The Biblical Position
The idea that Christians should thank the Jewish people for the death of Jesus is a controversial one, but it is also a biblical one. In the New Testament (Heb. B’rit Chadasha; lit. “New Covenant”), we are taught by Yeshua, “Salvation is from the Jews” (John 4: 22), and Rav Sha’ul Paulus (Paul) wrote in his letter to the congregation in Rome,
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 [Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob], and from whom is the Messiah according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. (Romans 9: 3-5, NASB)
From this we learn that “the adoption as sons, the glory and the covenants” all belong to Israel. This also means that the New Testament (Heb. B’rit Chadasha; lit. “New Covenant”) also belongs to Israel since God made it with the whole House of Israel. Jeremiah 31:31-34 says that He would make it with the House of Israel – the Northern Kingdom of Israel – and the House of Judah – the Southern Kingdom of Judah, so why do Christians and others call the New Testament “the Christian Bible,” if it belongs to Israel? Also, in his letter to the Roman congregation, Rav Sha’ul Paulus (Paul) writes,
Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. Yes, they were pleased to do so, and they were indebted to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in their [Israel’s] spiritual things, they are indebted to minister to them also in material things [Financial Support]. (Romans 15:26-27, NASB)
Rav Sha’ul Paulus (Paul) makes it clear in these passages that all of the things that we enjoy and participate in as believers of God all belong to Israel. Even our redemption (or salvation) is part of what God did for Israel, and we gain participation of it in that we have been engrafted into the Northern Kingdom of Israel in and through our faith in the God of Israel and His chosen Messiah, the Messiah of Israel, Yeshua of Nazareth. In fact, the warfare between the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom of Judah in the Hebrew Scriptures is a picture of the historical relationship between Christianity and Judaism. But this religious war needs to end. Instead, we need to repent, forgive, and reconcile with one another. We do, in fact, have much to thank the Jewish people for in us being able to participate in all these “spiritual things,” as taught by Rav Sha’ul Paulus (Paul).
The Unfortunate Christian Historical Reality
How can we show the Jewish people our appreciation for these things, while at the same time, showing them contempt, harassment, victimization, abuse, persecution, and horrible murders? Unfortunately, Christian history are full of illustrations where Christians have treated the Jewish people with the latter – not with appreciation and gratefulness as the New Testament teaches. Christian leaders throughout the centuries have used various accusations against the Jews to blame them for the things going on around them, like “Christ killers!” that has resulted in the untold harassments, victimizations, abuse, persecutions, and heinous murders of millions, if not billions, of Jewish men, women, and children – such as the Inquisition, the various Pogroms, and the Holocaust – all in the name of “Christ.” This is a historical fact, but the truth is that these accusations were all based on the misinterpretations, misrepresentations, and misunderstandings of the “New Testament,” that should never have been done in the first place. The fact is that anyone who believes the whole Bible is true should never support any position that blames the Jewish people for the death of Yeshua. Many of these same corrupt attitudes and behaviors are seen in many Christians, even to this day. They need to stop now. If anything, Christians should thank the Jewish people for their obedience and faithfulness to God and for the death of Yeshua.
Reasons Christians Should Not Blame the Jews
1. Yeshua Forgave Them
There are several reasons why Christians should not blame the Jewish people. The first reason is because according to the four Gospels, Yeshua forgave them and the Romans from the cross. He said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). So if Yeshua forgave them from the cross, and Christians have not historically blamed and persecuted the Romans for what they did, then on what basis have they historically blamed and persecuted the Jewish people for the death of Yeshua when he, himself, forgave them? Doesn’t that mean that many Christians were (and some still are) acting in opposition to Yeshua himself?
2. Yeshua’s Death was God’s Plan
According to the New Testament, Yeshua’s death was planned “from the foundation of the earth” (Revelation 13:8). Also, Yochanan (John) the Immerser said of Yeshua: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). And Yeshua himself said in his discussion with Nicodemus, a Pharisee,
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
If that is the case, then why are Christians blaming the Jewish people for participating in God’s plan? If it was God’s plan, then they were only doing what God wanted done anyway. This next reason is related to this one.
3. The Jewish Leaders Obeyed God
According to the Gospel of John, after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, some observers went back to the Pharisees and told them what happened. The Jewish religious leaders then got together to discuss and figure out a possible solution. John writes,
Therefore the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council, and were saying, “What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs. If we go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” (John 11:47-48)
Let me comment here. I have heard pastors criticize these Jewish religious leaders here for their “unfounded fear.” However, this fear was historically factual. There were some two hundred proclaimed or self-proclaimed “Messiahs” in Jewish history from 200 B.C.E. to 200 C.E. That is a new messianic figure every other year for four hundred years, and during these four hundred years, the Jewish leaders saw the same repeated pattern. A Jewish “messiah” rose up, gathered a following, and then the Greek or Roman military came down, killed the “messianic figure” and many of his followers. Now in these two hundred “messianic figures,” Yeshua was number #198. This means this same repeated pattern had been observed 197 times!
So when they saw Yeshua and his following, they probably thought, “Oh man, here we go again!” Yeshua was different from these other messianic figures in that his following was not local – but national and was even going international. So this was not a “false fear” since if Rome did what they had done many times before, there was a real threat that the Romans would come down and kill Yeshua with all those in the nation who followed him, including destroying Jerusalem and the Holy Temple, eliminating the religious leaders’ positions of authority. We also know this was not a “false fear,” since this is what the Roman military did in 70 C.E., forty years later, when they marched through the land of Israel, destroying cities and villages, ultimately destroying Jerusalem and the Holy Temple, eliminating the power structure of many of the religious leaders in Israel at the time.
So it is at this point in the discussion among the Jewish religious leaders that God steps in. In John 11, we go on to read,
But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.” (John 11:49-50)
Now it is this next part that is critical for both Christians and Jews to hear, yet most people miss it.
Now he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, HE PROPHESIED THAT YESHUA WAS GOING TO DIE FOR THE NATION, and not for the nation only, but IN ORDER THAT HE MIGHT ALSO GATHER TOGETHER INTO ONE THE CHILDREN OF GOD WHO ARE SCATTERED ABROAD. So FROM THAT DAY ON, they planned together to kill him. (John 11:51-53)
In this part of this passage, we discover four important points: (1) What Caiaphas said did not come from his own thoughts and initiative, but he “prophesied,” meaning that he spoke by the Spirit of God saying the words of God; (2) Jesus died for the nation of Israel; (3) His death also opened the way for the redemption (Heb. Ge’ulah) and the Restoration of the descendants of the twelve tribes of Israel (“the children of God”) “who are scattered abroad” into One Kingdom, One Community, One Family as prophesied in the Written Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings (i.e., the Hebrew Scriptures); and finally, (4) It was only after they got this word of prophesy from God that the religious leader began to “plan together to kill him.” Therefore, by planning to kill Yeshua, the religious leaders were really obeying what God had told them through the word of prophesy. So if the Jewish religious leaders were obeying God by what they did, then why should Christians accuse the Jews of doing something wrong when they were obeying God?
4. Blaming the Jewish People is an Act of Injustice
Another reason Christians should not blame the Jews for the death of Yeshua is because the vast majority of Jews at the time of Yeshua’s life and ministry, including his death and resurrection, did not even live in the land of Israel, but they were scattered throughout the Roman empire. Therefore, the vast majority of Jews never ever even met, seen, or heard Jesus, so how could “all the Jews” have “rejected him” as Christians have falsely claimed? Blaming all the Jewish people for what a few did is unjust and immoral. For example, what about all the Jewish men and women who have lived since the second century, C.E., throughout the centuries? They were not part of any aspect of what happened, so why should they be condemned as being guilty for something they did not even do? Modern Christians try to claim that those “Christians” who did this were not “true Christians,” but this is not true since if it is, then there were multitudes of Christian leaders and reformers, such as Martin Luther, “the father of the Protestant Reformation,” who was not a “true Christian,” since many of the antisemitic phrases and ideas that came out of the mouth of Adolf Hitler originally came from Martin Luther.
5. Blaming the Jewish People is an Act of Christian Hypocrisy
Another reason Christians should never have blamed the Jews for Yeshua’s death is because according to Christians themselves, they were saved by them believing in his death and resurrection. If the death of Yeshua benefitted all the non-Jewish people by saving them from their sins, then why are the Jews accused of doing a bad thing when they had, in reality, benefitted humanity? If anything, if the death of Yeshua washed away their sins, then Christians should be thanking the Jews for the death of Jesus – not blaming, harassing, attacking, persecuting, or heinously killing them. Also, Christians claim they believe in “loving their enemies” and “forgiving others,” so if this is true, then why aren’t they following their own teachings and “loving the Jewish people” and forgiving them? To say one thing and do another is the ultimate picture of hypocrisy.
6. Blaming the Jewish People is Profaning God and Yeshua
The end result of how Christians have historically blamed, harassed, attacked, persecuted, and heinously killed the Jewish people has only resulted in profaning the name and person of Yeshua among his own people, the Jewish people. This is so much the case that many Jewish people will not even spell out his name, but they view his name in the same way that the Jews view Adolf Hitler or the Nazi party. For example, if a Jew says that he or she “believes in Yeshua,” they see him or her with the same contempt as if they had joined the Nazi party.
We Need Teshuva!
Christians and Jews need Teshuva (repentance and forgiveness) and to reconcile with one another. All Christians and All Jews need to repent of their attitudes, beliefs, and responses to one another. Not only Christians to other Christian denominations and branches, and Jews to other Jews (all forms, including Messianic Jews), but even Christians to Jews for their attitudes, beliefs, responses, and actions to the Jewish people, both past and present, and All Jews need to do the same to Christians as well.
This religious war between Christians and Jews need to end. Not only does their need to be repentance and apologies made, but their needs to be forgiveness given. Reconciliation is not likely to happen when there is so much apathy and bitterness being held in against all those around them in different denominations and between Christians and Jews. Think about this. Within Christianity, there are many of the descendants of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and many from the nations. There is no way to distinguish one from another. By maintaining this war and these attitudes and feelings of antipathy, bitterness, anger, and even hatred among all these religious groups, specifically between Christians and Jews, both groups are working against God. God is wanting to bring together the descendants of the Northern Kingdom (incl. Christians) and the Southern Kingdom of Judah (modern Judaism) and unite them once more into One Kingdom, One Community, and One Family as He has prophesied in the Scriptures, but these attitudes, beliefs, and fighting against the other is only getting in the way of Him being able to fulfill His promises and bring about His Messianic Kingdom.
We Have A Choice
We have a choice: Continue our religious war fighting one another, and keep pushing the Messianic Kingdom further and further, or we can repent, changing our attitudes and behavior towards one another, doing our part to bring down the walls of division and separation between us, sanctifying the name of God in the world, and bringing closer to us the coming of the Messianic Kingdom. The choice is ours! As far as our ministry is concerned, we choose peace and forgiveness, and to hold our hands out in peace to both Christians and Jews. What about you?
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