In my sermon, "Abraham’s Spiritual Children," which I gave a couple of months ago, I talked about the relationship of Christians and Jews to Abraham. Our primary Biblical reference was Romans 11 where we thoroughly discussed the grafting of Gentiles into the root of Abraham.

Today I want to take you through the relationship of the Christian Church and the Jewish Synagogue throughout history. This will be a vastly different sermon than what you normally hear from me. My sermons are generally 90% scripture with just a few comments from me about the scripture to point out how it applies to the theme of the sermon. Today's sermon will be just the opposite. We will refer to only a few scriptures. Mostly we will discuss historical events.

I. THE FIRST 50 YEARS AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION

In Rom 11:18 Paul admonished the Gentiles not to boast...that they must always remember that Israel was the root that supported them, not the other way around.

His words were soon to fall on deaf ears. The non-Jewish world would soon feel that they were the center of the religious world. They would soon be virtually severed from the Jewish root.

As I have said, Jesus was a Jew. He was born of Jewish parents, circumcised, taught Jewish law, celebrated Passover, interacted with Jewish scholars, attended synagogue every Sabbath, and was exposed to a wide range of Jewish thought and traditions.

The early church was made up exclusively of Jews. At the time of Christ's death, the church was located, for the most part, in Jerusalem. As we read in Acts 1:4, his followers were admonished not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit.

After that first Pentecost called Shabu'ot in Hebrew or the Feast of Weeks, the Church began to grow very quickly. The Jews had always associated this holyday with the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai. Now it would be remembered most by Christians for the giving of the Holy Spirit. It is impressing that God decided to use this day, when people from all over the world would be gathered at the Temple in Jerusalem to celebrate the holy day, to perform this great miracle. But they were all Jews.

Peter addressed the crowd as "my fellow Jews" and "men of Israel" and quoted to them from the Hebrew prophet Joel in Joel 2:28-32. We can read about it in Acts 2:14-24. In Peter's second sermon in Acts 3:13-26, he referred to "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers" and called his audience "heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers". In the early church, the question was not whether Jews could belong to the new Spirit-born community. It was whether repentant Gentiles could belong to this totally Jewish community.

But the Christian Jewish community was not monolithic either. It consisted of Grecian Jews and Hebrew-speaking Jews from Palestine. The Hebraic Jews maintained a close relationship with the Jerusalem Temple and Jewish customs. The Grecian Jews were Jewish in faith but Grecian in language and custom due to their contacts in the Gentile world. This caused the Grecian Jews to be more amenable to accepting Gentiles into their newfound Christian faith. Stephen was one of the leaders of the Hellenistic group. Notice in Acts 6:5 that he and his six companions, who all had Greek names, were chosen to oversee a problem which had arisen between the Hellenistic Jewish Christians and the Hebraists.

The problem was solved and the gracious and cooperative spirit shown by the Hebraists to the Hellenists maintained a pluralistic unity within the Jerusalem Church.

The Jewish community was soon to have its first major reaction to the preaching of Stephen in the synagogue when he accused his Jewish brothers of rejecting the Messiah, and claiming the Messiah was more important than all their ancestral religion. Lets look at Acts 7:52.

Stephen's martyrdom resulted in a huge persecution of Christians. Most left Jerusalem. The apostles, however, remained in the city. But God used the stoning of Stephen to propel the early Christian witness beyond the confines of the mother congregation.

The exodus from Jerusalem moved the Christian witnesses out into the open countryside where they could carry out the instructions of Jesus to carry his message to "all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" - Acts 1:8. The events of this dispersion are described from Acts 8 on. One of the first Jews to take the gospel outside Jerusalem was Philip, another Grecian Jew. His successes among the Samaritans convinced the Hebraic Jews to join forces with them through two of their leaders, Peter and John. Thus the Hebraic Jews and the Grecian Jews began to openly support each other.

It was the conversion or calling of Paul, however, which resulted in the greatest extension of Christianity among the Gentiles. Paul grew up among the Gentiles as a Roman citizen but was also a very strict Jew, a Pharisee taught under Gamaliel. Paul originally sought out any Christian believers he had driven out of the Jerusalem Church but after his calling on the road to Damascus, he turned his zeal into becoming the greatest single voice to the Gentiles for the Christian Church. Paul did not leave Judaism. He simply accepted Christianity and enthusiastically carried it to the Gentiles.

After Paul's conversion, Peter preached to Cornelius, a Roman centurion who lived in Caesarea. Acts 10:2 says that Cornelius was a "God-fearer". A God-fearer was a Gentile who followed certain Jewish religious practices but stopped short of the circumcision required of all full proselytes. Because they were sensitive to Jewish teaching, God-fearers served as a natural bridge between Hebraic and Hellenistic cultures. But more than that, when Peter observed the Gentile Cornelius receiving the Holy Spirit, it became obvious to him that God had opened up salvation to the Gentiles. The Jerusalem Church was cautious. How could Peter, a circumcised Jew, eat with an uncircumcised Gentile? For the time being, however, they were content to accept non-Jewish believers, primarily on experimental grounds - God had done it.

The Council of Jerusalem described in Acts 15 was a turning point for the early Christian Church. No longer would circumcision be required for Gentiles to become Christians. Salvation was a gift of God; it did not require conformity to ceremonial ritual. To allay the concern of Jewish brethren, four acts which they associated with pagan worship were prohibited: Food polluted by idols, eating blood-filled meat, eating meat from strangled animals, and pagan standards concerning sex. The Jerusalem Council was an outstanding example of two sensitive and divergent views being magnanimously accepted by both parties. It may also have begun a schism which has lasted for nearly two thousand years.

II. THE BEGINNING OF THEOLOGICAL CONFLICT AND PERSECUTION

The Church at about the year 50 AD was composed of three main groups: One was made up of traditionalists from the pro-circumcision group who tended to be conservative and closely tied to the Temple and Jewish Law. Another was the free-thinking Hellenists who tried to be both Jewish and Gentile leaning. The third was a mainstream group which reflected the thinking of the Council. It included such voices as James, Peter, and Paul. The church at this time was basically Jewish but included an increasing number of Gentiles. But the Church was growing and would soon outgrow its Jewish cradle and eventually go its own way.

The main issue between Christian and Jew for the last two thousand years is Jesus. Was He the Messiah or was He simply someone who had messianic ambitions? Was He a man or God? Jesus claimed divine sonship (John 10:30, 36,38) and announced his return at the end of the age (Mat 24:27-31).

I won't reread Mat 24:27-31 describing the signs occurring at Christ’s return. I'm sure you are familiar with those verses.

The primary concern of Judaism, which dominates all Old Testament and Jewish thought, is that of promise and fulfillment. This is what the earliest Christians found resolved in Christ. In early Jewish Christianity the Sabbath, Temple, Law and sacrifices were embellished by the One who is greater than them all. The first-century Jewish community largely considered these teachings strange and anti-ritualistic, a threat to the established religious beliefs of the day. In addition He interacted with the hated tax collectors, and lepers who were shunned by all

He was criticized for being a friend of sinners and Samaritans (John 4:4-5). His continual reference to God as His Father with the use of the word "Abba" was unheard of by the Jews, particularly when sinners and publicans were invited to use the same term.

Opposition to Christianity first arose, not to Christians, but to Jesus himself. His condemnations of the Pharisees, sometimes referring to their father as Satan (John 8:44), did not embellish him with the conservative Jews. His claim to be Lord of the Sabbath (Matt 12:8) filled the conservatives with disdain. His followers, though, were not discouraged even by His death. His reappearance after His resurrection only encouraged His followers, though many did not believe it when they heard of it. Never-the-less, He was not the Messiah most Jews looked for. What they wanted was a warrior-king messiah after the likes of David who would throw off their Roman yoke .

Between the death of Jesus in 30 AD and the outbreak of the First Jewish Revolt in 66 AD, Jewish authorities or the mob repeatedly persecuted believers in Jesus because He had claimed to be King of the Jews just as He had predicted in Matt. 10:17-25.

Prior to the fall of Jerusalem, the Romans looked on this as just one Jewish sect attacking another. After Rome had crushed the Jewish nation though, the Jewish establishment felt threatened by Jewish Christianity because the Christians had no strong interest in national politics and did not support the Zealot cause. Additionally, the Jewish community tended to tie the death of Jesus to the charge of blasphemy and persecution became inevitable to those who vocalized the same beliefs.

Although there are several recorded instances where Jews used authorities to persecute Peter, John, and Paul, most persecution came from the mob. Paul, in 2 Corinthians, states that on five occasions, he received 39 lashes from the Jews, possibly for disturbing the peace via the controversies resulting from his messages.

III. "HERETICS" AND THE SYNAGOGUE

John 9:22 states that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue. Of the several sects of Judaism, none was so disdained as the so-called Nazarenes, especially Paul, who was accused of creating trouble all over the world (Acts 17:6). Jewish Christians remained in the synagogues and filled Jerusalem with their teachings.

As a result, it is no surprise that the Jewish authorities grew continually more anxious to rid the heretics from the synagogues and the mainstream of Jewish religious life.

About 90 AD the Twelfth Benediction to the Daily Prayer was added. It read, "For apostate let there be no hope, and the dominion of arrogance do Thou speedily root out in our days; and let Christians and heretics perish in a moment, let them be blotted out of the book of the living and let them not be written with the righteous." There is considerable doubt that the word "Christian" really appeared in this Benediction much before 400 AD when other forces were at work supporting the separation of Christians and Jews. Never-the-less, John 9:22; 12:42; and 16:2 all refer to Christians being put out of the synagogues. Let's read them:

The Book of John was probably written about 90 AD at a time when the Pharisees were trying to preserve ethnic purity and uphold the law. At any rate, the actions to remove Christians from the synagogue at this time were probably due to individual actions of individual Christians rather than a formal ban of the whole Christian group. The Qumran community, for example, had rules for punishing violators with either temporary or permanent exclusion. I should point out that there were more "heretics" than just Christians in that day.

IV. THE IMPACT OF THE JEWISH REVOLTS AND THE PARTING OF THE WAY

Pontius Pilate, who ruled Israel from 26-37 AD, and other Roman rulers had both military and civil jurisdiction over the Jews. As a result, they were subject to taxation, idolatry, and barbaric forms of punishment such as crucifixions.

While Jews and Jewish Christians initially were equally punished by Rome, by 64 AD, Emperor Nero began to single out Christians for his wrath. Paul apparently died a martyr in about 64 AD, perhaps as a result of being named as party to the great fire which Nero set and blamed on the Christians.

The first Jewish revolt, which I mentioned a moment ago, was fought from 66-73 AD. The war centered near Jerusalem but extended throughout most of Israel. In 70 AD Jerusalem was taken and the Temple destroyed. Tens of thousands of Jews were put to the sword, starved, or enslaved. It took three more years to subdue the rest of the Zealots. Foremost among the remaining battles was the capture of Masada, an isolated fortress overlooking the Dead Sea. When the Romans finally managed to capture it, they found only dead Jews who refused to live under the boot of Rome.

Just before the fall of Jerusalem, the Jewish Christian community fled to Pella, a mountainous community 60 miles northeast of Jerusalem and east of the Jordan River.

The failure of the Christian Jews to support the nationalist movement did much to alienate them from the general population. Charges of treason were thrown at the Christians. Their physical removal severed the religious connection the Jews had with the Christians. At the same time, the Christians were quick to point out that Jerusalem's ruin was the result of God's judgment for rejecting the Messiah. After the revolt some Christians returned to Jerusalem and there was a Christian community in Jerusalem until the second revolt, sixty years later. But following the revolt, only the Pharisees and the Christians survived to contend with each other. The other sects had disappeared.

Following the destruction of the Temple, the Pharisees began a restructuring of Judaism. Rituals of the Temple had to be transferred to the home. Acts of kindness and charity began to replace atonement by sacrifice. As the original Jewish leaders of the Christian church died off, they were replaced by Gentiles who found Christianity more attractive than Judaism due in part by Judaism's insistence on the circumcision of proselytes. As Gentile influence increased in the Church, the centers of Christianity moved to large Gentile cities such as Antioch and Rome.

Worship of the sun god had always been a part of Roman religious practice. Though the early Church observed the Sabbath, the Church at Rome was highly influenced by the Roman Sunday holy day and arguments regarding the date of Christ's resurrection. The influence of Judaism was decaying. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, indicated that the change from Saturday to Sunday had begun to take place as early as 115 AD. In 120 AD he wrote, "no longer live for the Sabbath but for the Lord's day, on which day our life arose". The Jewish community saw this change as a rejection of the Law, the very heart of Judaism. The Christian community saw this as a rejection of Judaism and the Old Covenant in favor of what they perceived to be a New Covenant. The gap between Jews and Christians continued to widen at a quickening pace.

The First Jewish Revolt had been a decisive turning point in the relation of Judaism to Christianity. But the war of 132-135 AD was, for all essential purposes, the final major national blow that severed the two communities. Simon, popularly known as Bar Kokhba ("son of a star") led the revolt. He laid claim to messiahship and other influential people upheld his claim. Worship resumed at the Temple and supplies and men were mobilized for war against Rome. At the end of the war half a million Jews lay dead and Judea lay in ruins. Every building in Jerusalem was leveled and the city plowed. The Romans populated the city with Greek-speaking pagans and forbade Jews from entering the city on penalty of death.

As they had in the First Jewish Revolt, the Christians refused to fight. Failure to assist their countrymen in this final ill-fated drive for national independence alienated them even further from the Jewish community and left them more vulnerable to persecution. Christians could not have two Messiahs. They chose Jesus of Nazareth. Commitment to the cause of Bar Kokhba would have meant the denial of the Messiahship of Jesus. Those Christian Jews who had tried to hold on to Judaism, who had associated themselves with the root of Israel, were forced to dissociate themselves from it. Whereas Judaism had thus far rejected Christianity and their Messiah, now Christianity had to reject Judaism and its messiah.

V. A HISTORY OF CONTEMPT: ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE CHURCH

Let's review the major causes of the rift between Christians and Jews.

The break between the Synagogue and the Church had now been made but the struggle between them had just begun. An arrogant, Gentile Church would now become more and more broken off from its Jewish roots. And it had only been 130 years since Christ's death. With this beginning, what was to happen between the Church and its Jewish roots between 160 AD and our day?

Paul's warning to Gentile believers about pride went unheeded. Let me read Rom 11:17-24 to you again to refresh your memory:

The Church had become overwhelmingly Gentile, so it reasoned that there was no more need for the support of the root (Israel). The Church had become totally presumptuous. At first, the Gentiles were but a rejected wild olive branch allowed by God's mercy to be grafted into the believing family of Abraham. But by the fourth century they had become arrogant and secessionist.

The withdrawal from Jewish roots resulted in a total change in religious terminology: "The Living God" became "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus" which then became "God the Father." "The Messiah Yeshua" became "Jesus Christ the Son of God" which then became "God the Son." "The Scriptures" became "the Old Testament." "The Israel of God" became "the Holy Church." "The Last Supper" became "The Eucharist." "The Torah" became "the Pentateuch."

By the third century, Greek influence had permeated the Church so much that Christians began to view the physical world of flesh and matter as evil. The consequences of this affects traditional church understanding of salvation, spirituality, marriage and family even to this day.

The Church has continually contributed to the anguish of the Jewish people. Anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism have occupied a major portion of Jewish history. Anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism feed upon each other. The animosity of Christians toward Jews though fairly well understood is generally untold. Often it is best expressed by the Christian's guilty silence.

The attack on Jews was promoted by the following theories:

Such vilifying of the Jews has not been limited to Christian sermons. It has become a part of the psyche of professing Christians all over the world. Is it any wonder that Jews distrust the promises of the mainstream Christian religion?

The early Church fathers had to solve the problem of what to do with the Old Testament. Their anti-Jewish position had forced them to reject the laws and customs as offensive. The church thought it had replaced Israel. The problem was: how to replace the Old Testament without impacting the many New Testament verses and quotes from the Old, particularly those prophesying the Messiah. The answer lay with the use of the allegory. The sacrifices of the Old Testament became the bread and the wine; the twelve bells on the robe of the priest now signified the twelve disciples; Noah symbolized Christ; the ark the Church.

In the Middle Ages, Christian culture largely excluded Jews. Jews generally lived by themselves in secluded quarters of cities. They were considered useful for one thing: lending money. Jews were said to have a peculiar smell. They were said to be sucklers of sows. They continued to be accused of being "Christ killers". They were accused of murdering Christian babies in order to use their blood at Passover Seder. During the Black Plague, they were blamed for causing the plague by poisoning wells.

When the First Crusade was launched in 1096 to rid the Holy Land of Muslims, thousands of Jews who refused baptism were murdered in the streets. Synagogues were torched. But even with all this pressure, most Jews refused conversion.

During the Inquisition and expulsion of 1492 thousands of Jews were tortured, burned at the stake, and forced to convert. In Spain they were ordered to leave or face death. More than 150,000 left Spain but were not allowed to move to western Europe. They migrated to Northern Africa.

Martin Luther, in 1543, wrote a series of articles entitled "On the Jews and Their Lies". In these he labeled Jews as venomous, thieves, and disgusting vermin. He also called for Jews to be moved out of the country. It took another 400 years for Adolph Hitler to carry out the order.

In the latter part of the 19th century the world's largest Jewish population (six million) was in czarist Russia. Many pogroms left thousands dead. Most of the survivors moved to America.

Nothing, however, matches the Holocaust of the twentieth century. German propaganda stated that the human race must be purified by ridding it of the Jews. Between 1933 and 1945, six million Jews, including a million and a half children, were destroyed by the so-called Christian Germans. The established church did little to prevent or protest the slaughter.

Now, in the twenty-first century, we see mainstream ‘Christian’ churches hatefully withdrawing their financial support from Israeli investments and reinvesting that money into Arab or Muslim enterprises. Hatred of anything Jewish continues.

We have already seen how the United Nations armed forces from Europe, which have been placed in southern Lebanon to protect Israel from Hezekiah terrorism and on the Egyptian/Gaza border to protect Israel from Hamas terrorism, are really Trojan Horses bringing what many believe to be the King of the North of Daniel 11:40-45 into Israel and surrounding countries. Supporting this King will be the fallen church of Revelation 17, the same church which, after World War II, hid German war criminals until they could be secretly delivered and hidden in South America.

The conclusion of this sermon is obvious: The traditional Christian Church has forgotten, even rejected, her Jewish roots.

Sermon given by Wayne Bedwell

January 17, 2009