John Piper: My Heart Aches for Millions of Jews Who Haven't Embraced Jesus, Will Face Judgment
Theologian and Desiring God founder warns that despite Israel's special relationship with God, that doesn't mean they will escape judgment.
"Nearly 60,000 Jewish people live in the Twin Cities metropolitan area I call home. More than 5 million live in the United States, and over 14 million in the world. The vast majority do not embrace Jesus as their Messiah and Savior," Piper wrote on Tuesday.
"In fact, they believe that to do so would mean the end to their true Jewishness."
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The theologian went through the history of Jewish people and the early Christian Church, and said that even though many Jews did indeed choose to accept Jesus at the time, most today still turn away from Christ.
"The Good News of Jesus, coming and dying for sinners and rising again, was for Israel first. But that privilege did not mean Jewish people would escape judgment if they rejected the Good News of Jesus," he wrote.
Piper argued that Jewish people are given a priority in Christian mission, noting that Jesus Himself "came first 'to the lost sheep of the house of Israel' (Matthew 10:6; 15:24), not to the Gentiles. Only later did the Good News for Israel spill over for all the nations (Matthew 8:11; 21:43; 28:19–20)."
He pointed out, however, that this doesn't mean Israel would be spared judgment for refusing Christ.
"Jesus did not come as one among many ways to God. He came as the true and only Jewish Messiah and Mediator between God and man," the biblical scholar wrote.
"It is not only the Apostle Paul who says that the Jewish people who reject Jesus as the Messiah also reject eternal life, but Jesus Himself said the same thing: 'Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him' (John 3:36)," he added.
Piper noted, however, that Jewish people have a great hope in redemption by choosing Jesus as their Savior.
"This New Testament picture of the glorious future of Israel in relationship to Jesus, together with the picture of the tragic present of Israel out of relationship to Jesus, is what makes my heart ache for ethnic Jews today," he wrote, encouraging Christians to continue praying for their Jewish friends.
A secular Jew who came to faith in Jesus told The Christian Post in an interview in September 2016 that there has been "chagrin" among his Jewish friends, but at the same time his new faith has allowed him to experience his Judaism.
"The Jews are the chosen people of God and they brought the notion of God back into humanity after we lost track of it after the fall, they were the doorway for God to re-enter the world and people hate them for it," author Andrew Klavan told CP about anti-Jewish sentiment in society.
"To take it even one step further, people hate the Jews because they hate God, and you hate God because you hate yourself. I really do think that that is the failure to accept original sin essentially," he added.
