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1.1.1 - A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age
The Origin of Christianity
Judaism - Zeal for Righteousness
At the time of Jesus, there existed a widespread belief, not only by the prophets, but the Jewish people in general that there existed a special relationship between them and the Lord God of Israel. They knew when and how it began and the history of their nation from its inception. The belief was that God, the Creator and Lord of the entire world, and had chosen them from among all the nations of the world to be His own peculiar possession and to receive His choicest blessings. [see: Gen. 17:1-7]
With the national conscience of their election, emphasized by the prophets and grown more vivid in later days, made it impossible for true Israelite to believe that God would ever dessert them. Yet it was very plain in the later days of the Hebrew monarchy, that actual condition of Israel was far from what might be expected of a people enjoying the divine care and protection.
It seemed as though the Almighty had forsaken them. But it was believed that He had not forsaken them forever. He would soon, or sometime in the future turn His head back to them and shine favor upon them and give them in abundant measure the blessings He had so long withheld.
From this was born the Messianic hope, the hope for the Messiah, the expected savior and liberator, the hope of a better, brighter, happier, and more glorious future for the Jewish nation, a hope that sustained them in the darkest days of exile, growing year by year more vivid and controlling.
Surely, burning in the minds of the Jews must have been the question: why God had turned His face from them? But what must they do to secure His returned favor was clear to them.
The why for them was simple and it is a tribute to the Hebrew profits that they for their ethical service to their people and the world of the meaning and requirements of the convenant. God, being righteous, would only withhold blessings from His people, only because their unrighteousness. The people were not upholding their part of the bargin, to obey and worship Him.
Their history, filled with cyclical times of prosperity, followed by exile gave evidence to the profits’ message that national apostasy [act of renouncing one’s faith, principles, or party; desertion of a cause] would lead to national disaster, national righteousness would secure blessing, peace, prosperity, and plenty. Under their submission to the Romans, apostasy had borne is full fruits. The present conditions could not be worse. It was up to them to uphold their part of the bargain. They were united in their desire to promote and maintain national righteousness.
But righteousness had come to mean something else than that of the profits. In post-exilic days, it was not God’s love and mercy that received special emphasis; it was His holiness and sanctity. His separateness from all that is lowly and base and his transcendent elevation above things of sense characterized Him in contrast to the gods of the heathen. In order for the nation to be acceptable in God’s eyes, it must become pure like Him.
From this view of God came the Levitical law with all its ceremonial and ritual completeness. A law that spoke to the national belief in God’s sanctity, aimed to raise the national life above all that could corrupt and degrade, and thus to make the people fit for God.
However, the purity aimed at by a large proportion of the Levitical rites was not so much ethical as it was physical. Many natural object and processes were regarded as essentially impure and defiling in their influence, quite independently of any fault or sin on the part of the person affected. Under the pressure of the constant and anxious care required to maintain ceremonial cleanness and to restore it when violated, the people lost sight of the great moral principals of human life.
The Law had accomplished one its purposes, to rid the people of their apostasy. But in doing so, it put ceremonial ritual on the same plane as morality which was not the intent of the profits. That’s not to say that moral duty was ignored. Kindness and mercy towards each other was still encouraged, but not at the risk of breaking one of the thousands of rules regarding the Sabbath, cleanliness, tithing, fasting and purification.
The nation was obsessed with minute attention to obeying the letter of the law, even to its smallest and minute enactments. The observance of the Law was not left to the Parisees and scribes alone, but was demanded of all the people and it was generally met.
All zeal for education in the family, he school, and the synagogue aimed at making the whole people a people of the law. The common man was to know what the law commanded, and not only to know, but to do it. His whole life was to be ruled according to the morn of law; obedience thereto was to become a fixed custom, and departure therefrom an inward impossibility. On the whole, this object was to a great degree attained. So faithfully did most of the Jews adhere to their law, that they willingly incurred even torture and death itself in consequence. [See: Schurer, A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ. Div II, Vol. II. p. 50.]
Used by permission of the publisher.
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