Abhorrence of the Jews by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 27, 1871

Abhorrence of the Jews.

By Uriah Smith

A FEW days since, we met an individual who claimed to be a minister of the gospel, who also said that he was an Adventist, but not a Seventh-day Adventist; for he had such an abhorrence of everything that pertained to the Jews that he could have nothing to do with the seventh day.

This remark revealed a misapprehension which exists very extensively at the present day, on two points; namely, first, that everything with which the Jews ever had to do, is to be rejected with scorn and detestation; and, secondly, that the seventh-day Sabbath, had its origin with that people, or was ever peculiarly a Jewish institution.

What are the facts in the case? Why should Christians abhor those institutions which existed in the former dispensation, even those which were peculiarly Jewish? What is there in them to excite in us either hatred or disgust? These were the queries suggested by that remark. The Bible furnishes a clear answer to these questions; and any one who professes to be a teacher in Israel should read his Bible to better purpose than ever to be guilty of such a remark.

1. There is nothing to excite in us bitterness and hatred against the Jews in the reasons which led at first to their being set apart as the people of God. Abraham was chosen and made the father of the faithful, because he was found true and righteous in the midst of a generation of apostates from God. So Israel became the people of God, set apart and distinguished from the nations around them, because they alone among them all were found worthy to become the depositaries of divine truth and the guardians of the knowledge of God and his will in the earth. Let us honor their fidelity to God, at a time when all others had enlisted in the ranks of the devil.

2. It is nothing against them that God committed unto them his lively oracles, revealed to them his truth, and committed its care to their hands, chose from their tribes men to be the amanuenses of his written word, and proclaimed himself to be their God. All these were surpassing honors, which, though they might cause us to envy, should not lead us to abuse them.

3. It is nothing against the truths of God's word, the knowledge of himself, and his moral law, the lively oracles, that they were for a time committed to the only people who were worthy to have charge of them.

4. It is nothing against the Jews that God chose them as the people with whom to make both the covenants, under the second of which the Gentiles come in to share in the blessings of God's grace, and under which we now live. But some may ask, Was the new covenant made with the Jews? Listen to Paul: “To whom pertaineth the adoption,” says he, speaking of the Jews, “and the glory and the covenants [plural] and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever.” Rom. 9: 4, 5. And Paul, in writing to the Gentile Ephesians, says, 2: 12, 13, “That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants [plural again] of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometime were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.” That is, those Gentiles, so long as they remained in their Gentile state, without an interest in the blood of Christ, were strangers from the covenants of promise, those covenants having been made with Israel and Judah. And this is in accordance with the promise of the new covenant; for God said that he would make it, not with the Gentiles, but with Israel and Judah. See Jer. 31: 31, and Heb. 8: 8.

5. It is nothing against the Jews, that the truth of God has come down through them to us. Stephen said, speaking as a Christian, that the Jews received the lively oracles to give unto us (Christians). Acts 7: 38.

6. It is nothing against the Jews, that they constitute the root and fatness of the olive tree into which God condescends to permit us, Gentiles, to be grafted. See Paul's beautiful illustration of this subject in Rom. 11: 17–24. Some of the branches of the good olive tree were broken off through unbelief, and branches from the wild olive tree, the Gentiles, were grafted in. Paul tells such not to boast against the branches, for thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. They were broken off, by unbelief, and thou standest by faith, says Paul; and if the Jew abides not in unbelief, he can come in again. That is, the Gentile comes in by believing, and the Jew can come in in the same way; and if God spared not the natural branches because of their unbelief, much less will he spare the ingrafted Gentile branches, if they indulge in the same sin. The Gentile in this matter has no privilege above the Jew; and Paul says in verse 25, that he wants them to understand that mystery, lest they be wise in their own conceits. But how many do become wise in their own conceits over this matter, and boast against the branches as though they were a race detested of God, and one that ought to be abused and detested of men; and as though the Gentiles had so commended themselves to God by their unparalleled virtue as to become the especial favorites of Heaven!

Abhor, forsooth, that with which the Jews have ever had anything to do! Men would do better to abhor their own blindness. What have we of any good thing that has not come down to us through them? We enter into the new covenant made with them and share in its gracious provisions. We are engrafted into their olive tree. We bring no addition or blessing by coming in, but come in as helpless and undone beggars, to share in their blessings. Through them, we receive the law; of them, as concerning the flesh, Christ came; and salvation itself, said our Lord, is of the Jews. Yet men have an abhorrence of everything with which the Jews ever had to do. Can misconception, and may we not add, ignorance and bigotry, go farther than this? Their unbelief and rejection of Christ, we deplore. All that was typical in

their system, pointing forward to Christ, has ceased because the antitype is come, and is no longer practiced. But the knowledge of God, the revelations of his word, and the principles of his moral law, are in no wise tarnished or weakened by coming through their hands.

But the Sabbath was not an institution that originated with the Jewish dispensation any more than any other of the commandments of the moral law in which it is incorporated. This, with all the other parts of divine truth, was for a time committed to their hands for safe keeping. Faithfully they guarded their trust. And having received the lively oracles to give unto us, they have given them to us in the writings of the New Testament. The moral law, Sabbath and all, is the basis of the new covenant, as it was of the old, and it is the same law that is written upon the hearts of the disciples in this dispensation; and it will be written upon the hearts of all who enter in through the gates into the city, each gate of which is inscribed with the name of one of the tribes of the children of Israel.

Let us honor the Jews for the good they have done, for the part they acted in the divine economy so long as they remained faithful. Let us receive with thankfulness and humility the blessings that have come to us through them. And let us pray that many of them may turn from their unbelief and share in the blessings of that covenant, in the benefits of which God would still be pleased to have them partakers.

U. S.