Was Jesus a Jew? by C. L. Taylor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, Cal. · Apr 25, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 17.

Was Jesus a Jew?

By C. L. Taylor

By C. L. Taylor

EVERY student of the Bible knows that Jesus Christ was "of the seed of David," that He was "the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Judah, and Simon." Indeed, almost every child knows that Jesus was a Jew.

But while Jesus was born a Jew, and found His genealogy among that people, yet never for one day did He live simply as a Jew. He lived as the Son of God. He was always found attending to His Father's business.

Jesus Christ was the Word "made flesh." He was "the Desire of all nations," the universal Man. As the seed of the woman, the second Adam, He came to fulfill the needs of the human race. In Him every nation under heaven was to find its great Center and Head.

Christ was given for all men and to all men. The seamless garment, the Jewish humanity, were but exteriors which hid from vulgar eyes the incarnate Truth which is "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." In Him "there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free."

Yes, He was a Jew, and yet He was not. He was "the Citizen" of "the kingdom of heaven." Of Him it may be said that glory celestial found a hiding-place in human bosom. He was the personification of divine power. Through Him and in Him the life of God was translated downward, that by faith in Him the life of man might be translated upward. He was the connecting Link between fallen men and the throne of Deity.

Infinitely more than a Jew, therefore, was our Lord. And as men have gone into all the world to preach Him, so the blessed Scriptures reveal Him, they find Him to be the only One whose presence satisfies the cravings of the starving race. He alone is the unfailing and universal remedy. Truly "there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

As He was the universal Man, so His is the universal Gospel. His Word received in faith, His life again made incarnate, breaks down national barriers, race prejudices, social distinctions. His children no longer know one another as American, European, Eurasian, or African, as the case may be; no, they are "all one in Christ Jesus." They are simply "brethren," working together in love and unity, preparing to leave the "strange country" of earth for the country of whose glory they have had vision.

The converted Jew of to-day is no longer simply a Jew; the heathen is no longer simply a heathen; the German is no longer simply a German; the American is no longer simply an American. Men may so count them, and for a time they may continue to dwell where birth placed them; but they are only "pilgrims and strangers." Their true citizenship is in heaven, and the home land lies beyond. Each day they follow Jesus, drinking in more and more of His life; and one day they shall see the establishment of His universal kingdom, to which everything local, sectional, and national must give place.