This site is best viewed using Mozilla Firefox browser.

Religion

2008-12-01 14:19:00

Jews who do not accept Jesus Christ

Question: Will Jews, who do not accept Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior, be condemned to Hell?

Answer: Not as such! Provided that the individual Jew, or Christian or Muslim, is faithful to his/her conscience, and does the best s/he is able in order to please God: that individual Jew and Christian and Muslim can be saved. But the person of whatever faith or no faith, who ignores God and his/her own conscience, and indeed rejects God, will go to hell! The Catholic Catechism (para. 1033) teaches: “We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves. Jesus warns that we shall be separated from him, if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren. To die in grievous sin without repenting, and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from God forever by our own free choice. This situation of definitive self-exclusion from union with God is called “hell.” I believe that most Jews sincerely believe in God, and want to live in union with him.” The Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments, bears witness that the Jewish people are special to God. Recorded history begins with God calling Abraham (Genesis 12). The Bible goes on to show God’s special favor to Abraham’s son Isaac, and to Isaac’s son Jacob, and Jacob’s sons and grandsons, the forefathers of the Hebrew people. In the gospel of John, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well: “Salvation comes from the Jews” (Jn 4:22). In his epistle to the Romans (chapters 9 and 10 and 11) St. Paul discusses this topic in great detail. He writes that “they (the Jews) are God’s people, God chose them and revealed to them his glory, and gave them the Law and the true worship; they have received God’s promises, and Christ, in his human nature, belongs to their race” (Rom 9:4-5). This choice of God stems from God’s special love for those forefathers and some of their descendants, especially Moses and Elijah and King David. But this choice of God entails on the part of the Jewish people: their special responsibility to live according to God’s commandments and to witness to God’s truth in this world. Time and time again the Jewish people fell away from God through idolatry, for which reason God punished them again and again. But always a remnant of faithful Jews kept alive: the true faith in the one God. “In the fullness of time God sent his Son, born of a human mother, who lived under the Jewish law” (Gal. 4:4). This is Jesus, who came to complete God’s revelation to mankind and to redeem humans from the consequences of sin. Jesus also taught St. Paul that “whoever believes in him will be saved. That includes everyone, because there is no difference between Jews and gentiles: God is the same Lord of all, and richly blesses all who call upon him. . . . Everyone who calls out to the Lord for help will be saved” (Rom 10:12-13). St. Paul explains that the gentile Christians (non-Jews) have been called by God to share in the promises God made to the Jewish patriarchs and prophets. He compares the non-Jews to a wild olive tree, whose branches have been grafted onto the tree of the cultivated olive tree (the Jews), and joined to it: so that non-Jews share the strong spiritual life of the Jews” (Rom 11:17-18). Thus the non-Jewish Christians have become the spiritual descendants of Abraham, and share in Abraham’s faith and the blessings of the Jewish Messiah, Jesus. This is God’s plan for the salvation of all peoples: so that no people can boast arrogantly over another people, as all have been invited by God to salvation. All people have sinned, and everyone needs salvation. This choice of God and his invitation does NOT mean that everyone will be saved automatically: whether by being descended from Abraham, or by belonging to Christ through faith and Baptism. All people are invited to share this faith and to live it. But only those who believe in the faith revealed by God and, according to the light of their conscience, sincerely try to live that faith, will be saved. Those who decline to believe and to live according to God’s Will, as expressed in his revelation, freely choose to be separated from God in eternity; i.e. they cannot be saved and will be condemned. Notice that I said: “. . . only those who believe . . . according to the light of their conscience.” Where knowledge of God and Jesus is lacking, through no fault of the person, that person is not responsible for his/her unbelief. That light implies knowledge. God’s special favor extends to both Jews and non-Jews alike, to all who seek him in faith and in obedience to God’s law, as did Abraham and Jesus. Everyone who is “saved” is saved by Jesus, whether or not he/she realizes it. Thus many, who reject Jesus, are actually rejecting a mistaken notion of him, rather than the reality which is Jesus. The Catholic Catechism explains: “Jesus asked the religious authorities of Jerusalem to believe in him because of God the Father’s works which he accomplished. But such an act of faith must go through a mysterious death to self, for a new “birth from above” under the influence of divine grace (cf Jn 3:7; 6:44). Such a demand for conversion in the face of so surprising a fulfillment of the promises (cf Isa. 53:1) allows us to understand the Sanhedrin’s tragic misunderstanding of Jesus; they judged that he deserved the death sentence as a blasphemer (cf Mk 3:6; Mt. 26:64-66). The members of the Sanhedrin were thus acting at the same time out of ignorance, and the hardness of their unbelief (cf Lk 23:34; Acts 3:17-18; Mk 3:5; Rom 11:25, 20).” Those persons go to hell, who know Jesus as Lord and Savior and Messiah; and nevertheless reject him, preferring themselves or some creature to the Creator, and ignore God and Jesus’ teaching, without repenting before they die. Only such persons go to hell. However, those persons who do not know Jesus (e.g. native Americans who lived before the news of Christianity arrived on these continents) but recognize that there must be a good Creator or Lord of the Universe, and strive to conduct themselves in a manner which they think is pleasing to that Lord, will be saved. The great majority of Jewish people, who lived during the lifetime of Jesus, never heard of Jesus. Many Jews know about Jesus only in some vague or distorted form. Nevertheless they endeavor to conduct their lives according to the Law of Moses and strive to please God. They too will be saved. Muslims, who know Jesus only as a prophet praised by Mohamed in the Koran, but who endeavor to live in a manner which they believe is pleasing to God, can be saved. Those persons who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of Jesus but who practice virtue according to their conscience, can be saved by God’s mercy. Still, the Bible teaches that without faith it is impossible to please God. Persons, who live naturally good lives but seem to be lacking in faith, probably possess some modicum of faith sufficient for salvation. But all such judgment rests with Jesus, in the eternal plan of God.