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Jakob Jocz was born in 1906 in Vilnius, Lithuania, to a believing Jewish cabinetmaker and his believing wife. Early on Jakob also 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 professor of theology.
In 1949 he published his monumental The Jewish People and Jesus Christ: The Relationship Between Church and Synagogue. Before his death in 1983, he wrote an impassioned sequel in light of the events of the Holocaust and modern Jewish and Israeli efforts to study Jesus on their own terms. It's entitled The Jewish People and Jesus Christ After Auschwitz.
From: The Jewish People and Jesus Christ: The Relationship Between Church and Synagogue (3d edition; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1979; original 1949), pages 258-61.
Standing mid-way between the Gentile and the Jewish world, Hebrew Christianity performs a double function: it interprets Judaism to Gentile Christianity and Christianity to Judaism. But its existence is of still greater significance.
The crisis of the twentieth century in which the Church and the Synagogue are both involved, has its roots in a philosophy which has placed man in the centre of the universe. Strange as it may be, such exaltation of man is neither contrary to Greek philosophy nor to the spirit of Judaism. It is, however, alien to the essence of Christianity, which is based upon the notion of human inadequacy. The prevailing humanism of our age has thus greatly reduced the distance which once divided Church and Synagogue. The faster the Church is moving in the direction of Greek philosophy, especially Platonism, the closer it approximates the Jewish point of view.
The gap which still divides the two creeds is increasingly bridged by the common religious denominator. The emphasis upon religious experience has created a platform for all religiously-minded men, irrespective of creed. "Proselytizing" is thus increasingly becoming a sign of intolerance, and is looked upon as outrageous to the religious instinct. [Top]
On the Jewish side, the lack of active missionary propaganda on the part of the Synagogue is regarded as a virtue. On the Christian side, the theological implications of the central doctrines of the Church are giving place to the mystic experience of the individual, thus rendering missionary activity pointless. In this general atmosphere of syncretic religiosity, the Hebrew Christian is a curiosity, a disquieting phenomenon to both sides. At a time of doctrinal indifference, when adherence to an historic creed is more an expression of loyalty than personal conviction, the presence of the Jewish Christian is a strange reminder of a bygone age. To leave the Synagogue, with its many and great religious traditions, appears not only to the Jew but to many a Gentile Christian an act of betrayal.
Again, in our age of intense nationalism, when the Christian Faith has been perverted to a tribal religion of various ethnic groups, conversion from Judaism to Christianity appears to some Gentiles as an intolerable intrusion. This will become obvious when we remember that to many Church people to be a Christian is a Gentile prerogative. In spite of the fact that the Gentile world is increasingly becoming [p. 259] indifferent to the Christian profession, it is still taken for granted that the Gentiles have accepted and the Jews have rejected Jesus Christ. It is thus almost expected of the Jew to remain loyal to the religion in which he was born. The position of the Hebrew Christian is one of great loneliness. He finds himself outside both camps, standing mid-way. He is torn in two directions, between the Gentile Church and the Jewish people. We now understand the reason why so many prominent Jewish Christians have championed the cause of orthodox Christianity. Positive Christianity can provide the only justification for the grave step a Jew takes when accepting baptism. Religious experience is no Christian prerogative; it can be attained within the walls of the synagogue. If a Jew leaves his kindred and his father's house and becomes a stranger, there must be a great and compelling reason. True Hebrew Christianity is thus founded upon loyalty to Jesus Christ. It is for Christ's sake that the Jewish Christian is called upon to make this great sacrifice. Nobody who has read the revealing memoirs of a convinced Roman Catholic Jew, a Polish lawyer, can remain unmoved by the clash of loyalties in which the Hebrew Christian is involved. His first loyalty is to the Church, whose spiritual son he is; his second loyalty is to his people, to whom he belongs and whose memories and traditions are deeply buried in his heart. [Top]
Jewish Christians have sometimes held that there need be no clash of loyalties. They argued that, like the Frenchman or the Englishman who manages to be loyal to his nation and remain a good Christian, the Jewish Christian ought to be able to be both a Jew and a Christian. Such reasoning, however, overlooks two fundamental facts: (1) The age-long division between the Synagogue and the Church, with its manifold implications; (2) the political position of Jewry, which demands every sacrifice for the preservation of Jewish existence. But there is yet a greater truth involved. Historic Christianity avoided the conflict between loyalty to Jesus Christ and the demands of the world by a compromise. It made peace with the world by giving to Caesar what legitimately only belongs to God. There can be little doubt that national selfishness, which inevitably involves political intrigue, has been the misfortune of the Church. In essence, Christianity stands opposed to the world, cutting right across all national aspirations. Philip Cohen, arguing for the national continuity of the Hebrew Christian on [p. 260] the basis "that the acceptance of Christianity does not involve denationalization", was unfortunate in the choice of his example. He says: "Japanese Christians have given a practical illustration to their people that loyalty to the national cause and love of Christ are not incompatible". Subsequent events, however, have given the lie to this statement. The Church in Japan was made to choose between the two loyalties, and like the rest of Gentile Christianity, it chose nationalism.
Cohen's plea on behalf of Hebrew Christians, "to be allowed to exercise the same law of self-preservation, as far as our nationality is concerned, as others are allowed to do", may be justifiable on historical grounds, but spiritually it cannot be so. The uniqueness of the Hebrew Christian's situation lies in the fact that he is put in a position where choice becomes inescapable.
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Only two possibilities are left to him: on the one side is Jesus Christ, but loyalty to him spells the forfeiture of national rights; on the other is the Jewish people, demanding the denial of personal conviction, for the sake of its continued existence. There is no way out of the dilemma.
The creation of the much discussed Hebrew-Christian Church or separate Hebrew-Christian communities will not solve the problem. At best it can bring the Jewish Christian to the position Gentile Christianity occupies at present, adding another sect to the manifold divisions of the Church. In the Hebrew Christian, thus, the drama of Primitive Christianity is re-enacted. Loyalty to Jesus Christ becomes to him the supreme test of discipleship. He is called upon to go outside the camp "bearing His reproach", having no abiding city in this world (Heb. 13. 13 f.). This was the price both Jews and Gentiles once had to pay for their faith. The Jewish Christian still pays the price. From the national point ofview, the Hebrew Christian has no future. H. Loewe reflects this opinion when, alluding to the Birkat ha-minim, he says, "for the Jewish Christian there can be no hope". National continuity of Hebrew Christianity will only be possible when the Jewish people lives its own life upon its own soil, and can afford to grant to its members the luxury of personal conviction without endangering its separate existence [written in 1946]. Until then there is no way out of the impasse. Every effort at a solution must break at the person of Jesus Christ. Only men for whom to belong to Jesus means more than to belong to a nation are fit for the Kingdom of God. "This is the experience of every Jew who yields to the challenge of the Gospel message. [p. 261] The tragedy of the Church is that this is no longer the experience of the Gentile Christian.'" In the unique position of Hebrew Christianity, the conflict between faith in the One Catholic and Apostolic Church and the spirit of national separatism breaks out in all its acuteness. In the Hebrew Christian the tension which exists between the Church and the world reaches a climax. Discipleship means once again carrying a cross and fellowship in suffering. Faith ceases to be intellectual acquiescence and becomes once more a hazardous venture. Abraham's experience is the experience of every true Jewish Christian. This over-accentuation of the implications of the Christian Faith is a constant irritant to self-centred Christianity. Herein lies the significance of Hebrew Christian existence to the Church. By the sacrifice of national loyalty for the sake of a higher good, the Hebrew Christian demonstrates before the Church and the Synagogue that the flesh profiteth nothing; it is the Spirit which giveth Life (Jn. 6.63).
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