A response to Mark Kinzer
Hieronder volgt de lezing die ik hield bij de studiedag aan de CHE Ede op 17 januari 2025.
The conversation we are having today is a vital one for a Christian theologian like myself. The relation between Church and Israel, and between the ecclesia ex circumcisione and the ecclesia ex gentibus belongs to the central themes in the letters of the Apostle Paul, although it has long been forgotten in the Christian West, in which I find myself. Also, I am part of the Reformed tradition, in which the notion of the covenant has been central. This notion is also crucial for Mark Kinzer’s theology, since the covenant is not a universal gift to humankind, but a very specific one. Luckily, the conversation between Christianity and Judaism, also Messianic Judaism, is ongoing for several decades now, and despite serious challenges, it is still continued, even today.
It is my pleasure to reflect on the important thoughts brought forward by dr. Mark Kinzer, which build forth on his 2005 monograph Postmissionary Messianic Judaism. I will underline some of his thoughts, ask some questions and will explore what can and should be said from the side of Christian systematic theology.
Since a view from nowhere does not exist, let me highlight one aspect of my theological journey that can help to contextualise my position and today’s discussion. A couple of years ago, I wrote a book on Mary, the mother of Jesus – it is still only available in Dutch, but an English translation is underway, let’s hope publishers are interested. When I wrote on the Gospel of Matthew and the virgin birth described there, I highlighted the importance of Matthew’s reference to Isaiah 7. It is the first of Matthew’s beloved fulfilment citations. Following mainline exegesis, I concluded that Matthew’s emphasis is primarily on God’s faithfulness to Israel. Back in Isaiah’s days, Judah was threatened in its existence, but God would deliver it and therefore, a sign was given: a young woman would be pregnant, give birth to a son whose name would be ‘Immanuel’ and before that little boy could tell the difference between left and right, between right and wrong, the enemies would be done away with. In Matthew’s days, everything is larger and more intense: the threat is more serious, since Israel is losing its independence to the Romans. But the deliverance will also be greater, because this Immanuel is God in the flesh and He will conquer the powers of sin and death. Therefore, the sign is also more special: a virgin birth. Matthew does not emphasise virginity as some sort of higher status (that would be strange for anyone who find the Song of Songs in their sacred texts). Rather, God’s faithfulness to Israel is the focal point.
Although I could have known this, I was shocked to see that in subsequent generations of Christians, Matthew’s main point (God’s faithfulness to Israel) was lost out of sight, while virginity became a theme in itself, leading to people entering convents and cloisters, and to the celibate as requirement for priests. Eventually, here in the Christian West, Christians persecuted Jews because of their Jewishness, in the name of the Jew Jesus and his Jewish mother Mary. This should have gone differently, and it could, as the famous mosaic in the Basilica di Santa Sabina all’Aventino testifies. To the left, we see the ecclesia ex circumcisione, the Church from circumcision, and to the right, there is the ecclesia ex gentibus, the Church from the gentiles. They are two women united. A similar mosaic, also from the fifth century, is found in the main Marian church, the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. It depicts the adoration of the Magi. To Christ’s right, for us on the left, is Mary, adorned as a Byzantine empress, with all the gold and diadems. The woman on Christ’s left has given rise to much discussion: who is she? The similarities with the contemporary mosaic of the Santa Sabina (the mappa in the hand, the fancy red shoes) make it likely that she represents the ecclesia ex gentibus. Note that the women here are dissimilar, and that it is Mary who steals the show, although the lowly girl from Nazareth is hard to recognise in all this Byzantine splendour. My point is that even in fifth century Rome, the unity and diversity of the church of Jews and gentiles was still in view. Because of the apostle Paul, because of Mary, because of Jesus and because of the living God, the church must anew find ways to express this unity.
But how should this be done? Mark Kinzer has proposed a bilateral ecclesiology in solidarity with Israel. It is particularly the bilateral part that fascinates me, and that gives rise to some questions. Before I formulate these questions, let me underline that while Kinzer focuses on ecclesiology here, the ramifications of this discussion are christological, soteriological and eschatological.
My first question concerns the nature of the unity of the Church. Kinzer describes what he calls the perichoretic union in which the Jewish people dwells hidden within the church, and the church within the Jewish people, ‘a single—but twofold—people of God’ (p. 1). I agree that the ecclesia needs more than just individual Jews, but when Kinzer writes that she needs an ecclesia ex circumcisione to partner with the ecclesia ex gentibus, I wonder whether this partnership does not distinguish the two too sharply. Can a Jewish Christian Church exist next to another Christian Church? As congregations, yes, but ultimately, the Church is one because Christ is not separated. Do Jewish and gentile identities remain distinct, as Kinzer writes? I have noted that this distinction in no way implies separation, but is this distinction necessary or is it optional? Is it necessary that Jewish Christians express their Jewish identity for the Church to be Church? That is something I hesitate to affirm. While there should be room for such expression, and while the unity of Jew and gentile in Christ is crucial, I doubt whether this expression is necessary. In other words, is it compulsory for an observant Jew who acknowledges Jesus as the Messiah to keep observing Torah? Does he commit sin when he no longer follows that path but assimilates? For sure: I would encourage the Jew to observe the Torah (and would dissuade gentiles to follow the tracks of the Christian Torah movement). But my question is whether this is absolutely necessary for the Church to be Church?
My second question relates to the solidarity with Israel. Kinzer writes that the ecclesia depends on the life of the Jewish people for the ‘Israelite’ identity that is intrinsic to her ‘ecclesial’ identity. My question is what kind of life Kinzer means. Of course, the religious life and the observation of the Jewish calendar. But (braces yourselves, ladies and gentlemen) what are the consequences for discussions on the land of Israel? If I understand Kinzer’s work correctly, the people and the land cannot be dealt with separately, as is often the case in Christian theology, which post World War II adheres to an indissoluble bond with Israel, which is interpreted as a bond to the Jewish people. I wonder to which extent Kinzer would like to stretch the inherent bilateral nature of his ecclesiology? Should the Christian Church because of its bilateral nature support Jewish claims on the land of Israel, and if so: how does this relate to the state of Israel?
Theologically, the relation between the (in Christian terms) Old and New Testaments is at stake. Nobody wants to be a supersessionist these days, and for good reasons. Meanwhile, the question is what Christ’s fulfilment of Torah means. Jesus Christ is a distinctly non-political Messiah: his kingdom is of a spiritual nature, it is not of the present world, but of the world to come – and this is where we touch on the theme of eschatology too. What is the status and the future of the land of Israel?
The Dutch Reformed theologian Kornelis Heiko Miskotte once wrote an essay on Israel as question to the Church. In it, he notes that the main question Israel asks the Church is: if Jesus is indeed the Messiah, why is the world still not redeemed and liberated? This coheres with the utterly concrete nature of salvation, bodily and earthly.
This leads me to a third question, related to soteriology. In the second aspect Kinzer notes when defining postmissionary Messianic Judaism ‘the hidden sanctifying reality of Yeshua already residing at the center of Jewish life and religious tradition.’ There is a ‘hidden messianic presence’. This seems to imply that the Jewish people as a whole and every single Jew within the broader Jewish tradition is saved by Jesus in a hidden way, even without acknowledging Jesus as Messiah or even while outrightly denying he is the Messiah. I think Kinzer’s approach fits traditional Roman-Catholic theology better than it can match with my Protestant tradition, because it reckons with something like ‘anonymous Christians’ (in the sense of ‘implicit sanctification through the Messiah’), and thinks in terms of sanctifying rather than justifying grace: the increase of sanctification leads to justification. To state the obvious in this respect: as a Protestant, I miss the Pauline emphasis on justification through faith. Can this faith remain ‘implicit’, in the sense of it being enveloped within the Jewish tradition?
But of course, these questions can be turned on their head and then returned to sender. What alternative do I propose? Some variant of Judenmission, leading Jewish people to faith in their Messiah? Like supersessionism, mission to the Jews has for very good reasons a very bad reputation, but like with respect to supersessionism, this may lead to the eclipse of important questions, that need to be asked. One such question concerns the importance of faith. This has been much abused, and I do not advocate either Judenmission or the dualist, individualist, and often methodist, approach to faith found in broad strands of American evangelicalism. But faith still is theologically important.
On the other hand, I can imagine that non-Messianic Jewish people find it unacceptable that the reality of Yeshua should be at the center of their religious life. Isn’t that an illegitimate appropriation? Can Messianic Jews define the identity of all of Israel in its entirety, or should Israel itself define its own identity? I find these very complicated questions.
Let me suggest a pneumatological rather than a christological key to the ‘hidden sanctifying reality’ of Jesus at the centre of Jewish life. Sanctification is a pneumatological category, and while the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, he is not Christ himself. From Calvin, I learned that the Spirit operates in a variety of ways, creation of force field of grace and sanctification, always moving outward to draw people inward: from the world to the Scriptures, from the Scriptures to Jesus Christ, through Christ to God. The Spirit operates in Jewish religious life: outward from Jesus the centre, whose grace is spread throughout this religious life and forms itself expressions of God’s grace. But also inward, drawing through this life to the living God, who has revealed himself in Christ. The advantage of this pneumatological rather than christological approach is twofold. First, there is an ongoing dynamic rather than a static image of a center and perimeter. Second, christological categories are often absolute or digital: either Christ is present, or not; either one is in Christ, or not; believes in Him or not. Pneumatological categories, on the other hand, give room for development between 0 and 1, make space for variety. The work of the Holy Spirit is often hidden, as Calvin repeatedly notes in his Institutes, and therefore it fits the notion of hidden presence, that of Christ in the heart of Israel as well as that of Israel in the heart of the church.
In closing, let me step back to see the bigger picture of what we are doing here today. Theological dialogue with the living Israel, in fact with Jews who believe in Yeshua as the Messiah, puts enormous pressure on theological categories in ecclesiology, christology, soteriology, and eschatology — and this is the way it should be, as it was for the apostle Paul and others. For the ecclesia ex circumcisione is not a separate entity from the ecclesia ex gentibus, since Christ is neither divided nor separated from his people.