What Can a Jew Believe About Jesus

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WHAT CAN A JEW BELIEVE ABOUT JESUS—

AND STILL REMAIN A JEW?

by

MARKUS BARTH

Belief in Jesus cannot be advertised or sold, be it as a package

or in parts, to anyone, least of all to the Jews. For faith is not a

composite of a given number of ingredients ; no one is able to predict

or delimit what changes even a grain of faith will effect. Neither

Jesus nor the Jews have shown the slightest interest in imposition

by force, restriction by cunning, regimentation by casuistry.

I have spoken out,1

though for reasons different from those formu

lated by R. Niebuhr and P. Tillich,2

against the possessive attitude

in which Christians have often engaged in "mission to the Jews."3

For the Jews are not a nation (got) like others. The Old Testament

describes them as God's missionaries to the nations; thus Gentile-

born individuals should not presume to convert them to the one trueGod. The New Testament does not deny that the Jews pray to the

same God as the Christians; if they are children of Abraham in a

Professor Barth was born in 1915 in Switzerland. He studied on the university level in Berne, Basel, Berlin, Edinburgh and Göttingen, where he receiveda doctorate in theology in the field of New Testament studies. From 1940 to1953 he was parish minister at the Evangelical Reformed Church in Bubendorf,Switzerland. He later taught at the Presbyterian Theological Seminary,Dubuque, Iowa, and the Federated Theological Faculty at the University of Chicago. At present he is Professor of the New Testament at the PittsburghTheological Seminary. His many books include The Broken Wall and WasChris fs Death a Sacrifice?

This article was originally a lecture given at a Brotherhood dinner in theTree of Life Synagogue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, February 24, 1965.

ι In The Broken Wall (Philadelphia, 1959), pp. 123-136; "Israel und dieKirche," in Theol. Ex. Ν F 75 (Munich, 1959) ; in briefer English rendition,"Conversion and Conversation," in Interpretation 17 (1963), pp. 3ff.; cp.Conversation With the Bible (New York, 1964), pp. 56-62.

2Sharp criticism against my arguments have been uttered, e.g

?by H. van

Oyen, "Eine theologische Absage an die Judenmission?" in Christlich-jüdisches Forum 22 (Basel), Feb., 1960, pp. 1-3, and E. Percy, in Theol Lit. Zeitg. (1961),#3 . Roman Catholic reactions have been much kinder; see, e.g., P. Benoit, in

Revue Biblique (1960), pp. 455-456; and Freiburger Rundbrief 12 (1959/60),pp. 84-85.

3See Reinhold Niebuhr, "The Relations of Christians and Jews in Western

Civilization," in Central Conference of American Rabbis Journal, April, 1958,pp. 18-32; in The Godly and the Ungodly (London, 1958), pp. 86-112, esp.p. 108; P. Tillich, "The Theology of Missions," in Christianity and Crisis 15(1955/61), pp. 35-38; esp. p. 38, col. 1. An entirely different and much more



BELIEF IN JESUS

special sense, they are yet subject to the same God and represented

by the obedience of the same patriarch.

But Rabbi Steven Schwarzschild4

is right when he observes thatI do "not really abandon the desire to bring Israel to Jesus—no

believing Christian could." But, since I can only speak out of my

convictions, I have to respect the faith and conviction of the Jews.

I will not pressure them to betray the faith of the fathers. Witness

given in dialogue form rather than mission is called for.

The specific questions which I will try to answer in the following

are all derived from the theme assigned to me by a rabbi. They are

these: Who is Jesus? Who is a Jew? What is faith? All these ques

tions have a common denominator. We would like to know what is

truth and how all of us may become true to it.

I. W H O IS JESUS?

The question "Who is Jesus ?" is answered in the New Testament

and by many Christians with various statements : He is the Messiah,

the Son of the living God, the savior of the whole world, the king

of kings, the Wisdom, the Image or the Word of God; he is the

bringer and beginning of the new eon (theohm habah) of which

rabbis and apocalyptical writers speak.5

The so-called dogmas of the

Christian churches have elaborated upon these "Christological" con

fessions. Greek and Latin and other languages were used to describe

the incarnation, the resurrection, the totally human and totally divine

natures of Jesus Christ, the trinity of God; also the mysteries of

atonement and enthronement, of the sacraments, and of the church

(the body of Christ) were pointed out in creedal sentences. All the

respective dogmas could not possibly have been phrased in the language of the Tora, the Prophets, the Psalms, or of the Mishna and

Talmud. Hebrew and Aramaic did not become the Christians' pri

mary tool of expression. The new terminology employed by them is

not something external or nominal only; it seeks to describe a new

event and content. Little wonder that Jews would react to these

dogmas of the Christians with great suspicion. They may look to

them more pagan than biblical.

4"Tudaism, Scriptures and Ecumenism," in Scripture and Ecumenism, ed.

by L. Swidler (Pittsburgh, 1965), pp. 116-117.δ Matt. 16:16; John 1:1; 20:31; Acts 9:20; Rom. 1:3-4; I Cor. 1:24,30;

12:3; John 4:42; Rev. 19:16; Mark 1:15; II Cor. 5:17; 6:2; Gal. 1:4; 6:15;



JOURNAL OF ECUMENICAL STUDIES

But what do Jews themselves say about Jesus? In contradiction

to the slander and attack occasionally promoted during earlier peri

ods, great Jewish scholars of recent times agree with less trained

members of Jewish congregations in expressing deepest respect for

Jesus. There is nothing wrong with Jesus himself, so it is argued.

He is a teacher, a prophetic figure and a martyr in the best of Jewish

traditions; for there is an almost complete agreement between his

teachings in the Sermon of the Mount (Matt. 5-7) and the best of

rabbinical hcUacha. Also newer research in the nature and history

of Pharisaism6 has shown that despite clashes between Jesus and

the Pharisees, a broad realm of common concern must not be denied.

A Jewish lady put it bluntly this way: "Jesus-is alright, he belongs

to us." And then she continued and said, "But when Paul came,

there was tsoressl" (trouble)

What she formulated in such amazing crispness has support from

the pen of outstanding scholars. It is assumed that supernatural

attributes like Son of God, pre-existence, omnipotence, sacramental

presence were tacked upon Jesus after some of his disciples had gone

through some visionary experiences which they condensed into belief

in Christ's resurrection and enthronement at the right hand of God.It is assumed that Jesus, who according to the most ancient sources

never called himself God, was deified in and by the belief of his

followers. Among the outstanding initiators of this belief John and

Paul are singled out. Though Jewish born, the author of the Fourth

Gospel and the great missionary to the Gentiles are considered so

open to contemporary "Hellenization" that they actually denied

monotheism and the transcendence of God in which they were brought

up and which no mortal ever should deny.

Not that all they did and said for the benefit of Gentiles shouldbe considered perverse or syncretistic ! But an increasing number of

Jewish scholars hold that what is good in Paul's and John's teaching

can be proven to be of Hebrew origin, and what is not Jewish is

no good. For they made a mythical figure of Jesus, and a myth of

his history among the Jews. This is the view held, for example, by

Leo Baeck and H. J. Schoeps.7 Among Protestant biblical scholars

6See esp. the works of P. Fiebig, Strack-Billerbeck, G. F. Moore and

C. F. G. Montefiore. L. Baeck, I. Abrahams, T. R. Herford, L. Finkelstein,

E. A. Finkelstein, A. Finkel are to be mentioned specifically among those whoattempted to reconstruct the essence of the Pharisaical movement7 See Leo Baeck, Das Evangelium als Urbunde der jüdischen Glaubenshi ht (B li 1938) 56ff R M Ch i t t d J d



BELIEF IN JESUS

one can observe a pendulum swinging from explaining Paul and John

as Hellenists, to understanding them on the line of "once a Jew,

always a Jew."8 The movement toward understanding Paul against

his Hebrew background leads distinctly away from the Tübingen

image of Paul's place and role, which made him in every aspect an

alternative and antagonist over against the supposedly narrow-

minded ceremonialist and legalist character of Judaism.9

In their

own way, both Luther and Hegel were the fathers of this view. And

somewhere in the background looms Marcion, the Gnostic.

But wherever the pendulum swings, Jews and Christians appear

to have taken their position, the first against, the second in favor of

the belief in Jesus the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior, as he

was proclaimed not only by Paul and John, but also, though in dif

ferent ways, by the other New Testament writers. In the course of

his discussion with M. Buber, K. L. Schmidt considered it necessary

to affirm, "Were the Church more Christian than it is, the conflict

with Judaism would be sharper than it can be now. . . . We Chris

tians must never tire of keeping this one conflict alive.,,1

° Rabbi S.

Schwarzschild11

does certainly not abate the issue. On the historic

side he argues, Why make so much noise, e.g., at the II VaticanCouncil, over the execution of one man by the Jews, two thousand

years ago, when in our time Christian nations of the West have

exterminated six million Jews ? Arguing on a different level, he told

Paulus, Die Geschichte des Apostels im Lichte der jüdischen Religions geschichte (Tübingen, 1959), esp. pp. 118, 157, 163, 268ff.; English translation (Philadelphia, 1961).

8After A. Deissmann, H. Lietzmann, and R. Reitzenstein had their day,

A. Schlatter's commentaries and books like W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (London, 1948), and C. K. Barrett, From First Adam to Last (NewYork, 1962) ; The Gospel According to St. John (London, 1958) ; A. Guilding,

The Fourth Gospel and Jewish Worship (Oxford, I960), bring the overduecorrection. There are signs, however, showing that the very continuation of thinking in these alternatives may be misleading. See, e.g., C. H. Dodd, Inter

pretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge, 1954) ; Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge, 1963) ; J. Barr, Semantics of Biblical Language(Oxford, 1961); D. Ε. H. Whiteley, Theology of St. Paul (Philadelphia,1964), pp. 2-8.—A. Toynbee, Christianity Among the Religions of the World (New York, 1951), pp. 161ff., appears to go far beyond A. v. Harnack's theory of radical Hellenization of the Christian message, when he describes the development of Western Christianity as a de facto syncretism. P. Tillich, Christianityand the Encounter of the World Religions (New York, 1963), pp. 84ff., venturesas far out as to ascribe the doctrine of the Trinity to polytheistic influence uponChristian teachers. Such views, though popular, are not necessarily true tohistory.

9

A classic, brief presentation of the Tübingen creed is found in F. C. Baur, Das Christentum und die christliche Kirche I (Tübingen, 1853), pp. 41-59.10

Quoted by H. J. Schoeps in The Jewish-Christian Argument (New York,1963) p 155




me once bluntly, "What for you Christians is Christ, for us Jews is

the Tora." He thought probably of the embodied will and presenceof the living God. It looks as if there were hardly a possibility of

understanding, not to speak of reconciliation, between Jews and

Christians whenever the central issues are squarely faced.

Still, I would like to point out four things that might prevent us

from cutting the tablecloth between us too rapidly and finally:

1. The dogmas of the Christian churches should not be under

stood as propositions or definitions. Rather they came into being and

are meant to serve as pointers to something over which man has no

control and which he cannot define. Just as the written and oral

Tora has the function to point out (jarah) the way in which the

Lord comes, and the ways in which men are to walk, so also dogmas

are sign-posts erected in times of conflict, doubt, and error to call

Christians to respect the mystery of Jesus Christ and to submit to it.

They are to guard his mystery against encroachments of physics or

metaphysics, moralism or transcendentalism, magic superstitions or

mythical abstractions. Every Jew knows that God is greater than the

Tora and man's understanding of it. Equally Christians are reminded

by their dogmas never to stop wondering at, seeking, admiring that

Jesus Christ whom they would confess. Jesus Christ is much more

than any dogma ever can spell out.

2. Early Christian teachers in Antioch (Syria) and Byzantium

have held, and historical critical Bible-scholars from the age of en

lightenment to Rudolf Bultmann12 have agreed with them, that his

torically Jesus was nothing but a man gifted by God with an abundant

measure of the Holy Spirit; only by an act of faith was he elevated

to a rank equal to God's. Such Christians seem basically to agreewith the opinion of many Jews. They are certainly free from the

suspicion of polytheism. Their theory was called "adoptianism." If

held against the construction of those early and late Christians who

tend to deny Jesus Christ's humanity and consider him a ghost in

human form, the notion of an exclusively human Jesus seems to have

much in its favor. Still, both of the extreme theories were declared

heretical and are still considered misleading by those Christians

who would follow all that the Prophets and Apostles said about the

Messiah. The dogmas accepted under Alexandrian, Roman and Cap-12 Jesus and the Word (New York, 1934) ; History of the Synoptic Tradi



BELIEF IN JESUS

padocian leadership and reaffirmed in different ways by the Eastern,

Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, did not choose one of

those easy ways to confine Jesus either to the human or the heav

enly realm.

This ongoing quest and debate may show how stumbling, far-

from-perfect and ever-unfinished are the ways in which Christians

attempt to confess who Jesus is. If Jews wonder how Christians dare

to make any logical and unambiguous statement concerning the iden

tity, mission and function of Jesus of Nazareth, all humble and honest

Christians wonder with them. The difference between Christians

and Jews may be but this one : disciples of Jesus wonder even more !

But they are not possessors or managers of the Messiah. Each in their

own way, the apostles Peter and Judas attempted, on occasion, to

manage Jesus Christ after their own image of what befit a Messiah.

They were rebuked and failed.

3. Jesus did never call himself God; and according to Matthew

and Luke18

he never clearly said, I am the Messiah. Rather when he

spoke of himself (in this, at least, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark

and Luke agree), he used preferably the cryptic title "son of man."

He predicted that his identity and function would be publicly revealed when he would come again as the judge appointed by God. Thus he

treated his Messiahship as something hidden that was to be revealed

only after his death.14

Now his disciples were convinced that by

appearing after his resurrection he did already fully reveal to them

(though not to "all the people," Acts 10:40-41) what was hidden

before. On this basis they began to teach and preach among Jews

and Gentiles. But they did not forget that there was still another

"coming" of Jesus to be expected: his return on the clouds, with

angels, in the glory of God.This "second coming" is usually called the Parousia. In America,

many members of great established denominations are hardly aware

of this promise of Jesus, and if they are, they seem to care little

about it. For it looks like an embarrassment to faith and ethics, like

a piece of an antiquated, mythological world view which had better

ι» Matthew 26:63-64; Luke 22:67-70; but Mark 14:62; John 4:25-26 givedifferent information.

1 4In different ways also some rabbis spoke of a hidden Messiah, and some

Jewish apocalyptical writings announced the Messiah would die before thefullness of God's Kingship would be manifest on earth. See the Talmudic andapocalyptic material collected by Strack-Billerbeck, Kommentar zum NeuenTestament (Munich, I-IV, 1922-1928), esp. I, 160f.; II, 334, 339, 488, 552;




be left to California sectarians or Negro spirituals. But such an atti

tude is taken at great risk. For without the fulfillment of this promise

of Jesus, the Messiahship of Jesus is neither complete nor fully

demonstrated and proven.

We admit that since about the beginning of the second century

Christians have sought, compiled and repeated quotations from the

Tora, the Nebiim and the Ketubim to "prove" to the Jews the Mes

siahship of Jesus, the superiority of grace over law, the privileges

and duties of universalism. But little good it did them or any Jews.

Also Christians have engaged—and I am ashamed to mention it—

in many other tactics (ranging from subtle bribe by a cup of soupto plain murder) to impose their faith upon the Jews. Again it was

to no avail except to load immeasurable guilt upon themselves and

make the Jewish minority suspicious of any approach taken by the

Christian majority. The New Testament does not yet know of any

mission to the Jews carried out by baptized Gentiles ; the verses Gal.

2:7-9 tell of an early formal agreement according to which Jewish-

born Christians would bear this responsibility. Paul, the missionary

of all missionaries, does not withhold his witness from synagogues

and Jerusalem, but he does not subsume Israel among the "nations"or pagans to whom he has to preach.15 Wisely he leaves it to God

to "make the Jews jealous,"16 and to the day of resurrection to bring

salvation to "all Israel."17

In brief, the Messiahship of Jesus of which Judaeo-Christians like

Peter and Paul are firmly convinced, and which in a more or less

straightforward way is affirmed by Christians of Gentile origin, is

as yet finally and fully revealed neither to Jews nor to Gentiles. All

Gentiles and all Christians are dependent upon the revelation yet

to come. And so are the Jews. Their common dependence on the

future coming and manifestation of him who is God's Messiah gives

them a common hope. Rather than being divided like possessors and

paupers, or like soft-hearted and hard-hearted people, Christians and

Jews are united as fellows-in-waiting.

4. The concern which moves Christians, already before Jesus'

second coming and despite some outspoken protests from Jewish

sides, to call Jesus God of God, Light of Light, savior of all men,

and head over all things, is not to make a man God. Christians

is See Rom. 1:5; 15:16; Gal. 1:16 etc.i S R 10 19 11 11 b t 11 14



BELIEF IN JESUS

would indeed be idol-makers and idolators, following the suggestion

of the serpent in the garden or the fateful procedure of the king of

Tyre (Ezek. 28), if they took such a step. Rather their concern isdoxological, i.e., to give praise to God upon the ground of his deeds

and his self-revelation. Is God only on high, far away, majestic in

giving commands, bountiful in making promises ? Certainly an ideal

ist's notion of a transcendental being would force men to embrace

such a concept of God! But the history called into being by God

taught all men a different lesson. He who is high proved free and

willing also to be low. He who walked in the garden by evening

trod also through mud. The same who commands knows also obedi

ence. The same who gives great promises gives himself to fulfill his

promise. God is not impassible. He suffers for Israel and mankind

not only in his heart, but also here on earth, in the one fellow man,

Jesus. Therefore, Christians are bound to confess that God was in

Christ reconciling the inimical and estranged world to himself.

A Jewish philosopher once told me that the difference between

a Jew and a Christian was this : "Your God is humble ; we Jews can

not accept such humility.,, I am willing to agree with this distinction;

for it acknowledges that one God is worshipped here and there, andit does not exclude that it may be the same God. When Christians

confess that in Jesus there is more than Moses, more than Solomon,

more than Isaiah, then this "more" consists not of an addition of

another God to the one God, or of a substitute God as Marcion

thought, but it consists of the disclosure of God's nature as high and

low, far and near, blessing and suffering. Paul may still be right

when he states that,what baffles Jews is not so much the so-called

divinity of Christ, but the cross of Christ (I Cor. 1:23)—the very

humility and humanity of God.Gentiles no less than Jews are stupefied by this cross. No one

has a way to explain or rationalize it. Every one is too directly in

volved in both the guilt and the love, or the defeat and victory mani

fested just there.

Many Jews18 are ready to accept as their own destiny and mission

the life and suffering of a haunted slave, refugee, scapegoat who,

willingly or not, fulfills a redemptive function among and for the

18 As, e.g., A. Schwarz-Bart, The Last of the Just (New York). Theopposite is represented by L. Uns' popular Exodus. A. Cohen, The Natural and the Supernatural Jew (New York, 1962), gives an illuminating and soul-searching account of the last 200 years' Jewish discussion on the alternatives faced in




benefit of all men and of all nations. Equally the followers of Jesus

have been urged to walk in their Lord's footsteps and gladly bearpersecution as a despised minority.19 But Christians are put to shame

when they outdo those among the Jews who seek nothing else but

assimilation to the culture of their environment, and a cheap peace

rather than the way of obedience and humiliation.

Still, what God has announced, what he has suffered, what he

has achieved in Jesus Christ is for Christians a signal that God

himself, and he alone, is the great victim of man's sin, the sacrifice

for human sin, and the redeemer. Out of a New Testament saying

like, "The law was given through Moses but grace and truth camethrough Jesus Christ" (John 1:17), it by no means follows that

there is a sharp antithesis between the Tora and the gospel. 20 But

respect has to be paid to the fact that after God spoke through Moses

he continued to act in history, by showing and doing things through

Jesus which before had been promised or commanded but not yet

fulfilled. The wonder, amazement, joy provoked by Jesus made some

men confess, "God is in Christ." The continuing in wonder makes

a Christian.21 Even when glory is given to God on behalf of Jesus

Christ, then it is not out of the presumption that God's mystery isnow defined and explained, but in abiding amazement: "Who is he?"

(Mark 4:41). Jews and Christians cannot stop asking this question.

II. WHO IS A JEW?

The topic given to me suggests that "a Jew" and "what he can

believe" present a specific problem. Thus it is presupposed that a

Jew, either because of his history, or his worship, or his character

has specific obligations and temptations, privileges and reservations

which are not shared by the rest of mankind. I must confess that I

have grave reservations against this sort of distinction ; it resembles,

I dare say, an unhealthy segregationism which many Jews, Chris-

i» Kg., James 1 :l-3; I Pet. 1:1, 2:21 ; Matt. 5:1M6.2 0 The enhancement of this antithesis has become most characteristic of

Lutheran theology. Among others F. Hirsch in his comments on John 1:17 in Das vierte Evangelium (Tübingen, 1936) upholds it in radical fashion andneglects obviously those statements of the same Gospel which fight anti-nomianism. "If you believed Moses, you would believe me ; for he wrote aboutme. . . , Salvation is from the Jews. . . . Scripture cannot be broken" (5:46;4:22; 10:35 etc.).

2i In Matt 7:28-29; 9:8; Mark 1:27; 2:12; Luke 4:36; 5:26, astonishment,



BELIEF IN JESUS

tians, humanitarians, and forward-looking pioneers attempt to over

come, even in our day. My reasons are the following:

1. From what I know through personal experience and literary

study of the Jews, they are in themselves just ordinary men, not dif

ferent from any other seeking, yearning, laboring, rejoicing, wonder

ing, suffering human beings. This implies that Jews are different

from one another and that there is not "the Jew" or "a Jew" as

depicted in the Stürmer and contemporary Soviet press polemics,

or by sociological studies, e.g., of the Medieval times or the present

American scene, or by lofty or contrite self-representations.

Rather there are, to give illustrations only from phenomena of

contemporary America, Reform Jews, Conservative Jews, and Ortho

dox Jews worshipping in distinctive synagogues. Mardochai Kaplan,

Abraham Heschell and the Williamsburg Hasidim call for respect

as Jews in their own right. Leon Uris' Nazi-like Blut und Boden

ideology is worlds apart from H. Wouk's affirmation of the role of

tradition and rituals. Arthur Cohen's openness to German cultural

and philosophical problems is different from W. Herberg's socio

logical and theological approach to basic issues. R. L. Rubinstein's

Freudianism may to some extent resemble the professed atheism of an Israeli journalist at whose side I was permitted to sit during a

Seder in a Conservative Jewish home ; and yet they are again quite

different. There are also Jewish anti-Semites, and hapless Jewish

victims who were forced to cooperate with tormentors or murderers

of innocent captives. And there are basic differences among the classic

figures who were leading, during the past decades, in the Jewish

dialogue with Christians. We mention only F. Rosenzweig, L. Baeck

and M. Buber.

It is a temptation for a non-Jew to throw up his arms over theconfusion and contradiction he finds even among his Jewish friends.

Only the willingness to recognize a quest for truth going on in all

quarters, and the contrition which is necessarily created by the in

numerable splits existing among Christians (Protestants and Catho

lics alike), can prevent him from assuming a self-righteous, superior

attitude.

But despite all varieties of Jewish existence there is also a unity.

It has proven impossible to demonstrate that the Jews are a race, a

nation, a culture, a denomination like others, though here or theresome common Jewish idiosyncrasies were discovered and either ad




I have found is this : He is a member of a people whom God does

not let go. This people is known over the world. With envy orhatred, with joy or with ridicule it is noted that God has elected,

shaped, judged them. This people has obeyed and rebelled, confessed

and denied, suffered and rejoiced, gone through dispersion and re-

constitution; it has experienced severest punishment and surprising

sustenance. This is the people of Israel as it was and is. In other

words, it is a specific history which makes the Jew a Jew. Both

the true and false claims of tradition and election, the punishment

and the healthy purpose of galuth point to this history. It is unlike

any other personal, national, cultural history. The Rise-arid-Fallpattern does not apply to it. For God, not only fate or evolution, is

always in the picture. God and his prophets are not only referents

of that history but they appear as its makers and shapers. A Jew is

he who (consciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly) re

mains addressed by God and equipped to respond to him with obedi

ence, suffering and praise. "She bore a son and said, This time I

will praise the Lord. Therefore she called his name Judah."22

Some Jews have tried to run away from their history and calling.

But the epispasmos of the Hellinistic period, and the assimilation

sought in all times of so-called "enlightenment" have not prevented

the nations from treating all Jews as belonging together. In a Satanic

and demonic way the common history and the belonging together of

all Jews, be they orthodox or atheist, were attested even by Hitler.

By hating and destroying the Jews he revealed his disdain for the

whole history between God and mankind, and he attempted to oblit

erate the very essence of humanity, its dependence and reliance upon

God.

Therefore the first answer to the question, Who is a Jew? has

to refer to the manifoldness of Jewish existence and to the unerasable

footprints and stamp left upon earth by the specific history between

God and this people, and between this people and the nations. There

is no one sentence or proposition by which a Jew can be defined.

There is only the possibility and necessity to tell of his history. A

Jew is what his long and unfinished history is.

But a second answer must be added :

2. I know of one man whom I would dare call the Jew par excel-lence. His name is neither Moses nor Elijah, neither David nor Ezra,



BELIEF IN JESUS

neither Nathanael (John 1:47) nor Paul of Tarsus, neither Hillel

nor Maimonides, though each of these in his own way has many

things in common with the man of whom I must now speak—Jesusof Nazareth.

There can be little doubt about his connection with Jewish history.

Different genealogies delivered by the evangelists Matthew (ch. 1)

and Luke (ch. 3; cp. Rom. 1:3; Hebr. 7:14; Rev. 5:5) agree in

showing his rootage. His whole life is nothing but an expression of

Israel's life, an invitation, a victim and a gift given by Israel to

mankind. His death, his resurrection, and the Gospel preached of

him have their seat and meaning within the as yet unended Jewish

history. If Gentile-born Christians participate in any salvation at all,

this salvation, preached and provided as it is by Jesus of Nazareth,

"is from the Jews" (John 4:22).

That which makes Jesus the typical and true Jew is not his self-

consciousness. We know very little, if anything, of what he thought

of himself, except that he knew whom and how he had to obey.

He was certainly not a Narcissus enamoured with his self, nor the

leader of a movement set in motion to have himself elected, nor a

desperado making capital of his self-hatred or self-pity. What dis

tinguishes him among all Jews and all men is that he accepts God's

judgment without reservations and limitations. He acecpts man's

condition, assumes man's guilt, faces God to intercede for friend and

foe—and his offering is accepted. Moses had offered his own life

to God for his people before Jesus did. Abraham pleaded even for

Gentiles. The Talmud speaks of the merits of this father and others

that are accredited to Israel ; it also makes Abraham the patron saint

of the pagan-born converts to Judaism. The great prophets were

intercessors for Israel as much as the high priest was, especially onthe Day of Atonement. The history of the Hebrews past and present

is full of faithful martyrs. But Jesus' sacrifice was accepted by God

and vindicated before the Gentiles. He became the fulfiller of Israel's

original mission: to be the showpiece and herald of God's blessing

which overflows from Israel to the nations.28

Therefore, Christians are bound to affirm that Jesus is not just

a Jew, but the sum of the Jews, the affirmation and culmination of

Israel's history among and for the nations. It is not a paradox, but

28 The contents of Gen. 12:1-3 are reflected in Acts 3:26; Gal. 3:8-9; 13-14.Equally the message of the Second Isaiah and of the book of Jonah is sometimesdrawn upon by New Testament writers for a description explanation and




fully in line with the many inspired leaders of Israel, that he is not

at once recognized by his own people, that he reveals and ushers ina dreadful crisis, and that he refrains from giving proofs. For to be

elect and beloved by God means to accept loneliness, chastisement,

apparent failure, and to rely on a vindication which only God can

provide by resurrection and judgment from above.

What does this exemplary Jew, Jesus, "believe of Jesus"? Cer

tainly nothing that would prevent him from "remaining a Jew" ! He

believed in God and he obeyed him. He did not withhold himself from

service to the bitter end. Far from any denying and belying of his

Judaism, precisely this attitude of total faith in God, total obedienceto the law, total reliance upon the promises, made him a true Jew.

Since, as we have already mentioned, he did not call himself "Christ,"

we might now go to an extreme and add: Jesus Christ was not a

Christian—if this term means one who is separated from, or who

attempts to be saved at the expense of the Jews. Jesus was just a

good, the real Jew, accepted and glorified by God. This identity is

the ground upon which he became and is called the "savior of the

world."

3. When a Christian presumes at all to take up the question,Who or what is a Jew ?, he will have to answer : he is my brother !

And he will have to add the qualifying statement: He is my senior

brother against whom I have become guilty and with whom I would

be reconciled if ever I am to enjoy peace with God. A parable told

by Jesus (see Luke 15:11-32) may serve as an illustration:

A father had two sons. The younger asked for and received his

share in the patrimony, and left home to waste it with prostitutes.

After he had lost all and become so repulsive to every man that he

was refused even the pigs' food, he remembered home and went home

to confess his guilt before God and man, and to ask for the lowest

job. His father had been waiting for him and received him with out

going love and joy. A great festival was celebrated for the returned

prodigal. But the older brother on returning home from a hard day's

work on the field would not join in the celebration. He remembered

the contrast between his own labors, and the vices in which his

brother had engaged. The father had to go out to remind him of his

undisputed privileges and to urge him to join the celebration ar

ranged for the one who "had been dead and had come alive again,

was lost and found again."



BELIEF IN JESUS

tration of the relationship between Jews and repentant Gentiles.

The priority and hard labor of Israel is as little disputed as the

shameful life of the got with the swine. Their history is different:

the one has many things to be proud of; the other has absolutely

nothing. The first is in a position to judge the other ; the other has

coming to him whatever humiliation and punishment may be in store.

But the two are not left to themselves. God is the father of both,

and thus they are and remain brothers. It is not the junior brother's

right and mission to reproach his senior.24 The father has rightly

reserved to himself the duty and burden to call his older son to enjoy

together with the junior the joy of his house. This puts more than

a damper or caveat upon traditional methods used by Christians to

convert the Jews. What those who behaved like pigs and were saved

from the swine can do, can hardly go beyond confessing their guilt

and showing fruits of repentance. It is certainly not theirs to prescribe

to the Jews from an assumed position of superiority and security

what they ought to do.

The parable may also be useful to show that a Jew need not

become a got, as little as the got needs become a Jew to enjoy the

privileges of the fatherly house. The unity which they enjoy, becausethere is but one father, is not the unity of streamlining or uniformity.

As men and women remain men and women even when they are

"one in Christ" (Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11; cp. I Cor. 12:13), so the

people serving God does not deny, but upholds the special history

and character of its members, giving priority to the common praise

and mutual love of God over and across all distinctions. If both have

come to know that they are justified by grace alone (cp. Gal. 2:15-

21), then a Jew like Peter is free on occasions to "live like a Gentile"

and Gentiles, like the Galatians, are free to "become like Paul" (Gal.2:14; 4:12; cp. I Cor. 2:20-21). But their freedom does not belie

or destroy their special history.

The apostle Paul's fight against Judaizers was often interpreted

as a denial of all value in circumcision, food laws, sabbath statutes,

etc. But the Judaizers and their conception and practice of circum-

2 4 At this place it ought to be recalled that the statements made by Jesus,Stephen and Paul concerning the hardening of the heart of the Jews in Mark4:10-12; Matt. 19:8; 23:37; Rom. 9-11; I Thess. 2:15; Acts 7; 13:46-47;28:25-28 come from the mouth of Jews and are in the best of prophetic tradition.

There is nothing anti-Semitic in a Jew's chiding his brothers for their disobedience to God. But the New Testament gives no evidence—except in theallusion to the Jonah story and to the last judgment, Matt. 12:41-42; Luke



JOURNAL OF ECUME NICAL STUDIES

cisión, and the laws selected arbitrarily from the Jewish heritage

are not identical either with the. tenets of pharisaical Judaism orwith the attitude of the early Judaeo-Christian church of Jerusalem.25

The one Gospel, preached by Paul upon his commission by the one

God for gathering the one people of God, implies that different prac

tices would be held among those born Jews and Gentiles. "If we

are in union with Christ Jesus, circumcision makes no difference at

all, nor does the want of it ; the only thing that counts is faith active

in love. . . . Circumcision is nothing; uncircumcision is nothing;

the only thing that counts is new creation." So writes the same man

who on another occasion also could say, "Circumcision has value,provided you keep the law. . . . What advantage has the Jew? What

is the value of circumcision ? Great, in every way.,,2e Talmudic pas

sages treating of the difference between the Law of the Messiah

and the Noahite commandments on one side and the Mosaic com

mandments on the other, point in a similar direction. According to

John 14:2 Jesus himself said, "In my Father's house are many

rooms."

This means that the traditional contest between Jews and Chris

tians in matters of true worship, absolute truth, or universal religion27

appears in a rather dim light. Also the concomitant excitement over

the question whether outside the church, or outside the synagogue,

there is any salvation, may prove pointless. If, despite all errors,

hypocrisies, crimes committed from either side, Jews and Christians

are brothers, and if Jesus the Jew is the one who brings to the Gen

tiles the blessing promised to Abraham, then there is but one "house"

of salvation—God's. Then both Jews and Gentiles cannot be servants

of God's without living together and listening to one another.

What then is a Jew, if described by a Christian? He is that

senior brother, neighbor, fellowman who cannot be begrudged respect,

love, communion, if ever a Christian wants to love God. For Chris

tians as well as for Jews love of God cannot be found without love

of the neighbor. "On these two commandments depend all the law

and the prophets."

Christians have become wont to speak of "means of grace," and

they have attributed to the Bible, preaching, the church, or the sacra-

26 See esp. J. Munck, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind (Richmond,1959) and H. J. Schoeps, Paul of Tarsus (Philadelphia, 1961).

26 New English Bible translation of Gal 5:6; 6:15; Rom 2:25; 3:1



BELIEF IN JESUS

ments the dignity of being indispensable means of their salvation.

But the honorable function belonging to persons who become God's

ministers for our salvation should not be transferred to things. Notthe deployment and mystification of "means," but ever new acts of

love and obedience are characteristic of those treading on God's way.

It is a specific fellowman—the Jew—who is necessary for the gofs

salvation. For how can the returned prodigal enjoy his food and

peace when the older brother does not rejoice with him? Even if

the senior only reminds the junior of his sin, and of his salvation

by sheer grace, he renders him a necessary service.

In communion with Jews, Christians will always be recipients

rather than givers. Goiim need Jews to receive every possible help

against slipping back into Gentile ways.28 For this reason Jews have

to be beseeched to participate in the innumerable attempts made by

Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox, to s recover now the unity of

God's people on earth. If Jews were excluded from the respective

encounters, discussions and decisions, the unity reached might well

resemble a pagan symposium, but hardly the unity of God's one

people gathered from all the nations, on the mountain of the Lord.

Christians cannot help but beg the Jews to join the ecumenical move

ment, not for the sake of a super church, but for the search of true

service to the one true God.

So much about the question, Who is a Jew? We have finally

answered it by saying: For Christians he is the brother whose help

they need.

The last problem to be dealt with is faith.

III. WH AT IS FAITH ?

It is by no means clear that we stand on common ground and

understand one another fully when we ask, What can a Jew believe ?

For the concept, meaning and value of faith has a long history29

which at this place cannot be retold, dramatic and instructive though

it be. Three aspects only will be singled out.

1. A believer in a caricature of both the Jews' heritage and the

2 8 In this I agree with Paul Tillich; see Christianity and Crisis IS

(1955/61), p. 38.29 A recent approach to some of the pertinent problems and biographicalhelp is offered, e.g., by the article pisteuo etc. by A. Weiser and R. Bultmann,in G Kittel's Theol Wörterbuch sum NT VI (1959) pp 174-230 English




apostle Paul's message may be inclined to assert : Faith is what Chris

tians have and Jews lack. This widespread caricature seems to have

originated from statements as, "Israel who pursued the righteousness

which is based on law did not succeed in fulfilling that law. Why?

Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on

works."80 An oversimplifying exploitation of similar New Testament

texts makes of all Jews people who boast of their election and privi

leged position before God; who are Pelagian because they believe

in working out their salvation by good works; who limit God's

right to judge them because they assume that their merits tie God's

hand; who finally spoil genuine ethical behavior because they behavemorally only because of a promised reward.

It is not entirely impossible (though not sufficiently proven)

that before his conversion Paul himself held such beliefs—the third

chapter of his Epistle to the Philippians points in this direction.

Perhaps many diaspora Jews understood the law in a similar way.81

Protestants like to blame Esra and Nehemiah for leading Israel

toward an "absolutization of the law" and a concomitant legalism.82

It appears certain that in and outside Jerusalem early Christian con

gregations were pestered by individuals and groups who wanted tobe good Jews, or to glorify the law of the Jews, by requesting Gen

tiles to add to their faith in Christ subservience to the law, or at

least to some ceremonial observances.88 The documents of the

Qumran community include statements that have a ring of work-

righteousness. And so does the Talmud when it treats of the merits

of almsgiving or tithing.

But all this does not prove that a Jew who is true to Mosaic,

prophetic, or rabbinic tradition knows only of law and works, and

has no room or willingness for faith. There are at least two glorious

30 Rom. 9:31; cp. the context 9:30—10:21; also Gal. 2:16-17; 3:19-25; Phil.3:2-11; II Cor. 3:4-18.

31As esp. H. J. Schoeps in his monograph on Paul has attempted to prove.

32The last part of Noth's otherwise excellent essay on "Die Gesetze im

Pentateuch," in Gaesammelte Studien sum AT (Munich, 1957), pp. 9-141;English translation (Philadelphia, 1961), may be mentioned as an example.

33These individuals are frequently identified simply by the word "some"

(Greek: tines), e.g., in Acts 15:1, 5, 24; Gal. 1:7; 2:12; cp. 5:10. They arealso called "smuggled-in and sneaking-in false brethren," Gal. 2:4. While according to J. Munck, I.e. (note 25), Paul's Galatian opponents were Gentile Christians emulating what they considered the ways of true Jews, II Cor. 11:22; Gal.

2:12-13; Acts 21:27 describe Paul's opponents as Jews coming from Jerusalemor Asia Minor. It is probable that among both, Judaeo- and Gentile Christians,Paul's message was twisted. J. Munck has helped to free the Jews from theh th t th l ht t l t th G l b ifi l li ti



BELIEF IN JESUS

passages in the Tora and the Nebiim that point out the unique place

and function of faith. Gen. 15:6, "Abraham believed the Lord, and

he reckoned it to him as righteousness." Hab. 2:4, "The righteous

shall live by his faith." Not only Paul, but Paul and the Talmud place

greatest emphasis upon these and similar texts. Compare the emphasis

placed in several Talmud passages upon Ex. 14:31, "They believed

in the Lord and in his servant Moses," or upon Micah's summary

of God's will by the words, justice, steadfast love, humility (Micah

6:8).

Therefore a possessive or patronizing attitude does not befit

Christians when the question of faith is discussed with Jews. Complete trust, sincere devotion, obedience until death, mystic inward

ness, and socially relevant outwardness—all these attitudes may be

found at least as frequently among Jews as among Christians. The

well-known statues of Strasbourg cathedral, representing the church

by a rather proud and punitive looking young lady, and the syna

gogue by a humiliated, blindfolded girl holding a broken staff in

one hand and a tablet (of the law) in the other, may be expressive

of a medieval interpretation of II Cor. 3. In this chapter Paul treats

of Israel's inability to see the glory of the Lord. But I agree withF. Rosenzweig's and M. Buber's34 moving words on Israel's suffer

ing, and I would go even beyond them in saying : If faith is a matter

of attitude, and if the right attitude before God is to accept his

judgment as gracious, even when it is hard, then the figure of the

synagogue is my choice. It appears to me that even the medieval

artist, notwithstanding his submission to official church teaching,

had his heart and his love in the lady of the broken staff. She, and

not her victorious competitor, the church, is his masterpiece. The

Jewish girl Mary, the Lord's handmaiden, is a better symbol of thechurch than a Queen of Sheba, or a Victoria.

In this as in other cases Christians may learn from the synagogue

what it takes and means to be the church. When Jesus said, "Not

even in Israel I have found such faith" (as in a Gentile centurion,

Matt. 8:10), he did not exclude the possibility that on other occasions

Gentiles might wonder at the faith of Israelites.

Still there is a difference: Christians cannot and will not let go

34 See the Rosenzweig quotations on the Strasbourg figures, quoted in H. J.Schoeps, The Jewish-Christian Argument (New York, 1963), p. 143, andBuber's moving self identification with "all the ashes all the ruins all the



JOURNAL OF ECUM ENIC AL STUDIES

of identifying faith with the faith of Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ.85

When with Paul they speak of justification by faith, they do notintend to substitute faith for other human works or attitudes. But

they wish to confess that their sin is forgiven and their life is re

newed by the grace of Jesus Christ alone. More specifically they

mean by faith that fulfillment of promise and command, and that

communion of Jews and Gentiles with God, which have been brought

in through the Messiah's birth from a lowly woman, through the

fulfillment of his servant ministry on the cross, and through his vindi

cation by the resurrection and the pouring out of the Spirit over

Jews and Gentiles. Therefore, not only Jesus but also faith is understood by them in Messianic terms. God's Spirit, promised for the

last days, makes Jesus the Messiah and gives faith to both Jews and

Gentiles. This content and essence of faith—the very presence and

triumph of God in Jesus and in the assembly of Jews and Gentiles

to serve him together—marks a distinction between Jews and Gen

tiles. The distinction may be deeply regretted by either side, but it

cannot be denied. Jews and Christians still have to live with it. But

it is a sign of sin rather than of righteousness.

Since God alone, and neither Jew nor Gentile, is the criterion and judge concerning who truly believes in the Messiah, a mutual excom

munication of Jews and Gentile-Christians from the community with

the true Messiah cannot make any sense. Not only does every Jew

who, with a burning heart, yearns for the Messiah to come in some

sense believe in Jesus;86 even more, Christians will have to admit

that their own understanding of the Gospel, their own discipleship,

their own faith and obedience to God who reveals and presents him

self in the Messiah Jesus, is so fragmentary, stumbling, imperfect

that they cannot set themselves up as a radiant example of how to

believe. What real faith in the Messiah is, and in how far it is infi

nitely greater than the "faith in Moses" mentioned in Ex. 14:31 or

than the faith in the Teacher of Righteousness (mentioned in the

Pesher to Habbakuk of Qumran), is still to be learned by all men.

Faith is not a ready-made vehicle into which this or that content may

be fitted with some success. Neither is faith a mold or cast into which

«5 Passages like Gal. 2:16,20; 3:26; Rom. 3:22,25,26; Phil. 3:9, if under-

stood in the light of the statements concerning Jesus' obedience (Rom. 5:19;Phil. 2:8) may well treat not only of the faith in Christ, but of Jesus theMessiah's own faithfulness, too.

8 6 I Chi i th i f 1962 t th i d j f f



BELIEF IN JESUS

each man must be poured. Faith is the gift of grateful response to

God's faithfulness as it is displayed in past, present and future mani

festations. God makes man believe; God makes faith, God judges

faith, not vice versa. There is no uniformity of true faith, except that

it will be faith in God. Peter was praying for all men when he said,

"Increase our faith" (Luke 17:5). The prayer, "I believe; help my

unbelief," is the only appropriate prayer for those acknowledging that

"all things are possible to him who believes" (Mark 9:23-24).

For this reason Christians cannot claim against Jews to be the

sole possessors and beneficiaries of true faith.

We proceed now to a second way of describing faith in the framework of Judaeo-Christian dialogue :

2. Many Jewish and Christian writers dealing with the problem

of faith start from the observation that both Jews and Christians live

by faith. But they speak of "two types of faith."87 Among others the

following differentiations have been made : Jewish faith is communal ;

Christian faith is individual. The first is earthly, concrete ; the second

spiritual and world-denying. One faces outward; the other inward.

One accepts suffering; the other strives for bliss and success. Also

action and conviction, ethics and dogmatics, being and becoming,

have been juxtaposed. Always when such distinctions are made, a

way is sought to affirm that both are true and both have their mys

tery—Judaism and Christianity. The intent is to show that while

Jews and Christians may not worship and live in the same house,

they yet form two houses that need one another for encouragement

and conviction. This "two-house theory" might be compared to the

complementary approach science offers to describe a substance on the

basis of the quantum theory. Just as physicists may have to speak

now of waves, now of particles, so also Jews and Christians may de-

87 So M. Buber in a monograph under this title. The following distinctionsare gleaned from books or essays of L. Baeck, F. Rosenzweig, E. Rosenstock-Huessy, J. W. Parkes, W. Herberg, H. J. Schoeps, R. Mayer. We refer onlyto benevolent distinctions and omit all those that appear to reveal a patent orlatent Marcionite, anti-Semitic, idealistic, anti-nomian, anti-ceremonial, oratheistic bias. For this reason the medieval description of the Jews as perfidious,accursed murderers of God, the blasts of Luther against the Jews (in 1543,caused as they were by his disappointment that they did not convert to theReformation; cp. his essay on Jesus, the Jew, of 1523) ; the idealists' (esp.Hegel's) depreciatory remarks against the Jews and the subsequent writing of

early church history, finally modern polemics uttered on the lines of the Deutsche Christen, will not be taken into consideration. They are a sin and ashame on the shield of the churches that call themselves Christian. It is a relief to note that at the Second Vatican Council a Schema was adopted which opens




pend upon a dialectic approach to the mystery of God and true obe

dience.

There is no reason to object to the humility expressed wherever

dialogue and dialectics is given preference over simple propositions

and definitions. Which wise man would not prefer Plato's dialogues

to Aristotle's treatises, and the Talmud's kaleidoscopic way of in

struction to the over-assurance of some Protestant and Catholic Bible

interpretations? But since God is person, and not a matter-like sub

stance examined by natural scientists ; and since he is the living cre

ator, father and redeemer to be honored, served and glorified rather

than a topic or idea to be discussed, the analogies just used in defense of the two-house theory prove nothing. Tensions like those de

scribed, and sometimes divisions between not only types of faith but

also types of doctrine, worship, morals run equally through the Jew

ish and the Christian communities, their forms of worship, their

learned writings, their belletristic works. These tensions are inciden

tals in which Western men live, but they are not essentials to the

knowledge and service of God. Perhaps they are or will be present

in each man, be he Western, Asiatic, or African. Paul certainly re

flects them in his life and his message. But he does not absolutizethem.

Or is he the man who invented, took over, or concocted, the sup

posedly Greek concept of personal faith ? It is to be noted that when

he wants to explain what he means by that faith through which we

are justified, he quotes the Tora and the Prophets, i.e., Gen. 15 and

Habbakuk 2. In short, he explains what pistis be by speaking of

emunah. On the other hand, he uses a Bible and employs a Greek

diction which long before him, by the "seventy" translators and by

writers of Wisdom Books, had been utilized in the attempt to fulfill

Israel's mission among the nations. For this reason I see little if any

value in the two-house theory. Jews and Christians live in one house

—God's.

The most far-reaching and penetrating distinction and coordina

tion of Jewish and Christian faith was, it appears, first made by Mai-

monides and was taken up by S. Formstecher in 1841 and forcefully

defended by F. Rosenzweig.88 It holds that the teaching of the Naza-

38 St. S. Schwarzschild, in Scripture and Ecumenism (see note 4), p. 131,quotes a passage from Maimonides* (unexpurgated ! ) Mishne Torah 11:4; inH J Schoeps Jeivish Christian Argument pp 109 and 141 142 references to



BELIEF IN JESUS

rene and the mission carried out by the church is good for the Gen

tiles; for it spreads truth over the world, prepares the way for the

Messiah, carries out the Jewish world mission, serves to lead the na

tions of the world to the Father. This understanding of Jesus and

the church has a great advantage over the complementary analyses of

Jewish and Christian "faith" mentioned before. It understands the

faith of Christians in terms of a mission which is carried out in God's

name and for his praise. It may imply an admission of failure, if not

envy, among the Jews. It intends to illuminate history not by elabora

tion upon psychological, ideological, or sociological human traits, but

by speaking of its gist, purpose, or omega point, the glorification of

God by all men as it is promised, e.g., in Is. 2:2-4 ; Zech. 14:9, 16.

But an element of condescension and self-excuse appears to mar

the picture. While the Christians are not begrudged their success

among the pagan masses and while the actual approach of the goiim

to the living God is hailed, the Jews appear to recline in their seats

and feel excused from taking a stand for or against Jesus. While they

"believe about Jesus" that he is good enough for the Gentiles, carry

ing out through his disciples the work they might have done, they

may be tempted to leave well enough alone and not give God thathonor which he deserves, nor their Christian brothers that support

which they need. If there is anything Messianic in Jesus and in faith,

it will unite Jews and Christians much more closely than this last and

most dynamic "complementary" theory does.

Therefore, we have still and again to ask, What is Faith?

3. Many of the Western discussions about the nature of faith

have been thriving upon the opposition or juxtaposition of faith and

reason, or faith and life, or faith and works, or faith and doubt. The

weakness of such explanation and comparison is obvious: they failto do justice to the fact that in the Bible perfidy, or treason, or insta

bility are the basic and most frequent opposites of faith. The tradi

tional Western distinction of faith from reason, or from life, or from

doubt, coerce faith into the realm of epistemology, i.e., they make it

a mode of information or conviction, or a result of ideas and princi

ples held fast; they lead into unending and fruitless debates and

dilemmas as they are characteristic of issues wrongly posed ; they by

pass actual life and labor, suffering and joy, community and respon

sibility. The biblical (Old Testament) root of etnunah (faith) pointsto the act of standing firm on a given solid ground. It means to cor




life. Several prophets use the relationship of a beloved wife to her

husband as an illustration and application of faith. Faith in God as

well as knowledge of God is "to have God for a husband"—as Rabbi

H. Kaplan has put it in a discussion.

We can phrase it in other words, saying, faitii is citizenship in the

realm where God is king. No citizenship exists only in relation to the

head of a state ; it is rather by nature fellow citizenship. Even if the

head is never seen, the mutual behavior of the members of the com

munity, and their attitude toward strangers, express their loyalty. By

entering the houses of tax collectors and Pharisees, by bringing sin

ners and saints together at one table, by dying for his people and forthe many nations, and by inviting all of them together to share in a

covenant meal, Jesus showed and established the character of both,

God's kingship and man's citizenship. Faith, described in terms of

the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament, is to accept and ex

tend the invitation, to sit down with all who come and enjoy the meal,

and to behave all day long and every day as one of the many partners

in the covenant of love.

This description of faith may look as if it lacked in subtlety and

possessed too many this-worldly, if not materialist, features. Be it so !For at least it corresponds to Moses', the Prophets', the Psalmists'

insights and hopes concerning the coming, the recognition, the fruit

and enjoyment of God's kingdom. Nothing less than a Messianic

banquet became the imagery of the time of fulfillment !

This means for us Christians that we cannot have faith and at the

same time discriminate against those called by God before and with

us. God has invited us through a Jew, Jesus. His call has brought us

together with Jews. Jesus is not a bridge on which we might go

thither or Jews might come from yonder. Rather he broke down thewall that divided us. He brought both of us to a safe shore and into

one house. He presides at a table and provides for both of us.

We Christians cannot confess this faith but by saying: he joined

the Gentiles to Israel ; salvation is from the Jews. Jews do not deny

that Jesus leads Gentiles to God. Also they know that only a Jew

who believes is a true Jew. The holy Scriptures remind them that

Melchisedek and Zadok, Henoch and Cyrus, Ruth and Job and the

Ninevites—those believing Gentiles—were joined to their history. All

of us know that without union with God's people we cannot be chil

dren and servants of God, and brothers one to the other. For both of



BELIEF IN JESUS

separation, conceit, lack of love. It is clear, especially in the Pauline

letters, that the overcoming of the separation between Jews and Gen

tiles is the key to the removal of all dividing walls, whether they existbetween races, nations, social classes, or age groups.

89Where there

is faith, no such wall will be required as final, erected for worship, or

re-established for self-assertion.

Such faith can only be given from God. And it need be given

every day anew. We may discuss it and we have to do all we can to

remove obstacles in its way or falsifications of its essence. But ulti

mately we can only pray for it—in prayers offered by each one in his

place, and in common prayer. When faith begins to mean that we are

true to God, to his manifest will and his gifts, then we shall also betrue to one another, as is fitting for brothers having the same father.

8» According to I Cor. 12:13; Col. 3:11; Gal. 3:28; cp. Eph. 2:11-22; 5:20-6:9, the removal of the Jewish-Gentile segregation and discrimination precedes,illustrates and entails the unity overcoming all other separations.



^ s

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What Can a Jew Believe About Jesus