The Reformation is an important event in the life of the
Christian Church. Martin Luther, the
prophet of grace, altered the life of the Christian community whether he
intended to or not. It was the creation of a movement in the Church Catholic to
emphasize the grace of God as explicated by the apostle Paul, Augustine, and
restated by Luther. Luther believed the Church had lost sight of what ought to
be central to Christians: justification
by faith.
As revolutionary as Luther was, he could not disengage himself
from 16th century antisemitism. This is well known by now and the Lutheran Church has disowned any of Luther’s
statements on the Jews. All to the good.
What is not so well known is that Justification by grace
through faith is a Jewish notion. Jews
have always held to the understanding that God has a special relationship with
the Jewish people. And Jews through the
centuries have trusted in God despite God’s rather odd methodology. While most
Jews did not adopt the Christian belief in original sin, they knew that they
were not perfect and could depend on the gracious forgiveness of their God.
Think about it. When
the apostle Paul writes his letter to the Romans he asserts that Abraham himself
was justified by faith. His example is
telling. Paul says when Abraham and Sarah
were unable to get pregnant, Abraham believed in the promise and kept on having sex with Sarah no matter
how long it took. Abraham had faith despite what was happening. Abraham was justified by faith. And Paul advises the Roman gentiles to emulate
Abraham’s faith.
A thousand years before the Reformation, the Jewish
tradition was aware of the kindness or chesed of God. The Torah given to the
Jewish people was a gift from God. Jews
knew God before Jesus, before Paul, before Augustine and before Luther. The
grace of God which Luther asserted had been part of Jewish tradition for
centuries.
Maybe what Jesus and Paul were up to was to make gentiles or non-Jews as
Jewish as possible?!
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