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A Book Review
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Books shape us. They change our road choices, confirm (or demolish) our ideas, lead toward or away from God.
Jakob Jocz, The Jewish People and Jesus Christ (The Relationship Between Church and Synagogue) (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1979, orig. 1949) Jocz was born in 1906 in Vilnius, Lithuania, to a (Yeshua-) believing Jewish cabinetmaker and his believing wife. Early on Jakob himself became a committed disciple of Yeshua and turned to writing, teaching, and speaking to Jewish communities in Poland. Eventually, he immigrated to England then to Canada, where he became a professor of theology. Jocz understood both Jewish and Christian worldviews, and equally criticizes both for their syncretism and disobedience to Scripture. He was a scrupulously fair historian and perceptive theologian. He bluntly says: It is no exaggeration to say that the empirical Church, i.e. the Church of history, has shown itself the greatest enemy of the Jewish people. The Church has, therefore, been the first and foremost stumbling-block in the Jewish appreciation of Jesus.He also says Modern Judaism is a product of the Enlightenment and the Jewish Haskalah movement of the 19th century, far more than it is of the Hebrew Scriptures. Jewish drive to escape the ghetto and enter European civilization meant imbibing the spirit of rationalism and secularization that dominated the age. That meant denial of Israel's separate existence among the nations. It meant shedding all distinctives associated with the biblical god. For many it meant denying God himself. Liberal Jewish thinkers in the 20th century deepened the chasm between Jews and their ancestral faith — and especially Yeshua of Nazareth. The philosopher Martin Buber contrasted Judaism with Christianity by asserting that Judaism believes the way to heaven starts from earth, from below, and leads upwards. Struggling man can climb the steep hill leading to God through his moral efforts. There is thus no need for a messianic savior to help in the task. In contrast, Jocz says, the New Testament holds the opposite view. Unless God in his mercy stretches his hand from above, people can never reach him. Along the same lines, Rabbi I. M. Wise said, "You must exert your energies to rise, to climb, to ascend and come as near to your God as you can. . . . To rise to self-conscious immortality and happiness is in man's power exclusively; it depends on no circumstances and no outer influences." This, Jocz argues, illustrates that "[modern] Judaism is essentially a religion for those who can" (p. 270). Jocz grieves over the crisis of faith and self-confident unbelief among the Jewish people. He grieves over the catastrophe of what the empirical Church has done to his people in the name of Jesus. But he believes that only in (re)turning to the true Jesus of the New Testament can Jews find their way back to God and Christians repent of their corporate sins, put on the spirit of their Master, and fulfill their purpose to love and bless the people from whom He came. Before his death in 1983, Jocz wrote a sequel entitled The Jewish People and Jesus Christ After Auschwitz (A Study in the Controversy Between Church and Synagogue) (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1981). For Jocz's thoughts on "The Hebrew-Christian Future" click HERE.
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