Clifford Denton moves from the Middle Ages to the Reformation, exploring how contemporary attitudes and beliefs regarding Israel came to be established in Christian culture.
Introduction
In this study series we have carefully traced the separation of the Christian Church from Israel and the Jewish people. We have shown that this began in earnest in the 2nd Century AD and encouraged and was amplified by anti-Semitism, which drove a deepening wedge between Church and Synagogue.
The later theological position of the Church was worked out among a number of developing Christian sects and denominations, largely centered on the Roman Catholic Church for many centuries. These theologies affirmed the separation of Christianity from Judaism and eventually wrote Israel out of the picture in any significant way.
The Reformation of the 16th Century brought a fresh move to take the Church back to its roots but its work was incomplete and so division remained both in theology and practice. This week we will illustrate this point by considering some of the writings of the prominent theologians of the Reformation, whose arguments are still found in foremost theology books today.
The Reformation of the 16th Century was a fresh move encouraging the Church back to its roots, but its work was left incomplete when it came to relationships with Israel and the Jews.
The Reformation
The Reformation of the 16th Century began when Martin Luther presented his 95 Theses dramatically to the Roman Catholic Church. "The Just Shall Live by His Faith" then rang out across Christendom to challenge the Church to reform, repent of corruption and return to its true roots.
The door where the 95 Theses were posted, Wittenburg. See Photo Credits.
Yet this had little impact upon the Jews scattered into their communities across the world. Through misunderstanding or aggressive instincts, Luther then turned on the Jews and an opportunity was lost to complete the Reformation and mend the rift between Judaism and Christianity. Theological misunderstandings remain to this day, despite the emergence of new life in the Christian Church. Marvin Wilson writes in Our Father Abraham (p99):
Martin Luther made a decisive break with the Catholic Church. The issues most central to this German Reformer included faith and works, Scripture and tradition, and the priesthood of believers. But these issues did not constitute Luther's total theological agenda. Toward the start of his influential career he expressed hope of reaching the Jewish community with the Christian gospel. In 1523 he issued a tract, That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew, which affirmed the Jewish descent of Jesus. Luther pointed out that early missionary outreach to Jews failed not because of evil or obstinacy on the part of the Jews but because of the "wicked and shameless" life of popes, priests, and scholars.
However well-meant or kindly intentioned Luther's attitude was at the start, he changed. When he saw that Jews failed to respond to the Christian message, he became hostile toward them. He issued a series of vitriolic pamphlets, including On Jews and Their Lies (1543). In these bitter diatribes he labeled Jews as "venomous," "thieves," and "disgusting vermin." Furthermore, Luther called for Jews to be permanently driven out of the country. Appealing to this and other anti-Semitic doctrine, four centuries later the Nazis carried out Luther's desire with horrifying success.
Whilst Dr Wilson also notes, "Fortunately, in recent years, the efforts of both Jewish and Lutheran leaders have considerably improved interfaith relations", the Reformation perpetuated a theology of separation that is still ingrained in the theology books of the Christian Church and is an assumption within the teaching programmes of the majority of Bible Schools.
The Reformation perpetuated a theology of separation that is still ingrained in the Church today, and is an assumption in the teaching programmes of most Bible Schools.
The sale of indulgences was challenged. See Photo Credits.Prior to the Reformation, theological positions had been developed particularly through the Church Councils:
- The First Council of Nicaea, called by Constantine, 325 AD
- The First Council of Constantinople, called by Theodosius, 381 AD
- The Council of Ephasus, called by Theodosius II, 431 AD
- The Council of Chacedon, called by Emperor Marcian and Pope Leo, I 451 AD
- The Second Council of Constantinople, called by Justinian I, 553 AD
- The Third Council of Constantinople, called by Constantine Pogonatus, 680 AD
- The Second Council of Nicaea, called by Irene and her son Constantine V, 787 AD
By the 16th Century, discontent was growing with the control and corruption emanating from the Church (centred in Rome). Out of this came the dramatic emergence of the Reformation. We will now examine the seeds sown by key Reformation thinkers and look at the fruit these are still bearing in modern Church theologies. First, we quote from John Calvin, the well-known Reformation theologian.
John Calvin
We quote at length from Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion (Eerdmans 1989) - without analysis, so as to let the quotations speak for themselves. However, it is first important to state that we are not suggesting that everything about these quotations is wrong – rather that they clearly display a bias in Calvin's understanding of the relationship between Israel and the Christian Church.
John Calvin. See Photo Credits.From the chapter 'The Difference Between the Testaments', we read:
What then? You will say, Is there no difference between the Old and New Testaments?...These differences (so far as I have been able to observe them and can remember) seem to be chiefly four, or if you choose to add a fifth, I have no objections...
The first difference then is, that though, in old time, the Lord was pleased to direct the thoughts of his people, and raise their minds to the heavenly inheritance, yet, that their hope of it might be the better maintained, he held forth, and, in a manner, gave a foretaste of it under earthly blessings, whereas the gift of future life, now more clearly and lucidly revealed by the gospel, leads our minds directly to meditate upon it, the inferior mode of exercise formerly employed in regard to the Jews being now laid aside...
Another distinction between the Old and New Testaments is in the types, the former exhibiting only the image of truth, while the reality was absent, the shadow instead of the substance, the latter exhibiting both the full truth and the entire body...
I proceed to the third distinction...expressed by Jeremiah (Chapter 31)...Let us now explain the Apostle's contrast step by step. The Old Testament is literal, because promulgated without the efficacy of the Spirit: the New spiritual, because the Lord has engraven it on the heart. The second antithesis is a kind of the first. The Old is deadly, because it can do nothing but involve the whole human race in a curse; the New is the instrument of life because those are freed from the curse it restores to favour with God. The former is the ministry of condemnation, because it charges the whole sons of Adam with transgression; the latter the ministry of righteousness, because it unfolds the mercy of God, by which we are justified.
The last antithesis must be referred to the Ceremonial Law. Being a shadow of things to come, it behoved in time to perish and vanish away; whereas the Gospel, inasmuch as it exhibits the very body, is firmly established forever. Jeremiah, indeed, calls the Moral Law also a weak and fragile covenant; but for another reason – namely, because it was immediately broken by the sudden defection of an ungrateful people; but as the blame of such violation is in the people themselves, it is not properly alleged against the covenant.
The ceremonies, again, inasmuch as through their very weakness they were dissolved by the advent of Christ, had the cause of weakness from within. Moreover, the difference between the spirit and the letter must not be understood as if the Lord had delivered his Law to the Jews without any good result; ie as if none had been converted to him. It is used comparatively to commend the riches of the grace with which the same Lawgiver, assuming, as it were, a new character, honoured the preaching of the Gospel...
Out of the third distinction a fourth arises. In Scripture, the term bondage is applied to the Old Testament, because it begets fear, and the term freedom to the New because productive of confidence and security...
The fifth distinction which we have to add consists in this, that until the advent of Christ, the Lord set apart one nation, to which he confined the covenant of his grace...Israel was thus the Lord's favourite child, and the others were aliens...The calling of the Gentiles, therefore, is a distinguishing feature illustrative of the superiority of the New over the Old Testament...by this public call, the Gentiles were not only made equal to the Jews, but seemed to be substituted into their place, as if the Jews had been dead.
Though great scholarship emerged from the works of Calvin and others, thoughts had already polarised regarding law/grace, new/old, Jew/Gentile, bondage/freedom - and all Jews were thought of as one body together. Generally, the Gentile Church and its theologies were becoming organised around an assumed separation from Israel, though this was not always mentioned except in passing.
The Church was forming a theology which assumed separation between Jew and Christian.
If we jump for a moment to the present day, and refer to a popular modern theology book by Louis Berkhof, his Systematic Theology (Banner of Truth, 1984), we can illustrate this point as it has continued to this day. On the Second Coming (p698-690), Berkhof dismisses the pre-millennial view of the re-establishment of the nation of Israel prior to or during the Lord's millennial reign. He interprets the Church as the New Israel and considers natural Israel as being replaced:
He [Jesus] informs the wicked Jews that the Kingdom will be taken from them and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof, Matt.21:43...He does not hint of any prospective restoration and conversion of the Jewish people. This silence of Jesus is very significant. Now it may be thought that Rom. 11:11-32 certainly teaches the future conversion of the nation of Israel...In the chapters 9-11 the apostle discusses the question, how the promises of God to Israel can be reconciled with the rejection of the greater part of Israel. He points out first of all in the chapters 9 and 10 that the promise applies, not to Israel according to the flesh, but to the spiritual Israel, that there is among them still a remnant according to the election of grace, 11:1-10.
And even the hardening of the greater part of Israel is not God's final end, but rather a means in His hand to bring salvation to the Gentiles, in order that these, in turn, by enjoying the blessings of salvation, may provoke Israel to jealousy. The hardening of Israel will always be only partial, for through all succeeding centuries there will always be some who accept the Lord..."All Israel" is to be understood as a designation, not of the whole nation, but the whole number of the elect out of the ancient covenant people...the apostle said...that the promises were for spiritual Israel...with the fullness of the Gentiles the fullness of Israel will also come in.
We see here a perpetuation of replacement theology written into a modern-day theology book. Elsewhere there is the hidden assumption that the Church is a distinct entity, separated from any strong Hebraic foundations. For example, Berkhof's Systematic Theology contains a full 50 pages on what the Church is, including its nature, its names from a linguistic background, the history of its development, its Catholic and Greek fathers and its post-Reformation and Protestant history. But the Church is so much assumed a new body replacing Israel that Israel itself is not mentioned even once in these 50 pages of definition.
This illustrates the basis of Christian theology as is taught in many seminaries, and as it has developed from the early days of separation. We turn now to two more early theologians.
Thomas Aquinas
First, we quote from several sections of Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica (quoting from Methuen, 1989). Aquinas appears to have linked Christian theology more to the Greek philosopher Aristotle than to its Hebrew foundations:
Thomas Aquinas. See Photo Credits.On Law he writes:
In the New Testament God spoke to us in his Son, in the Old Testament by angels. God instituted the law by his own authority and promulgated it through angels. And it was bestowed together with other special advantages on the people of the Jews, because of the promise made to their forefathers that Christ should be born from them...Christ was destined in the future to save every nation, but still had to be born from one. So, although certain injunctions of the Old Law proclaimed the law which is in us by nature and such had to be observed by all – not as Old Law but as law of our nature, certain injunctions of the Old Law were peculiar to it and obliged only people of the Jews...
Does the law oblige us to do virtuous deeds virtuously? According to Aristotle when we act knowingly, choosing what we do voluntarily for some intended goal, and doing it wholeheartedly with a firm and unwavering commitment...
On Faith, he writes:
Authority is instituted by human law. Since the law of grace does not abrogate human law based on reason, being believers does not as such exempt us from the already established authority of disbelievers. The church, however, does have God's authority to take authority away from disbelievers, since their disbelief makes them unworthy to exercise power over believers, who have become sons of God. And sometimes the church exercises this right, sometimes not.
As regards disbelievers subject to temporal authority of the church or its members, church law states that slaves of Jews must be freed immediately on becoming Christians, with no ransom paid if they were born slaves or sold into slavery. But if in the market they must be offered for ransom within three months. The church has the right to dispose of the Jew's goods since he is subject to the church...The church permits Christians to work Jewish lands, because that doesn't involve living together, but if such contact did hold dangers for the faith of Christians it would be altogether forbidden.
On Jesus' suffering he writes:
Wished-for ignorance aggravates faults rather than excuses them, for it shows a man so intent on sinning that he doesn't want to know anything that might deter him from sin. The Jews sinned in this way, crucifying Christ not only as man but as God. The Jewish leaders' sin was the gravest, both because of what they did and because it was done with malice. More excusable was the sin of the pagans at whose hands Christ was crucified, for they had no knowledge of the Law.
In the writings of Aquinas, as with other Christian theologians, we detect the move to see the Gentile world subdued under Christianity, as well as the issue of Church merged with State. From the days of Emperor Constantine, Christianity became the religion of the Empire. Later, through the theologians that we have quoted, Greek philosophy merged with biblical teaching, and the politics of Greece led to a desire for Christianity to be a political power in the world.
As Greek philosophy merged with biblical teaching, the politics of Greece created a desire for Christianity to be a political power in the world, subduing others.
This increased the contrast with the Nation of Israel, seen as the body of people now rejected and replaced by other nations. The eloquence of this logic (Greek though it is) has been beguiling to this day.
Martin Luther
Second, for the purposes of illustration, we turn to Martin Luther. In Luther's Theological Writings (ed. TF Lull, Fortress Press, 1989), we read from the section 'How Christians should Regard Moses':
I have stated that all Christians, and especially those who handle the word of God and attempt to teach others, should take heed and learn Moses aright. Thus where he gives a commandment, we are not to follow him except so far as he agrees with the natural law. Moses is a teacher and doctor of the Jews. We have our own master, Christ, and he has set before us what we are to know, observe, do, and leave undone.
However, it is true that Moses sets down, in addition to the laws, fine examples of faith and unfaith – punishment of the godless, elevation of the righteous and believing – and also the dear and comforting promises concerning Christ which we should accept. The same is true of the gospel. For example in the account of the ten lepers, that Christ bids them go to the priest and make sacrifice (Luke 17:14) does not pertain to me. The example of their faith, however, does pertain to me; I should believe Christ as they did.
Luther's over-strong departure from the continuity of biblical and covenant history is clear.
Summary
When surveying the emergence of Christian theologies, we perceive an assumed separation from Hebraic foundations and, as a result, a reaction against the Jews. The Church became re-defined in Gentile terms and the separation from its roots continues in many theology books today.
When we survey the emergence of Christian theologies, we see an assumed separation from Hebrew roots, re-defining the Church in Gentile terms.
We quote finally from David H Stern's Messianic Jewish Manifesto (Jewish New Testament Publications, 1991):
...both individuals and the church as an institution have taught anti-Semitic doctrines and committed anti-Semitic acts in the name of Christ. Moreover, although some of these individuals were Christians in name only, displaying no evidence of genuine faith, others were people who according to any criterion except that of anti-Semitism itself really were Christians – such as Augustine and Martin Luther. In fact, even though he inaugurated the Protestant Reformation one can seriously wonder, in the light of the standard set by Genesis 12:3, if the man who filled his tract, "On the Jews and their Lies," with imprecations against Abraham's descendants was saved. (p69-70)
From Luther's On the Jews and their Lies (trans. MH Bertram, in Luther's Works, Fortress Press 1962-64) we read:
What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews?...I shall give you my sincere advice: First, to set fire to their synagogues...in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians...I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed...I advise that their prayerbooks and Talmudic writings...be taken from them...I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb.
We will believe that our Lord Jesus Christ is truthful when he declares of the Jews who did not accept but crucified him, "You are a brood of vipers and children of the devil..." I have read and heard many stories about the Jews which agree with this judgment of Christ, namely, how they have poisoned wells, made assassinations, kidnapped children...I have heard that one Jew sent another Jew, and this by means of a Christian, a pot of blood, together with a barrel of wine, in which when drunk empty, a dead Jew was found.
This last quotation illustrates how far the reaction against the Jews can go when we become detached from our roots. It was an unfortunate error on Luther's part, especially considering all the good that he had done in his life. This quotation was even used, it is said, by Adolf Hitler, to justify his 'Final Solution' and the resulting Holocaust of the Second World War.
For Reflection and Comment
In what way can the Church find theological renewal? Could this be done by prayerfully, studying the scriptures together in new ways relating more to our Hebraic heritage? Could this result in true spiritual unity across the denominations?
Next time: Early Jewish Sources
