Anti-Semitism and its Cure

Recent polls have reported that, because of anti-Semitic violence, 25% of the Jews of the UK are thinking of leaving. In France, the percentage is 75%.

The horrid reality of anti-Semitism is even growing in the USA at an alarming rate. Attorney Jay Sekulow reported:

• It’s being called a “new anti-Semitism.” Radical professors are punishing Jewish students for making pro-Israel statements. Christian students who support Israel are being intimidated. Radical Hamas supporters are issuing fake eviction notices to Jewish students. And it’s happening on college campuses all across America. The threats of violence, intimidation, and discrimination against Jewish students and anyone who supports Israel...

His observations are supported by FBI 2012 Hate Crime Statistics:

• Approximately two-thirds of religious hate crimes are anti-Jewish. The FBI reported that of the 1,340 religious hate crimes, 62 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-Jewish bias. The number two targeted group victimized on a religious bias were Muslims, as only 12 percent were victims of an anti-Islamic bias.

After the Holocaust, my Jewish people vowed, “Never again!” However, many of the most influential Jews remain silent in the face of growing anti-Semitism. One NYC Jewish history organization, while never ceasing to look back at the Holocaust, refuses to introduce any programming about the present threats to the Jewish people. They are not oblivious to this present threat. You cannot enter into their building without passing through security and a metal detector. However, they seem to be in denial regarding the coming Holocaust.

On several occasions, I have asked the staff why their programming remains silent on this critical issue. They blandly responded that this simply isn’t their focus. Meanwhile, it doesn’t seem to be the focus of the media, universities, or the U.S. government. All remain silent, smiling at the coming Holocaust.

The Prophets of Israel saw it coming. Jeremiah cried:

• Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people? (Jeremiah 8:21-22)

But there was little Jeremiah could do. The problem was deep, and his countrymen were loath to examine it, let alone to correct it:

• Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people. Oh, that I had in the desert a lodging place for travelers, so that I might leave my people and go away from them; for they are all adulterers, a crowd of unfaithful people. "They make ready their tongue like a bow, to shoot lies; it is not by truth that they triumph in the land. They go from one sin to another; they do not acknowledge me," declares the LORD. "Beware of your friends; do not trust your brothers. For every brother is a deceiver, and every friend a slanderer. Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they weary themselves with sinning. You live in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to acknowledge me," declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 9:1-6)

I do not wish to blame the victim. However, this is just what the Prophets of Israel did at the bequest of their Master. Even Moses warned his people:

• He [God] shielded [Israel] him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions. The LORD alone led him; no foreign god was with him. He made him ride on the heights of the land and fed him with the fruit of the fields. He nourished him with honey from the rock, and with oil from the flinty crag, with curds and milk from herd and flock and with fattened lambs and goats, with choice rams of Bashan and the finest kernels of wheat. You drank the foaming blood of the grape… He abandoned the God who made him and rejected the Rock his Savior. They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols. They sacrificed to demons, which are not God-- gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your fathers did not fear. You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth. The LORD saw this and rejected them because he was angered by his sons and daughters. "I will hide my face from them," he said, "and see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation, children who are unfaithful.” (Deuteronomy 32:10-20) 

Instead of returning and placing their trust in the God who had fathered and shepherded them for millennium, Israel has placed its trust in themselves, the very thing that Moses had warned them against:

• You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today. If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the LORD destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the LORD your God. (Deuteronomy 8:17-20) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q4XL4oRIRE

Throughout their history, my people Israel have suffered these promised woes. Even the Orthodox Jews have turned away in their heart. Instead of acknowledging God, they are filled with a sense of racial superiority.

In Why the Jews Rejected Jesus, Orthodox Jewish writer David Klinghoffer concludes that Jewish rejection of Jesus is founded in “the mystic uniqueness of the Jewish essence or nature. There was something distinct about the Jewish soul…The Jewish soul feels the worlds, in a remarkably visceral way, as unredeemed.”

He bases this opinion upon Judah Loeb’s famous interpretation of the Talmudic tractate, Avodah Zarah, which stated that God had offered the Torah to all the other nations first, “to see if they possessed a predisposition to the Torah, and did not find it in them,” in contrast to the holy disposition God found in the Jews (pgs. 215-217).

This understanding, of course, is not at all reflective of the Hebrew Bible but instead, of much of the Talmud and is an affront to God.

I cry for my foolish people. Jeremiah’s lament has become mine. What to do? Continue in prayer to point them back to their sins and the promised hope of repentance before their rejected Messiah.

What is my consolation? It is found only in our Savior Jesus. Through Paul, He promised:

• I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.  And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins." As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable. (Romans 11:25-29) 

To Him be the glory!

Jesus’ Offensive Parables

Jesus’ parables are offensive, perhaps too offensive and even embarrassing. I had often found them overcritical of humanity, especially the Jewish leadership, and therefore unhelpful in understanding others. Humanity just didn’t seem to be as bad as Jesus had portrayed them. For instance, Jesus’ parable about The Tenants:

• "There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. 'They will respect my son,' he said. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him and take his inheritance.'  So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? He will bring those wretches to a wretched end." (Matthew 21:33-40)

Jesus was indicting the religious elite, promising to “bring those wretches to a wretched end.” Were they really as evil as Jesus alleged? The Pharisees had been widely regarded as pious, even by Jesus’ disciples. However, He accused them of killing all of the messengers – the Prophets of Israel – whom the Master, seeking what had been due to Him, had sent.

What a brutal indictment! But was it so? It certainly seems to be! The writer of the Book of Chronicles explained why Israel and Judah had been destroyed and exiled:

• But they mocked God's messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the LORD was aroused against his people and there was no remedy. (2 Chronicles 36:16)

However, it was more than just a matter of scoffing. God has explained His anger and frustration with His people Israel to Jeremiah:

• "In vain I punished your people; they did not respond to correction. Your sword [Israel] has devoured your prophets like a ravening lion.” (Jeremiah 2:30) 

In anguish, Jesus referred to the same:

• "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. (Matthew 23:37) 

Could God’s chosen and pious ones have committed such heinous acts? Evidently! However, we don’t see such evil in others, at least, not in our own kind. Jeremiah didn’t and therefore could not believe that Israel was worthy of God’s harsh indictments. However, as part of his spiritual training, God put this challenge to Jeremiah:

• "Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, look around and consider, search through her squares. If you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city.” (Jeremiah 5:1) 

Although Jeremiah thought that this might be true of the riff-raff – those who didn’t know the law - he was convinced that he would find many righteous among the elites and his own priestly caste. However, God proved him wrong. Instead, these elites, even his own family, wanted to kill him!

How shocking to see the ugly reality beneath the polished veneer! And we see the same today! Our neighbors, who had greeted us every day with a broad smile, are now exterminating Christians at alarming rates, and if not exterminating them, then depriving them of jobs and livelihoods.

Jesus, wanting to be very clear with the elites in his audience, then brought His lesson home:

• "Have you never read in the Scriptures: 'The stone the builders [you leaders] rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.' Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. He who falls on this [messianic] stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed."  When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus' parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet. (Mat. 21:42-46) 

Israel would reject their promised Messiah – their Savior – as many Hebrew texts had warned. They would kill Him as they had their own Prophets. However, not now! Too many eyes were watching. Too many would protest.

Today, we are shocked by the extent of the hatred and persecution of Christians. How can it be? Even against a people who do not retaliate and whose purpose is to love their neighbor? Where did it all come from? Perhaps this hatred of the light and love of the darkness was always there (John 3:19-20), hidden away until the forces of evil sensed weakness and “victory.”

Jesus’ parables had once been an embarrassment to me as God’s words had been to Jeremiah. However, they now seem all the more relevant, accurate, and timely.

Universalism and Religious Pluralism: Their Appeal and Problem

I must confess that I find universalism (“everyone gets saved”) appealing. My Jewish parents passed away without giving any indication that they believed in Jesus. I want to see them again and to be with them forever. While I can always hope, the Bible gives me no explicit basis for such a hope.

However, our Lord does keep certain things hidden (Deut. 29:29; 1 Cor. 13:12; 1 John 3:2). I therefore hope that He will be gracious in ways that He hasn’t explicitly revealed through Scripture. In fact, I tend to think that the stillborn and perhaps also some of the mentally challenged will receive His mercy (Luke 12:47-48). However, He hasn’t given me the liberty to preach or teach these uncertainties as if they were verities. Instead, where He is clear about the nature of His mercy, hope, and inheritance, I too must be clear and unequivocal. However, where His revelation remains shrouded in mystery and uncertainly, I too must reflect the same in my speech. This is part of what it means to be faithful.

We do not have the liberty to tamper with His revelations or go beyond them. He explained this to the Prophets of Israel:

• When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? Consult God’s instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. (Isaiah 8:19-20)

In so many ways, Scripture teaches that if we abide in His Word, we will thrive (Psalm 1; Josh. 1:8; John 15:7-14); if we refuse, we will suffer (Deut. 28-29). He warned Isaiah that to go beyond His Word demonstrated willful ignorance and incurred grave consequences:

• “Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise me, ‘The Lord says: You will have peace.’ And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts they say, ‘No harm will come to you.’ But which of them has stood in the council of the Lord to see or to hear his word? Who has listened and heard his word? See, the storm of the Lord will burst out in wrath, a whirlwind swirling down on the heads of the wicked. The anger of the Lord will not turn back… I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message; I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied.” (Jer. 23:16-21)

The false prophets inevitably prophesied a popular message – one that could be successfully marketed. However, they confidently spoke, even though God “did not send these prophets.” They therefore stood guilty before God, along with those who, in “the stubbornness of their hearts,” embraced their comforting message.

I think that we need to take a course in astronomy or simply meditate on what our eyes reveal. Time and space are unfathomable. The galaxies are uncountable, along with the stars in each galaxy! In comparison, our minds are small. And yet we are confident that we can get our minds around the spiritual mysteries of God. We are so confident that we have little hesitation to invent things beyond what Scripture has revealed. It is like an astronomer throwing away his telescope, saying, “I don’t need this. I can learn more about the heavens by just sitting in my armchair.”

This is arrogant presumption and not truth. However, we require truth more than self-absorbed comfort, more than the self-satisfaction we might find by conjuring up in our own minds the nature of the universe. Therefore, God continued to Jeremiah:

• “But if they [the false prophets] had stood in my council [My Word], they would have proclaimed my words to my people and would have turned them from their evil ways and from their evil deeds.” (Jer. 23:22)

Surgery can be painful, but it is sometimes necessary. The truth can also be painful, but it can bring healing and reconciliation, while the comforting message can enable us to repress the real problem – the turning away from God.

If we play fast-and-loose with what God has revealed, we stand guilty before Him. However, the Apostle Paul claimed that he had been faithful to God’s Word and, therefore, bore no guilt:

• “Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of any of you. For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.” (Acts 20:26-27)

Even the unpopular teachings of Scripture! Paul also warned the church to not go beyond what the Bible states:

• Now, brothers and sisters, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, “Do not go beyond what is written.” Then you will not be puffed up in being a follower of one of us over against the other. For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not? (1 Cor. 4:6-7)

The Corinthian church had gone far “beyond what is written!” Therefore, they committed a costly error by boasting of the spiritual superiority of their particular faction. Consequently, Paul had to remind them that, if they had any good thing, they had to regard it as a gift from God and not a reason for boasting.

I’d rather preach a popular and all-inclusive message – “Everyone is saved” or “Everyone has her own path” (Religious Pluralism). I would then be invited on all of the talk-shows and to the exclusive parties.

Instead, we are called to walk a costly road with a toll-booth at every intersection. Jesus had to pay the price and warned that we also will:

• “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.” (John 15:18-20)

If, instead, you find that the world is readily accepting your message, it is very possible that you are on the wrong road.

Why we shouldn’t Reject a Judgmental and Punitive God

Many people reject the Bible because they find the idea of a judgmental, punitive, and holy God highly distasteful. Here are many of their arguments and possible responses:

“Most people are good and don’t deserve punishment!”

The Prophet Jeremiah thought this way, but God would not allow his mis-assessments to go unchallenged. He therefore presented Jeremiah with several teachable moments:

• "Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, look around and consider, search through her squares. If you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city” (Jeremiah 5:1-2).

Jeremiah was convinced that God’s assessment of Israel was way off. He was convinced that there were many righteous people in Jerusalem:

•  I thought, "These are only the poor; they are foolish, for they do not know the way of the Lord, the requirements of their God. So I will go to the leaders and speak to them; surely they know the way of the Lord, the requirements of their God" (Jeremiah 5:4-5).

However, God provided Jeremiah with some compelling object lessons. Jeremiah found that not only were the elites corrupt to the core, but even his own family had been plotting against him. As a result of these lessons, Jeremiah swung to the opposite extreme and prayed God’s judgment against them all. It’s interesting how our problems with God change as our perception of man changes.

We tend to think that our own kind are good and worthy people. However, God even corrected the Prophet Samuel because his opinions were merely based upon superficial observation and our human prejudices. Perhaps we think too much of our own judgments to properly esteem God’s.

Meanwhile, the Bible’s assessment of humanity is consistently negative (Rom. 1:18-32; 3:10-18). Jesus put it this way:

• “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light [truth] because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.” (John 3:19-20)

If this is so, perhaps there is justice in God’s judgments, even in His harsh judgments of the Canaanite nations.

“God will not judge the people he has created. Therefore, we shouldn’t.”

For one thing we tend to think that there is something illegitimate about judging and punishment. Often, we think of Jesus’ words, “Judge not that ye not be judged” (Mat. 7:1). However, if we read further, we find that this this isn’t an absolute prohibition against judging but rather judging hypocritically, when we do the same kinds of things without confessing them. In fact, there are many biblical commands to judge (James 5:19-20; Gal. 6:1; Mat. 18:15-19) and critiques of churches that have failed to judge (Rev. 2:14, 20).

Not only must we judge, but God also has judged and will judge. Peter argued that if God judged in the past, He will also judge in the future:

•  For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell,[a] putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless… if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. (2 Peter 2:4-9)

Perhaps our problems with God reflect our narrow perspective. Just to illustrate, if we were to ask a cow about God’s judgment of the Canaanites, the cow would undoubtedly wholeheartedly agree with their destruction. This would also pertain to the young children the Canaanites sacrificed to their gods. Perhaps, we are just too anthropocentric.

“If we are compassionate people, we will love and not judge.”

However, if we love, we will discipline. We will demand that our 3-year-old holds our hand when crossing the street. If she violates this rule, we wisely punish. Besides, the Bible repeatedly teaches that if God loves us, He will discipline us for our own good (Heb. 12:5-11).

Besides, if we love the church and society, we will try to restrain evil. A teacher who does not discipline her class is a teacher who does not love.

“We don’t really warrant punishment because sin is not real. It’s just something humanity invented to maintain order.”

This is a view that is popular in the secular West, where life has been relatively comfortable and safe. Few of us have had a family member or members who had been brutally murdered. We marvel that these families cannot move on until justice is done. Instead, we myopically tend to regard them as vengeful.

However, in our heart, we know that there are some things that violate objective moral law. We know that it is wrong to torture babies and sex-traffic girls. However, the Western university has co-opted our thinking to believe that morals are human inventions, just relative to culture and human impulses.

However, the Bible is unequivocal that moral law is universal and immutable and that punishment for violating them is just. We find that even the New Testament saints justly demanded justice and punishment:

• They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer. (Rev. 6:10-11)

In a world where there are no absolute moral laws or truths, there will necessarily be a diminished appreciation of justice and punishment. If no one is breaking an absolute moral law, then no one truly deserves punishment. Justice and righteousness become no more than pragmatic tools to maintain the kind of society that suites the majority or the powerful.

Interestingly, if morality is simply something that we humans made up and is therefore relative to our culture, then we have no objective basis to take issue with any form of injustice. We might not like it, but injustice doesn’t violate any law or objective truth if none exists.

How then can we claim that God is barbaric because He had ordered the Canaanite destruction? If God didn’t violate any law, then it can’t be wrong.

“Even if a higher moral law does exist, we still don’t deserve punishment because we are ignorant of it.”

If people really don’t know moral truth, then it would seem that ignorance is a perfect excuse. Even the Bible affirms that ignorance is an excuse:

• Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.” (John 9:41; 15:22, 24)

However, the Bible is even more affirmative that we aren’t ignorant, and that we are wired for God’s truths (Rom. 1:18-32; 2:14-15). Therefore, we can’t plead ignorance, and our guilt remains.

“We are merely sophisticated bio-chemical machines and therefore lack freewill. Because we are totally governed by bio-chemical reactions and lack freewill, we could not have done otherwise. Consequently, we are not deserving of punishment.”

One atheist friend admitted that he denies freewill because his guilt was simply too difficult to endure without this denial. Of course, he also acknowledged that we do not have a right to punish anyone. According to him, we still need to have police, but they are no more than a necessary evil.

Surely, if the Canaanites could not have acted otherwise, then God is unjust for punishing them. However, the Bible uniformly holds us accountable for our sins. Nowhere do we find a verse suggesting that we are not responsible (James 1:13-15; Rom. 2:2). Consequently, God has every right to judge us when we sin.

If I doubt my very evident perceptions/intuitions that I make freewill choices and that I bear guilt for them, I must also doubt everything that I think and feel. (We can easily distinguish between our freewill actions and those, like breathing, that overrule freewill choices.) However, if I do this, then I can no longer live coherently and sanely. Consequently, those who deny freewill cannot live in a consistent manner. The denial of freewill is contradicted by almost every word that pours forth from our mouths.

“If God is omnipotent, he certainly could have changed us or made us more obedient so that we wouldn’t be deserving of judgment.”

This statement reflects a misunderstanding of omnipotence. While God can do anything He wants to do, it doesn’t mean He can do it in any manner. He is constrained by several factors. He cannot sin, violate His nature, His plan, or perhaps even logic. While the Bible asserts that the Canaanites got what they fully deserved, and that God had been fully just, we do not know if any further divine forbearance would have violated other divine considerations.

“A loving and omnipotent God could have made a better world, one where severe punishment would have been unnecessary.”

To make such magisterial judgments about the universe requires supreme wisdom. Job had made such a judgment about God’s justice. However, God eventually showed him that he lacked the wisdom to even begin to make such judgments. Job reacted appropriately and repented in dust and ashes (Job 40, 42).

We cannot answer every question comprehensively. Does this mean that we should abandon the biblical revelation? Certainly not! Science cannot answer any one question comprehensively. It cannot even comprehensively define the basics like, “What is light? Matter? Time? Space? Do we then reject science? No! Instead, we value the limited wisdom that science has given us. I would suggest that we approach the character of God in the same manner.