THE CROSS IS STILL AN OFFENSE

By Akin Ojumu

There are many today who subscribe to the notion that there’s no daylight between Christians and Jews. These are folks who, in their egregiously erroneous understanding of Scripture, see the Jews as Christians best buddies. Very often you hear them assert that “The Jews are our allies while the Arabs are our enemies.”

As these two video clips demonstrate, nothing can be further from the truth. Just as it was in the days of Christ and His Disciples, so it is today. The Name of Christ continues to evoke maniacal, raucous, rabid and even aggressive sentiments among the Jews even to this day.

In the first clip, a group of Orthodox Jews, both old and young, can be seen spitting at Christian tourists who were carrying the Cross in the Old City of Jerusalem on October 2, 2023.

The second clip shows an Israeli man run up to a Catholic Nun and shove her to the ground from behind in an unprovoked attack in Jerusalem. Not content with seeing the poor woman crouch in pain on the cobblestones, the attacker came back to kick her before passersby intervened. What’s notable in this clip is the nonchalance of the orthodox Jews nearby. They didn’t seem to care at all.

As you can see, more than two thousand years later, the Cross remains an offense to unbelieving Jews just as it was in the First Century. In fact, as a Christian symbol, the Cross is such an offense that it is scrupulously avoided by Jews. You would never find an Orthodox Jew wearing badges or decorations with the sign of the cross attached to them.

The aversion of the Jews for the Cross actually goes even further. Jews do not use the plus (+) sign as a mathematical expression. Because, to them, it looks like the Christian Cross, they avoid the plus (+) sign all together. What they use, instead, is something that looks like an inverted capital T, i.e., ﬩.

When I come across news stories about the hatred harbored by a certain segment of the Jewish people towards the followers of Christ, the words of Paul seem to echo from the corridor of time.

1 Corinthians 1:18

“For the word of the Cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

1 Corinthians 1:23-24

“...But we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God...”

2 Corinthians 2:14-16

“But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?”

Galatians 5:11

“Now, brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the Cross has been abolished.”

Clearly, the offense of the Cross is as strong as it has ever been, and perhaps, even stronger.

Present-day Israel is a secular state with a secular government. Orthodox Jews don’t believe that Jesus Christ is God or the Messiah. Traditional Jewish belief is that the Messiah has not yet come and the Messianic Age is not yet present. To the extent that the Jews think about Jesus at all, the best they’ll say about Him is that He was an ordinary Rabbi whose teachings contradicted the Torah.

This understanding of the attitude of the Jews towards Christ and His followers should never be a source of hatred for the Jews. It is unbiblical for Christians, or anyone else for that matter, to hold antisemitic grudges. Instead, what God expects of every Bible-believing Christian is to earnestly pray for the salvation of the Jews. For God’s gifts and calling are irrevocable. His love for Israel is an everlasting love. As many of the Jews as God has predestined and elected to save, He will save at His own time.

Romans 11:25-32

“Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”; “and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.” As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.”