With all of the talk about the upcoming "The Passion of The Christ" movie, is the attempt to associate the old bogus argument that the Jews bear the collective guilt for the Crucifixion of Christ.
What people fail to realize is that this is a circular argument that falls apart if they think it through.
Proposition: The Jews (i.e. all of Jewish ancestry) bear collective guilt for the crucifixion of Christ.
Problem: Jesus is Jewish, so Jesus bears the guilt for his own death. If Jesus is thus guilty for his own death, then Jesus sinned. If Jesus sinned, then he was just a man, and all of Christianity is a sham.
Conclusion: Those who say that the Jews bear collective guilt for the death of Christ are not Christians.
The Christian Perspective: All of humanity is responsible for Jesus' death. Jesus was sent to be a sacrifice for all our sins/guilt. If we accept this free gift, we have the gift of eternal salvation. I have heard few mention the fact that Christ rose from the dead. If Jesus had not risen from the dead, no one would remember him. He would be one of the nameless thousands who were executed by crucifixion.
The agents of anarchy who oppose the law of God, deny the reality of Christ's resurrection, and at the same time blame the Jewish people for his death. Any one who has accepted the resurrection of Christ, knows that they are the most guilty person in their own life for the death of Christ. Yet in spite of all that, he loved us enough to die for us.
Some try to paint Hitler and his Nazi goons, the KKK, and other racist groups as Christian. Those who twist Christianity to fit their own ideas are not Christian. If they would read the Bible without pre-supposition, they would see that Jesus did not teach the hatred of his own people. Jesus came to fulfill the law and the prophets. Both the law and the prophets testify that the Jewish people have a special purpose in God's eyes. To say that the Jews have lost this place, is to contradict the clear witness of Scripture.
The New Testament does use terms to describe the Jews in a negative light, but this is directed at the corrupt Jewish leaders who were more interested in keeping their power and position, not honoring God's law. This is the same argument when the leaders of a failed company are blamed, but many mention the whole company by name, such as Enron. If the problem was in the management of the company, it is easy to blame former employees of the company by guilt with association, but the guilt is on the leadershp. Guilt by association may be enough cause for investigation, but will not lead up to an indictment or a conviction.
NOTE:Many millions of Jews, along with many other ethnic groups, were slaughtered in the Nazi concentration camps of World War II. Any one who says differently is ignoring the detailed records the Nazis themselves kept of the process.
Marriage is also the intended environment for raising children. If my wife were to die while our children were still young, my desire to marry again would be filtered through a desire for a woman who would be a good mother to my children. I am sure I could raise them to be health young men on my own, but my wife does and sees things differently than I do. With only a man's perspective on life, they would be missing something. In the same way, if I were to die, my wife would seek a man who would be a good father to our children. Again, she could do it on her own, but without a man's influence, something would be missing.
Gen 2:18 Yahweh God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him."
19Out of the ground Yahweh God formed every animal of the field, and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
20The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every animal of the field; but for man there was not found a helper suitable for him.
21Yahweh God caused a deep sleep to fall on the man, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place.
22He made the rib, which Yahweh God had taken from the man, into a woman, and brought her to the man.
23The man said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She will be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."
24Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, and will join with his wife, and they will be one flesh.
25They were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. (Genesis 2:18-25 WEB)
NOTE: I chose the World English Bible for this quotation because it is in modern English and the author(s) of the translation have made it freely available to the world. I prefer the NIV in my regular scripture reading, but there are copyright restrictions that are better handled by avoiding them.
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©2004 Lawrence M. Hamilton, Jr. All Rights Reserved
lmh@hamiltongensociety.org
Last updated October 20, 2004