This synagogue is called a synagogue of Satan, just as in the letter to Smyrna.1 Just as the Lord Jesus sometimes says very strongly: ‘the devil is your father.’2 He uses strong language in His discussion with the religious leaders! To apparently shock them, so that they open up for His spiritual message. It is inner-Jewish discussion. Of course He does not literally mean that the devil is the father of the Jews – as later in church history Gentile Christian theologians in the church started to declare. Jesus was a Jew Himself! So using this kind of language in the discussion is surely not anti-Semitic, but an ultimate attempt to convince them! Jesus used a lot of strong language, look at Matthew 23 and Luke 13:32, calling Herod ‘that fox’! Jesus wants to make something clear to those spiritual leaders, and teachers of ‘Torah’. Just like the apostle Paul. Only those who are Jews by heart are true Jews (Jew means: lover of God)—not only circumcised on the outside, but on the inside too.3 “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.” Jesus says: they claim to be Jews, but they are not, they don’t speak the truth. What they tell you and the church is not true. Do not allow yourself to panic or to be discouraged or persuaded by them.
The whole of the Epistle to the Hebrews – although this is more a ‘treatise’ than a letter – is actually an explanation of why the Christian faith is not a rejection of Judaism, but rather in a certain sense its fulfilment. This is encouraging teaching, especially for Jews who have come to believe in Jesus. Everything is reviewed in that teaching letter to the Hebrews: Jesus is a better mediator than Moses; Jesus is a greater High Priest than Aaron; the New Covenant is better than the old one; the Heavenly sanctuary is better than the earthly Temple and Tabernacle; Jesus’ sacrifice is better than the sacrifices of goats and bulls, etc. To make this clear to the Christians of the church in Philadelphia, Christ promises them that by their living example, by their deeds and words of love and righteousness, even Jews will be so blessed that some of them will come to believe and to recognise the truth, must4 and will come to see that God loves them and that Jesus is the Messiah. Some will come to say: we never understood this before! We regret having ignored you Christians so much. Having come to a new understanding we are just like Paul who said: I am born untimely5 “…and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.” Untimely born means: a premature birth, ahead of time, before the rest of my Jewish brothers and sisters, a first-fruit. But the Jews will one day all get the revelation about Jesus, Zechariah 12:10-14, Romans 11:25-28, when ‘all Israel’ shall be saved. Jesus says: You in Philadelphia will see some early Jewish Christians. Messianic Jews who confess that Jesus is the Messiah—a small foretaste of what will happen some day: the salvation of the whole house of Israel6.
There is a secret in the partial hardening of Israel, and the result of that ‘hardening in part’ is a great blessing for the non-Jewish world. Paul explains in Romans 11:11-16: “by their transgression salvation (!) has come to the Gentiles. Their transgression is riches (!) for the world. Their rejection is the reconciliation (!) of the world.” Salvation has come to the Gentiles as a result of their falling away7.If so much blessing has come to the Gentile world by their rejection, their ‘hardening in part’ how much more blessing will come to the world by their fullness!
It is a ‘hardening in part’. Why ‘in part’? For two reasons. First of all, throughout history there have always been Jews who did get the revelation about Jesus. Like Paul and the other Apostles and the many Jews who came to faith in Christ in the book of Acts and during the centuries. Less than 1% of the Jewish, but nevertheless they are there and always will be. ‘First-fruits’, as a guarantee that one day a great harvest will follow when ‘all Israel’ shall be saved. Secondly: observant Jews are not without God – they are no heathens like we are – but they have a blind spot for Who Jesus is. Look at the privileges that Jews have by birth, Romans 9:4-5. This in contrast to what we, Gentiles, have by birth, Ephesians 2:11-12.
Today the Gospel of the kingdom is reaching the ends of the earth. The nations are brought to the knowledge of salvation in Christ, the coming King of kings and Lord of lords. His Kingdom is coming! The world has been blessed by the presence of the Jewish people all over the world for 2000 years. If this is already the case as a result of Israel’s falling away, how tremendously the nations will be blessed when the Holy Spirit gives them the revelation about Jesus! This will be the result of their acceptance – it will be like life from the dead!8
Paul does not speak just about falling away, hardening and rejection of some Jews. There will also be fullness, acceptance and salvation. There is both breaking away and grafting in. And Christians, do understand: you do not support the root but the root supports you!9 You Gentile believers have been engrafted as branches into a wonderful tree. But you are not the root of that tree! You have been engrafted into a tree and a root that is a Jewish Messiah! You have become partakers of a New Covenant that was made with the House of Israel and the House of Judah. Jesus was Jewish. He is the root of that New Covenant. He is the root of David and the root of Israel. He is the fulfilment of the blessing that would come to the nations through Abraham and the Jewish people, Genesis 12:1-3. His broken body and His spilt blood are the signs of that New Covenant made with Israel. Compare Jeremiah 31:31-34 with Luke 14:14-20
Do not boast to the Jews therefore, but fear! Paul, born untimely (born too early, before the rest of the Jewish people) is allowed to see this: “Who are you, Lord?” To which He answers: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”10 And just as Paul kneels respectfully and prostrates himself, so will some Jews in Philadelphia—as well as many Jews over the centuries—also kneel and prostrate themselves and join with us, Gentile believers, in worshipping the one and only Saviour and coming Lord. Indeed, the whole of Israel, the holy remnant, will do so one day, in His time, as a result of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit.11
• The Christian Church is called to make Israel jealous.12 But the Church has done little to succeed in doing so over the centuries. Rivers of Jewish blood have flowed in the lands of Christendom as a result of crusades, the inquisition, pogroms and the holocaust.
• These atrocities were partly the fruit of replacement theology – the Church teaching that God had rejected the Jews and that the Church had replaced the Jews as the chosen people of God. For Jews, they were forced to accept only one choice: join the Christian Church, convert to Christ and if not: face the consequences – the judgment of God. That teaching created an atmosphere in the lands of Christendom in which ultimately millions upon millions of Jews could be despised, ridiculed, rejected, banned, robbed of their goods, and blamed for everything that went wrong, beaten and ultimately murdered. Often the Church stood by looking at what was happening without lifting a finger. Good exceptions were there, fortunately, as well.
• The early Church consisted almost exclusively of Jews who had come to believe in the Lord Jesus. When that happens today, as occurs with Messianic Jews, few feel at home in the Gentile Christian Church. The Church apparently understands little of what it means to be both a Jew and a Christian. And their Jewish family, their compatriots, their brothers and sisters after the flesh, consider them to be traitors who have defected to the enemy’s camp. Just study the appalling 2000 years of church history in relation with the Jewish people. For the Jewish people their great enemy over the centuries has been Christianity, even worse than Islam.
Bible References:
1.Revelation 2:9 2.John 8:37–59 3. Romans 2:25–29; Galatians 5:2–6 4.2 Timothy 2:25; Titus 1:1 5.1 Corinthians 15:8 6.Romans 11:25–32 7.Romans 11:11–15 8. Romans 11:15 9.Romans 11:17–24 10.Acts 9:4–5 11.Zechariah 12:10–14; Jeremiah 31:31–34; Ezekiel 36:22–38, 37:15–28 etc. 12.Romans 11:11
