Why blame the Jewish people of today for the unjust torture and crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth — a crime for which their ancestors were responsible — and severely punished — 2000 years ago?
Many years ago, I was led by the Lord to study the bible theme of the Kingdom of God. I had thought my understanding of it was good but was surprised to find that I knew next to nothing about one of the great themes of the New Testament — one preached by John the Baptist, and by Jesus after King Herod imprisoned John.
A few bible verses changed my thinking — revolutionized it, really. The first was Matthew 21:43, in which Jesus says that the kingdom would be taken from the Jews and given to “a nation that would bring forth the fruit of it”. The NT Greek word translated “nation” is “ethnos”, and means “people” — a “people group” we would say nowadays.
After making this statement, Jesus then told the parables of The Wicked Husbandmen (the murderous vineyard tenants) and The Marriage Feast. Both parables prophesied what the Jews would do to him first, and then to his apostles, in the years that followed.
This would result in the eviction of the murderous tenants. The unbelieving Jews of that day would forfeit the kingdom. Some have since taught that the kingdom that was taken from that generation of Jews was postponed by God until Christ’s return—whenever that might be. Then, they claim, the kingdom will be given to another generation of Jews, namely, those who will receive the returning Jesus as their Messiah after his return. Jesus will then rule the world.
I saw that this Postponement Theory was entirely wrong. But where then was this missing generation that would be given the vineyard and would make it productive? In other words, which people group would possess the kingdom? I found it in 1 Peter 2:9, which refers to it as “a chosen generation”.
Jesus said, in the parable of the Wedding Feast, “Many are called but few are chosen.” He was referring to those who would refuse the Wedding Invitation: the Jews who would reject the apostles’ message of salvation through Christ (Matthew 22:14). Jesus had called the Jews of his day “a wicked and adulterous generation” because they demanded “signs” from him: miracles such as those performed by the prophets of old (Matthew 16:4).
The first believers in Jesus Christ were those Jews who heard Peter’s warning to “save yourselves from this wicked generation” and obeyed. (Acts 2:40) In the Bible, the ancient Greek word for generation (“genea”) refers to people living at a particular time, not to an entire race of people. I came to understand that Jesus was not referring to the Jews as a race but to his own generation — those living in his own lifetime.
The “chosen generation” was the generation that believed the message preached by the apostles — the message of the Kingdom of God. They preached that message to their Jewish countrymen for 40 years—from the crucifixion of Jesus in 30AD to the destruction of the Temple in 70AD.
A bible generation is 40 years. It had taken God 40 years to deliver the Israelites from Egypt to the border of the Promised Land — a journey that ought to have taken only 11 days. But their stubborn refusal to obey the LORD had resulted in them wandering in the Wilderness until a new generation — their children — had grown to adulthood.
For 40 years the first apostles and those who followed preached the Kingdom of God to “the twelve tribes scattered abroad” (James 1:1). Their message was “to the Jew first,” but in the Book of Acts we read that whenever the Jews rejected the message preached by the Apostle Paul, he preached it to non-Jewish peoples (Acts 28:23-28). By the time of the close of the Book of Acts, the message of the Kingdom of God had been preached “in all the world” of his time, and “to every creature which is under heaven” (Colossians 1:6, 23).
The “chosen generation” would also be “a royal priesthood” — one unknown in Israel (although seen when the Ark of the Covenant was at Shiloh, and prophetically in the crowning of the high priest Joshua (2 Samuel 6:17, 18; Zechariah 6:9-15).
In the risen Jesus, the priesthood of all believers became a reality. It was also “a holy nation”—”the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16). A true Jew thereafter would be a Jew spiritually rather than a natural one (Romans 2:28, 29 & 9:6-8).
The “holy nation” would be the one referred to by Jesus in Matthew 21:43. It would be an “ethnos” of true believers — a later in time example of the “remnant” so often prophesied by Isaiah. It would not remain a remnant for long: non-Jewish believers would quickly swell its numbers.
The apostle Peter refers to this new entity as “a special treasure”. This links the first generation of Jewish believers in Christ to Exodus 19:5, 6, where the Lord called His people “a special treasure, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
The Exodus generation had perished in the wilderness. The unbelieving generation: the “wicked and adulterous generation”, would perish at the hands of the Romans. But the believing “chosen generation” would “enter in” to the promises of God — the Mosaic covenant having been replaced by a New Covenant in Jesus Christ.
In the years between 30AD and 70AD the unbelieving Jews of the “evil generation” became “the synagogue of Satan” (Rev. 2:9; 3:9) and Jerusalem “Sodom and Egypt” (Rev 11:8). Harsh descriptions!
Whew! It’s a good thing there’s a New Jerusalem with gates that are wide open to both Jew and non-Jew alike — to all who are God’s “new creation” in Jesus Christ! (2 Corinthians 5:17)
So, why blame today’s Jews for what one generation of unbelievers did to Jesus 2000 years ago (and not everyone of that generation, as we know from reading the book of Acts). Why not love the Jews, all of whom are descendants of Abraham, and share with them the Good News of the Kingdom? We reach out in love to every other ethnic group, so why not also — if not more so — those who are “beloved for the fathers’ sake”—the sake of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, their ancestral forefathers? (Romans 11:28)
A Good Question.