Q: Matthew 27:25 records the Jewish crowd in Jerusalem crying out, His blood be on us, and on our children. This verse blames the Jews for the death of Jesus and has been used to justify their persecution for twenty centuries.
A: It doesnt blame the Jews. It reports the statement of the crowd-members. They credited themselves with Jesus death, imagining that they were executing a false teacher. But as the New Testament narrative proceeds to show, quite a few people in Jerusalem, including some of those who had been responsible for Jesus crucifixion, repented and became Christians.
This verse certainly has been abused. But that's not the text's fault. It simply records the crowd's statement. And the sentiment of the statement that it records is either true or false.
If it is false, then theres no way that this verse can be construed as justification for anti-Semitism. If it is true, then the inhabitants of Jerusalem and their children perished in the first century, and a large proportion of them lived to see the destruction of Jerusalem, signalling that God had responded to Israels abandonment of its role by establishing the church as His people, consisting of Jews and Gentiles. And since those individuals and their children are no longer with us, this verse should not be construed as justification for anti-Semitism.
Those who attempt to stretch our children to mean all our descendants have two Big Problems: when thinking over the prospect of persecuting any Jew in particular, they have no way of knowing that that particular Jew is a descendant of one of the Jews who happened to be in the crowd in Jerusalem when Jesus was crucified. They might be risking the persecution of a descendant of Nicodemus, or Joseph of Arimathea, or some other Jewish disciple of Jesus -- or, much more probably, the descendant of a non-Jerusalemite who had no idea, at the time Jesus was crucified, that the crucifixion was occurring. Second, it is manifest in the new covenant that each soul is to be held accountable for his own sins, not for the sins of his ancestors.
It was to pay all our debts, not only the debts of the crowd that day, that Jesus came.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
A: It doesnt blame the Jews. It reports the statement of the crowd-members. They credited themselves with Jesus death, imagining that they were executing a false teacher. But as the New Testament narrative proceeds to show, quite a few people in Jerusalem, including some of those who had been responsible for Jesus crucifixion, repented and became Christians.
This verse certainly has been abused. But that's not the text's fault. It simply records the crowd's statement. And the sentiment of the statement that it records is either true or false.
If it is false, then theres no way that this verse can be construed as justification for anti-Semitism. If it is true, then the inhabitants of Jerusalem and their children perished in the first century, and a large proportion of them lived to see the destruction of Jerusalem, signalling that God had responded to Israels abandonment of its role by establishing the church as His people, consisting of Jews and Gentiles. And since those individuals and their children are no longer with us, this verse should not be construed as justification for anti-Semitism.
Those who attempt to stretch our children to mean all our descendants have two Big Problems: when thinking over the prospect of persecuting any Jew in particular, they have no way of knowing that that particular Jew is a descendant of one of the Jews who happened to be in the crowd in Jerusalem when Jesus was crucified. They might be risking the persecution of a descendant of Nicodemus, or Joseph of Arimathea, or some other Jewish disciple of Jesus -- or, much more probably, the descendant of a non-Jerusalemite who had no idea, at the time Jesus was crucified, that the crucifixion was occurring. Second, it is manifest in the new covenant that each soul is to be held accountable for his own sins, not for the sins of his ancestors.
It was to pay all our debts, not only the debts of the crowd that day, that Jesus came.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
