gt5614b@prism.gatech.edu (Butera, Robert J.) (04/10/91)
I have two questions about the relationship between Christians and the
Jewish people. Since I'm new to this group, I feel that they may have
been discussed already, so please respond via Email if redundant.
1) What is a good Christian attitude toward the salvation of the
Jewish people? I could take the New Testament as it is, which
says quite clearly that those who don't acknowledge Jesus Christ
as our savior will not achieve salvation. But others have told me
that the Jews are God's chosen people and He has His own plans for
them.
2) I've heard many say that we Christians are not "under the law", and
thus not subject to the much of the customs and observances in the
Old Testament. Please provide me with scriptural support for this.
Also, if this is so, how do we know what to follow from the OT and
what not to? (I know that this a virtually textbook question for
a well versed Christian and I've heard the answer, but my mind slips
me right now!)
--
Robert John Butera Jr., aka "Knome" | "Indeed, one can reasonably argue
Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA 30332 | that total objectivity can only
uucp: ...!{...}!gatech!prism!gt5614b | be the product of total indifference
ARPA: gt5614b@prism.gatech.edu | or total ignorance" -- Jody Powell
[Since we seem to be in the middle of a discussion on point 1, I guess
this posting is relevant. Point 2 is sort of a commonly-asked
question. I think we've dealt with it fairly recently, so I'm not
sure whether we want to restart that discussion.
As you say, the case that those who don't acknowledge Christ as savior
is pretty obvious. There are two major responses that I know of, one
of which is specific to Jews. (1) The general one is that it may be
possible to come to know Christ in your heart without specifically
knowing that it's Christ. (Rom 1 and 2 are sometimes cited as
justifying this argument.) It seems that a number of people believe
something like that is possible for people who haven't heard the
Gospel at all (e.g. those who live in areas where it hasn't reached).
If you accept that, it might seem reasonable to extend it to people
with a history of persecution by Christians, since what they have seen
of Christ is probably worse than not having heard of him at all. (2)
The specific one is Rom 11:25-26, which says that the Jews rejection
of Christ is temporary, and in the end all Jews will be saved. I
believe most people read this as meaning all Jews that are alive at
the time will be saved, rather than all Jews who have ever lived, but
some have taken the latter interpretation.
The most commonly cited references to Christians and the Law are
Romans and Galatians. Really most of Romans and a large part of Gal.
are about this subject, so I'm reluctant to abstract single passages.
At any rate, giving a complete exposition is more than I want to do as
moderator. You might also want to look at Acts 15, which discusses a
meeting in Jerusalem where it was decided that most of the Law did not
apply to non-Jewish Christians. The major approaches to what to take
from the OT are: (1) What has been superceded is that part of the Law
that defined a specific covenant with Israel, as opposed to basic
human ethics. People don't entirely agree where the dividing line is,
but generally those who take this approach believe that specific
ceremonies (e.g. circumcision), holidays, kosher laws, etc. are
symbols of the covenant, whereas laws against murder, idolatry, etc.,
are still in force. (People often speak of the ceremonial law vs. the
moral law.) Most people seem to agree that the 10 commandments are
still in force. The primary disagreement seems to be about the
Sabbath: A few Christians believe we should still worship on the
Sabbath (Saturday), whereas the rest believe that defining that
specific day as holy is part of the ceremonial law and no longer
applies. (However we should still set apart a regular time for
worship.) (2) Some people take Paul as saying that the Law is not
binding at all. This means that Christian ethics has to be
reconstructed from scratch based on the principle of love for God and
your neighbor, and other teachings of Jesus. Even people who take
this approach generally believe that the 10 commandments can be
justified on such grounds, so disagreements tend to be in fairly
limited areas, primarily in sexual ethics (e.g. homosexuality). (3) A
few people who post to this group believe that the entire Law applies
to Christians, though I've never been sure what they mean, since as
far as I can tell they don't actually keep the kosher laws.
--clh]djdaneh@pacbell.com (Dan'l DanehyOakes) (04/14/91)
I'm one of the people Our Moderator cited who believes that the Law was completely superceded. I'm not trying to restart the debate, and won't respond (if I can restrain myself:*) to flames on the subject, but thought an answer from the very liberal point of view should be heard. In article <Apr.10.04.58.22.1991.11284@athos.rutgers.edu> gt5614b@prism.gatech.edu (Butera, Robert J.) writes: >1) What is a good Christian attitude toward the salvation of the > Jewish people? That as many as possible should be saved. This is also a good Christian attitude toward Buddhists, Hindus, Moslems, Atheists, Agnostics, and Born- Again Pagans. > I could take the New Testament as it is, which > says quite clearly that those who don't acknowledge Jesus Christ > as our savior will not achieve salvation. Really? Where? I don't recall that. I recall passages saying that salvation is only through Jesus, but it does not NOT *NOT* say "only through belief in Jesus Christ," or "only through the Church," or "only through being a Christian." If you acknowledge that Jesus is God-the-Son-of-God, then *of* *course* salvation is only through Him; where else but from God can salvation come? And what "part" of God but the Mercy would it come through? But we must not impose the limitations of our understanding upon God. We *know* that through Christ we can be saved, and we believe. But God, all-powerful, may save others through Christ without their belief. Remember the story of those who said "We never knew you, Lord." I do not say that this means non-Christians *will* be saved, for that is not for us to know. But it is also not for us to place limits on God's action by saying they *can't*. > But others have told me > that the Jews are God's chosen people and He has His own plans for > them. The Jews themselves will happily tell you that; so will the Bible. >2) I've heard many say that we Christians are not "under the law", and > thus not subject to the much of the customs and observances in the > Old Testament. Please provide me with scriptural support for this. Gladly. From the NIV, Acts of the Apostles, Ch. 15, vv. 7-10: ...Peter got up and addressed them: "Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among yu that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?" And also Ch 15, vv. 23-29: ...The apostles and elders, your brothers, To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia: Greetings. We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul -- men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell. Three of these four things are very specific and clear; the fourth, "abstain... from sexual immorality" is somewhat debateable as to precisely what it means. But at any rate, it seems clear that as Gentiles, we are not subject to the whole unbearable weight of the Law of Moses, but only to these four requirements -- and, of course, the two Great Commandments. Of course, if you are of Jewish descent you may feel required to follow the whole of the Law. > Also, if this is so, how do we know what to follow from the OT and > what not to? See above. The Roach [When Robert Butera says those who don't acknowledge Christ will not be saved, I suspect he was thinking of Mat 10:32-3: "Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven". And parallel in Luke 12:8-9. --clh]
cctr114@csc.canterbury.ac.nz (04/17/91)
>I have two questions about the relationship between Christians and the >Jewish people. Since I'm new to this group, I feel that they may have >been discussed already, so please respond via Email if redundant. > >1) What is a good Christian attitude toward the salvation of the > Jewish people? I could take the New Testament as it is, which > says quite clearly that those who don't acknowledge Jesus Christ > as our savior will not achieve salvation. But others have told me > that the Jews are God's chosen people and He has His own plans for > them. One of the objections Jews have to us trying to convert them is our track record of keeping our children in the faith. They point out that their faith has been passed from parents to children for between 37 and 40 centuries for they do not seek converts and very few willingly convert to their faith. Once a Jew converts to Christianity it is usually only two and sometimes three generations before all faith is lost and the children grow up with no personal faith at all. >2) I've heard many say that we Christians are not "under the law", and > thus not subject to the much of the customs and observances in the > Old Testament. Please provide me with scriptural support for this. > Also, if this is so, how do we know what to follow from the OT and > what not to? (I know that this a virtually textbook question for > a well versed Christian and I've heard the answer, but my mind slips > me right now!) I think your statement that this is a textbook question is part of the problem people face when they attempt to read and understand the Hebrew Scripture believing them to be Gods' Word. In my experience most Christians do not truly value the Hebrew scriptures. Most seem to only find the Hebrew Scriptures of value as a source of prophecies of Christ, allegories of Christian experience, or as a source of negative things to contrast with the postive things of the New Covenant. The use of the Old Testament as ``Law'' falls into the last catagory. If we actually read the Old Testament as it is rather than through New Testament blinkers we will find very little that is actually ``Law''. The emphasis is on the grace of God, particularly in the prophets. I suspect that a lot of Pauls' railing against the ``Law'' and teaching about being free from the ``Law'' is not actually just against Biblical law but rather also against the large body of extra-Bibilical law which as a Pharisee he would have had an intimate knowledge of. One place where is it reasonably easy to see how our understanding of the New Testament has affected our understanding of the Old is in the forgiveness of sins. To most Christians I know it is almost an article of faith that there is no forgiveness of sins in the Old Testament without a blood sacrifice. There are some verses which seem to imply this (the one in Hebrews is often quoted). But it only takes a few minutes with a good concordance and a Bible looking up words like sin and forgive to see that there are a number of non-sacrificial ways of obtaining forgiveness and even among the sacrifical ones not all are blood sacrifices. It is also clear that even in the sacrificial methods of obtaining forgiveness that the attitude of heart of the sacrificer was more important than the sacrifice itself for a wrong attitude would render a sacrifice ineffective at best and offensive to God at worst. The religion of the Pharisees had degenerated into a religion of external observances and rituals. What I think Paul was attempting to say that true religion is always a matter of the heart. If this is his message then it accords well with that of the prophets and needs to be heard in every age for there is always a tendency to settle down into some clickty-clack railroad track of comfortable religious observances where the form of religion is observed but the vital relationship to God and love, concern and compassion for others is missing. Today ``Law'' is often used by preachers to mean rote religious observance which has to be done for the sake of doing it. It is also used to mean doing good in an effort to win God's favour by our own acts of righteousness. I beleive Paul is really trying to say that our motivation for worship and good deeds should come out of our love for God and in response to His love and grace rather than out of a compulsion arising from a legal requirement. If we were to take Paul at face value then his teaching is quite different from that of Jesus. In Matthew 5:17-19 Jesus makes it quite clear that He had no intention of abolishing the law and makes it clear that He does not approve of others doing so either. Pauls' view of the Biblical Law was a new and very radical approach and one which the Church through the ages has almost always pulled back from. He viewed the Biblical Law as a burden which God had placed on people to show them that they were hopelessly sinful and in need of a saviour. This view, as I understand it, cannot be found anywhere earlier than Paul. There may be the beginning of this view in the Acts 15 speech by Peter but it was Paul who really made it explicit. This teaching clashes with the Old Testament teaching, the teaching of Jesus, and also other portions of the New Testament. Most have never been comfortable with abandoning the moral teaching of the the Old Testament in favour of being lead totally by the Spirit as Paul seems to advocate. If you ask a Jew what the Christian approach to the Biblical Law should be they will usually tell you that only the ``Seven Laws of Noah'' are expected to be kept by devout non-Jews and that the remainder of the hundreds of laws which can be found in the legal sections of the Books of Moses apply only to the Jews as Gods' special people. The argument in Acts about keeping the Biblical Law appears to me to center around whether the Christians were Jewish converts or still Gentiles. Peter still spoke in an ``us and them'' manner even though he acknowledged that God had made no distinction. The descision seems to me to reflect the view that Christians were not even then regarded as converts to Judaism. I have rambled around a bit but I hope what I said helps a bit. > >Robert John Butera Jr., aka "Knome" | "Indeed, one can reasonably argue Bill Rea ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Bill Rea, University of Canterbury, | E-Mail b.rea@csc.canterbury.ac.nz | | Christchurch, New Zealand | Phone (03)-642-331 Fax (03)-642-999 | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Of course Judaism was as varied in the 1st Cent. as Christianity is. I'm not sure one can generalize even about Pharisees. But it's important to understand that Law had a far broader meaning than external laws. I'm not the best person to explain Judaism. But Torah means more than just following external laws. It is probably better translated "instruction". It refers to all of God's revelation, including the message of the prophets. Following the Torah means being dedicated to applying God's precepts to everything you do. It should be a way of worshipping God. The fact that for most Christians the Law has been replaced by a new covenant should not prevent us from appreciating it as something more than simply legalism. It's also worth noting that Paul's opponents in his letters are normally Judaizers, not Jews. That is, they are Christians who wanted to impose the Law on Gentile Christians in a way that would actually have been legalism. --clh]