Non-Jews were not left out of this Jewish vision of humanity, since God was the Creator of all humankind and on the Day of Judgment would hold Jews and non-Jews alike accountable for their behavior.5 Righteous Gentiles were to shun the worship of idols, turn to the one true God, and live by the universal ethical precepts revealed in the Torah as applicable to all humankind. This did not make one a Jew, and conversion to Judaism was neither required nor expected. Such Gentiles were known as “God-fearers” who, alongside the people of Israel, stood as witness to the one God and his ethical standards of righteousness. At Jewish synagogues, spread through all the cities of the ancient Roman world, one would find non-Jews gathered alongside the Jewish worshippers to hear the reading of the Torah and the Prophets and to listen to the preaching of Moses.6 In the gospels, Jesus once commended a Roman centurion at Capernaum in Galilee as having more faith than he had found in all of Israel—warning the people that the kingdom of God would include those from all nations, gathered alongside Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with Jews who were unrighteous cast out (Luke 7:1–10; Matthew 8:5–13). Paul shared this perspective, contrasting one who is “uncircumcised” but lives a moral life with one who is “circumcised” but lives immorally (Romans 2:25–29). It was his view that the non-Jew would have favor with God while the Jew would be condemned at the Judgment.
If Paul had left it at that, his position would have been acceptable to other Jews, including James, Peter, and the Jerusalem church. But he said things that they found unacceptable. To say that a “righteous” Gentile is more acceptable to God than an “unrighteous” Jew is one thing, but then to go on to affirm that such a Jew, without Christ, is not a “real Jew” while the righteous Gentile is actually the true Jew is quite another. That would imply that the Gentile has thus “replaced” the Jew, an idea that would have been repudiated by most Jews.
What Paul’s Jewish teachers would have said is that Jews remain Jews no matter what their level of adherence to God’s covenant with Israel, while Gentiles remain Gentiles, whether righteous or unrighteous—but that both will be judged by the moral standards applicable to each. In other words faith in God and living a moral life are not the determiner of Jewishness, but rather participation in the special covenant made with Abraham is. One became part of that Abrahamic covenant by birth, since God had made the covenant with Abraham and his descendants. One could also become a Jew through conversion to Judaism. If a Gentile underwent such a formal conversion he or she was considered thereafter a Jew, or member of the house of Israel, and no longer a Gentile. Even a Jewish figure as illustrious as the great second-century A.D. rabbi Akiva ben Joseph was from a family of converts to Judaism. Indeed the rabbis say it is forbidden, once one has converted to Judaism, even to refer to the person’s past.7 From a Jewish perspective Jews remain Jews, Gentiles remain Gentiles, and God will judge both accordingly.
As a Jew Paul had accepted the basic pillars of Judaism—one Creator God, Israel as the chosen people, and the Torah divinely revealed to Moses—as well as the place of Gentile God-fearers in God’s plan. He says, “I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers” (Galatians 1:14). He lived strictly as a Pharisee and he says that when it came to the Torah and its observance he was “blameless” (Philippians 3:5–6). Paul would have valued the various markers of Israelite distinction and identity, setting the Jews apart from the nations, whether by circumcision, dietary laws, observance of Sabbaths and festivals, or laws of ritual purity.
Once Paul received his revelation from Christ, accepting Jesus as cosmic Lord, exalted to the right hand of God, everything changed. Paul refers to his former life as a Jew as “rubbish” compared to the new status of being in Christ (Philippians 3:8). His core beliefs were not merely modified, updated, or amplified: they were wholly recast in the light of what he calls the “mystery” of the gospel he had received.
In Paul’s new vision of things, a non-Jew, in order to be “saved” from God’s judgment, must turn from idols to the one God and also bow the knee in worship to Jesus as Lord—something Jews would be forbidden to do. In the Amida, the central Jewish prayer that dates back to pre-Christian times, one bows the knee three times at the mention of God’s holiness.8 The prophet Isaiah had said that in the time to come “every knee would bow, and every tongue confess” that Yahweh is God and there is no other (Isaiah 45:23). Paul amends that very text to say that every knee would bow and every tongue would confess Jesus as Lord—to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:10–11). This single move, in which a human being is considered equal to God and thus worthy of worship, separates Paul’s version of Christianity from Judaism and effectively creates a new “religion” separate from most mainstream Judaism.9 But Paul goes much further.
Paul denigrates the Jewish people as “Israel according to the flesh,” broken off the tree of Israel, cut off from God, and dying like cast off branches on the ground, because of their unbelief in Jesus as Lord and Christ. They are now replaced by a new and true Israel—according to the Spirit. Finally, Paul says that the Torah of Moses was never intended to be permanent; it was given through the mediation of angels, not directly by God, and having served its temporary purpose in leading both Jews and Gentiles to Christ, it has been superseded. Here are a few samples of his clear declarations on these points:
The One God
We know that an idol has no real existence, and that there is no God but one. For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords,” yet for us there is one God, the Father . . . and one Lord, Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 8:4–6)
You turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. (1 Thessalonians 1:9b–10)
The Chosen Nation Israel
For we are the true circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and put no confidence in the flesh. (Philippians 3:3)
For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. (Galatians 6:15)
The Torah of Moses
For Christ is the end of the Torah, that everyone who has faith may be justified. (Romans 10:4)
Now before faith came, we were confined under the Torah, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. So the Torah was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian. (Galatians 3:23–25)
Paul’s statements in these three areas not only separate him from the various forms of Judaism of his day; they also serve to exclude Jews, who do not bow the knee to Jesus as Lord, from the “new Israel” that Paul believes God is creating through one’s union with the Christ-Spirit. Simply put, the implication of what Paul teaches is no less than the demise of Judaism.