Evangelizing the Jews

and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written: “The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob.”  Romans 11:26  NASB

Will be saved – Theresa Newell’s doctoral paper entitled “Preparing the Church to Evangelize Jewish People” is, unfortunately, a typical example of the Christian Church’s “manifest destiny” narrative regarding salvation.  A few citations will suffice (all citations from her dissertation):

I trust there are other church families that have succeeded in this endeavor and that Jewish people have indeed come into a saving knowledge of Yeshua (Hebrew for Jesus) in those places. (p. ii).

By studying the Scriptures more closely in the areas of the divinity of Jesus in the Gospel of John and prophesies in the Hebrew Scriptures which point to the life and work of Jesus, the members became more grounded and focused in ways to present Jesus to their Jewish friends. (p. 1)

John Bright writes that “the mainstream of Christianity [. . .] has always declared the scriptures of both Testaments to be the Word of God and the church’s supreme authority in all matters of doctrine and practice” (17). (p. 15)

In the light of this history, it is critical that the evangelical church clarify God’s plan of salvation for the Jewish people and establish the scriptural basis for Jewish witness.  Unless this clarity is established and the intricate connection in God’s plans for both Israel and the nations to come to faith in Jesus is demonstrated, the Church’s efforts in world evangelization will be confused and diminished. (p. 15)

No wisdom (Greeks) and no law-keeping (Jews) would be sufficient to keep one from the “wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10; Rom. 3:20; cf. 1 Cor. 1:18-31).  (p. 24)

“All Israel” is another term for the believing Jewish remnant referred to in Romans 9:1-23 and 11:1-10, that is, the Jewish Christians as the elect remnant throughout the world which would include not all or even a majority of ethnic Israel. (p. 26)

Newell decries the Church’s role in persecution of the Jews and rejects both dual covenant and replacement theology.  But her Christian commitment to the divinity of Jesus and the absolute authority of the Church mean that she believes salvation requires submission to these doctrines.  She quotes Jon Levenson to make the point: “Participants in Jewish-Christian dialogue often speak as if Jews and Christians agreed about God, but disagreed about Jesus. They have forgotten that in a very real sense orthodox Christians believe Jesus is God.”[1]  Shared ethics and common dialogue do not overcome significant theological distinctions, and for the Jews the claimed divinity of the man Yeshua is an insurmountable obstacle.  Newell quotes Rosemary Ruther: “what Christianity has in Jesus is not the Messiah, but a Jew who hoped for the kingdom of God and who died in that hope.”[2]  But in the end she rejects these arguments and maintains the Christian orthodox of the Trinity and its implications for evangelism:

Reuther, Baum and Eckardt have clearly crossed the boundary of orthodox Christology in their attempts to accommodate Jewish sensitivities in the light of the Holocaust. They have allowed bad history to become bad theology. The result is the repudiation of the divinity of Jesus as proved by his resurrection, his mission as Savior of the world – Jew and Gentile – through his atoning death on the cross, and has minimized his claim as the harbinger of the Kingdom of God.[3]

Jesus’ atoning work on the cross is the only hope for deliverance from sin according to the Bible. Faith in Jesus and the finished work he accomplished in obedience to the Father is the Bible’s only solution to the separation of man from his Creator.[4]

What conclusion must follow from this theological orthodoxy?  The answer is simple: The Jews must become Christians!  Certainly Newell believes that the “conversion” effort must be done with sympathy toward Jewish history, acknowledgement of the Church’s role in antisemitism, and “love and appreciation to the Jesus-believing Jews in our congregations and Messianic congregations,” but in the end, Jews will have to accept the Christian second person of the Trinity, the God Jesus, if they are going to be saved.

Why bother to examine Newell’s paper?  Perhaps you haven’t thought of the far-reaching implications of a Trinitarian view of Scripture.  Perhaps all that theological discussion of the dual nature of Jesus, the virgin birth, the historical background battle between Athanasius and Arius, and the equivocation over the idea of “person” was just too much to examine.  But now you see that ideas have consequences, and this idea, that Jesus is God and must be acknowledged as such, changes everything about the status of the Jew.  Can I be bold enough to say that the Trinity is the fundamental antisemitic doctrine of the Church, and until we deal with its divisive intent, any substantive interaction is ultimately impossible?

Topical Index:  Theresa Newell, evangelism, Jew, Trinity, Romans 11:26

[1] Theresa Newell, Preparing the Church to Evangelize Jewish People, p. 51.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., p. 52.

[4] Ibid., p. 54.