Jews and salvation

IMO, the Bible is clear: Whoever receives the opportunity to receive Christ (aka, hears the Gospel) and rejects it, is condemned to Hell. But this is to the individual, not to a nation or group of persons.

What is often at debate is what constitutes hearing the Gospel. It's biblically plausible that, for those who have never truly heard the Gospel while on this earth, God will take that into account. But since I'm not God, I'll leave that judgement up to him, rather than up to me.

Suffice it to say, it's categorically wrong, imo, to lay out a blanket statement and say that "all the Jews are going to Hell". We're simply not allowed to judge a person's salvation, period.

 

Rom 11:25ff.

The Jews currently do not worship the God of Christianity, nor did they in the time of Christ. They rejected Christ and Christ, in John 8, makes it explicit that they were not worshipping the God they claim to. To worship the true God requires accepting Jesus Christ.

They did not get a raw deal. They are rejected for their own sin of rejecting the Messiah.

A Jew, today, must accept Jesus Christ like everyone else does. Don't confuse personal salvation with God's national plan for Israel. These are two different things though they are related, as both the OT and NT makes clear.

 

OTOH, one could use Paul's example with the Athenians that, those who faithfully seek to worship God as they know him, are, in ignorance, worshipping God. Paul did not chastise them for worship of a "false god". Instead, Paul praised them for their faithfulness, imperfect and incomplete though it was (which he then used as an opportunity for evangelism).

Of course, worship and salvation are two completely different issues.

 

Huh? Can you explain what you mean by this?

 

I thought this article might help


http://www.shema.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=64

 

John 8:42 42 Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me.

The whole argument of John 8:30 to the end of the chapter is about how the Jews claim to worship God but reject Christ. Christ makes the same point by the way in John 5 and John makes the point in 1 John 2.

The fact is that when the Jews rejected Jesus, they ceased to worship God.

But we must remember that refusal to accept Jesus as the Messiah and to worship him is refusal to worship God. Jesus said that the OT testified of him (John 8:38-39) and the Jews refused to come to him that they may have life.

You can't worship God without accepting and worshipping Jesus Christ. Of course, the OT was different because Jesus Christ had not yet been revealed. In his life, Jesus made it clear that honoring the FAther meant honoring the Son.

 

I think you misread this. Paul in fact did condemn their worship as an inadequate and self-serving measn to worship God. He called it a time of ignorance (he called them stupid). Then he told them it was time to repent. That can hardly be called "praising them." I think the Acts 17 passage is a prime passage on how to deal wiht false gods. You don't tolerate them and claim we are all getting to the same God. You point out the utter foolishness of such worship and command men to repent because there is a judgment coming.

Not at all, in the Christian sense anyway. Evangelism is all about worship. The Father is seeking worshippers to worship him in spirit and truth. You cannot worship God apart from true salvation in Christ alone.

 

Huh? Can you explain what you mean by this? </font>[/QUOTE]Worship is the respect and devotion we give to God. It's something we do.

Salvation is deliverance from the penalty of sin. It's something God does.

We don't worship because we're saved. We don't worship to be saved. We worship because it's something God deserves.

Salvation isn't imparted to us because we worship, and it's not something imparted to us to get us to worship.

 

Worship is the expectation of every believer. To fail to worship is to fail to be obedient.

Worship is impossible for an unbeliever. That was the actual point.

 

I think your def of salvation is way too narrow. Our salvation is always grounded on what God (through Christ) did for us, but it includes reversing everything that we lost in the fall.

I would completely disagree with this. We give God his due as a result of His saving work within us. And we are justified (or saved) on condition of faith, and isn't faith giving God what he deserves--or worship?

But this is probably all taking this thread off track. Thank you for clarifying your statement.

 

Jews before Jesus was born were saved through faith in God as Paul exclaims about Abraham. Jews after Jesus, such as my dad and I, are saved through faith in Jesus Christ. Of course, then again, Abraham also had faith in Jesus (although he may or may not have known it) because Jesus is God. Therefore, the Jews who rejected and still reject Christ today would be considered apostates because they have turned away from the one true God. They have rejected God. This is not an uncommon occurence, even in the Old Testament. Just read the prophets sometime.

Joseph Botwinick