Inside View Jan/Feb 2023
A few years ago, a friend sent me a page from the December 27, 1937, issue of Life magazine. In it was an article titled “Christmas in Naziland,” with a photograph of an appalling Christmas ornament depicting a dead Jewish man hanging from a gallows with two vultures perched on top.
The ornament was mass produced by an Austrian company and sold, Life said, “by Austria’s Anti-Semiten [sic] Bund to provide Christmas relief for poverty-stricken Austrian Jew-haters.” The horrific creation shows how rampant the antisemitism was that infected Nazi Europe in the 1930s.
Hatred of Jewish people was so popular that this hideous depiction of the murder of a Jewish man was considered appropriate at the time of year when people celebrate the birth of a Jewish boy, Jesus Christ.
Today, we see the alarming growth of antisemitism around the world. Many people, both inside and outside the church, oppose the State of Israel’s existence and see it as the root cause of violence in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement continues to gain influence in its efforts to destroy the Jewish state.
As horrific and inhumane as antisemitism is, it remains one of the greatest proofs that God has not rejected Israel, despite what others say. Antisemitism grows out of Satan’s rebellion against God and his attempts to eliminate the one, unique people through whom God is accomplishing His plan to redeem the world and restore His Kingdom on Earth.
The Bible clearly teaches that God created Israel to bring salvation to mankind. When He made His covenant with Abraham, God promised to bless all the nations of the world through him (Gen. 12:3). In making that promise, said the apostle Paul, God was preaching “the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed’” (Gal. 3:8). God viewed the salvation of the world as coming through Abraham’s descendants.
The gospel is the means of Satan’s defeat through Jesus Christ. Since Israel is the channel through which God will complete His redemptive work, Israel is Satan’s greatest threat. Antisemitism and its effort to eradicate the Jewish people are Satan’s best chance to thwart his forthcoming, eternal judgment from God. Without Israel, Jesus Christ can’t return to Earth, restore God’s Kingdom on Earth, or sit on David’s throne to rule over Israel from Jerusalem, as God promised.
Satan has tried many times to wipe the Jewish people from the face of the earth. In Exodus, Pharaoh brought his army against them, but God intervened and provided a way of escape through the Red Sea. The book of Esther tells of Haman’s diabolical plan to eliminate the Jewish people. But God used Queen Esther to save her people from annihilation.
Even the psalmist cried to God for help against those who conspired against Israel—people who said, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more” (Ps. 83:4). The Holocaust in Nazi Europe was one of Satan’s more recent attempts to destroy God’s Chosen People.
But herein is proof that God is not finished with Israel. If He were finished, there would be no reason for Satan to expend such effort to annihilate the Jewish people.
Antisemitism has been around since Israel’s beginning and will remain as long as Satan sees Israel as the path through which Jesus will return and destroy him. This is why hatred of the Jewish people has spanned the centuries of time and continues to this day.
