Jews are not in a flattering position who condemn the Christian church for inciting pogroms against them. It is, in point of fact, only a corrupt church that could do such a thing. And the evaluation of the church as corrupt requires a higher norm by which to judge it. That higher norm—the apostolic Scriptures—arrives at a judgment of “apostate” and “corrupt” regarding the church that would sponsor a pogrom (or even just look the other way) by the same criterion as it condemns the Jews as corrupt for crucifying their own Messiah, Jesus.
Thus a judgment against Christians for persecuting Jews, by the same token, implies a judgment of Jews for executing Jesus and the prophets, and for persecuting Christians. We must ever remind Jews that the early Christians, regardless of suffering persecution by corrupt Judaism, never taught or practiced or justified retaliation of any sort whatever against those Jews. They loved and prayed for their enemies, giving over to God, exactly as their Master did, a just reprisal, while totally denying this privilege to themselves or their survivors. [3/19/03]
POGROMS: THE VIOLENCE OF “CHRISTIANS” WHO WERE NOT CHRISTIANS UPON “JEWS” WHO WERE NOT JEWS
When did Christians start killing Jews? It never happened in the early church era, because Christians at that time were all non-retaliatory like their Master Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, had directed. In fact, it typically did not occur until centuries later when Christians, sadly, became mimetically like the Jews who persecuted them! Pogroms never happened until so-called “Christians” learned how to take up the sword—for, as in the ironic words of the song from South Pacific (1949) by Rodgers and Hammerstein (both of Jewish extraction), “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught.” But they first fell victim to their own warlikeness when, after Constantine (272-337A.D.), they battled “heretics” and one other in disgraceful episodes that echo the unspeakable crimes that similarly warlike Jewish zealots perpetrated upon one another within the walls of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., thereby fulfilling the dire prophecies of Jesus against those Jews “after the flesh” who refused to learn the ways of peace by accepting him as the Messiah promised by Jehovah their God. Internecine warfare was the inevitable conclusion of God’s covenant with a disobedient, stiff-necked people—the dischosen descendants of Abraham who “say they are Jews but are not, but are liars,” a “synagogue of Satan” (Rev. 2:9, 3:9) who, like their real father, the Adversary, are man-killers and liars (John 8:44, 1 John 3:14-15).
How did Christians ever fall so low as to imitate the Jews who persecuted them and killed them? It is because they were beguiled away from the pure teaching of their Master, who had forbidden them from taking up the sword or resisting the vicious person. They therefore became non-Christian, anti-Christian (“antichrist,” ironically!) by slaying one another. It was only a matter of time before they would start in on the Jews. By this time they were scarcely Christians but now reflecting the phoniness of Jews who themselves were “not Jews.” [1/10/04]
SALVATION FROM SIN, NOT FROM ROMANS
The leaders of the Jews in Jesus’ day were so ignorant of their own Scriptures that they just didn’t ‘get’ the message of their own fifteen-century history as a distinct nation! They should have seen the obvious fact, writ very large indeed from generation to generation ever since Moses had to suffer their whining, idolatry, and lawlessness in the wilderness, and in spite of God’s abundant, magnanimous wonders end on end! Stephen, in his inflammatory speech in Acts 7, only barely got a running start on the enormous subject when he was stoned to death for daring to face them with the grim facts: Israel always got oppressed by enemies, by famines, by pestilence, by plagues, and even by their own kings (which, however, they themselves had fatefully demanded), because of their own sins! God even demonstrated with them that they could live relatively happy in captivity within a foreign land, Babylon, if they remained faithful to Him. Think also of the young Israelite maid who became captive to Syria and served in Naaman’s household. She was a wonderful blessing to others even there.
Ergo: what Israel needed salvation from was not foreign enemies or alien rulers, but her own native sins. Her own sins with tedious regularity brought on the oppressions. So to regain peace she needed a Savior from sin.
However, Israel’s leaders, by Jesus time, had it backwards. They ignored their own sinfulness while seeking for a Messiah who would drive out foreign oppressive rule. Had they never read the Book of Judges or the Former Prophets? Didn’t they, after all, understand their ultimate and fundamental need? Didn’t they see that they actually, ultimately, and always needed One who could save them from themselves? If they could become wholesome and righteous and clean from sins, oppressions would melt away! If they could make peace with God, He would stop making war on them by sending them oppressors to enact the covenantal curses on their heads for their sins. Simple, really.
Please note, however, that this by no means implies that this Kingdom of Heaven is not earthly! There is no contradiction or paradox or dialectic, much less war, between heaven and earth. The struggle is between the Kingdom of God, from the heavens (where His throne is), and the Kingdom of darkness, from the world, deluded by Satan. Both of these kingdoms contend for the earth, but with different rules. (See Zechariah’s Song, Luke 1:69-79.)
This all implies that, although the Jews rightly expected a Messiah who would make an earthly difference, they didn’t understand the only rules that would really work to bring peace with the Romans, prosperity for themselves, along with true happiness, joy and liberty. Had they known this, they would never have crucified Jesus—their only hope against the might of Rome and its local puppets and deputies, such as Herod and Pontius Pilate. This Jesus was their true Messiah. He had demonstrated in outward, tangible, practical ways, the love, joy, peace, graciousness, mercy, provision, kindness, tolerance and amenableness, not to mention honest-to-goodness healing and miracles, potent enough to change the weather, that made for enduring peace. He showed them, in short, God’s Kingdom and justice in earthly substance.
But, at the last, the Jews wanted none of it! The majority still wanted to wave swords and spears! They still yearned for the good old-fashioned blood-and-gore methods of winning over their enemies! They wanted revenge. They wanted ‘respect’. And so they reaped the “abomination of desolation” of Daniel the prophet and the most horrible internecine warfare of their fifteen-century history—70 A.D. They did it to themselves. They even called down a curse on themselves and their children just to get Jesus executed! They did not know “the day of their visitation” with judgment, their date with grim destiny. “They that usurp the sword shall perish by the sword” (Matt. 26:52).
For another 250 years, the Christians around the empire persisted in demonstrating what the Kingdom of Heaven over earth could look like. It wasn’t a perfect representation—certainly no “utopia”—yet it was still ‘good enough’ to score an indelible historic point. They would exhibit its community, charity, wholesomeness, unity-in-diversity, generosity, resilience, amity, clemency, concord, compassion, etc., just long enough to make others either jealous enough to get in on it themselves, or envious enough to pursue and oppress them often to the point of death for presuming to teach the nations these odd doctrines of peace with God and reconciliation with one other.
Under such conditions, the leaders, who knew the teaching of Jesus the best, were the first targets, leaving the younger generation somewhat imperfectly taught and trained in this counter-cultural explanation and practice of life and destiny. Over the decades and centuries, something was bound to get lost from memory and practice, despite the continued existence of the missionary writings of the first generation, which became known as the “New Covenant.” Even so, the widespread existence of these documents held out the promise of recurrent revivals, renewals, restorations, reformations, reconstructions, etc. Thus has God’s Explanation continued to race on and get glorified or accredited generation after generation (2Thess. 3:1). Nor shall it ever cease until Messiah Jesus’ conquest of the world and its kingdoms is made complete by his actual return from on high to consummate the foregone conclusion of his Resurrection from death-by-crucifixion. Amen. [1/10/04]
The Premial Atonement 