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"Messianic Judaism"; or Judaising Christianity
Part 5 - Jewish Nationality Unlike Any Other By DAVID BARON |
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| Jewish Nationality Unlike Any Other. 4. "But," say these brethren, "why expect the Jew to denationalise himself when he comes to believe in Christ by giving up his Jewish 'national' observances and ceremonies, when the Christian Englishman, or German, or Frenchman, etc., still remains—as far as his earthly relationships are concerned—English, French, or German, as the case may be, and shares in the national aspirations and observances of the various nations to which they belong?" To this my answer is: Jewish history is peculiar and unique—unlike that of any other nation, and the so-called Jewish "national" observances are altogether unlike the customs of any other nation. The peculiarity of the Jewish people consists in the fact that God called and chose it to be the medium of His self-revelation on the earth. "For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and from the one end of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it? Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live? Or hath God essayed to go and take Him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched-out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? Unto thee it was showed that thou mightest know that the Lord He is God; there is none else beside Him. Out of heaven He made thee to hear His voice, that He might instruct thee: and upon earth He made thee to see His great fire; and thou heardest His words out of the midst of the fire" (Deut. iv. 32-36, R.V.). In brief, Israel was called to be a theocracy—a people whose king and lawgiver is Jehovah; not a kingdom merely, but the centre of God's kingdom upon the earth. And the holy law with its ceremonial observances were not the natural product and development of the history of the people, or the expression of its "national" character and spirit, as is the case with the secular laws and customs of the nations, but were divinely revealed to Israel. That the law and its "observances" were not the national product of Israel is attested by the continual apostasy of the people from this very law, and disregard alike of its moral and ceremonial observances, of which the prophets and psalmists are the witnesses. Then apart from the ethical character of the law, its divinely appointed rites and ceremonies were so many types and symbols setting forth great spiritual realities, which were to find their fulfilment in the Messiah and in the "new covenant" which would be established by Him; which, as already shown, is "not according to the covenant which God made with our fathers when He took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt." There is, therefore, no parallel in this respect between the Christian Englishman or Frenchman and the Jew in Christ. Their customs and "observances," in as far as they are "national," have nothing to do with religion, and as far as they are "religious" (whether or not they are right and justifiable from a Biblical point of view) are not peculiarly national, but are the common observances of all the peoples which constitute "Christendom." The Jewish observances, on the other hand, have their chief significance in their religious character, and their practice by a Hebrew Christian, who professes to be a son of the new covenant, is nothing else than the attempt to build up again that which is "done away in Christ." Neither must we forget that though God has not cast off His people which He hath foreknown—that though Israel is still God's nation, and will assuredly yet form the centre of God's Kingdom on earth, Jewish nationality is for the time being, so to say, suspended; and these are the "many days" in which the children of Israel are without a land of their own, and "abide without a king and without a prince, without a sacrifice and without an image, and without ephod and without teraphim"—a diaspora, without any national cohesion or unity, so that many of their "national" celebrations and observances, which might be in their right place and appropriate, were the Jews in their own land, are out of place and meaningless when practised even by unbelieving Jews during their dispersion; and in the case of the believing Jew the observance of them is not only doubly incongruous, but, as experience has shown, a hindrance to his own full spiritual development; a means of confusion to his fellow-believers from among the Gentiles; and a stumbling-block to the Jews. Of course we are told again and again that it is not intended that Jewish Christians should attach any merit to these observances, but it is none the less a fact that the Jews who confound national custom with religion, and whose religion now consists in these very observances, can never dissociate the idea of merit from them; and in spite of all disclaimers and explanations, their thought about any Jewish or Gentile Christian who observes any of their characteristically "national" or Jewish "rites" or customs, is that he is, after all, not fully satisfied with his Christianity, and is therefore coming back to Judaism. |
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