Be Not Ashamed
Be Not Ashamed
"I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile." (Romans 1.16)
"Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and He had the eternal Gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth - to every nation, tribe, language and people." (Revelation 14.6)
A significant End Time crisis overshadows the Church and Israel today. It concerns the proclamation of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to God's Jewish People.
Since the unspeakable horrors and satanic abominations of the Holocaust, it has become commonplace for the Jewish Community in The Land and abroad to blame the Christian Religion for the event, more often than not discerning its seeds in such writings as the German Reformer, Martin Luther's,
"(The Jews') synagogues should be set on fire, and whatever does not burn-up should be covered or spread over with dirt...and this ought to be done for the honour of God and of Christianity in order that God may see that we are Christians, and that we have not wittingly tolerated or approved of such public lying, cursing, and blasphemy of His Son and His Christians."
But of course, antisemitism was not the invention of German Protestantism. It was preceded by the Crusades, the hysterical persecutions at the time of the Black Death, the Roman Catholic Inquisition, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and the centuries of ghetto-degradation!
Little wonder that Rabbi Chaim Potok writes in his book "Wanderings" (1978), "The Jew sees all his contemporary history refracted through the ocean of blood that is the Holocaust."
For some Holocaust survivors, their faith itself, in God Himself, perished in the European archipelago of Nazi concentration camps. The 1986 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Elie Wiesel, was sent as a child into the infernal killing machines of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. He later wrote ("Night" 1958),
"Never shall I forget that smoke...Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my Faith forever...Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust...Never."
For others, Christianity was confirmed forever as the "enemy". Immediately after WW2, the Yiddish author and poet, Leivick Halpern, challenged in the strongest possible terms those Holocaust survivors who were then contemplating embracing Christianity,
"Are you prepared to reward Hitler with a posthumous victory? Those who convert are turncoats who spend their lives in castles of their own ruins. Ruins forgotten by time. Such people are guilty of nothing less than self-annihilation!" ("Sunshine West" Jacob G Rosenberg)
But ought the Gospel of Jesus, and Jesus of Nazareth Who is the Gospel, be overturned and negated by history...however vile, sickening, and revolting?
It is chillingly true that "the Holocaust perpetrated as it was by leaders and citizens of a supposedly Christian nation, had led to a sense in some quarters that Christian credibility among Jews has been totally destroyed."
(The World Evangelical Fellowship "Willowbank Declaration", 1989)
But the fifteen Evangelical scholars who framed this document ask if this plain and extremely depressing fact, justified a shrinking back from "addressing the Jewish People with the Gospel".
"Some who see the creation of the State of Israel as a direct fulfillment of Biblical prophecy have concluded that the Christian task at this time is to 'comfort Israel', rather than to challenge Jews by direct evangelism," they observed.
"A new theology is being embraced which holds that God's covenant with Israel through Abraham establishes all Jews in God's favour for all time, and so makes faith in Jesus Christ for salvation needless so far as they are concerned."
"Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because He has come and has redeemed His people. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David (as He said through His holy prophets of long ago)." (Luke 1.68-70)
"God exalted Him (Jesus) to His right hand as Prince and Saviour that He might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel." (Acts 5.31)
"From this man's descendants God has brought to Israel the Saviour Jesus, as He promised." (Acts 13.23)
No matter how vehemently it may be repulsed by cogent protest, a clear distinction must always be drawn between Jesus Who is the Gospel, and everyone and everything which claims to speak and act in His holy Name. The Suffering Servant's Cross was never designed to be a screen and a cloak for corrupt creeds and evil deeds!
One of Britain's most eminent historians, Sir Martin Gilbert (b. 1936... and official biographer of Sir Winston Churchill) has argued strongly for this division.
The author of more than 80 books (including "Never Again: A History of the Holocaust", "From the Ends of the Earth: The Jews in the 20th Century", and "Jerusalem: Rebirth of a City") Sir Martin (who is himself Jewish) has said in an interview, "It's somehow a mistake to associate a long Christian tradition to convert Jews and other persecutions with what we call the Holocaust, which was conceived and carried out by people who certainly were not Christians and were hostile to every Christian value and were abhorrent to Churches and to many devout Christians."
(An aside: In 1942, Heinrich Himmler, in a speech to senior SS officers said, "This Christendom, this greatest pestilence which could have befallen us in history, which has weakened us for every conflict, we must finish with.")
"In writing or speaking about the Holocaust," Sir Martin said, "so grim were the elements of collaboration, of betrayal, of bystanders doing nothing, that what was done that was positive and helpful and remarkable and courageous, has been overlooked and as it were, dropped on the cutting floor of historical writing.
"It is important to remember that despite the terrifying dangers of helping Jews during the War, there were many, many Christians who risked their lives and many who suffered death for trying to help.
"Even in Berlin there are dozens of examples, actually hundreds of examples, of Christians who hid Jews at the risk of their own lives, or smuggled them though Germany to safe houses or even out of Germany."
In these last of the Last Days, it is crucial that the Christian Community permit nothing to rob us of the greatest gift we have to bless Israel with...Yeshua the Nazarene: Israel's Messiah and the world's Redeemer and Saviour. For if we shrink back from this proclamation (by word and deed) we hazard impeding the salvation of all Israel, and risk the loss in our own day of such luminous and scholarly Jews as Dr Adolph Saphir, Dr Alfred Edersheim (1825-1889), and David Baron (1855-1926).
Dr Saphir (1831-1891) was born in Hungary, studied theology in Germany and Scotland, and for the greater part of his life served God as a Presbyterian Minister in England...most notably at Greenwich and Notting Hill, London. The incomparable Baptist, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, called him "the Biblical student, the lover of the Word, the lover of the God of Israel". Such was his power as a preacher and teacher that his Notting Hill church was usually crowded with Anglicans, Congregationalists, Baptists, and Brethren...and of course Presbyterians.
In 1889, Dr Saphir addressed the 50th anniversary of the Free Church of Scotland's Jewish Mission. Forty six years earlier "with my dear father (Israel)...and my mother, my brother and three sisters, I was baptized into the holy name of our covenant God. That day shines forth in my memory above all other days of my life - a day of intense solemnity, sweetest peace, and most childlike assurance of the love of God in Christ Jesus."
The presence of the Presbyterian Jewish Mission in Budapest, Hungary, was the catalyst for this event.
Dr Saphir went on to tell the anniversary assembly, "My mother told me that I was born on the day of Atonement - the day on which God forgives the sins of His people; this simple fact roused strange and sad thoughts in my heart. Mysterious day, when Jews, clad in their white burial-garment, confess their sins with weeping and fasting. And the problem which pressed heavily upon me then...it was evident that we had no real and complete forgiveness of sin, since the day of Atonement had to be observed every year.
"When your Jewish missionaries came and preached to us the Gospel, this was the deepest conviction in our hearts, 'Now we know God', and with all the converts, however various their history, the central point was the forgiveness of sin through the atoning death of Christ. The verse through which I first saw the Gospel was, 'He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisment of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.' " (Isaiah 53.5)
And concerning Israel's future, Dr Saphir was full of the greatest hope, in spite of all possible circumstances .... ...favourable and hostile!
"Why," he asked, "should it be thought a strange thing that Israel's history will be consummated by a direct interference of God, 'the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour.'? (Titus 2.13)
"The memories of the past are solemn; the opportunities of the present are urgent; the hope for the future, according to the Word of God, is secure and glorious. Was not Israel's history miraculous from the very
beginning?...It was in the time of Judea's lowest condition, when subject to the Roman emperor, that God visited and redeemed His people...And thus the conclusion of Israel's history will be God's act, and manifest to the whole world as supernatural and divine. 'Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off. He that scattered Israel will gather him and keep him as a shepherd doth his flock.' (Jeremiah 31.10)
"In conclusion, I beseech you not to forget the love to Israel which...so eminently characterised you."
"Brothers, I want you to grasp this divine secret which God has revealed to His own, because I do not want you to get the impression of your own cleverness. The insensitiveness of the hearts of the Jewish nation is not a total insensitiveness, and it will only last until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. After that has happened, all Israel will be saved. As scripture says: 'The Rescuer will come from Sion, He will drive all godlessness from Jacob. This is the covenant I will make with them, when I take away their sins.' Looked at from the point of view of the Gospel, they have incurred God's hatred, and it is all for your sake. Looked at from the point of view of God's eternal choice, they are still loved by God for the sake of the fathers. For God cannot go back on His gifts and His call." (Romans 11.25-29 W Barclay NT)
