Christians believe that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah of the Jewish people. And if that is true, wouldn’t that make Christians followers of the Jewish faith?
And why don’t Jewish people believe in Jesus?
Before answering these questions, let’s frame the conversation by first asking, “Why did anyone believe in Jesus?”
Perhaps the question might even be asked, “How did Christianity even get started, let alone survive?”
The reason why these questions are pertinent derives from the fact that the Gospel that the early Christians preached was about a Jewish King whom the Romans killed on the cross.
A Tough Message
One might imagine the early Christians attempting to explain this to their neighbors:
“But Jesus really is the world’s true Lord.”
“But, you said that the Romans killed him?”
“Well, yes, they did, but then He rose from the dead?”
“Oh, so let me get this straight: you want me to believe that a Jewish man (this ‘Jesus’) is the true God of creation that has come to Earth to save all of humanity and to establish a divine kingdom. But he failed because the Jewish leaders—his own people—turned him over to the Romans because they didn’t believe he was the one they were looking for. The Romans then killed him. And now you want me to believe in this Jesus because God (the Jewish God) raised him from the dead?"
“Yes, exactly.”
Do you see the problem?
The message was not very appealing.
Paul addresses this in 1st Corinthians 1:18, 23: “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. . . . but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness.”
The “foolishness to the Gentiles” part is evident from the attempted dialogue above. A Jewish King who was killed by Rome and then risen from the dead sure sounds like “foolishness.”
When Paul says that the message was a “stumbling block” to the Jews, at least two factors would have caused the Jewish world to struggle to receive Jesus, the second of which is likely the source of Paul’s use of the “stumbling block.”
First, the Jews were not expecting a suffering Messiah (King). They were expecting a king who would rule like King David did almost a millennium earlier—a Jewish king who would rule over a Jewish empire and punish their enemies. The idea that Jesus not only failed to defeat the Romans but also died for them would hardly have appealed to many of the Jewish people.
The second reason, however, is likely why Paul states that the Christian Gospel was a “stumbling block” to the Jews.
Namely, the Old Testament Law states emphatically, “If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God) . . .” (Deut 21:22-23a). In other words, Jesus could not be considered as the Messiah (i.e., the “anointed One”) because He was under the curse of Deuteronomy 21: a “cursed Messiah” is an oxymoron.
A Different Kind of King
Returning to the opening question, then, “Why don’t the Jewish people believe in Jesus?”
In response, some might ask, “Why did anyone believe in Him?"
Consequently, two responses might be given to the opening question:
First, Jesus was not the kind of King they were expecting/wanted.
Second, those who rejected Jesus then applied the curse of Deut 21:22-23 to Jesus, making the idea that He was the Messiah a “stumbling block.”
There is more to the initial question, however, for it is not sufficient to claim that the Jewish people rejected Jesus. After all, many Jewish people did believe in Jesus.
For at least the first decade after Jesus's death and resurrection, Christianity remained a Jewish religion—or, perhaps, it is more accurate to say that Christianity remained a sect within Judaism. Acts 6:7, in fact, notes, “a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith.”
It is also important to note that the early Christians began to welcome Gentiles (non-Jews) into the faith. As Peter affirms in his speech before the Roman centurion Cornelius, "God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation, the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him" (Acts 10:34-35).
Consequently, as the Christian movement spread, more and more Gentiles embraced the new Christian faith.
A Change in The Law
This is another reason some Jewish people rejected Christianity in the early centuries. Namely, the Jewish religion was very particular concerning the notion that Gentiles were defiled (unclean). As a result, many Jews would not step foot into a Gentile home and most certainly would not eat with a Gentile.
Peter affirms this when he enters the Roman centurion Cornelius’ house, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him” (Acts 10:28).
NB: Peter only entered Cornelius’ home because God gave him a vision and told him that he should no longer “call any man unholy or unclean” (Acts 10:28).
Because the Christians were fellowship and eating with Gentiles, many within the Jewish world took exception to the new “Christian” sect. They refused to join, for they considered the Christians to be living in violation of the Jewish Law.
This fact provides another insight into the opening question. Since the first Jewish followers of Christ believed it was acceptable to welcome Gentiles into their community, they began intermarrying with them not long after. Thus, through intermarriage, many of the Jewish followers of Christ lost their ethnic identity as Jews.
Finally, it must be noted that many Christians have held to the belief that the inclusion of Gentiles into the family of faith meant that they, too, have become children of Abraham. Paul explicitly states, “Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham” (Gal 3:7).
Later, in the same chapter of Galatians, Paul adds, “And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise” (Gal 3:29). In the letter to Rome, Paul affirms that Abraham is “the father of all who believe” (Rom 4:11).
Consequently, Peter asserts that the followers of Christ are, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s possession so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God . . .” (1 Pet 2:9-10a).
Therefore, if Christians are considered the children of Abraham, perhaps it might be said that there are billions of Jewish followers of Jesus.
1There is an excellent book by Elias Chacour titled Blood Brothers. Father Chacour is a Palestinian Christian, and the title conveys the fact that some Palestinians are descendants of the first Jewish Christians and, thereby, are "blood brothers" to the Jewish people.
