Sept. 7, 2014 Anno Domini
Regardless of if those who call themselves “Jews” today are indeed the descendants of Abraham, they are behaving in the spirit of the ancients who rejected Christ.
That is what matters most. People who obsess on the racial heritage of today’s Jews are missing the bigger picture. However, there is some value to the racial heritage question on a secular level. For example, if today’s Jews are not descendants of Abraham, how then can they, according to the Zionist view, justifiably claim a Biblical right to Palestine? But the focus of this article will be the Khazar theory as scapegoat for Jews and their anti-Christian behaviour.
Much of the confusion, present mainly in Protestant circles, is caused by a misunderstanding of Jesus words found in Saint John’s Apocalypse, chapter 2, verse 9.
I know thy tribulation and thy poverty, but thou art rich: and thou art blasphemed by them that say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.
The confused are rendering this passage carnally, saying that Jesus was singling out only “fake Jews” as the synagogue of Satan but not the true descendants of Abraham. The root cause of this confusion stems from the heresy of dual covenant theology, which states that Jews are saved based on their race alone, not on their faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The truth of the matter is that Jesus was speaking of the spiritual bankruptcy of ethnic Jews.
Khazars didn’t exist when Jesus spoke against the Synagogue of Satan
The Khazar Empire, a medieval power that lay just north of the theocratic Christian Byzantium Empire, is believed to have been established around the 7th century A.D., several hundred years after Christ walked the Earth. During the 8th century, many of its nobles converted to Judaism. It is believed that many or most of today’s European (Ashkenazi) Jews are descended from this Turkish Khazar tribe. How is it, then, that Jesus could have been referring to these supposed “fake” Khazar Jews in His admonishment of the Synagogue of Satan throughout the Gospels? Were the Jews to whom He spoke indeed the literal descendants of Abraham? The answer is unequivocally, yes. In almost all of Jesus’ discourse with the Zionist Jews of His time, he focused on their spiritual blindness, not on their supposed racial legitimacy. In the following passage, Jesus makes it clear that the faithful spirit that was present with Abraham, not ethnicity, is what counts. The following passage also proves that Jesus did not view the Synagogue of Satan as Khazar Jews.
I know that you are the children of Abraham: but you seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and you do the things that you have seen with your father. They answered, and said to him: Abraham is our father. Jesus saith to them: If you be the children of Abraham, do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man who have spoken the truth to you, which I have heard of God. This Abraham did not. You do the works of your father. They said therefore to him: We are not born of fornication: we have one Father, even God.
Jesus therefore said to them: If God were your Father, you would indeed love me. For from God I proceeded, and came; for I came not of myself, but he sent me: Why do you not know my speech? Because you cannot hear my word. (John 8:37-43)
Jesus then exposes the true source of their spirit.
You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof. (John 8:44)
The consistent message in the New Testament is that one’s spirit towards Christ will determine his ultimate destiny, heaven or hell…to be reborn of the Spirit or to remain in the spirit of bondage to sin. There is no way of carnalizing the Gospels and making them about heritage or ethnicity.
The terms “Jew” and “Israel” were redefined by Christ’s coming
Adding to the confusion of the identity of the Synagogue of Satan is the definition of the term “Jew” in the Bible. In the New Testament, there are instances where Jew refers to a racial/national group and other instances where Jews are referred to as a spiritual group. Still yet, Jews are also referred to as an adversarial group, summed up in the term “Synagogue of Satan” and hinted at in passages like “they hid for fear of the Jews.” So how are we to determine what “Jew” means? Historian E. Michael Jones has a solid grasp of the variation in application of the term “Jew.”
When St. John uses the words “oi Ioudaioi,” he is referring to a group that has rejected Christ. The coming of Christ changed Jewish identity forever, something the Jews at His time comprehended only with difficulty. From then, the terms “Israelite” and “Jew” were no longer synonyms, because, Ferdinand Hahn points out in Caron’s book, “the true Israelites” from the Christian perspective “are precisely those who, like Nathaniel, recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
—E. Michael Jones, “The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and its Impact on World History”, Fidelity Press, South Bend, Indiana, 2008, p. 33-34
Upon Christ’s arrival…the situation changes, for the Jews have to accept Christ to remain Israel…John uses the term “Jew” two ways. He begins by saying that “Salvation comes from the Jews,” and ends by saying those who call themselves “Jews” are not children of Abraham or Moses and, in fact, have Satan as their father. From identifying the word Jew with “we,” as he does with the Samaritan woman, Jesus goes on to refer to what John calls “Jews” as “you,” which is to say, a group that does not include Jesus. Accepting or rejecting the Messiah becomes the principal way of defining what it means to be a Jew. (p. 36)
In other words, the true meaning of what it means to be a Jew has to do with the spirit that was present with Abraham. By rejecting Christ, the Jews also rejected Abraham, for the Spirit of Christ was with Abraham. However, now, the term “Jew” has been redefined as a rejecter of Christ, regardless of ethnicity; for the Jews, in their rejection of Christ, accepted Satan as their father.
There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)
One who distinguishes him or herself as Jewish is declaring their rejection of Christ and the spiritual redefinition of God’s people in the above passage from Galatians. Israel is the spiritual body of Christ, composed of the faithful, from all races. Spiritual Israel and the Church are one and the same. Fleshly Israel has been put away.
That because the rebellious Israel had played the harlot, I had put her away, and had given her a bill of divorce: yet her treacherous sister Juda was not afraid, but went and played the harlot also herself. (Jeremiah 3:8)
Scapegoating Jews
Those who continue to advance the lie that Jesus was referring to Khazar Jews when He admonished the Synagogue of Satan are not only guilty of falsifying history but also of excusing ethnic Jews of their rejection of Jesus the Messiah. There can be no excuse for a Jew, or anyone, who rejects Jesus. In a religious and spiritual context, the Khazar debate is irrelevant. There is no validity in the dichotomy of “fake Jews” vs. “real Jews” outside of St. John’s definition of “Jews”. And Jewish behaviour today cannot be excused away as being the rotten fruits of Turkish impostors. Jewish behaviour today is no different than it was 2,000 years ago when the Jews cried for the release of the criminal Barabbas over Jesus and for Herod to crucify the Messiah. The likely reason why some push the Khazar theory is in a cowardice attempt to avoid being labelled a racist or anti-Semite whilst implicating “Khazars” in crimes and conspiracy.
Yet no man spoke openly of Him, for fear of the Jews. (John 7:13)
Another group advocating the Khazar scapegoat are British Israelists (Christian Identity) and some white nationalists. Under the same spiritual blindness as Jews, this group rationalizes that if they can make today’s Jews out to be racial impostors of the ancient Hebrews, they themselves will inherit the birthright or, a more extreme view, they are the true descendants of the Hebrews. The latter view has its roots in the millenarianist heresy that plagued England during the Protestant Reformation.
More disturbing, perhaps, is the fact that many evangelical Christians embrace the Khazar scapegoat, in an attempt to deify the Jews. To avoid implicating their god race in the world conspiracy—on the rare occasion when they actually admit a world conspiracy exists—these Christian Zionists dismiss it as being merely the work of the Khazar tribe, not “true Jews”. What they are saying then is that “true” racial Jews are racially incapable of sin, racially incapable of being the conspirators leading the New World Order. Of course, this is completely absurd and completely contrary to the basic tenets of Christianity. This belief is more in line with something from the Third Reich than the Bible.
Genealogical records destroyed along with the Temple
It is next to impossible to argue that destruction of Jerusalem, the Temple, and the slaughter of one million Jews (according to Titus Flavius Josephus) in 70 AD was not the work of God that brought the Old Covenant to fulfillment as well as prophet Daniel’s Seventy Weeks prophecy. But also destroyed by divine will were all genealogical records of the ancient Hebrews. This is not only a major problem for racialists today, it is further evidence of the deeper spiritual truth behind the chosen-people archetype. If God intended for a small Hebrew tribe to rule the world for eternity, surely He would have kept in tact proof of this tribe’s racial authenticity. But since this was not the case, the loss of the Temple records is further evidence that God’s intention from the beginning was a faithful universal people unto Him, with the ancient Hebrew era serving as a mere type of bigger things to come. Saint Paul drives this home in his instruction to Timothy:
As I desired thee to remain at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some not to teach otherwise, not to give heed to fables and endless genealogies: which furnish questions rather than the edification of God, which is in faith. (1Timothy 1:3-4)