JEWISH OBJECTIONS TO JESUS CONSIDERED.

            In The Occident, an Israelitish periodical, there is a series of letters written by a Mr. Dias, the maternal grandfather of Miss Grace Aguilar, a distinguished daughter of Israel, against the authenticity and infallibility of the New Testament, and against the claims of Jesus of Nazareth to the Messiahship. In one of his epistles he remarks: “Until the Jews admit the divine authority of the New Testament, nothing can be urged from it for their conversion: for in controversies, neither party can, with the least shadow of reason, make use of any authority which is not admitted, or granted by the other. A Mohammedan as consistently urge the authority of the Koran for the conviction of the Christian, as a Christian make use of or urge anything from the New Testament for the conviction of the Jew.” Though there is some truth in this, it is not free from fallacy. Mr. Dias says—“Nothing can be urged from it.” He might as well object, that nothing can be urged for the conviction of a modern Chinese of the existence of Alfred the Great, and of his right to the throne of England, until he admitted the divine authority of the testimony of those who had seen Alfred, and who chronicled the events of his life and reign. The narratives known by the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are evidently worthy of all reception as authentic history; and rest upon at least as good a foundation as any other history extant, that of Moses not excepted. Whatever argument can be adduced to prove the genuineness of the facts reported in Moses’ writing, is equally available to prove the authenticity off the facts concerning Jesus as related in the four testimonies, call them by whatever name you will. The Old and New Testament stand or fall together, as far as what is called the “external evidence” is concerned, a less amount of which would seem to be necessary to establish the historical accuracy of the New, seeing that it is so much more modern or nearer our own times in its details, than the Old. It is too late in the day for our Jewish friends to call in question the validity of the New Testament history. It is quite competent for them to dispute its doctrine; but to deny its facts is to convict themselves of illiteracy and unreasonableness, for there is no contrary testimony extant, calculated to cast a shadow of doubt upon the facts and events narrated in either the Old or New writings of the Jews.

            Mr. Benjamin Dias and others labour unnecessarily to set aside the authority of Councils in the settling of the canon of the New Testament. The Christian receives nothing upon their authority, though Catholics and Protestants may. The oracles of God, styled the Old Testament, were committed to Judah, from whom we received them; the Jewish writings of the New, were received by the apostolic congregations of believers from sources satisfactory to them, and carefully preserved and handed down to the times of Huss, Wickliffe, and Luther, by those “who kept the commandments of God, and had the testimony of Jesus Christ”—Revelation 12: 17, called the Two Witnesses. They had the testimony, and preserved it from destruction and mutilation by both pagans and papists. The genuine Christian accepts it from them, as modern Israelites receive the book of the Law and the Prophets from their co-religionists of past ages. Papists and their Councils in all times are the enemies of the Old and New scriptures, which they have ever sought to suppress and mutilate. Hence their decrees in favour of the canonicalness of the scripture books, is the extorted approving testimony of the adversary, extorted by the influence of the Witnesses, in whose presence they dared not venture to do contrary.

            The New Testament, then, being genuine history—and, in a Christian’s esteem, divine doctrine too—no further confession need be required of a Jew in the controversy between him and the Nazarenes. If he deny so much as this, there can be no discussion with him on the claims of Jesus to the Messiahship; for it is tantamount to denying that Jesus ever existed at all; for, with the exception of the testimony of Josephus, their own historian of the destruction of Jerusalem, which some of them affect to doubt, there is none extant to prove the existence of Jesus, save the testimony of contemporaries, many of them once bitter enemies, but converted into his warmest friends and adherents, by the power of the evidence current before their eyes. If the Jew admit the existence of Jesus, the genealogies of Matthew and Luke taken from his own scriptures, the miracles Jesus exhibited, his crucifixion, and resurrection, he admits no more than what thousands of Jews believed in the days of Pilate without admitting the Messiahship of Jesus or embracing the faith. These were undeniable things. Even the resurrection was believed; for the rulers bribed the soldiers to lie it into doubtfulness.

            But, the grounds upon which Jews found their objections to Jesus as their king, differ in the first century and in the nineteenth. Annas, Caiaphas, and their brethren would not acknowledge Jesus, because they perceived that if he ascended the throne of David they would have no share in the government, as promotion to the honour and glory of the kingdom was predicated by Him on righteousness, which, he declared, they did not possess: for he said,

“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the land. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for the kingdom of the heavens is theirs. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in the heavens.”

“They which be first shall be last, and the last shall be first.”

Had Jesus been a man of like disposition with themselves, they would doubtless, if they had deemed it safe, have been willing to cooperate with Him in re-establishing the throne of David. But he was not. He announced the glory, honour, incorruptibility, and life of the kingdom to the poor. He consorted with publicans and sinners; while the self-righteous respectables of the age he turned over to the judgment of Hinnom’s Vale. Hence it was a class enmity that grew up against him, arising, indeed out of the natural enmity of the human mind to the things which be of God, and fostered and matured by the pride of life, which rejoices in wealth, and power, and a vain show.

            But the circumstances of the Jewish people now and for ages past, no longer admit of objection to Jesus, because of his humble, afflicted, and poverty-stricken condition, as contrasted with the nobility of the nation. Rulers and people have been trodden into the dust. The ignorant, superstitious, and cruel Gentiles have trampled them like mire in the streets. They are “a people scattered and peeled,” humbled, persecuted, and, in most countries, miserably poor. The despised Nazarene, though fed and clothed by the contributions of his friends, and without any certain habitation, or place to rest his head, was not so miserable, so enduringly wretched, as his countrymen in that same Jerusalem where he was put to death. A fraternity of woe has been established for ages between the Jews and Him who claims to be their King. Hence, the national fortunes being changed, the case is changed. An objection to him now is, in the words of Mr. Isaac Leeser, that “an only son of God could not exist by any possibility. We reject the idea,” says he, “of God’s parting with any part of himself to constitute a personage to whom the name of his son could with any propriety be applied. We do not recognise any division in the Godhead.” This objection has grown out of the crude and vain speculations of Athanasius. But the New Testament nowhere teaches a division of the to Theion, or Divine Nature. Paul taught “one Lord,” that is, Jesus Christ; and “one God,” who is “the Father of all, above all, through all, and in all:” so that he styles him, “the Father of our Lord Jesus the Messiah,” and the Father of the children, both Jews and Gentiles, whom he gives to Jesus to be his brethren. He dwelt in Jesus by his Holy Spirit, as he will hereafter dwell in all his brethren, that he may be all things in all. He did not “part with any part of himself” in the begettal of Jesus, any more than in the begettal of Adam, who is styled “Son of God,” as well as Jesus. The difference between Adam and Jesus in the origin of their humanity is, that God formed Adam by his Spirit out of the dust, while he formed Jesus by the same Spirit out of the substance of David’s daughter, who is styled in the Psalms, Jehovah’s handmaid, and her offspring, “the Son of thine handmaid”—Psalm 86: 16; 116: 16, which is equivalent to “Son of God.” He is Son of God also by his begettal from death to life as His first-born from the dead; as it is written in the second Psalm, “Yehovah ahmar aly, Beni ahtah ani hyyom yelidtikah”—“Jehovah hath said to me, My Son thou art; I this day have begotten thee;” i.e., the day of his resurrection. The particles of the Greek New Testament rendered as they ought to be, make the expressions of Paul concerning Jesus in perfect harmony with what is affirmed concerning the lord Jesus in all passages of the Old Testament. Hence, the Jewish objection to Jesus derived from Athanasian foolishness, is as baseless as its origin. The New Testament and the Old altogether agree as to the nature of the relationship subsisting between Jehovah and his Messiah, as the Father and the Son.

            Another objection to Jesus being the Messiah is founded likewise on Gentile ignorance and unbelief of Moses and the Prophets. The writings of these personages are almost entirely disregarded by professors of Christianity, and but little understood even by those who profess to study them. They are treated as mere Jewish annals—once prophecies, but now fulfilled in Jesus, and consequently a mere matter of history; to use the words of a certain divine esteemed “great” by people unlearned in the word, a sort of “old Jewish almanac!” Hence, professors of Gentilism say, that “the New Testament is their only and sufficient rule of faith and practice.” This is tantamount to saying, that “all the prophecies concerning the Messiah are fulfilled in Jesus, and therefore recorded in the New Testament;” for if this be not the case, then there are things to be believed concerning the Messiah which are not there, and the New Testament is not the sufficient rule of faith. Assuming, however, that the Gentile notion is a true statement in relation to Jesus, it is taken as a ground of objection to his claims as King of the Jews and Redeemer of Israel. “We,” say the Jews to the Gentiles, “agree with you, that there is but one personal advent of the Christ. Jesus appeared once in our country; and his biography has been sketched by four of his contemporaries, which, you say, is a record of all that need be expected to happen in regard to him upon earth. Now this being so, with what we know is actually on record in the holy prophets, concerning the office and character of Messiah, and which no one will pretend to say has ever been fulfilled in, by, or through Jesus, we cannot recognise in him the personage of whom Moses did write in the law.” “Only prove to us that all the prophecies concerning the Messiah were fulfilled in Jesus,” says Mr. Benjamin Dias; “the Jews will then be converted; for they require nothing else.”

            If the assailants be professors of Gentilism, who deny the second personal appearing of Jesus, the restoration of Israel, and the establishment of David’s throne and kingdom in the Holy Land, this position of the Jews is impregnable. All things spoken concerning the Messiah by the prophets were not fulfilled in Jesus; yet he says, that all things spoken there must be fulfilled. The truth is, that comparatively few things spoken there were fulfilled in him. The Messiah’s mission is prophetic, sacrificial, sacerdotal, military, regal, and imperial. Jesus came as a prophet, suffered as a sacrifice; and now performs the functions of a High Priest in the Most Holy, but to those only who believe the gospel and are united to his name. He has yet to appear as High Priest of the Twelve Tribes, as a conquering hero, reigning king of Israel and Emperor of the world. But more of this anon.

EDITOR.

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