elect will find salvation, but the rest were hardened, as it is written, ‘God gave them … eyes that cannot see and ears that cannot hear’” Romans 11:7-8.
But Paul explains that if God can save Gentiles, He can certainly save Jews. Because when Gentiles find salvation, they are branches cut from a wild tree and grafted onto Israel—but Jews are the native tree (after all, Jesus said, “salvation is from the Jews” John 4:22).
“For if you were cut off from your native wild olive and against nature grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these—the natural branches—be grafted into their own olive tree? So do not be proud … a partial hardening has come to Israel until the full number of Gentiles has come in. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience, so that He may have mercy on all. Oh, the depth of riches of both the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” Romans 11:24-33.
We are to love Jewish people. Strong families and work ethic deserve admiration. And never forget that Jesus was Jewish! Jews are GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE, the “native tree” to which we are grafted in. Jews I know who have found Christ have become amazing believers.
ΑΩ
Household Words: 