Salvation is from the Jews (John 4:22): Saving Grace in Judaism and Messianic Hope in Christianity

Front Cover
Liturgical Press, 2007 - Religion - 201 pages

Growing up in an ethnic suburb in Cleveland, Aaron Milavec was an impressionable adolescent whose religious and cultural influences made it natural for him to pity, blame, and despise Jews. All of that began to change in 1955 when Mr. Martin, a Jewish merchant, hired Milavec as a stock boy. Milavec's initial anxieties over working for a Jew surprisingly gave way to profound personal admiration. This, in turn, plunged Milavec into a troubling theological dilemma: How could God consign Mr. Martin to eternal hellfire due to his ancestral role in the death of Jesus when it was clear that Mr. Martin would not harm me, a Christian, even in small ways?

This book is not for the faint-hearted. Most Christians imagine that the poison of anti-Judaism has been largely eliminated. In contrast, Milavec reveals how this poison has gone underground--disfiguring not only the role of Israel in God's plan of salvation but also horribly twisting the faith, the forgiveness, and the salvation that Christians find through Jesus Christ. This painful realization serves as the necessary first step for our healing. At each step of the way, Milavec's sure hand builds bridges of mutual understanding that enable both Christians and Jews to cross the chasm of distrust and distortion that has infected both church and synagogue over the centuries. In the end, Milavec securely brings his readers to that place where Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity can again be admired as sister religions intimately united to one other in God's drama of salvation.

From inside the book

Contents

Saving Mr Martin from Hellfire
1
Law and Grace among Jews and Christians
23
The Story of Salvation
57
Parting of the Ways
84
Jesus as Messiah
116
The Unsavory Odor of Christian Evangelization
152
Reflections on Covenant and Mission
173
Bibliography
183
Index
196
Copyright

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Popular passages

Page 150 - Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Page 53 - The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
Page 78 - And he came by the Spirit into the temple : and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law...
Page 109 - You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Page 78 - And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ.
Page 111 - We reckon therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? is he not the God of Gentiles also?
Page 77 - Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant ; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer : their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar ; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.
Page 10 - That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord" and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Page 168 - I want you to understand this mystery, brethren: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles come in, "and so all Israel will be saved...
Page 78 - Abraham, that He would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life.