This article focuses on the testimony of five men who loved Israel – Jesus, John, Peter, Stephen, and Paul. All were Jews who made great sacrifices to demonstrate their love for the people of Israel. I will focus on Jesus, Stephen, and Paul, but mention Peter and John in passing. Jesus died for the Jews and the whole world. Stephen died while pleading for that nation to repent and believe the gospel. Paul experienced all sorts of persecution and suffering at the hands of the Jews as he fearlessly sought to persuade them to believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Their loving and truthful testimony concerning Israel is therefore significant.
Jesus
No one loved Israel more than our Lord Jesus. In the face of an increasing hostility from Jewish leaders, against him and his mission, he fearlessly testified to his identity as the Messiah and did not flinch from an excruciating atoning death to open a path to forgiveness and a right standing with God the Father. He demonstrated his love by laying down his life quite literally as God’s Lamb. The Holy Spirit gives us a glimpse into his compassionate soul in the following verse.
37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Matthew 23:37 (NKJV)
As opposition mounted and the time of his crucifixion drew near, Jesus told the Jewish leaders that God, his heavenly Father, would destroy them, the city of Jerusalem, and the temple as a just punishment for the terrible crime of killing God’s own Son.
41 Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, 42 saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, 44 and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” Luke 19:41–44 (NKJV)
By laying out for them the exact reason for this coming desolation, the Lord left them without excuse.
33 “Hear another parable: There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. And he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country. 34 Now when vintage-time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers, that they might receive its fruit. 35 And the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to them. 37 Then last of all he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ 39 So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40 “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?” 41 They said to Him, “He will destroy those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.” 42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone. This was the LORD’s doing, And it is marvelous in our eyes’? 43 “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. 44 And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.” 45 Now when the chief priests and Pharisees heard His parables, they perceived that He was speaking of them. 46 But when they sought to lay hands on Him, they feared the multitudes, because they took Him for a prophet. Matthew 21:33–46 (NKJV)
By refusing to acknowledge their Messiah, not only would the Jews lose their temple and city, the kingdom of God also would be transferred to another people, whom the Bible clearly identifies in the words of another Jewish disciple of our Lord Jesus who loved Israel, whose name was Peter.
7 Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, “The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone,” 8 and “A stone of stumbling And a rock of offense.” They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed. 9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 10 who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. 1 Peter 2:7–10 (NKJV)
Peter here refers to the mystery of Christ, that one new man (Ephesians 2:15) has been created in Christ of all who put their faith and allegiance in him, composed of both Jews and Gentiles, men and women, slaves and free. (Ephesians 3:4-6)
In his great mercy, God included the entire world in his redemptive plan. Jesus came from the Jews, but he died for the world.!
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16 (NKJV)
Jesus’ loving yet stern testimony was that his own people, those who steadfastly refused to acknowledge him, would be destroyed for not believing and receiving him as their Messiah. The gospel continues to beckon all those who are willing to repent and believe its message, both Jew and Gentile. Those who reject that message will be lost, both Jew and Gentile. God is no respecter of persons.
17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. John 3:17–18 (NKJV)
John the apostle, another Jewish man who loved Israel, penned these words of Scripture. There is no other name under heaven by which anyone can be saved – not in the name of Abraham, Moses, or Israel, only by the name of Jesus. The following is the apostle Peter’s declaration.
10 let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. 11 This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ 12 Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:10–12 (NKJV)
Stephen
Stephen was a Jewish disciple of our Lord who became the first martyr as a result of honestly testifying to the Jewish leaders regarding their continued resistance to the truth. As he preached his last sermon, which provoked the Jews around him to murder him in a paroxysm of anger, these were the key words.
51 “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. 52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, 53 who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.” Acts 7:51–53 (NKJV)
These convicting words were uttered in a kind of “tough” love . When we truly love someone, we tell him what he needs to hear, even if for the moment it is painful. Jesus did this when he confronted the Pharisees in John Chapter 8. He told those men, who thought they already had their tickets punched for the kingdom of God, that the devil was their father! (John 8:44) This offended and angered them, but it was the truth. Jesus wanted them to wake up and repent for their idolatry, but they loved something else more than God.
Stephen accused the Jews of an ongoing idolatry that manifested itself at Mount Sinai during their desert wandering and continued to Stephen’s day.
38 “This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us, 39 whom our fathers would not obey, but rejected. And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt, 40 saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods to go before us; as for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ 41 And they made a calf in those days, offered sacrifices to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. 42 Then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the Prophets: ‘Did you offer Me slaughtered animals and sacrifices during forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? 43 You also took up the tabernacle of Moloch, And the star of your god Remphan, Images which you made to worship; And I will carry you away beyond Babylon.’ Acts 7:38–43 (NKJV)
This idolatry got so bad in Elijah’s day that the prophet thought he was the only true worshiper of God left, but God informed him that 
then, as now, God always reserves an elect group for himself. For the rest, however, idolatry and disobedience were the norm.
Stephen’s reference to the star of Remphan, which is identified as Chiun in Amos 5:26, is none other than Saturn, part of the “host of heaven,” whose hexagonal symbol is found throughout the occult world and today decorates the flag of the nation of Israel. David had no star associated with his name. Solomon, his son, fell into gross idolatry during his reign. Perhaps that star relates to him, but it is definitely found in the occult Jewish book of mysticism called the Kabbalah.
Modern Israel does not serve the God of the Bible. The Word of God clearly states that those who reject the Son, Jesus, also reject the Father.
22 Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. 23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. 1 John 2:22–23 (NKJV)
Israel has been an anti-Christ nation since it put to death the Messiah. Their hatred of our Lord, his followers, and his gospel continues to this day.
There is no such thing as a Judaeo-Christian tradition. The only thing shared is the Old Covenant scripture with its legal system.
The New Covenant is a clear departure from the Old Covenant of the Jews. The resurrection and crowning of Jesus as Lord of lords has made the two irreconcilable, which Paul clearly demonstrated, notwithstanding the deception of the Jewish Roots Movement.
The Jews’ continued derogation of Christ makes Judaism absolutely incompatible with Christianity.
The need for preachers to confront those Jews who continue to resist the gospel as Stephen did still exists. But what do we have today? Christians are telling anti-Christ Jews that they are God’s chosen people, a title which they gladly claim for themselves, making them more or less untouchable and irreproachable. Nothing could be farther from the truth, however. Nothing could inure Jews into unbelief more than such a claim.
Nothing could guarantee their eternal damnation more than telling them that they who reject Christ are God’s special people.
Stephen had to know that his words would provoke his hearers to fury, but he loved them enough to tell them the truth. He faced his death with courage and forgiveness in his heart toward his tormentors. His last words were a plea for God to forgive his enemies. (Acts 7:60) His prayer was heard. One of those who stood by as an assenting witness to his martyrdom was a man named Saul of Tarsus.
Paul
Little did Stephen know that God had already chosen this man Saul, who was later renamed Paul, to be one of his most important preachers and apostles. Stephen’s forceful words and his courageous death must have greatly impacted this young Pharisee; although the results were not seen immediately. In the short run, Saul became the church’s greatest persecutor who hunted down Christians in order to imprison, torture, and put them to death. Paul later testified that one of his goals was to coerce them into denying Christ.
9 “Indeed, I myself thought I must do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 10 This I also did in Jerusalem, and many of the saints I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. 11 And I punished them often in every synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities. Acts 26:9–11 (NKJV)
But God… Those are two of the most important words in the Bible. But God had other plans, which were set into motion as Paul rode to Damascus in pursuit of followers of Christ. God literally knocked Paul off his high horse and revealed Christ to him. Paul repented on the spot and believed on the name of the Lord Jesus. Our Lord warned him quite plainly that suffering would accompany his future testimony and ministry, but he did not flinch from it. Over the course of his remaining life he experienced suffering on many different levels – physical, emotional, and spiritual. One of his greatest torments was knowing that his people, the Israelites, were sentencing themselves to an eternity without God by rejecting the gospel. (Acts 13:46) In the following passage he expresses just how much he loved his natural people.
1 I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, 2 that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, 4 who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; 5 of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen. Romans 9:1–5 (NKJV)
The Jews had every advantage and should have recognized and received Jesus as their Messiah. In their ongoing rebellion against God, they murdered Jesus and continue to persecute his followers. Near the end of Paul’s life, he wrote the following summary statement regarding the Jews.
14 For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus. For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans, 15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they do not please God and are contrary to all men, 16 forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins; but wrath has come upon them to the uttermost. 1 Thessalonians 2:14–16 (NKJV)
Today the pro-Israel Jewish Anti-defamation League would label Paul as an antisemite because of these words. Nevertheless, they are true and come from someone who loved his countrymen enough to wish himself accursed by God if it would bring about their salvation. Paul’s words agree with Stephen’s and our Lord’s.
- They killed the Lord and his prophets. Jesus said that the blood of all righteous men murdered by the Jews cried out for vengeance, which he said would befall that generation.
47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. 48 In fact, you bear witness that you approve the deeds of your fathers; for they indeed killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore the wisdom of God also said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute,’ 50 that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation. Luke 11:47–51 (NKJV)
- They persecute the church. This continues to this day. In Israel it is illegal to proselytize.
- They do not please God. Without faith (in our Lord Jesus), it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews 11:6)
- They are contrary to all men. By resisting the gospel and pushing for the adoption of an anti-Christ message and religion, the Jews are contrary to all. There is a plan underway to bring all nations under the seven Noahide laws, which make idolatry a capital offense. This would include professing faith in Christ and the Triune God.
This was Paul’s and the Holy Spirit’s evaluation of those Jews who actively resist the gospel and deride Christ. To paint them as God’s beloved chosen people is not true to Scripture or to reality. As I have written elsewhere, there is only one chosen people, those God elected in Christ before the world began (Ephesians 1:3-4), which includes both Jews and Gentiles.
Jewishness has been redefined in the New Covenant. It no longer is based upon biology but upon the new birth. Today, the only true Jew is the person who puts his or her faith in our Lord Jesus.
Anyone who claims to be a Jew based upon descent from Abraham, without believing in Christ, is not a true Jew.
39 They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. 40 But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this. 41 You do the deeds of your father.” Then they said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father—God.” 42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. 43 Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. John 8:39–44 (NKJV) 28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; 29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God. Romans 2:28–29 (NKJV) 6 But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, 7 nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, “In Isaac your seed shall be called.” 8 That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed. Romans 9:6–8 (NKJV) 7 Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” 9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. Galatians 3:7–9 (NKJV)
Some of you, my readers, may be angry at me at this point. If so, it is likely because you have believed the lie that love for God requires supporting those who do not love him, the unrepentant Jews. You may have become guilty of adding to the gospel by claiming that faith in Christ alone does not save us. Rather we must also bless the nation of Israel, a people who oppose the gospel. You may have believed that your spiritual blessings hinge upon being a blessing to unbelieving Jews. If so, you have become guilty of nullifying God’s Word, which says that we have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ. Period. (Ephesians 1:3-4)
It is true that God has redeemed many Jewish people by drawing them to Christ, and it is my hope and prayer that multitudes of those descended from Abraham will one day confess Christ is Lord. When that happens, they will be included in the “one new man” in Christ. (Ephesians 2:15) Until that takes place, however, Jews are just as much on the outside looking in as are unbelieving Gentiles. There is only one way to God, and his name is Jesus. God is no respecter of persons.
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. John 14:6 (NKJV) 10 let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. 11 This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ 12 Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:10–12 (NKJV)
The Jews do not have their own covenant with God and can by-pass faith in Christ. It is an outright lie with a political agenda. The nation of Israel is trying to build and earthly kingdom without ever submitting to Christ, but with Christian support, but our Lord taught that his kingdom is not of this world. (John 18:36) May God release his people from the false teachings of Dispensationalism and the Judaizers.
