#Jews #Judaism #Israel There is so much confusion on here and elsewhere about what Christianity does and/or ought to believe about Jews/Judaism/the modern state of Israel. 1. Jesus and many of the earliest Christians would have claimed an ancestry that traces back through the tribes to Jacob, Isaac, and then Abraham. a. Not only this—but because they emphatically believed that God had called the historical people of Israel both to be blessed and to be God’s means of blessing the rest of the world—they would have insisted that this ancestry was theologically loadbearing. Salvation did and—in God’s purposes, by God’s grace--*had* to come from the Jews. That was the plan all along. b. In this connection, to insist upon *radical* distinctions in identity and practice between pre-exilic and post-exilic, second-temple and rabbinic Jews/Judaism, is historically ignorant. 2. Because Jesus and the earliest Christians believed that Israel as a whole had decisively broken the covenant and was thus in a state of covenant cursedness, and because they believed that Jesus was renewing the covenant, they thus also believed that one had to join *Jesus* to be a part of the covenant renewal. a. In this regard, the earliest Christians did not think that “the Church” had simply *replaced* Jews/Israel—after all, Jesus and most of the earliest Christians were Jews. Rather, they believed that the covenant people of God had in a sense narrowed to Jesus and his people and then opened back up to include as many people as would put their trust in Israel’s Messiah, Jews and Gentiles. b. Paul (esp. the letter to the Romans) and many of the other earliest Christians continued to insist upon the “salvation-historical priority” of Jews. They were broken and sinful as the rest of humanity. But they really were chosen. Nevertheless, because they too shared Adamic humanity (as it were), they were always going to break the covenant (as a nation). This thus meant, despite the meaningfulness of the election, that they too would need to participate in the death and resurrection of the Messiah through baptism (i.e. to put their trust in Jesus) in order to participate in God’s salvation in the present and in the ultimate future. 3. Gentiles who put their trust in the Messiah are included in the people of God on equal footing. They are children of Abraham. a. In this regard, Paul thinks (esp. Romans 11) that the Jew-plus-Gentile people of God in the Messiah are the renewed Israel, the people of the covenant. They are the children of Abraham, and so on. b. The latter point rules out the notion that Jews apart from the Messiah are still the people of God without qualification. The people of God are those in the Messiah, Jews and Gentiles. c. If a Jew apart from the Messiah were to say to (e.g.) Paul the apostle: “But what about the election, what about the gift of Torah, etc.?” Paul would say: “Yes!—but because you too share Adam and Eves’ nature, you broke the covenant and incurred the curse. Thus, for life in the present and in the ultimate future, you have to put your trust in the Messiah’s curse-bearing death and covenant-renewing resurrection and outpoured Spirit!” d. And if a Gentile were to say: “This is now *my* religion. *You* are only a Jew, etc.!” Paul would say: “Gentile in the Messiah, you were included by God’s grace and remain a ‘non-natural branch’ Israelite. You are *not* the root; and you do not uphold the root; rather, the root upholds *you*. And the root is Jesus himself *precisely as Israel’s Messiah*” (Rom.11)! 4. Because of all of this—call it what we want—“Christianity” is simply eschatological, messianic Judaism (into which Jews and Gentiles have been included by participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus through baptism etc). 5. Some of course will still operate under the profoundly false assumption--going back early into the Church’s history and reaching particularly potent expression in e.g. Augustine and Luther—that “Christianity” is antithetical to “Judaism” because the latter is about earning God’s love/salvation. Let that go. It’s just historically and theologically wrong. 6. But all of this also means that the way that Christians think about the modern state of Israel is radically complexified. a. Of course, scripturally, culturally, and morally, Jews and Christians doubtless have much in common. b. And more than a few reasons can be given for being concerned about the well-being and stability of Jews (and others) in the modern state of Israel following the Holocaust. c. But it will not do simply to say “Well, they were chosen. They were elect. They are the people of God.” That is simply not a/the Christian position. The people of God are all those in the Messiah, Jew and Gentile. d. But, of course, they—as all people—are made in the image of God, and there might be any number of other historical and ethical reasons to be concerned about the current state of Jews within and without the land of Israel. e. Now, to lots of (mostly) men out there: I get that your nationalism is impatient with what you perceive to be a previous generation’s uncritical support of the modern state of Israel—running afoul of the point I make in C above—but your lazy and wicked anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism serves us even worse.