Can non-messianic Jews be saved?

Last updated on: November 18, 2016 at 10:48 am by Gerald McDermott

Can non-messianic Jews be saved? 2016-11-18T10:48:29-04:00 Gerald McDermott

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Christians already believe that the saints of the Old Testament, most of whom are Jews, are in the Kingdom of Heaven and therefore in communion with us, as the creeds teach. No doubt we are in communion with the Jews of Israel who worship Jesus as messiah. What about the many thousands (millions) of Jews down through history who have loved the God of Israel, who Jesus taught us is the only true God, but who have been unable to see Jesus as messiah? These are the Jews of whom Paul seems to have been writing when he said that God sent a “hardening on part of Israel” (Rom 11:25). In many cases this was because “Christians” were killing Jews in the name of “Christ.” Can we blame them for not seeing this Christ as their friend? Before he went to Damascus Paul did not have Christians killing him, yet he tells us later that God had mercy on him because he had “acted ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Tim 1:13). If God had mercy on Paul because of his ignorance, might God not have mercy on Jews who are ignorant of Jesus because of “Christian” hatred of Jews in the name of “Christ”?

Jesus taught that no one comes to the Father except through him, and that to be saved one must confess with the lips that Jesus is Lord, and believe in the heart that God raised him from the dead (Jn 14:6; Rom 10:9). Could Jews who have loved their Father in heaven—Jesus’ Father!—but could not see Jesus because of Christian hatred for them in the name of a proclaimed “Christ,” could these Jews have had Jesus revealed to them in some way and time known only to God? Could they–in some way and time only God knows–have confessed with their lips and believed in their hearts?

Jesus hinted that there were hard cases where someone who has not had revelation from the Holy Spirit and as a result speaks against him can be forgiven: “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or the age to come” (Mt 12:32). We do not know what happens in these hard cases where Christian hatred has blinded Jewish eyes. But we can leave these hard cases to him. In the meantime we can say that we are in communion with all of Israel who love our heavenly Father, who is the God of Israel, and who are on the way to knowing the Son as well as the Father.

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