Who murdered Jesus of Nazareth?
Posted by Tom Lessing on November 22, 2010
Centuries have come and gone since Jesus’ triumphant cry on the cross “it is finished.” In stead of rejoicing in his victory over sin, death, Satan and his host many “Christians,” particularly the Roman Catholic Church whose mystical doctrines have found a comfortable niche in the Emergent Church, have turned on the Jews with vicious malice and hatred, blaming them for the death of Jesus Christ. In his book, “Does Jacob’s Trouble Wear a Cross, The Ancient Legacy of Christian Anti-Semitism” Randall A Weis, describes their hatred as follows:
Christian anti-Semites do not love the Jewish people. This has resulted in the presentation of an image of Christ who does not love the Jewish people. Some Gentile Christians have acted as though Jesus forgives everyone except the Jews. The message heard loud and clear by the Jews has been that “they killed Christ and He is going to pay them back.” J. B. Phillips translation of the New Testament describes in chapter 10 of The Letter to the Jewish Christians (Hebrews), that God alone takes full responsibility for issuing punishment. . . .
When Pope Urban II rallied Christians, he offered an extraordinary reward to those who set out to liberate the land of the Savior’s birth: “All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins.”1
The decree was effective in enlisting soldiers for the battle, but one doubts that forgiveness was immediate or complete. The Pope was extremely generous with the grace of God and the blood of Christ, and the crusaders were generous with the blood of Jews.
Jews in various German towns were “unwillingly forced into baptism” or slaughtered by unruly crusaders in 1096. Here, rather than be converted or killed, the Jews in Worms commit suicide. A Christian chronicler wrote, “It is a sin even to tell how mothers pierced and cut throats of their nursing babes.” Before the pogroms ended, some 5,000 Jews had been killed.2 . . .
I will always be forced to deal with words spoken to me by my Jewish parents. They reminded me that I was a traitor. They asked to legally change my name. I was forced to deal with their silence because for several years they refused to speak to me. In all of this, God never permitted me to doubt their love. I realized that their actions were not based upon hatred. They were merely reacting to their pain. Perhaps from their perspective the Gentile Christian Church had simply inflicted one more punishment on the Jewish people. My family could not understand that God was working in my life. They were convinced that I was proselytized by a fast-talking salesmen of the gospel. Painfully, they struggled to understand how I could have aligned myself with people who had hated, persecuted, tortured, and killed Jewish people for centuries. I informed my parents that those people were not really Christians. They merely called themselves Christians. I comforted myself with the presumptive belief that they must have been violent infidels who manipulated society through their hatred, falsely calling themselves Christians. (Emphasis added)
One would have thought, whilst the world is allegedly becoming a better place through the Emergent Church’s incarnational spirituality and high-octane contemplative spirituality, that anti-Semitism would at least have been something of the past. No so! . . . It is escalating at an alarming pace! To my surprise even prize-winning books are perpetuating this heinous crime against the Jews. I am, of course, referring to Stephan Joubert’s book “Jesus, a Radical Leap, Kingdom, Church and World: Where do you fit in?” As you may know by now, he was awarded the prestigious Andrew Murray Prize for the best Afrikaans Christian book in 2010.
In chapter 3 under the heading “The spirituality of Jesus – No wonder he was murdered, p. 73” Stephan Joubert brazenly accuses the religious Jewish hierarchy of murdering Jesus.
Then they murdered Jesus during the Passover just outside Jerusalem. He was too much of a game spoiler. Jesus profaned more or less everything that was holy in the eyes of the religionists: the Sabbath, the temple, the boundaries between holy and unholy – you name it! No, it was consequently not the bad people who murdered Jesus; not the sort against whom the church is so eager to preach. It was not the local boozers, the thieves or the street hooligans who killed Jesus. On the contrary, it was the ordinary good people. It was the highest religious authorities of the Jews: the high priest and the Jewish Council itself; those dignified office bearers and keepers of everything that was holy in Israel. The sentence against Jesus was passed on their own front stoep. (Emphasis added).
I can say with absolute conviction that Jesus was not crucified because his spirituality differed from that of the Jewish hierarchy and neither did He fault them on the keeping of the Law but rather on their reasons for keeping the Law. In fact, Jesus’ spirituality was the perfect embodiment of the Law and everything that was holy. Did He not Himself say “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” (Mat 5:17-18). Paul unequivocally declares that the law is holy (Romans 7:12). Therefore, I find Joubert’s statement that He “profaned more or less everything that was holy in the eyes of the religionists” an appalling misrepresentation of Jesus Christ whom he claims to be following.
But what about the Jewish Sabbath? Was it not one of the laws that Jesus had come to annul? No! Once again it must be said that He did not come to abolish any of the laws but to fulfill them. If the Law is holy then the Sabbath was also an holy institution which, of course, it was because God Himself said it was holy (Exodus 16:23; 10:8; 31:14, 15; 35:2; Leviticus 23:3; Deuteronomy 5:2; Nehemiah 9:14; 10:31; Isaiah 58:13). But didn’t Jesus desecrate this particular holy law when He healed the sick on the Sabbath? That’s just wholly impossible! How can the fulfillment of the Law desecrate the Law or “profane more or less everything that was holy in the eyes of the religionists?” How did He fulfill the holy law of the Sabbath? Surely you ought to remember that He once said:
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30). (Emphasis added)
Like the rest of the Law the Sabbath was a schoolmaster to bring the Jews unto Christ so that they might find eternal rest, tranquility and peace in their innermost being. You see, the Jewish hierarchy and their Jewish followers had it all wrong. They believed that the Law, such as the Sabbath, was an end in itself; that the rigid keeping of the Law was the spiritual fulfillment of all their spiritual needs and that it, per se, was the peace-bringer. It is preposterous to think that the keeping of a Law has the clout to give you rest, peace and tranquility. It is equally preposterous to believe that a rigidly practiced law (discipline) like contemplative prayer can usher you into he very presence of God and fill your soul with restfulness, peace and tranquility. What utter nonsense! The contemplatives in the emergent church are the modern-day Pharisees because they are doing precisely what the Jewish hierarchy had done—practice a given law to find rest for their chaotic and restless lives.
Should Christians keep the Sabbath? Paul addressed this problem in Romans 14.
Who are you to pass judgment on and censure another’s household servant? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he shall stand and be upheld, for the Master (the Lord) is mighty to support him and make him stand. One man esteems one day as better than another, while another man esteems all days alike [sacred]. Let everyone be fully convinced (satisfied) in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. He also who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God; while he who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. (Romans 14:4-6; Amplified Bible)
The first Christian churches, having as its members converts from the Jewish and the Gentile communities, obviously had some difficulties in the interpretation of Scripture. You may recall that the Jews demanded that the Gentiles be circumcised, brother Peter refused to eat with the Gentiles and the Sabbath, not the Sunday, was the day to be kept holy if you wanted to please God. Paul didn’t go into a flat spin by telling the Jewish Christians that they should stop their nonsense because Jesus had profaned more or less every conceivable law in their books. No! he was a real gentleman who gently taught them that it was not a particular day or the food on their tables that made the difference in their spiritual lives. Each and everyone, Jews and Gentiles, were now at liberty to honor the day they preferred to keep separate (holy) in their honoring of their Lord. The Christians in Acts were accustomed to come together in the houses of Jewish and Gentile Christians every Sunday because it is the day when our Lord was raised from the dead.
What then was most of the Jews’ (not only the Jewish hierarchy’s) great sin? It was not the fact that they rigidly kept the Law but that they believed they could obtain God’s mercy, kindness and acceptance through their unyielding practice of the Law. They refused to believe that the holy Law was merely their schoolmaster to bring them unto Christ so that they may be justified by faith (Galatians 3:24). Allow me to reiterate: the emergent fraternity are not following in the footsteps of Jesus but in the footsteps of the Pharisees and the Jewish Council because they are doing exactly the same thing they had been guilty of; they are practicing disciplines (meditation, lectio divina, labyrinths, contemplative prayer etc.) that supposedly bring them into the very presence of God. What else are these disciplines than man-made laws they rigidly practice to enter into the presence of God? Like the Jewish Council of old they too are completely disregarding faith, and in particular faith in the blood of Jesus Christ, as the ONLY means to enter into the presence of an awesomely holy God (Hebrews 10:19). This proves beyond any shadow of doubt that they are profaning everything that is holy, including the awesomely holy presence of God and the magnanimous holy shed blood of Jesus Christ which gives us the boldness to enter into the awesomely holy presence of God the Father. Indeed, one of the most profound enigmas of our post modern time is the emergents’ claim that they can enter into the holy presence of God using profane, filthy, unhallowed and demoniac so-called spiritual disciplines (laws).
The shocking reality of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion is that the Jewish hierarchy was an instrument God used to accomplish his ultimate purpose. If you really want to blame someone for Jesus’ murder then you should blame the gentile Roman hierarchy and their soldiers because they were actually the ones who drove the nails through his hands and feet and eventually pierced his side with a spear. What’s more, technically speaking we are all his murderers “for in that he died, he died unto sin once: . . .” (Romans 6:10) of which we all are guilty (Romans 3:23). And yet, even the gentile Romans were mere instruments God used to accomplish his ultimate goal. Why didn’t Stephan Joubert quote the well-known verse from Isaiah 53 to show his readers that God the Father was pleased to have his only Son bruised and smitten.
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. (Isaiah 53:10).
What was God’s ultimate goal with the bruising (death) of his Son. The answer is in the very next verse.
He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53:11-12).
Jesus did not only bear the iniquities of the boozers, thieves and street hooligans; He also bore the sins of the High Priest and members of the Jewish Council who were accomplices in his murder. An yet, it was not the Jewish Council who ultimately decided to have Him killed. The heavenly Council of God had already decided before the foundation of the earth that Jesus Christ would die for the sins of the entire world on a brutally cursed cross.
Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it. (Acts 2:22-24).
Stephan Joubert may also have forgotten Jesus Christ’s words in John 10:17-18:
Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. (John 10:17-18).
What an awesomely magnificent revelation. No man had the power to kill Jesus unless He Himself had voluntarily laid it down. This is precisely why they could not kill him on the occasions they plotted to do so, because his time to lay down his own life had not come yet. On page 74 Stephan Joubert graphically describes the horrors of crucifixion as if the cross itself dealt the death blow.
What a terrifying death Jesus died. Crosses were the cruelest possible form of execution in that time. The Romans eagerly reserved it for their greatest enemies. Seneca, the philosopher of Emperor Nero (54-68 AD), once said that crucifixion was such a cruel form of execution that it was better to commit suicide before the time if you were sentenced to a cross-death. Usually the crucified were left on the wooden crosses for days and even weeks to die a slow and painful death. Crosses were often placed in public places to terrify prospective lawbreakers. Passersby had to see how the crucified hung naked on the crosses while they suffocated and bled to death or died of fatigue and pain. Hence no romantic cross was his destiny. It was a stake of shame, a cursed place, loneliness and humiliation.
Yes, it is very true that it sometimes took days and even weeks for a crucified victim to die, but in Jesus’ case it was quite something different. When Joseph of Arimathaea, an honourable counsellor, who also waited for the kingdom of God, asked for the body of Jesus, Pilate marveled (hardly believed) that Jesus was already dead (Mark 15:44). Something very supernatural happened when Jesus died. His death took place much quicker than the normal run of the mill criminals. The answer is simple: He laid down his own life Himself and no man took it from Him.
Why Stephan Joubert needs to tell people in so much graphic detail what they already know from the Bible is somewhat strange. it reminds me of Mel Gibson’s film “The Passion of the Christ” where his suffering at the hands of the Roman soldiers was depicted in the minutest detail as if that was the means whereby He atoned for our sins. If his terrible suffering at the hands of the Roman soldiers and on the cross had been the means of atonement anyone could have done it. Thousands of men and women were crucified in the same horrible way and yet none of their deaths had any spiritual consequences for others. Throughout the Old and the New Testaments the message that there is no remission of sins without the shedding of the blood of an innocent, blameless victim has rung true up until this very day. Couldn’t the shedding of the blood of all the victims who had been crucified in ancient Rome been as potent for the remission of sins as the shedding of Jesus’ blood? It is here where Stephan Joubert and his emergent cohorts fall off the bus altogether—by minimalizing the devastating horrors of sin. In one of his comments on their website Joubert lambasted those who constantly focus on sin and not grace.
Far too many churches focus all their energy on the game plan of the opposition, instead of on spreading God’s amazing grace. In this process many believers have turned into bigger experts on sin than on God. Some church people even have their own list of the ‘Top Ten’ sins of the day. From sunrise till sunset they fight against the latest sins and the most recent signs of moral decay in society. Public outbursts against sin have had limited success throughout history. It probably only appeased the sentiments of the fully convinced, but in terms of life changing impact the results haven’t been promising. It didn’t draw throngs of new converts back to church, or radically change the value systems of society for the good. Isn’t it time then for a new term, one that really aligns with God’s latest moves? In other words, isn’t it time for a grace revival?
The truth is, you cannot appreciate the meaning of the cross of Jesus Christ and God’s magnanimous grace without a biblical understanding of the horrors of sin. Christ’s cross was not only the emblem of God’s love for the world but also of his profound hatred of sin, so much so that John 3:16 may be rendered: “For God so deeply hated sin that He gave his only begotten Son so that whosoever believes in him should not perish [in their sins], but have everlasting life.” In order for Him to satisfy his holy demand for the righteous judgment of sin, He gave his only sinless and holy Son as a substitute, a scapegoat as it were, to save the lost, sanctify the unholy and prepare the believers [this side of the grave] for their heavenly and eternal abode with God. Had Jesus “profaned more or less everything that was holy in the eyes of the religionists: the Sabbath, the temple, the boundaries between holy and unholy – you name it!” He would never have been able to present Himself to God as a perfect sin offering. Please bear in mind what I said earlier, i.e. that Jesus did not fault the Jewish hierarchy for their keeping of the Law but rather for their assumption that the keeping of the Law made them righteous in the sight of God. (Romans 2:23). Paul went so far by saying:
Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them. (Romans 10:1-5) (Emphasis added).
The million dollar question is: Why does Stephan Joubert linger on the terrifying realities of the cross and the Jewish hierarchy’s share in the murder of God’s Son without addressing the real meaning of the cross? Is he intentionally linking the murderous act of the Jewish hierarchy to today’s institutionalized church? Is he saying that the latter are nothing but a a bunch of murderous Pharisees? It reminds of the Amahoro Conference I attended from 8 to 12 June 2009 where Brian McLaren was the key speaker. As a summary of his presentation I wrote the following objectives of the Emergent Chruch.
Condition mankind to abhor his past, and especially the atrocities of his religious past, and it will be so much easier to manipulate his thoughts and actions while you set him on a path of an endless quest for something better, something that allegedly translates into peace, harmony, love, compassion, tolerance and prosperity. By keeping mankind locked in a position where he is constantly looking back over his shoulder towards his past you will keep him yearning for a brighter future without really knowing where he is headed.
To substantiate my observation I quoted Brian McLaren who said the following:
I’d like to suggest that we need a new quest because one of the things that needs to be changed is the assumption that the Christian faith is primarily something that’s handed to us from the past. I’d like to suggest that the journey of following Jesus is primarily something that is given to us from the future; its an invitation to move into the future. Its God out ahead of us saying, move toward the future I have for you. Its God inviting us towards God’s own way, and inviting us in God’s own path. Now we do this always remembering the past but God doesn’t simply live in the past. God is with us in the present and God beckons us into a good future, and of course we have to think of this in terms of Africa. (Emphasis and remarks between brackets added)
. . . sometimes religious debate creates hate and that leads to violence and guess what violence in the name of religion leads to, among other things, atheism because good people, moral people say, it would be better not to believe in God than to believe in a God who makes you kill people. So, what I’d like to suggest, is that five hundred years ago we had the Great Reformation and if we’re in the early stages of what some people are calling the great emergence, something that an African reformation would be a major player in, I’d like to suggest what we need for the next leg of the journey; the last thing we need is 95 new theses, the last things we need is 95 new debates, the last thing we need is having even more violence among people who call themselves Christians.
I’d like to suggest that what we need are questions. If statements can bring you to a new state, only questions can bring you on a new quest. Do you see the difference between a new state and a new quest? In a new state you say we’ve arrived and we can lay out the dimensions, and we could create the new box, but in a quest you say no, we’re searching for something; we’re on a journey, and in stead of ever allowing hate to be part of this quest we have to say this is a quest of love; that we have to love one another, no matter what. (Emphasis added)
Stephan Joubert seems to foster the same idea when he wrote in a commentary on on Dries Lombaard’s blog:
The strange thing about Christian one liners/slogans is that you often find the words “turn back…” in them.
“Turn back to God.”
“Turn back to the Bible.”
It makes me wonder why: turn back?
Shouldn’t it rather be: “Go forward?”
Leonard Sweet, world renowned futurist, theologian, author, speaker and the guru of those who seek God’s plans in new, meaningful ways, including myself, refuses to use the term retraite or retreat. He’ll immediately tell you that Christians never retreat. We advance. Therefore, the gatherings that he hosts at his island and mountain homes are called advances!
Christians shouldn’t turn back to the Bible or the [institutionalized] church. Then we’re heading in the wrong direction. We move forward to God. We advance. (Emphasis added)
All these clever slogans are used to degrade and humiliate the institutionalized church. I am not too much of a fan of the institutionalized church myself but does the Emergent Church have a better alternative? Roger Oakland gives the answer in his book “Faith Undone.”
Ironically, the emerging church who says its main goal is to help the suffering and to help eradicate the world’s problems, is not pointing the world to Jesus Christ and His body. Rather it is rejecting the atonement, locking arms with a religion (Catholicism) that teaches we are justified by works rather than by grace alone, embracing mystical practices and altered states of consciousness, and pulling these suffering lost souls further and further away from the only thing that will ever help them-—a personal one-on-one relationship with Jesus Christ, who explains very clearly who He is.
–Roger Oakland (Faith Undone, p. 220) (Emphasis added)
Who murdered Jesus of Nazareth? Think again before you blame the Jews.
1Kevin A. Miller, Editor, “The Crusades,” Christian History, Issue 90, Volume XII, Number 4, 1993, p. 6.
2Ibid., p. 43.
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