C
Contrabass101
Guest
This question has been bugging me for years, but now I finally seem to be able to connect some of the dots. So I’d like to hear if my thoughts are close to how the Church views its relationship with the Jews. I have a sense, that I lack understanding of Christ’s role, which makes it seem that I put a rather too great emphasis on Mary. I should like to balance it with a more Christological perspective, but can’t seem to get my head around it.
God is a Covenant God; he establishes family-bonds with mankind. God made his covenant first with Adam, invested him as high priest of Creation, but Adam fell from grace. Then later on, God establishes a Covenant with Noah and his decendants. This is a universal covenant, since all are the decendants of him.
Then later God chose Abraham from among Noahs children as the father of his people (or “family”, “kin” as the Hebrew word could also mean). Abraham was not chosen for his own sake, but for the benefit of all men, that they may bless themselves in his seed. Then Isach was chosen from Abrahams two sons, and at last Jacob/Israel from Isachs two sons. The twelve sons of Israel are the fathers of the Israelites.
Still, Israel being the chosen people, are not chosen for their own sake, but to be a “light to the peoples”, they are chosen not that everyone else shall be damned, but that everyone else (if possible) shall be saved. They are not chosen in an exclusive way, but as an instrument of bringing God’s salvation to the world. They are his spearhead into this world.
With all their faults and errors, God’s covenant with them is still strong, through the centuries, and his promises last. As Scott Hahn says, you cannot break a covenant - the covenant breaks you. Just like you cannot break the Law of Gravity - if in contempt for it you try to defy it by jumping of a scy-scraper, the Law is unaltered, while you are not.
Now, the promises are continually narrowed down, first to Juda, then to David, Solomon and in the end to a young Jewess who receives words from an angel, that she is to bear the Son of God and of David, the Seed of the Woman and of Abraham. In this Most Blessed Virgin and her Son then, the Covenant comes to its fulfillment.
This then, is the time when all nations shall be blessed in Abrahams’ Son, and the boundaries of spiritual Israel which were earlier closed to the gentiles is opened. Jesus makes his covenant first with Jews (his disciples - it also seems that the Church was a Jewish thing untill year 50) perhaps to emphasize that salvation comes from the Jews and that his covenant is a continuation of the Jewish covenant. It is, however, opened up to the gentiles.
Some branches were thus grafted into the original tree (at baptism), they become spiritual Israel - but not just in a vague, figurative “spiritual” sense. No, in the flesh and blood sense of a family. We are children of Mary, as Jesus tells John from the Cross: Behold your mother. She is the woman in the sky, that Revelation shows us, who (besides being herself) typifies both Israel and the Church. Through her we become the children of Israel. A Jew is someone who is born of a Jewish woman.
(This is where I feel that my emphasis on Mary is not as it should be accompanied by an emphasis on Christ - he is, according to himself, the Vine itself. But all that is not quite clear to me, so if someone can explain it more fully, I’d be grateful.)
The Covenant with the Jews has not been broken, but the majority of Jews broke themselves on it by disobedience. Indeed, whenever Israel sins they are attacked by enemies or led into exile to chastice them - what sin can they have committed that caused them to be exiled for 1900 years, the longest period of exile ever (and they still don’t have a temple)? If it was not rejecting and killing the Messiah, what then? I do not, of course, imply that God hates the Jews - on the contrary - Israel is chastened because God loves them. And it does seem quite a coincidence, that not a generation after killing Christ, their temple is destroyed, and they have been living away from Israel for almost two millenia. Perhaps they overlooked the new Macchabeus because he didn’t look like the old ones…
So the Jews do in a sense still have the Covenant of Abraham, but by rejecting Christ, they break themselves off of the vine. They have the covenant, like a fallen-away Christian still has his baptism, but it is not resulting in the living communion with God, that it was supposed to.
Anyhow, the stem of the vine is still Jewish, it is the Blessed Virgin and her Son. And still, some of the branches are natural - the apostles, the first church in Jerusalem and even today there is a minority of Messianic Jews. The situation is, that most Christians are gentiles, but that doesn’t change the stem.
The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed (Christ) that is sown in the ground (Mary) - it is perhaps smaller than all other seeds, and it is completely Jewish. It grows up, and the birds (Gentiles) make nests in it.
Indeed, I suppose the purpose of choosing Israel as Covenant Family *was *that all nations should eventually be grafted in. However, the original Israel has maintained its tradition of stoning the prophets and the grafting in of the gentiles happened to coincide with the apostasy of the Jews. That is why Paul warns us not to boast that branches were broken off, that we might be grafted in (which would be replacement theology); they were broken off because of disobedience. And we, too, might be broken off if we are not on guard. And of course the gardener wishes nothing more dearly than to one day graft back in the original branches. And what God wants should be what his people wants.
Please point out any heretic or weak points in this… I am trying hard to get this down in my head.
God is a Covenant God; he establishes family-bonds with mankind. God made his covenant first with Adam, invested him as high priest of Creation, but Adam fell from grace. Then later on, God establishes a Covenant with Noah and his decendants. This is a universal covenant, since all are the decendants of him.
Then later God chose Abraham from among Noahs children as the father of his people (or “family”, “kin” as the Hebrew word could also mean). Abraham was not chosen for his own sake, but for the benefit of all men, that they may bless themselves in his seed. Then Isach was chosen from Abrahams two sons, and at last Jacob/Israel from Isachs two sons. The twelve sons of Israel are the fathers of the Israelites.
Still, Israel being the chosen people, are not chosen for their own sake, but to be a “light to the peoples”, they are chosen not that everyone else shall be damned, but that everyone else (if possible) shall be saved. They are not chosen in an exclusive way, but as an instrument of bringing God’s salvation to the world. They are his spearhead into this world.
With all their faults and errors, God’s covenant with them is still strong, through the centuries, and his promises last. As Scott Hahn says, you cannot break a covenant - the covenant breaks you. Just like you cannot break the Law of Gravity - if in contempt for it you try to defy it by jumping of a scy-scraper, the Law is unaltered, while you are not.
Now, the promises are continually narrowed down, first to Juda, then to David, Solomon and in the end to a young Jewess who receives words from an angel, that she is to bear the Son of God and of David, the Seed of the Woman and of Abraham. In this Most Blessed Virgin and her Son then, the Covenant comes to its fulfillment.
This then, is the time when all nations shall be blessed in Abrahams’ Son, and the boundaries of spiritual Israel which were earlier closed to the gentiles is opened. Jesus makes his covenant first with Jews (his disciples - it also seems that the Church was a Jewish thing untill year 50) perhaps to emphasize that salvation comes from the Jews and that his covenant is a continuation of the Jewish covenant. It is, however, opened up to the gentiles.
Some branches were thus grafted into the original tree (at baptism), they become spiritual Israel - but not just in a vague, figurative “spiritual” sense. No, in the flesh and blood sense of a family. We are children of Mary, as Jesus tells John from the Cross: Behold your mother. She is the woman in the sky, that Revelation shows us, who (besides being herself) typifies both Israel and the Church. Through her we become the children of Israel. A Jew is someone who is born of a Jewish woman.
(This is where I feel that my emphasis on Mary is not as it should be accompanied by an emphasis on Christ - he is, according to himself, the Vine itself. But all that is not quite clear to me, so if someone can explain it more fully, I’d be grateful.)
The Covenant with the Jews has not been broken, but the majority of Jews broke themselves on it by disobedience. Indeed, whenever Israel sins they are attacked by enemies or led into exile to chastice them - what sin can they have committed that caused them to be exiled for 1900 years, the longest period of exile ever (and they still don’t have a temple)? If it was not rejecting and killing the Messiah, what then? I do not, of course, imply that God hates the Jews - on the contrary - Israel is chastened because God loves them. And it does seem quite a coincidence, that not a generation after killing Christ, their temple is destroyed, and they have been living away from Israel for almost two millenia. Perhaps they overlooked the new Macchabeus because he didn’t look like the old ones…
So the Jews do in a sense still have the Covenant of Abraham, but by rejecting Christ, they break themselves off of the vine. They have the covenant, like a fallen-away Christian still has his baptism, but it is not resulting in the living communion with God, that it was supposed to.
Anyhow, the stem of the vine is still Jewish, it is the Blessed Virgin and her Son. And still, some of the branches are natural - the apostles, the first church in Jerusalem and even today there is a minority of Messianic Jews. The situation is, that most Christians are gentiles, but that doesn’t change the stem.
The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed (Christ) that is sown in the ground (Mary) - it is perhaps smaller than all other seeds, and it is completely Jewish. It grows up, and the birds (Gentiles) make nests in it.
Indeed, I suppose the purpose of choosing Israel as Covenant Family *was *that all nations should eventually be grafted in. However, the original Israel has maintained its tradition of stoning the prophets and the grafting in of the gentiles happened to coincide with the apostasy of the Jews. That is why Paul warns us not to boast that branches were broken off, that we might be grafted in (which would be replacement theology); they were broken off because of disobedience. And we, too, might be broken off if we are not on guard. And of course the gardener wishes nothing more dearly than to one day graft back in the original branches. And what God wants should be what his people wants.
Please point out any heretic or weak points in this… I am trying hard to get this down in my head.
- CB
