From Russia with blogs | persecutors

Vadim Khurin on those who judge

Christians know that Jesus brought to humankind the new covenant. This new covenant was not only a renewal of the old covenant, but also included a renewed content. The foundation of that new covenant was love, as indicated in the familiar John 3.16: “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” (NIV).

It seems like we all agree on this. But many Christians live as if they are dwelling in the old covenant. They do not know of God’s love, but instead fear Him. Their life is a non-stop struggle with the law, because to submit to the law is difficult and to break is frightening. Fear and deceit begin to accompany such Christians. It seems that they do not read John 3.17: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

Why is it that people called by God want to be judges who prosecute and present verdicts against others? I know that many of those who have been victimized by fellow Christians who brought forth judgment and arrogance instead of love and compassion. Human memory is very short and the remembrance of the fact that all have sinned and that Jesus Christ died for all is replaced by false pretences. What is needed to remind us who we were before we accepted Christ?

I think that behind the urge to judge there is refusal to live in God’s love. Like Jonah we become heavily burdened when God gives Nineveh another chance. We want God to follow through with the judgment. We want to rejoice at the sight of sinners receiving the punishment they deserve. But when God, seeing their repentance, calls off the punishment, we are disappointed. But God does not need prosecutors. And the faster we get this the better it will turn out for us. Let us read attentively the Word to avoid being deceived: “…because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!” James 2.13 (NIV).

Writer: Captain Vadim Khurin was born into a family of circus artists. He joined The Salvation Army in 1995 and is now an officer serving in St. Petersburg, Russia. He loves music, sports, reading and learning. He has a beautiful wife - Inna - and three children. He likes to ask hard questions and find different ways of helping people get back their wholeness and integrity.

6 Comments to From Russia with blogs | persecutors

1. As a Jewish believer I’m appalled to read this. Have you ever lived in Judaism? Have you personally experienced this faith or grown up surrounded by it? If so, and you had such a terrible experience of it being fear driven and devoid of the love of God I’m very sorry to hear that. That is not the Judaism I know, love and raised my family in. I experienced exactly the same loving God in Judaism as I do in Messianic Judaism and as I participate in the Gentile church. Amazingly, God is the same in the OT as in the NT, and the Jewish covenant is a covenant of deep and abiding love, an intimate love between God and the Jewish people so strong and so passionate that we read the Song of Songs, a love song between God and the Jewish people on one level of its interpretation, as we welcome the Jewish Sabbath. The whole of the traditional Jewish prayer book resonates with it.

   Before you jump to conclusions about this dark, fear driven, and loveless religion you imagine Judaism to be, go find out about it first hand. Then go back and re-read the NT carefully, and see where the Gentile church has leapt to anti-jewish conclusions for centuries, interpreting texts constantly through the lens of ‘Judaism=bad, Gentile Christianity=good’. Until Gentile believers stop seeing Judaism as a problem God had to solve by sending Jesus we won’t begin to understand the God of love, justice, mercy, and above all fatherhood who permeates our Scriptures.
Eleanor Burne-Jones on June 3rd, 2009

2. Hi Eleanor,

   I agree with you both.

   I don’t think that gentile Christians consciously think they are criticising Judaism. They read the OT in ignorance, and apply modern understanding to it, and so perceive a God of hate, one to be feared. I agree with you, the God of the OT is very much a God of love, when read correctly.

   The fact is, many Gentile Christians do judge others and teach a God of hate. This is also a pet ‘hate’ of mine.

   One of the things I was passionate about when I was in Officership (and still am in my own congregation that I attend), is to teach and show the beauty of Judaism, and how it relates to Christianity, and how it can inform and teach us our own NT. I was blessed in the School for Officer Training to have as one of my lecturers for a while an Officer who was a Jewish Rabbi before he converted to Christianity. I also had as a friend an officer who grew up as a Jew. The wife of my CSM in one of my Corps was a Jewess, and I had many other friends who were Jews, some of them were also Rabbis. I love the Jewish culture, and occassionally would go to Synagogue with a friend of mine in Sydney.

   I would every easter (and still do when asked) hold a Seydar (sorry about spelling - it’s early morning and I’m a bad speller). I would do it in Hebrew first, and then line by line, translate it into English, and then show how it relates to us as Christians (I even bought traditional Jewish cups, plates, etc to make it feel more authentic)(once again, sorry for the vaguness - my mind is fuzzy so early in the morning). It was so increadible to do this. In doing this, I consulted most of my friends (mentioned above - including the Rabbis) to make sure I got it right.

   You are so right. The God of the OT is a God of love, just as the NT God is. We Christians often forget that the early church was Jewish. The NT says that those who believed were baptised as Jews. Those same Jews said “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and anyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love, does not know God, for God is LOVE” (1 John 4:7-8).

   I just wish more Christians would understand this.

   Yours in Christ,
   Graeme.
Graeme Randall on June 3rd, 2009

3. Well, I said nothing about Judaism. I don’t think this is bad or wrong. The thing is that here in Russia many Christians, even in Protestant churches, tend more to judge than to love people. And they say that this is Bible teach and show links to OT. Also I can say I did not live in Judaism. I lived in Communist country where every religion was considered wrong and many things were totally forbidden.
vadim on June 4th, 2009

4. Hi Graeme, I notice you refer to your friends as having been Jews, in the past tense. I’d just like to point out we remain Jewish. I am every bit as much a Jew now as I was before - as are your friends. The pressure to ’stop’ being Jewish is an expression of the underlying assumption that Jewishness was a problem God sent Jesus to sort out. That makes no theological sense to me!

   Incidentially, the rabbi you speak of would still have not only been very much Jewish, but also had a ministry as a Messianic Rabbi alongside any role he played in the Gentile church, if he had wanted to or felt so called. His Torah learning was not void, or cancelled, or irrelevant. It would have been valued (I hope) in the Messianic community, even if he might have needed to add a new layer of semicha, rabbinic ordination to his existing ordination. If he chose to abandon it, I feel sorry as it would have been a loss to the Messianic community, but that is his choice.

   I keep it simple when I teach my children - Jesus was called rabbi, and rabbis, just as all good Jews, learn Torah and speak of it throughout the day. What do they do? They do mitzvot. A rabbi by definition learns and teaches Torah and does mitzvot. Therefore as my children are Jewish, and they want to know ‘what would Jesus do?’, I tell them Jesus would study Torah and do mitzvot - we have the Great Commission within the overall ‘tikkun olam’ concept, rectification of the world/bringing in the Kingdom of God. But in any situation where we are not sure what to do, we look to Torah and mitzvot, just as I am confident Jesus did. That’s why we call someone ‘rabbi’.
Eleanor Burne-Jones on June 4th, 2009

5. Hi Eleanor,

   I fully realise what you are saying about remaining a Jew. I was in no way inferring that any of them ‘ceased’ to be jews. I was unfortunately referring to the fact that due to circumstances, I have lost contact with them so the ‘past tense’ reference is the fact they have been in my past (some of those friends were Jews and Rabbis (that is - had not converted to Christianity) - just I’ve lost contact with them, as I have a lot of my friends in the past - my failing). Also, some of them have unfortunately been ‘promoted to Glory’ as we say in the ‘Army (not sure what euphemism is used in Judaism) - so once again - past tense there.

   The officer who was also a Rabbi, would still take us to the Great Synagogue in Sydney, and wear his skull cap (I’m sorry, I have great difficulty with the Jewish spelling - especially at this time in the morning - I know that’s not what it’s called, I don’t want to offend by trying to say the Jewish name for something and getting it all wrong), even though he was also in uniform, and all the people in the synagogue would respect him as a great Rabbi (which he was), and he would teach us a bit about Judaism. Another Officer (not a Rabbi) was also on the International Council of Christian Jews (I think that’s what it was called - either way, it was an international Council which sought to reconcile Judaism and Christianity).

   I think it’s fantastic that you teach your children to be Christian Jews. Even though I’m not a Jew, I seem to have a lot more in common Theologically wih Jews than I do Christians. The one thing that has stopped me converting to Messianic Judaism, is all the Messianic Jewish communities I have come accross are a little too conservative for me - with the same judgements and teachings that I reject in the Christian Church. I did at one point seriously consider converting to Judaism in a liberal Synagogue, but I realised I still needed the focus on Christ and the NT as well. Temple Emanuel in Sydney (Bondi Junction) is where I would occassionally go with friends. They had a female Rabbi, and very affermative of alternate sexualities. I found it interesting that even though they were so liberal, they were still very much considered part of the wider Jewish community by all the other Synagogues in Sydney - they just differed on theological teaching - which apparently, is common among Jewish communities. They all have a very individual relationship with God, and a personal theology, but collectively, they focus on what they have in common, and leave the rest behind. This is something I long to see in the Christian community.

   Yours,
   Graeme
Graeme Randall on June 4th, 2009

6. I really feel that, going back to the original post, when we have a distorted image of God, that has nothing to do with whether we are Jewish or Christian. We can call God ‘Father’, and the ways we are supposed to relate to him are entirely positive and life-giving. He is not an abusive parent. A healthy parent does not frighten their child, but just as a small child is rightly in awe of their parent, we are very small children indeed in relation to the greatness and holiness of God.
   We are just as wrong if we go to other extremes, seeing God as unconcerned, or God as ‘butler’, or ‘Santa’. Even more are we drifting off course if we fail to understand that God the Father is an image within a larger mystery that does not allow God to be reduced to the grandfather with the long white beard.

   It grieves me greatly that so many believers are completely unaware of the anti-Judaism distortions in the way they interpret scripture and construct their inner life of faith and belief. They fail to see how the overt and vicious antisemitism present in the writings of historical Christian leaders - such as Irenaeus, Aquinas, Augustine, Luther have left an echo which is now intertwined with Christian theology, preserving a distortion that penetrates so many ordinary believer’s understanding of Jesus. Instead of seeing Jesus criticising legalism, they read him as rejecting the law - yet the law is ethics. They see law as the enemy as though no clarification or basic codification of ethics can be countenanced after the coming of the Holy Spirit. This turns the Gentile church into an inherently hostile and difficult setting for Jewish believers.

   I am relieved, yet also sad, that so many Messianics no longer describe themselves as ‘Christian’, as even that word is associated with negative anti-Jewish connotations. When I move amongst them it is a relief to be with others among whom I can truly be myself, and my children can be accepted without qualification or condition that they feel ashamed or ambivalent, or diminish their sense of identity. What is needed, is for the Gentile church to re-examine its history, and come to understand how the echoes of an unresolved conflict from 2000 years ago still need a transformational outcome today, and one which can cope positively with the Jewishness of Jesus.
Eleanor Burne-Jones on June 5th, 2009

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