6 | To the Jew First
we had toward Christianity resulted from the standard Jewish
conviction that Christians persecuted the Jews—during the
Crusades, the pogroms in Russia, and ultimately during the
Holocaust. Yet, the distance between Judaism and Christianity
goes beyond an unfortunate, and sometimes bloody history.
There are some deep theological divides as well.
For example, Jewish people pride themselves in believing that
God is one—singular and not three! One of the core prayers
of Judaism is what we call the Shema, which is based on
Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord
is one.” This is often viewed as the religious rallying cry for the
Jewish community and is recited almost every time Jewish people
gather for prayer.
So, you can see that the belief that God is triune would have
been an anathema to me as a Jewish person. The idea that God
is three-in-one is viewed as non-Jewish by almost every Jewish
person in world. This is a well-known Jewish distinction!
Second, Jewish people do not believe that God would become
a man. Jewish people are generally taught that worshiping God
in any form—be it flesh, wood, or stone—is idolatry. Therefore,
to believe that God became a man and to then worship this
individual would be something a Jewish person would avoid at
all costs. You cannot imagine how deeply this resistance to the
idea that God could take on human flesh and become a man
(incarnation) is woven into the Jewish soul.
Even today, debates over the incarnation and deity of Jesus
continue to be one of the hottest issues in Jewish evangelism. It
is the line in the sand which, when crossed over, is seen as the
point of no return. As we continue with our Isaiah 53 campaigns
throughout the United States, Israel, Argentina, and a number
of other countries, we have also established forum discussion
opportunities. At these forums, we see clearly that the issue of
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