Salvation of the “Jews” – Part 1

Very Average Joe
Jul 10
10 min read

Updated: Jul 11

There is the common question of whether God will save the Jews. After all, God promised but the majority of the Jewish people at the time of Christ rejected Him. It is only a problem due to two apparent contradictory conditions:

God promised to save the Jews (and God keeps His promises).
The Jewish faith (Old Covenant) is superseded by the Christian faith (New Covenant); therefore, the former is no longer valid.

The issue is not complicated. As usual, the problem is that some people muddle issues, deliberately or otherwise.

There is scriptural and traditional support for both conditions and the answer/solution to the so-called question. Part 1 covers the two conditions and Part 2 covers the answer. If one accepts these two conditions, then one can go straight to Part 2.

If the issue is not complicated, then why is this long enough to require two parts? As it is relatively simple, very little needs to be explained. Much of the material is quotations. (All scriptural quotations are from the Douay Rheims.)

1.1 Comments on the Term “Jew”

The term “Chosen People” is not found in Scripture exactly but it is clear that God had “chosen” to reveal Himself to the Hebrew “people” and have them preserve the faith. (Deuteronomy 7) As such, it is an acceptable term of convenience.

The term “Hebrew” is derived from Heber, the patriarch at the time of Babel when God punished humanity with diverse languages (Genesis 11), amongst other things, in ~2300 BC. Hebrew, therefore, describes language and race.

The term “Jew” is derived from Judah, the sixth child born to Jacob (later Israel) and the fourth to Lia in ~1700s BC. (Genesis 29) Although not the firstborn (and the firstborn did not always receive the firstborn’s blessing), Judah did receive a certain primacy since it is from the Tribe of Judah that King David and his line down to Jesus Christ were born. (Genesis 49) Based on that, the term can be considered at least tribal; that is, genealogical and territorial.

Related to territory, after the death of King Solomon in ~900s BC, Israel was divided into the northern kingdom, Israel or Samaria, and the southern kingdom, Judah. Also, key cities/towns such as Jerusalem, Hebron and even Bethlehem are in Judah.

The word “Jew(s)” can be found in the Old Testament books Jeremiah and Judith and in later books, corresponding to ~700 BC and onwards. The term is used to mean religious faith and race synonymously (since God did choose the Hebrew people). This is presumably due to the fall, with its associated deportations, of first the northern kingdom in ~700 BC and then the southern kingdom about 140 years later before the return after 70 years of captivity—in other words, Judah can be simplistically described as the entity that more preserved the faith.

Although there is nothing wrong with using the term “Jew” to mean religious faith and race synonymously, this is misused today, deliberately or otherwise.

Whilst God did initially choose the Hebrew people, others were not excluded. (Zachariah 8:23) For example: through Queen Esther, some Persians adopted the Jewish faith; and in Jesus’s time, Simon, who was in Jerusalem to fulfill his religious obligations and ended up helping Christ carry the cross, was a Cyrenian.

Today, some identify as “Jews” but do not practice the Jewish faith and some “Jews” are not Hebrew but are, for example, descendants of the Khazars.

The term “anti-semite” is another topic but it is fitting to mention that Sem is the son of Noah and the great-grandfather of Heber (Sem > Arphaxad > Sale > Heber). Whilst the term covers the Hebrews, it is an even broader term; to call someone an “anti-semite” is about as useful as calling them “anti-a-whole-bunch-of-people-from-the-Middle-East”.

To avoid confusion and for the purposes of this discussion, “Jews” is used as a religious term just as “Judaism” is a religious term.

1.2 God’s Promises to the Jews

God made a “perpetual covenant” to Abraham, “I AM, and my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations…” (Genesis 17) and later, “I will bless thee, and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven… And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed…” (Genesis 22)

Whilst the above has no conditions attached, God’s promises are often conditional, stating possible punishments as well as blessings. For example, from Deuteronomy 7, “And repaying forthwith them that hate him, so as to destroy them, without further delay immediately rendering to them what they deserve…”

Leviticus 26 even has a reference to God making “void” the covenant:

But if you will not hear me, nor do all my commandments, if you despise my laws, and contemn my judgments so as not to do those things which are appointed by me, and to make void my covenant…

Amongst other possible punishments is the scattering of the Jews if they are not faithful:

And I will destroy your land, and your enemies shall be astonished at it, when they shall be the inhabitants thereof. And I will scatter you among the Gentiles, and I will draw out the sword after you, and your land shall be desert, and your cities destroyed.

Similarly, from Deuteronomy 28:

But if thou wilt not hear the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep and to do all his commandments and ceremonies, which I command thee this day, all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee. … The Lord make thee to fall down before thy enemies, one way mayst thou go out against them, and flee seven ways, and be scattered throughout all the kingdoms of the earth.

1.3 New vs Old

The New Convenant supersedes the Old Convenant but this did not exclude those who were of the Jewish faith at the time of Christ from signing up. It was and still is open to all.

There are prophecies in the Old Testament predicting the Jews’ rejection of Christ and the disastrous consequences.

Whilst the above two points are not the same thing, the second presupposes the first: Christ establishing the New Covenant was not a rejection of the Jews, it was their rejection of Him and in turn the New Covenant that was/is the problem.

Isaiah 10 foretells that only a small portion of the Jews (“remnant”) will convert at the time of Christ:

The remnant shall be converted, the remnant, I say, of Jacob, to the mighty God. For if thy people, O Israel, shall be as the sand of the sea, a remnant of them shall be converted, the consumption abridged shall overflow with justice.

Isaiah 65 reveals that the Gentiles will accept Christ, whereas the Jews will reject Him. The excerpt below refers to the consequences of the latter:

And you, that have forsaken the Lord, that have forgotten my holy mount, that set a table for fortune, and offer libations upon it, I will number you in the sword, and you shall all fall by slaughter: because I called and you did not answer: I spoke, and you did not hear: and you did evil in my eyes, and you have chosen the things that displease me.

Jeremiah 31 tells of a new covenant after the Jews “made void” the old:

Behold the days shall come, saith the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Juda: Not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt: the covenant which they made void, and I had dominion over them, saith the Lord.

Ezekiel 17 tells of Christ (“tender twig”) being descended from King David (“marrow of the high cedar”), but the Jews will be humbled (“brought down the high tree, and exalted the low tree”):

Thus saith the Lord God: I myself will take of the marrow of the high cedar, and will set it: I will crop off a tender twig from the top of the branches thereof, and I will plant it on a mountain high and eminent. On the high mountains of Israel will I plant it, and it shall shoot forth into branches, and shall bear fruit, and it shall become a great cedar: and all birds shall dwell under it, and every fowl shall make its nest under the shadow of the branches thereof. And all the trees of the country shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree, and exalted the low tree: and have dried up the green tree, and have caused the dry tree to flourish. I the Lord have spoken and have done it.

Amos 8 tells of Christ’s death, when there was darkness (Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23), and the subsequent failure of the Jews to find what they wanted.

And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that the sun shall go down at midday, and I will make the earth dark in the day of light: And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation … I will send forth a famine into the land: not a famine of bread, nor a thirst of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord. And they shall move from sea to sea, and from the north to the east: they shall go about seeking the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.

Christ seems to give what is essentially the same warning as recorded in John 7: “You shall seek me, and shall not find me…”

In Romans 10, Apostle St Paul is explicit about the Jews’ rejection of Christ and the New Law that has put an end to the Old Law:

For they [Jews], not knowing the justice of God, and seeking to establish their own, have not submitted themselves to the justice of God. For the end of the law is Christ, unto justice to every one that believeth.

Also in Romans 10 is the point that Christ came to save all, that “there is no distinction of the Jew and the Greek”. St Paul makes a similar point in Colossians 3, that “there is neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free. But Christ is all, and in all”. In other words, Christ’s offer is open to all and Jews no longer have special status.

Perhaps a more intriguing proof is from a Jewish source. From the Babylonian Talmud (Yoma, 4-39b) are two observations regarding the Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement sacrifice. (Leviticus 16)

The rabbis taught: Forty years before the Temple was destroyed, the lot never came into the right hand, the red wool did not become white…

The high priest is supposed to draw two lots from a box, one inscribed “LaHashem” (lit. to the Name [God]) and the other “LaAzazel” (lit. to Azazel [demon]). It was a good sign if “LaHashem” was in the high priest’s right hand.

As for the red wool, it was tied to the scapegoat’s head which miraculously turned white as if to indicate God had accepted the sacrifice. This is presumably an allusion to Isaiah 1:18, “…if your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow: and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool.”

However, these phenomena ceased forty years before the destruction of the temple in 70 AD (which in itself is significant). Although 30 AD corresponds to the start of Christ’s public life rather than His Passion and Death, it is nonetheless a significant indicator that the old sacrifice was possibly no longer valid.

Christ did state that He is “the way” and “no man cometh to the Father, but by me”. (John 14) This is further supported by the veil of the temple being “rent in two from the top even to the bottom” at the moment Christ died on the cross. (Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23)

From Council of Ephesus, Chapter 8, 431 AD (H. Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma, 30th ed., Loreto Publications, USA, 2010, para. 139), regarding public prayer:

For when the leaders of the holy nations perform the office of ambassador entrusted to them, they plead the cause of the human race before divine Clemency, and while the whole Church laments with them, they ask and pray that the faith may be granted to infidels; that idolaters may be delivered from the errors of their impiety; that the veil of their hearts may be removed and the light of truth be visible to the Jews; that heretics may come to their senses through a comprehension of the Catholic faith; that schismatics may receive the spirit of renewed charity; that the remedy of repentance may be bestowed upon the lapsed; that finally after the catechumens have been led to the sacraments of regeneration, the royal court of heavenly mercy maybe opened to them.

From Constantinople Council III, 680–681 AD (H. Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma, 30th ed., Loreto Publications, USA, 2010, para. 293), regarding the definition of the Two Wills of Christ:

These things, therefore, having been determined by us with all caution and diligence, we declare that no one is permitted to introduce, or to describe, or to compare, or to study, or otherwise to teach another faith. But whoever presumes to compare or to introduce or to teach or to pass on another creed to those wishing to turn from the belief of the Gentiles or of the Jews or from any heresy whatsoever to the acknowledgement of truth, or who (presumes) to introduce a novel doctrine or an invention of discourse to the subversion of those things which now have been determined by us, (we declare) these, whether they are bishops or clerics, to be excommunicated, bishops indeed from the bishopric, but priests from the priesthood; but if they are monks or laymen, to be anathematized.

It is clear from the above that the Jews are considered outsiders by the Early Church.

Below are two common objections.

Objection 1: God made a “perpetual covenant” to Abraham; therefore, the Old Covenant is not superseded.

Reply: It is clear from what is covered above that the New Covenant supersedes the Old Covenant. This does not contradict the “perpetual” promise made by God for the exact mechanisms to effect that were not stated. God can change the mechanisms that still effect His promises.

Objection 2: Christ said, “Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” (Matthew 5) Therefore, the old sacrifice is still valid.

Reply: To not “destroy” (or sometimes translated as “abolish”) is not equivalent to validating when the word “fulfill” is used, which implies progression. Consider the analogy of a student in 7th grade who uses the knowledge and skills acquired in 6th grade (and earlier) whilst studying. He is not destroying or abolishing what he learnt previously, he is using it. But he is not simply repeating it as he is no longer in 6th grade; he is doing more with it now, “fulfilling” what was taught in 6th grade by using it in the context of 7th grade. As a 7th-grade student, it would be inappropriate and insulting to himself and his teachers if he were still considered to be a 6th-grade student. In other words, the Old Law is not destroyed or abolished in the sense that it is the foundation on which the New Law is built, but it has been superseded since the New Law is the “fuller” version of the Old Law.

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Click here for Part 2.