Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: But I want you to imagine that you grew up in a home where traditions, certain traditions, things that you do are incredibly sacred things.
They're a part of your life. Generations in your family have celebrated them together.
They are memories and recollections and markers and deep memories of your family's, like, best moments together.
You have incredible recollection of these times. And as you grow up, eventually you meet someone with spouse potential.
Okay?
And you're interested and you're having a deep discussion. And in this ensuing discussion, you share with this potential spouse your cherished memories growing up, what your home was like, all the things that were so special to you, and how important it is that they remain a part of whatever happens between the two of you.
And your potential spouse looks at you and says, those things are ridiculous.
That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. And the fact that your family would ever consider these things sacred, that is ridiculous. You guys are ignorant.
You want to be a part of this family. My family is the only real way.
This is the way we do things. I would never stoop to that level of what you call memorable or sacred or special.
If you want to be part of my family, if you want to be part of my life, you will give that up.
It's junk.
You'll embrace what we do. You'll never look back. Because we're not going down that road. We're not going to blend.
We're not going to be a blended family. You're going to erase that and we're going to replace it, and you're going to do it with a smile on your face. You're going to be happy. You're going to have gratitude about this.
So the question.
That's the scenario.
Would you.
Would you be incredibly excited?
Would you absolutely thank your potential spouse for calling out your blindness and your ignorance? Would you rush to abandon the very practices that define parts of you as a human being?
Would you?
It's a rhetorical question. I know most people would say, of course not. And that should elicit a feeling in your stomach when you hear that and that idea. And you would say, no way, I'm not doing that.
And that. No way.
That gut level, no way. This is the starting point of today's message. It's a question I hear all the time.
Why they say, why did the Jews not see it?
Why didn't they just accept Jesus when the church proclaimed it to them?
Why?
How could they have not seen it?
There is an answer, though many people may not like to hear it. But as James Carroll writes in a book called Constantine's Sword, by the second century, accepting Jesus meant rejecting, even betraying everything Jewish and Judaism held sacred.
The Torah, the memory of the temple, covenant, identity.
The gospel message as it was being framed did not invite Israel in.
It demanded Israel disappear.
Did you hear that?
Last week we explored the origins of true replacement theology beyond Marcion, beyond Valentinus. We talked about true supersessionism in the early church. Not last week, the week before. I'm sure you remember word for word, so that's good. But what we saw was how certain church fathers, many, began teaching that the church had replaced Israel in God's plan. Right?
Portraying Judaism at best as obsolete, at worst as completely sinful. And I want to shift our focus today to the long term consequences of those ideas. In this series that is called Baseless Hatred, the Roots of Christian Antisemitism, I want you to see how these theological ideas played out in history.
I want you to have history as your background from the 2nd through the 5th centuries, which was a period that witnessed the decisive parting of the ways between Judaism, Christianity, the rise of an imperial church, and the cementing of the doctrines that would push Jews and Judaism to the edge of society for centuries.
The destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 AD marked a very, very significant, decisive turning point in the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. Because here's what happened. Two distinct paths emerged after that. On the Jewish side, the the Jewish community, under Rabbinic guidance, rebuilt religious life apart from the Temple. We thank God for that.
They rebuilt it. Part of that process ultimately involved putting the oral traditions into writing, which was called the Mishnah, which occurred in the third century. On the other hand, on the other path, the predominantly gentile Christian community was also developing in its own set of scriptures and doctrines, which became the New Testament, as we call it now.
I want you to think of my opening example about your traditions as I say this.
Jewish leaders viewed with growing concern the once Jewish sect that had become now predominantly gentile and was increasingly hostile to Jewish practices.
They were nervous about that.
Why?
Well, seeing Christian claims of supersessionism as dangerous, the rabbis backed up. They took a defensive stance. And thus in synagogues and schools, Jews were told, do not have anything to do with this.
Christians are not part of Israel.
How could they be?
They were promoting the ideas that we've been talking about for the last few weeks. If everything Jewish was bad and should be shed like a molted skin, how could Jews participate?
And in their assessment, that is the rabbis, this was their responsibility.
It was incumbent upon them to protect Jewish identity and theology and the Torah and the God of Israel from a group that was increasingly hostile toward them and all of the core practices of Judaism. It is interesting to note that at the very same time the Mishnah is being codified, so are the books and the discussion of the new testamen in the second and third centuries. But you'll notice something very interesting about that. The Mishnah has absolutely nothing negative or derogatory to say about Jesus or Christians. You know why?
Because they weren't worried about that.
That was a small sect of people who were preaching ridiculous ideas they needed to focus in. And yet at the very same time the church fathers were are writing down things that were just terribly vilifying to Jews.
And so what we find is that because of the earliest church denunciation of Jews, Judaism pulled back even further.
What option did they have?
And thus the break between the synagogue and the Church was complete. You had two distinct religions. The Gentile led Christianity that increasingly defined itself in opposition to Judaism and a Rabbinic Judaism, we could call it post destruction Judaism that was focused on its own renewal and the continuity of the community. That's what they were about.
This separation had explosive consequences though.
Once the communities were clearly distinguished, then the Christian leaders were no longer restrained or constrained.
They had no kinship ties. And so you see an increasingly hostile narrative develop toward Jews again. James Carroll observes that rather than embracing the inclusive vision of Israel's prophets, or even of Yeshua himself, the Church adopted Rome's imperial mindset.
Think about this. This is such a key point of Church history. Rome, they adopted Rome's triumphalist and authoritarian attitudes and began casting Jew as enemies of the truth. And so what actually just started as this separation now is open hostility. And there was one name that would rise to the surface in this time period that would be the driving force behind Christianity's ability to move from punching up to brutally punching down. And you know the name Constantine and I will spare you all the history of Constantine's conversion, but I want you to understand that the trajectory of replacement theology took such a decisive turn in the 4th century with Constantine's salvation.
You can read about the man that Constantine was to understand if he really was a Christian.
But his conversion in 312, this is the watershed moment. In 313 there was the Edict of Milan. Christianity now became legal and the convening of the Council of Nicaea in 325. Everyone's heard of the Nicene Creed, right? How Many Jews were present at the Council of Nicaea.
Ephes, Ephesians in Hebrew 0.
But after three centuries, now the Christians sort of as the persecuted minority whose anti Jewish rhetoric was this punching up idea. Now Constantine, we got imperial favor.
We are the official religion by century's end.
And now they had political power, they had legal power. And so the dynamic reversal of Christians was an absolute down and stay down.
The Council of Nicaea regarding Easter.
You know, there was a disagreement in the early church about whether or not you had to celebrate easter on the 14th of Nisan, which is when, you know, Passover. They were called Quartodecimans, the fourteeners. Or should we do it on Sunday? Because you know, that's Sunday. There was a big argument. Here's what the Council of Nicaea said.
For it's unbecoming beyond measure that on the holiest of festivals we should follow the customs of the Jews henceforth. Let us have nothing in common with this odious people.
Constantine wrote, let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd. For we've received from our Savior a different way.
This is the Council of Nicaea.
When the most powerful man in the world and all of the most powerful bishops of the new state sponsored religion are saying things like this, it gets noticed.
It was clearly now us, the Christians and them, the detestable odious people.
The evolution there was that was somewhat symbolic. And though it was a council, but there was this concrete legislation that came in the Synod of Elvira, prohibited Christians, this is 305 Christians. No intermarrying with Jews, no sharing meals with them, no observing Jewish practices. Constantine and his successors, especially his successors, then began to institute even more harsh civil laws. Jews certainly could not proselytize if someone converted. Circumstances was outlawed. Christians who converted to Judaism in the later periods were subject to death.
By the mid 4th centuries, Jews restrictions on marriage, social interactions, civil rights were taken away. They were barred from high office, from military service. Even building synagogues was prohibited.
Now you remember from our Roman series that Jews had a protected class in the Roman Empire, right?
That was gone.
The ancient rites that Jews had enjoyed since Julius Caesar were systematically stripped away down to second class, third class, lower than common citizens. This is what you call punching down.
Through these measures, the church wielded Roman law as its iron fist. It was the demonstration of its triumph over Judaism.
And so what began as theological replacement theory which we had talked about, that the claim the church was the new Israel, now this is different. This is systematic social and legal persecution. And it's backed by imperial voices, which got louder and. And louder and louder. The fourth century, you meet the famous Goldenmouth. You know who Goldenmouth is, right?
John Chrysostom. He's such an easy target that I almost hesitate to even use him. But he had his homilies against the Jews.
John Chrysostom, 386, 87, wrote this book. He's the archbishop of Constantinople.
His series of sermons, these homilies, was written to Judaizing Christians.
Judaizing Christians means they were still participating in Jewish festivals or attending synagogues even. And here's what John said. That's what Chrysostom means in Greek. Golden mouth. He was so articulate that he was known as the golden mouthed preacher.
The synagogue is worse than a brothel. It's the den of scoundrels. It's a lair of wild beasts, the temple of demons, devoted to idolatrous cults, the refuge of brigands and debauchees, debaucherers, the cavern of devils. It's a criminal assembly of Jews. Listen. God hates the Jews.
And on Judgment Day he will say to those who sympathize with them, depart from me, for you have had doings with my murderers. We must hate them and their synagogues.
It's shocking, but that's actually not the point I want you to get. Like I said, it's such an easy topic. But the intensity of these attacks from Chrysostom, it brings to light something that is a real issue. It's an important truth. It was a problem for him. It was a problem for the early leaders. Do you know what it is?
Many Christians were still drawn to Jewish practice, the Jewish faith. It is ancient traditions, scriptural foundations. It had a very powerful appeal to the nations. People are not that stupid.
And so, despite the official teachings that we've studied and all of this replacement theology, that Christianity had superseded Judaism on the ground, Judaism is still retaining a strong pull to people.
Jesus was Jewish. They knew that. They understood what it meant.
Many Gentile Christians were finding meaning in the Sabbath, in the holidays, in the synagogue. And that threatened church leaders.
They saw any validation of Jewish practices undermining Christianity's claim to be the true Israel. It was a threat.
The Jewish people had done nothing except be Jewish. And it was a threat.
In other words, what was happening on the ground among Christians stood in stark opposition to the entire tenets of replacement theology.
Chrysostom's vitriolic sermons. This is actually my favorite line from John. Listen, John Chrysostom.
Finally, he says in his homilies against the Jews. This is in homily one, section five, if you'd like to check it out.
Finally, he says, if the ceremonies of the Jews move you to admiration, what do you have in common with us?
If the Jewish ceremonies are venerable and great, ours are lies.
But if ours are true as they are, theirs are filled with deceit.
Pause for a moment of reflection.
To my fellow Gentile believers everywhere, all over the world in the room and everywhere, who are drawn to Judaism, take heart, be encouraged.
From the beginning, it was this way.
Your attraction to God's Torah, his festivals, his people, Israel, all of that. It echoes the things that were occurring then.
The very intensity of historical opposition, the laws and the fiery sermons against Judaism. It proves how natural what you feel was and how they wanted to be in.
It's not strange.
And the problem is that through the early misguided authorities, they stamped out the impulse. And you stand even today as a living testimony to that. And I want you to be encouraged by that.
Those who say, we have heard, God is with you.
That's the Bible, that's Zechariah the prophet.
Your love for Israel and the traditions, it's spirit led. It's what.
It's what Christians felt before replacement theology came along and told them they couldn't feel that way.
It required something. They had to actively suppress the heart of the Christian to keep them distanced from it.
So listen, it's a tragedy. Why?
Why?
Because I'm a Jew and I love Judaism and I want to Judaize you. That's a tragedy? Of course not. I believe it's because God gave a beautiful, beautiful thing to the Jewish people. And part of that was to bring in the nations and incorporate us into one new man, to really understand what that means and to be Jew and Gentile. And we have these beautiful celebrations that we share together. This.
That's why it's tragic. Because everywhere should look like this and it doesn't.
That's a tragedy. It was preventable.
It was not to be.
By the fourth, early fifth century, the once persecuted church was the persecutor, particularly of Jesus own people and of its own members who showed any affinity to those ways of thinking.
Okay, but there was a problem to contend with. There was still another problem.
Those doggone stubborn Jews, and what I mean by that is they had not been wiped off the face of the earth as much as Chrysostom suggested they should be hated. And worse, they persisted. And if indeed Judaism was null and void, why, it was awfully inconvenient that it continued to exist and thrive in places. Why would that be? That's a problem. Jews are still practicing their faith or even thriving at times. They hadn't disappeared, they hadn't converted.
And the problem of the continued existence of the Jews, it nagged. It nagged at Christian theology. And some extremists said, well, you know what? Kill them all.
That's really what we should do.
And there were outbreaks.
I'm not taking you through the rest of it, but there were outbreaks of extreme violence, crusades, expulsions of Jews. But the mainstream church solution is articulated probably by Western Christianity's most influential voice. Do you know who it is?
Augustine.
Augustine.
Augustine. 354, 430. We're talking 4th and 5th century. His impact on Western Christianity cannot be overstated. He.
His writings became foundational for Catholic and Protestant theology. City of God. Who's ever read City of Go by Augustine? It is absolute. It shaped political thought among Christianity for the future. His doctrinal development. He formulated original sin, divine grace, predestination, the nature of the church, biblical interpretation, methods. This guy, man. The historical impact is immeasurable for Augustine, Calvin, Luther, the greatest church fathers, he was considered like the top dog.
And even as we go through medieval theology, Renaissance theology, up until today, that's his impact. What did he say about the Jews?
We got this Jewish problem.
Augustine formulated what's known as the witness doctrine. He argued no Jews shouldn't be killed.
Absolutely not, or completely banished. Instead, he cited Psalm 59. He said, Slay them not, lest my people forget. Scatter them by thy power.
Augustine taught that the Jews were destined to live, destined by God to live as a scattered, subjugated people, as a perpetual witness. And what were they the witness to Christianity as it had been formed over the last 400 years.
They the fact that their own scriptures, the Old Testament, which they carried and preserved by that the Jews unwittingly testify to the prophecies that point to Christ and the church.
Because they have this. Though miserable and degraded, they're living proof that the Christian interpretation is valid. Because the Jews preserved the text. The Christian didn't just make this up. The Jews have had them for thousands of years. They're just too stinking blind to see it.
And their humiliated condition that was occurring more and more, that was justice.
That was God's justice being doled out.
I mean, they deserved death, but God mercifully kept them alive. Augustine said, not for their sake, but for whose sake?
The Christians.
That's why Jews exist. So that we might never forget that our scriptures weren't invented. And we can see what happens to those who reject the gospel, even if we ourselves did it to them.
It's a bit of a sick twist on economic supersessionism which we've talked about in the past. In Augustine's view, the Jews had a very specific and particular but peculiar role. Don't exterminate them, never. But don't let them thrive.
No way let them survive in this lowly state, oppressed, wandering.
And that's like who's seen who's. This is way later but Fiddler on the Roof and Tevye, you know, the classic wandering Jew, that's what they deserve.
It fulfills prophecy, validates Christianity. And it became extremely influential in the medieval church. It sort of gave a.
It was a pass. It was a theological cover. It was a rationale why Jews should be tolerated in Christian society.
Many would have just rather killed them all, like I said. But no, no, no, no, no.
Keep them tolerated but not welcomed. And this would be later used to justify things like putting identifying markers on juice, putting Jews into ghettos.
You didn't know that the ghetto was inspired by God, did you?
That it has a theological basis.
They deserve to be living in there like rats.
That was Augustine's idea. Think about the tragic distortion of that.
Think about what Paul would say.
Think about what Paul would say.
Romans 11.
The Jews are beloved.
Why?
Because they point to a newly emerging religion for the sake of the patriarchs. They're loved and God's gifts and calling to them are irrevocable.
Think about what Paul would have said.
The church chose to view Judaism as a negative object lesson.
That is the ultimate fruit of replacement theology when baked into Christian thought. And it turns the continued life of Jews, it's just a grim affirmation of Christian superiority. Let me point out one last thing about Augustine because it's important actually we can find a positive. A lot of times you can find a positive if you dig deep enough.
Augustine did not believe that the Torah itself was evil and wicked. He even believed that it had some redeeming characteristics. And he believed, unlike Jerome, who was another very influential church father, that the disciples and Paul, they weren't faking it because Jerome suggested they only did the Torah and the legal things because they were using that for evangelism. No, Augustine said, no, that's not true. They were good for them.
But not anymore.
Once that stopped, once that generation was done, forget was theologically wrong and spiritually harmful, for anyone to try to uphold any of these laws.
Why? Because they reduced the work of Christ.
It wasn't a mortal sin, but it was a serious error that needed to be corrected. And so here we are.
Replacement thinking had taken hold. And later this became codified as church law. This is way later. But listen. Jews who wanted to follow their Messiah must publicly announce their heritage, saying I do here and now renounce every right and observance of the Jewish religion, detesting all its most solemn ceremonies and intent and tenants which in former days I kept and held.
Okay, get rid of it.
Remember our opening scenario? The gut wrenching prospect of being forced to abandon everything that was cherished in your family.
Remember that scenario?
To denounce them as worthless. To embrace with gratitude something that hates you.
So I asked you the question, why didn't the Jews see it?
Why, why, why, why? Why don't they just recognize him?
And here's the answer.
Because the Church transformed faith in the Jewish Messiah into a requirement to despise Judaism itself.
The tragic irony is that even while we acknowledge the apostles genuine Torah observance, the Church demanded that the later generations must see those as abominable and detestable practices.
The word of God conclude.
Most modern Christians would recoil at the historical evidence that I've presented. Talking about Chrysostom and the venom and Constantine's discriminatory laws. All of that they would rightly say. This is terrible. That is terrible. Thank God we don't think that way anymore.
And indeed, indeed we should be deeply grateful, deeply grateful that such overt anti Judaism is largely reduced. However.
However, throughout our studies I've been hinting at something more subtle.
A pervasive replacement theology that has not disappeared. It's simply gone underground.
It's in the structure of how many many Christians practice and understand their faith. And very few modern believers would endorse the persecution of Jews or preach hatred from this place.
But.
But supersessionist assumptions. I can't help but just say it like it is.
They still inform much of Christian theology and practices in ways that they don't even understand. And it is not.
That is not the intention of what I'm doing. I'm not trying to drive a wedge. I'm trying to correct. I'm trying to educate and I'm trying to bring back.
That's what I'm doing.
And so next week I want to examine this structural. Not next week we'll celebrate Shmuel's Bar Mitzvah next week, but the following week. So you have to remember every word I said today, which was just a little bit next week, the following week, whenever we're gonna do that, we're gonna look at structural supersessionism. And it is, as I said, we're not shaming, we're not condemning. But when we understand this, when you see this, and I hope when the whole world, all of you, when everyone sees this, we can move past a painful legacy and we can repair. So please, come back and learn. It's important. Shabbat Shalom.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: I'm Darren with Shalom Macon. If you enjoyed this teaching, I want to ask you to take the next step. Start by making sure you subscribe to our channel. Next. Make sure you hit the like button on this video so that others know it's worth their time to watch.
Last, head over to our website to learn more about Shalom Macon, explore other teachings and events, and if you're so inclined to contribute to the work that we're doing to further the kingdom. Thanks for watching and connecting with Shalom Macon.
