If Jesus was a Jew, why aren't Christians Jewish?

The believer then is a son in immediate connection with his Father, with God (God Himself being manifested). He is a son, because all who have been baptised to have part in the privileges that are in Christ have put on Christ. They are not before God as Jews or Gentiles, bond or free, male or female; they are before God according to their position in Christ, all one thing in Him, Christ being for all the common and only measure of their relationship with God. But this Christ was, as we have seen, the one Seed of Abraham: and if the Gentiles were in Christ, they entered consequently into this privileged position; they were, in Christ, the seed of Abraham, and heirs according to the promise made to that seed.

This is shown still more fully in the allusion to baptism: "As many of us as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." It is of course assumed that every Christian had been baptized. There was no doubt or difficulty on this head in these early days. There was no believer, Jew or Gentile, who had not gladly submitted to that very blessed sign of having part with Christ, and of that which is made good by Christ. "As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." It is not a question of law at all. Christian baptism, contrariwise, supposes man dead; and the only death that can deliver man out of his own death is the death of Christ. Therefore, when a man is baptized, he is not, of course, baptized into his own death; there is no sense in such a thought. He is baptized into Christ's death, which is the sole means of deliverance out of his state of sin. So here the Christian puts on Christ, not the law or circumcision. He wants to get rid of the first Adam and all its appliances, not to keep it on; and therefore he puts on Christ. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female;" all is Christ and only Christ. It is not an old creation, but a new one. Can anything prove that it is not an old creation better than this — that there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, which last at least is an absolute necessity for the perpetuation of the race? All this vanishes in Christ; we are all one in Him; and if you are Christ's, what need to be circumcised! You do not want to become the children of Abraham in that sense, which would be the revival of the flesh. If Christ's, they were Abraham's seed already, "and heirs according to the promise;" for Christ, he had shown before, was the one true Seed; and if we are Christ's, we belong to that one true Seed, and therefore are the children of Abraham without circumcision at all. Nothing can be more conclusive than this disproof of the fleshly pretensions that were connected with Jerusalem, and were brought in under cover of Abraham, but really to the subversion of the gospel.

And this is shown by the fact of the new place into which God has put His people now, "sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus;" the school of law is not the proper place for us. That does not mean that we are not to profit by the lessons which the law taught, of course. We may profit by the lessons which we learn in school without being under the schoolmaster; but under the schoolmaster, no one says "Father." The place of sons as such is manifestly somewhere else than at school. This, then, has come for us, for "as many of us as have been baptized to Christ have put on Christ." Christ is, according to the truth announced in baptism itself, the One in whom we are, therefore, before God. It is His perfection, His beauty that is seen upon us. Nothing else is seen, no earthly condition, no place of privilege beside. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Manifestly, if each one of us is in Christ, Christ must be the same for each and all of us. There can be no distinction here. For distinction, we must look away from Christ; but if then we "are Christ's," then "are we Abraham's seed," in the fullest way identified with the very One in whom the blessing was to be, identified with the very Heir of blessing, and therefore heirs according to the promise, "in thy Seed:" that is Christ, in whom we are.

Religiously, however, the Jews continued to retain their place as God's people until the Lord came. But they rejected and crucified Him. Then God no longer confined Himself to one nation only, but went out in grace to all men. For in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, but all on one common level (Eph. 2). From this we may gather, surely, that at present God does not own an earthly people as witnesses for Himself upon the earth, but is, on the contrary, gathering out from all nations a people, "partakers of a heavenly calling," who shall constitute the bride, the Lamb's wife.

James then pronounces the decision that the Jewish saints must not trouble Gentiles who have turned to God, by introducing Jewish religion. Though James pronounces this, it is manifestly God's decision, not the decision of James, nor even of the gathered brethren. Certainly there was to be unity among Jewish and Gentile believers, but Gentiles were not to be made Jews, no more than Jews were made Gentiles: they were united on a basis far above that of human relationships.

In pronouncing his sentence that Gentile believers are not to be put under Jewish law in any way, James does, however, suggest that the brethren write to Gentiles of three things connected with God's creatorial rights that were too commonly abused among the Gentile nations. They would ask them, first, to abstain from pollutions of idols. To recognize an idol in any way was a direct insult to God, for the idol usurps God's place. Secondly, fornication must be avoided, for this is a serious violation of those relationships God has established for the blessing of mankind. Thirdly, they must not eat things strangled, nor blood, for God requires that the blood of an animal must be shed before the flesh may be eaten. The blood is the life, and we must show this respect for God's rights as the life-giver. Disregard of this is despising God. These things were not merely Jewish laws but were basic in creation from the beginning.

In Galatians 2 Titus comes before us in a deeply interesting manner. He was one of the "certain others" from among the saints at Antioch, who went with Paul and Barnabas to the great council at Jerusalem. No one was a more suited companion of the apostle; for Titus was a Greek, and so an uncircumcised man. He was therefore just a case in point. Must this Gentile believer be circumcised? Must he keep the law of Moses? The apostles and the elders, with the assembly as a whole, decided against any such compulsion. As the apostle Peter pointed out; the Holy Spirit had already decided the question by putting no difference between the circumcised and the uncircumised believers. Their hearts alike were purified by faith, and the heart-knowing God had given the Holy Ghost to both. It was to tempt God by putting a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which the fathers or the sons of Israel never were able to bear. Salvation is wholly through grace and by faith, consequently as open to the Gentile as to the Jew. If Moses had in every city those who preached him in the synagogues, it was now for all Christians a question of preaching our Lord Jesus Christ. The boldness of faith in the apostle was entirely vindicated at the council. And the grace already manifested in the call of Titus was confirmed by apostolic authority, not alone among the Gentiles, but in Jerusalem itself.

In the public council there was much disputing. Even true believers, who had been brought up as Pharisees, insisted that faith in Christ was not of itself sufficient for salvation; the law of Moses must be adopted also. Then Peter arose. He reminded the company of the divine action at Caesarea, where a number of Gentiles heard the word of the Gospel from his lips and believed, and were forthwith granted the gift of the Holy Spirit, even as the Jewish believers had been favoured at the beginning. God had thus signified that He put no difference between the Gentile and the Jew. Why then should they seek to Judaize the Christians at Antioch and elsewhere? Our apostle concluded his brief speech with the striking passage — "We believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus we shall be saved, even as they." Not "they even as we," but "we even as they.'' Peter thus formally abandoned all special pretensions for himself and others of his nation. He was henceforth content to be numbered with others of alien race as together sinners saved by grace. Barnabas and Paul followed with some account of the work of God amongst the Gentiles by their means. James then summed up. Peter was evidently not regarded as president of the gathering. Nor did James thus pronounce sentence because he was "the first bishop of Jerusalem," as some affirm. A single bishop in a city was a person unknown in those days. Where bishops existed at all there was a plurality in every place (Phil. 1:1; Titus 1:5). In the presence of all the apostles surely no mere bishop would claim pre-eminence. The truth is, God the Holy Spirit was present in that gathering, and He saw divine suitability in using James, the most intensely Jewish person in the company, to give utterance to the emancipating decree. James' sentence was that since Moses' law was everywhere preached in the Jewish synagogues, the law had better remain there, and not be imported into the Christian assembly. He proposed that letters should be sent to the Gentile brethren enjoining three things only — avoidance of pollutions of idols, fornication, things strangled, and blood. These were ancient requirements of the Creator before Moses' voice was heard.

Two brethren from Jerusalem, Judas and Silas, were sent to Antioch with Barnabas and Paul, as bearers of the apostles' letter and as witnesses who could confirm everything by word of mouth. The council of Jerusalem might as well never have been held, for all the notice that is taken of its decrees today. For it is undeniable that throughout Gentile Christendom Moses' law is sounded forth in men's ears to this hour, with all its attendant curses, to the obscuring of the infinite grace of God revealed in the Gospel. Thus are believers deprived of the light and liberty which Christ died to procure for them, and darkness and bondage possess their souls instead. To put Gentile Christians under law in any shape or form is to "trouble" them, and "pervert the Gospel of Christ" (Gal 1:7).

Have you observed the sequel to this preaching? The Spirit of God fell upon every person who was there, every man, every woman was sealed by the Holy Spirit. God thereby marked them out as His own, and they were subsequently baptised, and received into the company of God's people. This was not the admission of Gentile believers into the place of God's ancient people here upon earth. On the contrary, it was a new thing; Jews and Gentiles are now one — equally believing in Him, equally accepted by Him, equally rejoicing in His name, and equally possessed of His great salvation.

(3) Thus far had the apostle reached, — and he tells us himself, that it was but the beginning of what he intended to say (Acts 11:15) — when he was arrested by a sign of precious significance: without the administration of baptism, as with the pentecostal audience, — without the imposition of apostles, hands, as at Samaria, — the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word! God again was the Mover; and in anticipation of every question that might be raised, setting aside all thought of human succession, or of sacramental endowment, — "by the hearing of faith" alone (Gal. 3:2), the Gentiles received the Spirit, and were thus gathered into the assembly. The barrier between Jew and Gentile had been removed by the hand of God Himself, and the Church had assumed the character it was hereafter to retain. In Christ there was to be now neither Jew nor Gentile. The bond was not to be that of nationality nor of legal observance, but of the One Spirit uniting into one body. Not that the body of Christ was yet known doctrinally; nor even of the House of God have we yet heard, though the indwelling of the Spirit would give rise to a growing consciousness of this which would soon find support in the Lord's words to Peter, with the name given to him. In his first epistle we have the development of this, to which Paul, however, gives completeness. The fact anticipated the doctrine; and that which hindered the development of this had now given way (Eph. 2:14-15).

Christianity is aggressive. It carries on a warfare with powers unseen, though not unfelt. It has for its sphere, the world; and for its object, to turn souls from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God. Judaism was strictly conservative. God had confided to Israel the testimony of the existence of one true God. “Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah.” (Deut. 6:4.) The idols of Egypt had been unconscious witnesses of His power. Israel had experienced again and again that He was God, and there was none beside Him. In the midst of the nations of the earth they should have preserved this testimony; for preservation of truth communicated, not the conversion of others, was the special service given them with reference to the kingdoms with which they had intercourse. God’s people they were: this was a privilege none others could enjoy. The stranger, if circumcised, could eat of the passover; he could also rejoice with Israel at the feasts of Weeks and Tabernacles before the Lord; but he remained a stranger still. From the day of Pentecost a new order of things commenced. Simeon had predicted that the Lord would be “a light for revelation of [not to lighten] the Gentiles;” and James, at Jerusalem, years afterwards, bore witness that “God had visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name.”