Jew and Gentile in the Church Today

Abstract

Jew and Gentile in the Church Today Douglas Farrow We know the Jews today as a gathered and not merely a scattered people. This is one sign that the times of the Gentiles are running out. Another is the increasing hostility toward Jews and Christians around the world, as well as the appearance in history of empires of evil that systematically assault both them and the worldview they represent. The advance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ toward the furthest corners of the world, the great apostasy that has been taking place for some centuries now in the remnants of Christendom, and the turmoil in the Church itself are also important signs, not to speak of the global assault on the unborn and on children, an assault of demonic power and proportions that cries out for judgment. But if the times of the Gentiles are beginning to run out, the prospect also appears of a new openness to the Gospel among Jews themselves, and this itself, insofar as there is evidence of it, is a crucial sign. There is some evidence of it, whether of the kind recounted by Roy Schoeman in Salvation is from the Jews, or of the kind that appears in messianic Judaism, or of the kind that brings Jews and Christians together, despite their differences, in circles such as those created around First Things. There is evidence of it in the academy also, where figures such as Jesus and Paul are examined in their first-century [End Page 979] Jewish context by Jews and Christians together, continuing a path signposted by Pius XII's Divino Afflante Spiritu and made more promising by the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls. And, though we are only in the early stages of that emerging openness, real questions are being raised for the Church. Is it not confronted with the need to reckon with something that, for many centuries, it has been convenient largely to ignore, that the Gospel of God concerning his Son, and the power of salvation at work in that Gospel, is "for the Jew first and then also for the Greek"? Is it not faced, in a more pressing manner, with matters related to the faith of Jews and with questions about the flourishing again of the natural branches of the cultivated olive tree, the tree into which the wild branches of the Gentiles have slowly been grafted for some 2000 years now? Must it not give thought to the prophecy of Paul that only thus is "all Israel" to be saved? But how is the Church to reckon with it? Some say that the right way is simply to make itself much more friendly to the Jews, as indeed it has been doing, and to build on St. John Paul II's apology in 2000 for Christian complicity in crimes against Jews, precisely by defending them instead and (pace John Paul) by not trying to convert them. Jews in general tend presently to be happy with that, of course. Others say that it behooves the Church to be much more intentional, in a thoughtful and sensitive way, about the conversion of the Jews. Still others have begun to focus on how Jewish believers in Jesus can be properly integrated into the Church as Jews and on how the Church itself needs to adapt to and benefit from their presence and participation. This last, the Church from Jews and Gentiles (to borrow the title of Erik Peterson's pre-Holocaust exposition of Romans 9–11), is what chiefly concerns us here, though the exercise I have in view is little more than some ground clearing that still seems to be necessary. ________ The ground clearing in question is related to the premature death of supersessionism. Horror at the Holocaust and a wounded conscience, newly cultivated friendships with Jews, scholarly and religious dialogue with Judaism, the cultural circumstances of the emergent messianic Judaism movement, and the postmodern elevation of identity politics have combined to produce a climate, particularly in the Protestant sphere, of anti-supersessionism. This climate is also felt in the Catholic Church and must be addressed in a Catholic way. [End Page 980...