"...I with many others believe that the Messianic movement is the portent of the eschatological reunion between the nation and the "dispersed children of God." This is why there is hardly a more urgent task than preparing the Church to welcome Israel qua Israel as an inalienable part of her truth and fullness..." (Father Antoine Levy OP in the Jewish Church)Father Levy, unlike many other Catholics, does not dismiss the Messianic Jewish movement as just another form of Protestantism but as a sign of our times pointing to the eschatological mystery of the reunion of the Church and Synagogue. I would agree with him.
Levy agrees with many of the Fathers of the Church that Israel's continued corporate identity demonstrated Israel's protestation of fidelity to the God of Israel. However, Levy disagrees with those Fathers who see this fidelity as blind or mistaken, for Israel not being willing to give up its distinct calling and election to witness to God through Torah and mitzvot, in order to assimilate into the Gentile ruled and influenced Church. He perceives this collective rejection of Israel of assimilation as in accord with Divine Providence. This refusal of the Synagogue to accept Yeshua as the Messiah at this stage is thus seen as God-guided and allowed or according to Divine Providence. Father Levy states:
"In this manner, Israel was meant to be preserved as a distinct collective entity among the nations of the earth."The resulting Gentilisation, due to demographic numbers of the Church and its subsequent supercessionism and anti-Judaism, seems to have been necessary. Thus, it was necessary in order to preserve Israel as a collective identity, in fidelity to God's election of them. This was in accord with the role they were to play in salvation history. This role was to be a living witness to the God of Israel and the Jewish Messiah. This was in accord to their eschatological role in the final sanctification and divinisation of the Church, as the people of God, that usher in the Kingdom of the Divine Will on earth as it is in Heaven, within history and time.
St Paul, in both Romans and 2 Corinthians, speaks of the veil over the eyes of the Synagogue (Israel as a collective). This alludes to the veil Moses placed over his face after his Divine Encounter of the Glory of God on Mt Sinai, as the people were not ready to receive such light directly. Paul reveals, in Romans 11, that this blindfold or veil which God himself has placed over Israel is for a Divine Purpose connected with God desiring both Jews and Gentiles to receive salvation through divine mercy and grace.
The newly Christian nations needed time and development to grow spiritually for that time when Israel would be engrafted back into the Church. This would bring new life or a resurrection from the dead to the Church in a time of Great Apostasy. This spiritual resurrection would bring spiritual riches to both the Church and the world. It would be a time of mutual enrichment for Synagogue and Church.
In the writings of the servant of God Luisa Piccarreta, Jesus tells her that the Roman Church, due to its appreciation of the role of those Jews who founded the Church and spread the Gospel, would present the gift of living in Divine Will to Jerusalem and the Jewish people. This will usher in what Pope John Paul II called a new and divine holiness and a new springtime for the Church in the Third Millennium.
Time was needed by both Jews and Gentile Christians to spiritually bear fruit in the grace of the Kingdom of Salvation. The Gentiles received this grace knowingly by embracing Yeshua in baptism. The Jewish people as a collective who did not accept the Messiahship of Jesus unknowingly as the people of the Messiah according to the flesh. There of course was a small collective of Israelites who did believe in YeshuahaMashiach, who were zealous for Torah and mitzvot, who was called the Church of the Circumcision. However, this remnant of grace was soon swamped by the Gentiles and gradually disappeared by assimilation into the Gentile culture of the wider Church or back into Judaism. Intolerance in regards to Jewish Christians hardened on both sides.
There are three aspects of Torah - the Torah itself, Talmud Torah and Torah observance. Faith in Torah itself is connected with salvation, as Yeshua is the living Torah. Talmud Torah accesses grace for sanctity and Torah observances or good deeds manifest that grace in time and place.
Jews are not saved through Torah observance but they grow in sanctity through Torah observances. They participate unknowingly in salvation through their devotion to the Torah which is the Word of God and thus the Messiah who is King of the Jews. Pope Benedict XVI taught that Jews and Judaism have not just an eschatological role in the future but also have an important role to play in the economy of salvation during the times of the Gentiles.
Just as we read the Old Testament in the light of the New Testament so we read the older teachings of the Church and Fathers, as well as Scripture, in the light of the new developments in doctrine. A doctrine or dogma comes forth from the history of the Divine Revelation through the centuries. It has always been there in the deposit of Faith but is drawn out and revealed as the Holy Spirit guides the Church through the centuries when it is the right time. Once such a new insight is accepted by the Church officially, then one must look at all the past teachings in the light or prism of this newly proclaimed doctrine or dogma.
This new look through the prism will bring to light new understandings and insights into the Divine Revelation. Thus, since Vatican II, we must look at the history and teachings of the Church and its relationship with Jews and Judaism through the prism of Nostra Aetate 4 in the context of the other documents of Vatican II and the further clarifications since then in the documents of the Church. Thus, since Pope John Paul II taught that the Old Covenant had never been revoked and placed that teaching in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, one needs to now look at past theological opinions and review them and adapt them to fit with this understanding. This understanding or teaching has now become definitive and is not just one of many theological speculations and opinions that are still open to discussion.
The Jews were given the gift of salvation by Jesus in his first coming by his death on the Cross for all. In the future the Jews must receive knowingly that gift of salvation and then they will be offered the gift of the Divine Will by the Roman Church. Israel as a whole or collective may then receive the gift of the highest sanctity of 'Living in the Divine Will'.
We know from present magisterial teaching that the covenant with the Jews was not revoked so now when we look back at the Fathers we must evaluate what teachings of the Fathers were based on the false premise that the Old Covenant was revoked and that God had finished with the Jews. Only the magisterium can definitively decide what is true Word of God in the teachings of the Fathers and what is not. This is part of the gift of infallibility granted to Peter and the Apostles and thus Peter's successors and those Bishops who teach in union with him.
The Fathers of the Church, who were mainly Gentiles and thus were influenced by their time and culture, did not have in most cases a living knowledge of the Jewish Faith and roots. They thus misunderstood certain passages of Scripture, due to their anti-Jewish prejudices common in their time and place. It did not help that the writings of St Ignatius of Antioch were edited so that anti-Jewish rhetoric was added to his original text which then later Fathers assumed were the actual thoughts of this earliest of the Church Fathers.
The "Jews" of John's Gospel in one sense represents the whole people who united with the chief priests and Caiaphas offer the Messiah as the lamb sacrifice (korban) on behalf of the whole Jewish nation. All Jews cry out and consent to this sacrifice both the believers and the unbelievers in the Messiahship of Yeshua. It is not just the Jews who they offer this sacrifice for, but through the priests of Israel, the Jews as a collective offer this sacrifice for all nations, who also cry out "crucify him".
I very much respect both Father Levy and Rabbi Kinzer and their work for Yachad beYeshua which is providing a voice for Jewish believers in Yeshua. I think my difference in perspective, which I have at times with both of them, is due to their Jewish backgrounds, in which Rabbi Kinzer has come from an American Conservative Jewish background and Father Levy from a secular French Jewish background. My perspectives come from a more Chasidic Jewish perspective and Anglo-Jewish influence.
It is the perspective of the Anglican Hebrew Christian priest Paul Levertoff and the Russian Orthodox priest Lev Gillet's reflections on Levertoff that resonate more with me. They saw the perspective of a future Jewish Church in the light of it being a Chasidic style Jewish branch of the Catholic Church.
I think the mystical aspect of the Church is important. Thus, I like the iconic image of the Church as the Mystical Body of the Messiah which has Israel and Judaism at its centre or heart. From this heart the Gentile branches of the East and West are intimately connected as the mystical lungs of this Body of the Messiah.
In a sense, we also may need a Church that has the Successor of Peter as the Pope who is the Vicar of the Messiah, with a Successor of John as the Messianic Chief or High Priest and a Successor of James as the Messianic Davidic Nasi with a Messianic Sanhedrin or Synod of 70 Patriarchs or Cardinals.
Pope Francis has confirmed the teachings on Jews and Judaism as taught by his predecessors in the Papacy and teaches that Judaism and its wisdom is not extrinsic to the Church but is at the roots of the Church and is a part of the Church's own evangelisation to the the nations. The Association of Hebrew Catholics since 1979 has been endeavoring to prepare a space for the Jewish people as Jews in the Church but much more work needs to be done.
