Who Is a Jew?
Revelation 2:9: “I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are of the synagogue of satan.” See also 3:9.
One of the best-kept secrets in the world is that there is no traceable genetic relationship between those calling themselves “Jews” today and those of the Biblical era. Indeed, the standard traditional doctrines of most Evangelicals and others teach that those who call themselves “Jews” today are genetically descended from Abraham and are Christ‘s “brethren after the Flesh.”[1]
In Biblical times genealogical descent was of great importance for three reasons: kingship, priesthood and land rights. The New Testament is very clear that the only legitimate Heir to these rights is Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He is King, High Priest and Owner of the whole earth. Since He is alive forevermore, the inheritance is now secure and incorruptible in Him and is accessible to every ethnic and genetic group without respect of person.
It is perfectly clear from Revelation 2:9 and 3:9 that there is a Biblical standard required for claiming the name ‘Jew.’ It is not so clear from the Biblical record alone, however, just what became of the fleshly lineage of those “Jews” who did not accept Christ, even though it is clear that they were “cut off” from the people of God: Deuteronomy 18:15-19; = Acts 3:22-23; 7:37,51; John 15:6; Romans 11:17-24. Jesus warned the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” so that they could repent. However, those who did not repent and accept Him were cast out, rejected, disinherited, (Matt. 23; Mark 12: 1-9, 12; Luke 10:1, 10-11; 13:28, 35; 14:16-24, 26-33; 15:11-32; Galatians 4:30) Even so, those who will repent and turn to Christ can be restored, Romans 11:23-24.
The early Christian historians are important for this reason, for they show clearly that the fleshly lineage that might have claimed rights to the kingship, the priesthood, and/or the land were indeed “cut off” and the official, traceable lineage obliterated, except for Christ. Eusebius shows that the native Jewish dynasty ended when Herod the Idumean became the first foreign king, and therefore the scepter departed from Judah. He cites Genesis 49:10:
There shall not be wanting a ruler from Judah, nor a leader sprung from his loins, until he come for whom it is reserved.”[2]
He interprets this as a proof that Christ was “He…for whom it (the kingship) is reserved.
He shows also that Hyrcanus was “the last to whom fell the high-priestly succession.” When he was taken prisoner by the Parthians and Herod became the ruler:
Herod no longer appointed high priests of the ancient stock but assigned the office to nonentities, and that a policy similar to Herod’s regarding the appointment of priests was adopted by his son Archelaus, and after him by the Romans, when they took over the government of Judaea (p. 52). (See chart at Commentary on 1:6 “Enumeration of High Priests”)
The end of the dynasty of succession to the kingship and the priesthood in a sense also brought about the end of the succession rights to the tribal and family lands. Since Herod was an Idumean, the Jews did not accept him as their rightful king, knowing that their king should be one genetically descended from David. Therefore Herod destroyed the genealogical records. Eusebius says:
So Herod who had no drop of Israelitish blood in his veins and was stung by the consciousness of his base origin, burnt the registers of their families, thinking that he would appear nobly born if no one else was able by reference to public documents to trace his line back to the patriarchs or proselytes, or to the ‘sojourners’ of mixed blood. A few careful people had private records of their own, having either remembered the names or recovered them from copies, and took pride in preserving the memory of their aristocratic origin. These included the people mentioned above, known as Desposyni (the Master’s People) because of their relationship to the Saviour’s family.[3]
Therefore the only genealogies that remained extant after Herod had burned the official records were the few unofficial family records, and many of these were people claiming kinship to Christ‘s earthly family. We should note that Christ was presented in the Temple for both his circumcision and his dedication, at which time he was also named. (Luke 2:21-24). By this rite Christ was properly enrolled as an heir according to the Law. His genealogies are now a part of the Holy Scriptures and so are eternally valid. There are no other official genealogical records of any living person whose genealogy is traceable to David and to Abraham.
The fact that Herod felt threatened by the babies of Bethlehem shows that he thought they had credible and legal genealogical rights to the kingship. (Matt. 2:1-18). By killing them Herod destroyed many of the lineage of David who would have been eligible for the kingship. The story of the flight into Egypt explains how Christ was divinely preserved.
Eusebius goes on to trace the genealogy of Christ and to reconcile the two accounts in Matthew and Luke by showing how the law regarding the re-marriage of childless widows in order to raise up heirs for the deceased kinsman explains how that the same person can be regarded as the child of different fathers, both the biological father and the legal father, the deceased husband of one’s mother.[4]
The point is that there remains no other legitimate king, no other priest, nor any other heir to the land except Christ whose genealogy is in the sacred, canonical Scriptures and whose resurrection from the dead makes Him the eternally effective fulfillment of all of the promises of succession rights, to the kingship, the priesthood and the land. As Eusebius has also written, the anointing upon the Jews ended in Christ according to the prophecy in Daniel 9: 25-6.[5]
For those steeped in the tradition that modern “Israel” is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, it must be pointed out that all of the Old Testament prophecies of return to the land were literally fulfilled in the returns described in Ezra and Nehemiah. The destruction of the nation and the city of Jerusalem in AD 70, as predicted by Daniel and by Christ is described in the book of Revelation as well as by the secular historian Josephus. This was the final end of the fleshly nation as such.
The modern application of Scriptures concerning the Israel of God should be applied to the Church. Those things which happened upon the fleshly Israel of the Old Covenant are an example and a pattern for the instruction and warning of the Church: 1 Corinthians 10:6-12; Galatians 3:24; Hebrews 3:7-4:11. The spiritual fulfillment and application is eternally relevant in Christ and will never pass away. The fleshly, literal and natural application has been completely and finally fulfilled. The literal interpretation, i.e. “the letter,” killeth, but the spiritual interpretation maketh alive.
The religious doctrine of modern “Judaism” is that of the Pharisees of the New Testament who were continually at odds with Christ.[6] Jesus said of this doctrine:
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. (Matt. 23:15)
Jesus repeatedly condemned them for their hypocrisy, (Matt. 23:13-29).[7] One among many examples of their hypocrisy is their customs in celebrating the Passover. Since it is forbidden that they have any leaven in their houses, they regularly have a mock “sale” of their leaven to a non-Jew for the duration of the Passover. The Rabbi of each congregation handles this sale. The sale is made with the understanding that the leaven will be returned immediately after Passover.[8] Thus it is not necessary for them to actually get rid of the leaven, they simply go through the pretense that it does not belong to them by “selling” it.
Besides these ridiculous pretenses there is a much more serious spiritual dimension to “Judaism.” That is their use of magic and witchcraft.[9]
The New Testament makes it abundantly clear that the Church of Jesus Christ began with the Jews. Paul, whose ministry was to the Gentiles, always began to preach the Gospel in the synagogues of the Jews. After that some of them believed and were cast out along with Paul from the synagogues. Eusebius records that in the time of Trajan, (98-117 A.D), vast numbers of Jews believed in Christ. Indeed, up to the time of Hadrian, (AD 117-138), the whole Church consisted of Hebrew believers (3.36.35 and 4.3.5). These believing Jews were the seed that produced the Christian Church; believing in Christ did not change their blood nor their genes.
On the other hand, many unbelieving Jews were killed during the wars before and after the siege and fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. By some estimates, approximately three million Jews were killed in these wars in Judea.[10] But the colonies of Jews in other parts of the Empire did not escape. In Alexandria, Egypt and in Cyrene thousands of Jews were killed as well as great numbers in Babylonian Mesopotamia, (Eusebius, History 4.2). Under the Emperor Hadrian, Rufus, the governor of Judea destroyed unlimited numbers of Jews in the time of the revolt of Bar Cochaba, (AD 135). At that time, Hadrian decreed that Jews could not live in or near the City of Jerusalem (ibid., 4.6.4). With this decree, the dispersion of the Jews was complete.
Since Bar Cochaba had ordered the persecution of Christians (ibid., 4.8.5), it was necessary that those of Jewish descent make the choice as to whether they would identify themselves as Christian, or as Jew. Those who believed in Christ identified themselves as Christians in spite of the threat of death. This, of course, did not change the makeup of their blood nor their genes. Therefore, the genetic blood of Abraham is as likely to be in a Christian as a so-called “Jew”.
But the propaganda is widespread that “the Jews are People of the Book”, that is that they have preserved the ancient Scriptures and hold them in reverence. This is simply a part of the system of lies that is used to cover their actual identity. In fact, they altered their Scriptures in accordance with their own traditions and eliminated all that they could of the Old Testament that testified so powerfully to Christ. What they could not eliminate, they reinterpreted to use for their own purposes. Justin, (the Martyr), who lived through the Bar Cochaba revolt of AD 135 wrote that the Jews had actually cut some passages from the prophets out of their Scriptures, passages which Justin had copies of at that time (ibid., 4.18.7).
In fact, Judaism after AD 70 wrote the so-called “oral law” in the Mishnah and their interpretation of the law in the Talmudim which became their authoritative “Scriptures”.
[1] For example, L.V.D. Tiller says: “As Christians we owe a debt of love to the Jewish people for they are ‘His brethren after the flesh’ – this can be said of no other people. Furthermore the words of Jesus himself cannot be ignored: ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me’ (Matt. 25:40)”, (“What is God Doing in Israel?” Pentecostal Evangel, February 9, 1975, 8-10.
The basis of this theology is found in their mis-interpretation of the Old Testament prophets who foretold a return to the land, for example: Jeremiah and Ezekiel. An unbiased study of these texts, however, shows that the literal fulfillment of them happened in the accounts given by Ezra and Nehemiah.. Certain spiritual fulfillments were accomplished in the incarnation, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ. The Bible itself gives full proof that a future fulfillment of the prophecies of return to the land is distinctly denied.
[2] Eusebius, History of the Church, 1.6.6; 1.7.4; 1.7.14. Eusebius depends largely upon Josephus for much of his historical material. He does have several other sources, however, and accepts the gospel records as historically accurate.
[3] Domitian ordered the execution of all those of David‘s lineage, fearing the return of Christ, as Herod had done. Some of the grandsons of Jude, the brother of Christ, were found and accused, but were thought to be too poor and ignorant to be any threat. See Eusebius, History of the Church, 3.18.19 and 3.18.20.
[4] Ibid. “The argument of Africanus must be treated with respect, Joseph’s pedigree may not matter to us, but Christians have always been troubled, as he was, by the apparent discrepancy between the two gospel accounts, which seemed to cast doubts on the reliability of one writer or both. Nor is Africanus’s solution to be ruled out. He clearly derived his information from relatives of the Holy Family, and it must be remembered that in the Near East family trees were, and still are, most carefully preserved; and that the ‘raising up’ of offspring to a childless brother must often have occurred,” (G. A. Williamson, Eusebius note 1, page 56 on 1.7.14).
[5] Ibid., 1.6.6 and 1.7.4. It should be further observed that Josephus records that in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70: “They fired the Archivum and Acra, and the council-house, and Ophla: and the fire destroyed unto the palaces of Helen, which were in the middle of Acra,” (quoting Josephus).
“Whether he means the magistrates’ court, or the repository of the ancient records, according to the different signification of the word, we do not determine. There were certainly sacred records in the Temple, and civil records no doubt in the city, where writings and memorials of sales, contracts, donations, and public acts, &c. were laid up. I should more readily understand this of their repository, than of the magistrates’ court, because, presently after, the council-house is distinctly named,” (Lightfoot, CNT vol. 1, p. 55).
[6] The doctrines of the Pharisees were later embodied in the Talmud. “The source of authority for all the practices of classical (and present day Orthodox) Judaism, the determining base of its legal structure, is the Talmud, or, to be more precise, the so-called Babylonian Talmud; while the rest of the Talmudic literature (including the so-called Jerusalem or Palestinian Talmud) acts as a supplementary authority.” Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, The Weight of Three Thousand Years, (London, Chicago, Illinois, Pluto Press Reprint 1997), 39.
[7] “A dominant feature of ‘dispensations’, and of classical Judaism inasmuch as it is based on them, is deception – deception primarily of God, if this word can be used for an imaginary being so easily deceived by the rabbis, who consider themselves cleverer than him. No greater contrast can be conceived than that between the God of the Bible…and of the God of classical Judaism” (ibid., 47).
[8] “A dispensation was … devised, by which all those substances are sold in a fictitious sale to a Gentile before the festival and bought back automatically after it. The one thing that must be done is to lock up the taboo substances for the duration of the festival. In Israel this fictitious sale has been made more efficient. Religious Jews ‘sell’ their leavened substances to their local rabbis, who in turn ‘sell’ them to the Chief Rabbis; the latter sell them to a Gentile, and by a special dispensation this sale is presumed to include also the leavened substances of non-practicing Jews” (ibid., p. 45.) See also Epstein, All About Jewish Holidays, 59.
[9] “The decay of monotheism came about through the spread of Jewish mysticism (the cabbala) which developed in the 12th and 13th centuries, and by the late 16th century had won an almost complete victory in virtually all the centres of Judaism….but in latter-day Jewish Orthodoxy, especially among the rabbis, the influence of the cabbala has remained predominant….According to the cabbala, the universe is ruled not by one god but by several deities, of various characters and influences, emanated by a dim, distant First Cause,” (Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, 32-3) See my Commentary on Revelation 18:23, “Sorceries.”)
[10] Josephus‘ estimate was of 1,100,000 in Jerusalem alone (Wars 6.9.3).