The Root Cause of Antisemitism, Part 1

Hi. This is Art Wolinsky. Welcome to this edition of The Messianic Jewish Expositor podcast.

Last time we began a discussion about anti-Semitism. I’d like to recap the final part of that podcast. Why are some people against the Jews? We often hear that people are against the Jews because they haven’t been properly educated about the Jews and God’s love for them, so the solution to the problem is more education. But if that were the case wouldn’t the problem have been completely cured long ago at least in some parts of the world? But that has not occurred. Anti-Semitism is found all over the world, in fact wherever there are Jews. No, education alone is not the answer to this problem. Education is important but the root cause is much deeper. My friend, it has to do with the Messiah. The Messiah, Jesus or Yeshua, is Jewish. He has a very strong connection to the Jewish people. If Yeshua was not Jewish there would be no Antisemitism. If Jesus was Italian we’d be dealing with hatred of Italy and hatred of people descended from Italians both in Italy and in every other country where Italian people and their descendants dwell, instead of hatred of the Jews. Now your response to me might be “Art, What is your evidence for that? Can you back up what you’re saying with facts? Because what you’re saying sounds like utter nonsense to me”. My answer is: I can back it up. And, if you believe my evidence, what does that mean for you? You see, what I am telling you is absolutely outrageous. I am telling you that anti-Semitism is an indirect proof that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. Please, before you reject what I’m saying, let me give you the evidence. And I hope you will see that it makes more sense than any other possible explanation.

But before we get into the reasons for anti-Semitism lets talk about definition of terms. Technically anti-Semitism means against Semites and Semites are the descendants of Shem, one of Noah’s three sons, and from Shem came not only the Jews but also other descendants of Abraham including Arabs. Anti-Semitism does not normally mean anti-Arab. So a better term would probably be anti-Judaism. But Judaism is the practice of a religion and anti-Semitism describes hostility or hatred of Jewish people whether they practice the religion of Judaism or not. Hitler, for e.g., didn’t care if a Jew practiced Judaism or not. To the Nazi’s a person was a Jew if he or she was a physical descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and having one Jewish grandparent was enough to count that person Jewish. Such a person was to be eliminated, killed. In fact Hitler’s goal was to eliminate or annihilate the entire Jewish race. And as we shall see there have been others in the past who also wanted to annihilate the Jewish race. So what shall we call hostility toward the Jews with the desire to annihilate them? I believe that we can call those who hate the Jews, Jew Haters and we can call the practice Jew Hatred. And what about those who say they have no problem with the Jews at all, that it’s just Israel they hate? If the Messiah was Italian, these people would say “We love Italian people. We just hate the country of Italy and want to annihilate it”. Now does that make any sense? Of course not. Such people are either badly confused and don’t understand what they’re saying or they are charlatans and deceivers. Israel is a nation, not just a land. Israel is made up of the Jewish people, all of the Jewish people. That’s how God sees it. If you hate Israel you’re a Jew Hater plain and simple.

Now before we go further, we need to know three things:

FIRST: What is the evidence for Jew Hatred? Is there such a thing? Has Jew Hatred always been around? Is it widespread? Was it around before there was any significant return of Jews to The Promised Land, even before the modern State of Israel was founded in 1948? Didn’t there have to be Jew Hatred in order for the Holocaust to have occurred? Are there people and even governments today that deny that the Holocaust ever occurred? I’m going to do my best to show you that the answers to all of these questions is yes.

SECOND: The second thing we need to know is the reason for Jew Hatred.

THIRD: And the third we need to know is this: is there a cure for Jew Hatred? I’ve already said that education alone is not the cure. So, is there a cure?

It seems to me that it would be helpful to take question two, What is the reason or root cause of Jew Hatred, first, so I’m going to do that. And to do that properly, we need to look at a particular Bible verse. A very foundational Bible verse. Let me read it to you:

Genesis 3:15 NASB95

15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

The Lord, God is speaking in this verse. He is addressing the Serpent and talking about the consequences of something that had just happened in the Garden of Eden involving our first parents, Adam and Eve. God told Adam that he could eat the fruit of any tree in the Garden except the fruit of The Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil. And God warned Adam that if he ate of that fruit he would die, he would surely die, and he would die that very day. This instruction, this dire warning, was given to Adam even before God created Eve. But by extension through Adam, the first man and the head of the human race, this warning was also for Eve. The Serpent through deception tricked Eve and she ate of the forbidden fruit and gave some to Adam and he also ate of it. What happened immediately following this is known as The Fall. The Fall is a profoundly important event that led to catastrophic consequences, both physical and spiritual for each and every one of us, and these consequences began immediately. The biggest consequence was death but it wasn’t the only consequence. Why these consequences? The consequences occurred because sin entered the human race right then. Let me read a verse to you from the New Testament book of Romans.

Romans 5:12 NIV

12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—

This New Testament verse explains through whom sin entered the world. It was through one man, Adam. The verse also clearly links death to sin and tells us that sin entering this one man brought death to all people because all people sinned. How did that happen? Think of sin as a principle or a fundamental essence. It’s something immutable like a law of nature or a law of physics like the law of gravity. However this principle or law is spiritual, not physical, and it is horribly evil and it is devastating. It entered Adam and although sin is not a gene it might as well be. In fact, if it helps you to understand, you could think of sin as an autosomal dominant gene, a spiritual gene. It entered Adam, the first man, and it entered Eve, the first woman, because of the Fall, and it has been inherited by each and every human ever since.

Among other things the Fall is why we die, why you and I don’t live forever as God originally intended us to do. It’s also responsible for the corruption of our planet. The Fall has had incalculable consequences and it continues to have consequences today. It is profoundly important. BECAUSE OF THE FALL, BECAUSE ADAM AND EVE ATE OF THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT IN THE GARDEN, SIN ENTERED THE HUMAN RACE. BECAUSE OF THE FALL EVERY SINGLE MAN EVER BORN HAS SIN SPIRITUALLY HARDWIRED INTO HIM AND EVERY SINGLE WOMAN EVER BORN HAS SIN SPIRITUALLY HARDWIRED INTO HER. AND BECAUSE SIN IS THE CAUSE OF DEATH EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US EVENTUALLY DIE. BECAUSE OF THE FALL THE RULERSHIP OF THIS WORLD, IN A CERTAIN LIMITED YET IMPORTANT SENSE, WAS CEDED TO SATAN AND HE BECAME THE god (that’s god with a small g) OF THIS WORLD.

There is a verse in the New Testament that speaks to this:

Romans 6:23 NIV

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Because we all have sin in us, we all eventually die. It is the sin principle in us that causes each one of us to commit sins. But God wants you to know that there is a cure, there is eternal life and freedom from the dominion and rulership of sin in Messiah. I’m going to read that verse once more.

Romans 6:23 NIV

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. We are here today to talk about the root cause of Jew Hatred. What about that? The Fall was involved.

The Fall, through which sin entered every single one of us, was caused by an act so evil and so consequential and so costly that the punishment that God has planned for the main perpetrator, Satan, is to spend eternity in the Lake of Fire, which is Hell. You and I cannot with our finite minds even imagine how horrific this punishment is going to be. It will be a punishment fitted perfectly to the severity of the evil deed committed and fully earned by the main perpetrator. I believe that the prospect of this punishment has the perpetrator of The Fall, Satan, so terrified and so filled with rage and so filled with hatred against God that there is nothing that he will not do in an attempt to avoid this punishment. Satan’s attempt to avoid this punishment is the root cause of Jew Hatred. How does this work? I’m going to tell you. I’m going to read Genesis 3:15 once more. God is speaking to the serpent, but really to Satan who is in the serpent.

Genesis 3:15 NASB95

15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

This verse, Genesis 3:15, is the first foreshadowing of a redeemer, the Messiah, who will reverse the curse of the Fall.

Let’s now just focus on the last part of this verse:

He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

Who is bruising whom on the head and who is bruising whom on the heel? Adonai, the LORD is explaining to the Serpent that a Person, One Individual, a Deliverer, a Redeemer is going to bruise or crush the Serpent’s head at some point in the future and that the Serpent will bruise or crush this Redeemer’s heel. This verse only makes sense if the Seed of the woman is singular and not plural and that is how the original Hebrew was written. To restate: the Redeemer, the Messiah, is going to bruise Satan on the head and Satan is going to bruise Messiah on the heel.

There is a verse in the New Testament that speaks to this very issue. It refers back to a different verse in Genesis (Genesis 22:18) but I believe that it can be applied very well to Genesis 3:15, the verse we are looking at. The New Testament verse is Galatians 3:16. Let me read it to you:

Galatians 3:16 NIV

16 The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ.

This Galatians verse is talking about the Messiah and I believe that Genesis 3:15 is saying the very same thing.

But there is yet another reason why the Redeemer must be an individual. That’s because this Deliverer or Redeemer must fit the picture of a Biblical Kinsman Redeemer as ordained by God. The Kinsman Redeemer is described in a number of places in the Tanach. The best known Kinsman Redeemer in the Old Testament is Boaz who redeemed Ruth, a Gentile woman, who became the great grandmother of King David. To Redeem a person or a people, three things are required. The Redeemer must be a blood relative, he must be able to redeem, and he must be willing to redeem. Boaz was a blood relative of Ruth’s late husband. Boaz was able to redeem Ruth; he was rich. And Boaz was willing to redeem Ruth; he loved her. Let me read you a verse from the Book of Leviticus:

Leviticus 25:47–49 TLV

47 “If an outsider or sojourner with you becomes rich, while your brother beside him has become poor and sells himself to the outsider dwelling among you or to a member of the outsider’s family, 48 after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him, 49 or his uncle or his uncle’s son may redeem him, or anyone who is a close relative to him from his family may also redeem him. Or if he has grown rich, he may redeem himself.

This Law of the Kinsman Redeemer is found in numerous places in the Tanach. But I want to share with you a passage in the New Testament where a profound example and application of this Kinsman Redeemer Law is applied to the Redeemer of the entire human race:

Galatians 4:4–5 TLV

4 But when the fullness of time came, God sent out His Son, born of a woman and born under law— 5 to free those under law, so we might receive adoption as sons.

The consequences of The Fall required a Kinsman Redeemer to redeem us. The Jewish Messiah functioned as our Kinsman Redeemer. The Jewish Messiah, Yeshua, in order to redeem us had to be a blood relative. That is why even though He was and is the Son of God and equal to God, he had to be human also so that He could be our blood relative. He had to be without sin in order to be able to redeem us and to do that He had to keep the the Law, the Law of Moses, perfectly which He could only do if He was without sin. The Son of God was without sin. And He had to be willing to redeem us, and He was and is. He willingly laid down His own life as the necessary blood sacrifice for us. Only the sacrifice of His perfect sinless blood could suffice to redeem us all.

John 10:17–18 TLV

17 “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life, so that I may take it up again. 18 No one takes it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it up again. This command I received from My Father.”

So let’s sum up what we’ve talked about today so far. In the Garden of Eden, a real place, Satan deceived Eve and told her that she could safely eat the fruit of The Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil. She and Adam ate of this fruit and in so doing broke the one prohibition or negative commandment that God gave them. What happened then is referred to as The Fall. Sin entered into Adam and Eve. Because sin causes death (sin is the cause of all death) they died spiritually right then and eventually they died physically. God’s original plan was that they would never die but rather have eternal life (and the same for us). Profound consequences for Adam and Eve and for the physical earth that we live on, and for the whole world followed. But God even at this point held out hope for Adam and Eve and their descendants. A Redeemer would come, a Kinsman Redeemer, the Seed of the woman and He would crush the Serpent’s head. This Messiah would reverse the consequences of the Fall. And the eventual punishment of the main perpetrator of the Fall, Satan, would be profound. He would spend eternity in the Lake of Fire. This certain punishment and the fear of it on Satan’s part would lead to his unending and relentless attempts to engineer the annihilation of the Jewish people because it is through the Jewish people that the Messiah, the One who will crush Satan’s head, would come. That is the root cause of Jew Hatred.

How does that work? For the consequences of The Fall to be reversed the Messiah had to come the first time, 2,000 years ago. He came and He made Himself an offering for sin in order to redeem us. Israel as a nation did not accept Him at that time. He has to return, to come a second time, to finish the job and to redeem the Nation of Israel. AND He will not return from heaven to planet earth unless the Jewish people as a Nation plead for Him to return and save them. Let me read to you a passage from the Old Testament book of the prophet Zechariah. The passage is describing something that is going to happen on a particular day at the end of a period of time referred to by the prophet Jeremiah as The Time of Jacob’s Trouble. It will be an incredibly horrific time. It’s also known as The Great Tribulation.

Zechariah 12:8–10 NASB95

“In that day the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the one who is feeble among them in that day will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of the Lord before them. “And in that day I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.

God is going to pour out a Spirit of grace and supplication on the Jewish people. They will recognize their Messiah, Yeshua, and they will mourn. They will repent. They will accept Him and then He will rescue them. He will redeem them. It’s going to be glorious! But what about the connection to Jew Hatred? If the entire Jewish race is annihilated before this time there will not be one single Jewish person left to look on Him and to mourn and to accept Him, and that has to happen before Messiah will return to rescue the Jewish people and set up His Messianic Kingdom. That is why Satan must annihilate the entire Jewish race. That is the ultimate reason for Jew Hatred. Because when Messiah Yeshua, Jesus, returns Satan’s career is finished and Satan knows that.

Now I need to ask you a very important question. Do you want to have the assurance of eternal life now? I hope your answer is yes. I answered yes 24 years ago and I’ve had the peace that passes all understanding ever since. I’ve had no fear of death ever since. My dear friend, please do not put this decision off. Accept our Messiah, Yeshua, now and be saved. Please don’t wait. You could die tomorrow and if you haven’t accepted Yeshua you will have given up the right to a place in the Kingdom of Heaven. Or, if you don’t die, you could enter The Time of Jacob’s Trouble. Believe me you don’t want to be in that time of great tribulation. Let me read you one more passage today:

John 3:16–18 TLV

16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. 18 The one who believes in Him is not condemned; but whoever does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not put his trust in the name of the one and only Ben-Elohim.

What must you do to be saved? Just say a simple prayer something like this one:

Lord Yeshua, I know that you are the Son of God, Ben-Elohim, and that you shed your blood and died for me so that all my sins could be forgiven and so I could spend eternity in heaven with God. I ask you to save me today. Thank you Lord.

We’ll continue this discussion next time. Please stay tuned.

Feel free to write to me with you questions or comments at [e-mail]. If you’d like to read a written version of this message you can go to sermons.faithlife.com/ and find it under Arthur Wolinsky.