A Christian’s position regarding the Jews and Israel can be both one of sympathy and disapproval. Of sympathy because throughout the ages the Jews have had to endure much unjust and cruel antisemitism. Sympathy also because the church’s history is bound up with Israel’s earlier history (Romans 9-11). Yet on the other hand, a Christian’s position in relation to the Jews is also one of disapproval because, by and large, they continue to reject the Christ through whom alone salvation is promised and given.
Lately Christian sympathy for the Jews has been aroused by the horrendous headline-grabbing attacks against them by Muslim terrorists. The recent Muslim copilot’s attempt to take control of a Flydubai plane with mainly Jewish passengers and to crash into buildings in Tel Aviv, Israel, is a case in point. We thank God that the attempted hijacking was foiled and the plane landed safely. The Flydubai hijacking attempt has again brought Muslim antisemitism into the limelight.
Just ten months ago, our sympathy towards the Jews was aroused even more strongly when, on December 14th, 2025, two Muslim terrorists opened fire on a group of Jews who were celebrating their Hanukah Festival in Sydney. Of the forty people shot, fifteen died, including a 14-year-old girl. (The horrific attack is graphically described in a well-research book, BONDI TERROR, which also describes the aftermath and criticises our government’s failure to heed warnings.) Little wonder that Jews no longer feel safe even in Australia.
And just two years earlier, on the 7 October 2022, there was the headline news of Muslim terrorists’ massacre of 1200 Jews and the kidnapping and torture of others in an attack in Southern Israel. What those Hamas terrorists did to kidnapped men, women and children was barbaric, inhumane, despicable. Readers of these atrocities are left wondering about the depths of depravity reflected in the shockingly wicked behaviour of the attackers.
In the short periods between these headline-grabbing events the relentless persecution of Jews has continued in somewhat less dreadful yet nevertheless disturbing, hate-filled occurrences—also here in Australia. As Jewish former treasurer Josh Frydenberg said, we have seen “a level of depravity, violence, harassment, intimidation, hate and harm that has occurred in Australia in the years following the October 7 Hamas attack”.[i] There have been fire-bombings of synagogues, Jewish childcare centres, vehicles and homes, bullying, the cancellation of their performances, the targeting of Jewish businesses and the transformation of universities into what he brands “hotbeds of hate”.[ii] We know that God will sooner or later punish the culprits, unless they repent. Meanwhile, in all these persecutions we sympathise with the Jews and pray that our governments and police will show the moral courage to act strongly against such continuing examples of hatred.
However, there is a further reason why we Christians lean sympathetically toward the Jews. It’s because our own history is inextricably linked to theirs. Although they have rejected the Christ and salvation through Him, the Jews remain “beloved for the sake of the fathers” (Romans 11:28). The LORD made His covenant with the Jewish patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—our spiritual forefathers at the time of the Old Testament church. Today’s New Testament church is a continuation of that Old Testament church, for Christ gathers His church from the beginning of the world to its end (Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 21) and Israel was once the Old Testament nation church with which we are historically affiliated.
We, Christians who stem from among the Gentiles, have been grafted as branches into the tree of the ancient covenant people and now bear the name of Zion’s children, the spiritual Israel. We also remember that God has the power to graft the natural branches back in. Romans chapters 9 to 11 show that there remains hope in God’s mercy for natural Israel. Hence for this reason, too, we harbour strong leanings towards the Jews.
Nevertheless, as the late Dutch statesman and journalist Piet Jongeling said,[iii] we cannot ignore the infinite distance between Israel before and after Christ’s ministry on earth. Whilst it is true that the persecution of the Jews has continued (apart from some brief periods of peace) for as long as the people of Israel have existed as a nation, we do need to distinguish between the time of their persecution before Christ was on earth and the time after Christ was on earth.
Prior to Christ’s earthly presence, Satan was, on the one hand, continually trying to exterminate God’s covenant people whilst the LORD, on the other hand, used that antagonism towards the Jews to chasten and refine them. We read in Revelation 12 a historical sketch of how Satan, presented as the dragon, assailed the woman (the OT church) who was to bring the Child—the Messiah—into the world.
However, once this Child was caught up to God and His throne—that is, when Christ’s ascension had taken place—the situation of the Jewish people changed. They rejected and crucified the Christ. While thousands of Jews did convert on the Day of Pentecost and subsequently through the preaching of the apostles, others remained hardened. New Testament Israel—the people of the promise, the true seed of Abraham—is then no longer primarily the Jewish people, but the Church of Christ, formed from both Jews and Gentiles.
In the Epistle to the Galatians, Paul calls this New Testament church “the Israel of God”. She is the bride of Christ. She continues to exist through the ages, inherits God’s mercy, but also Satan’s enmity:
“When the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who had given birth to the male child … And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus” (Revelation 12:13 and 17).
Yet the Jewish people—the physical seed of Abraham—have also continued to exist. Jongeling explains how, in the centuries following Christ’s earthly physical presence, the Jews have suffered immensely. Shortly before His death, the Saviour Himself, in deep sorrow, foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, the demolition of the Temple, and the unleashing of God’s wrath upon the Jewish people, because they had rejected and crucified the long-awaited Messiah. Israel did not bask in the light of the cross; instead, it rejected that light. Israel refused to acknowledge the Crucified One—hanging there between heaven and earth as the true Mediator between God and man—as its Redeemer! Israel did not wish to partake of the blessing of the blood of the cross; rather, it willingly brought the curse of that blood upon itself by persisting in the declaration made to Pilate regarding Jesus: “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Matt. 27:25).
And, adds Jongeling, because Israel rejected the light of the cross, it found itself once again in the shadow of the cross. Not the shadow that brings a blessing, but the shadow that brings a curse! For those who understood it, dwelling in that shadow—in the days of old, before Golgotha—was a blessing and a privilege for Israel. Through it, Israel stood at the forefront of the nations: the people among whom God dwelt, among whom He made known and preserved His revelation, and the people among whom the promise to Abraham was fulfilled: “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 22:18).
We might compare the cross of Jesus to the pillar of cloud and fire during Israel’s exodus from Egypt—though with the roles reversed for the Jews! For Israel, that pillar was a pillar of fire by night, bringing joy and blessing; for the Egyptians, it was a pillar of cloud, keeping them in darkness and striking them with terror! Likewise, the cross of Golgotha is a source of joyful light for believers from all nations; yet upon unbelievers—and not least upon Israel, which cast out its Messiah—it casts a dark shadow, a shadow that strikes terror!
Jongeling says that the shadow of the cross before Golgotha—under which Israel dwelt in times past—speaks of God’s merciful grace; the shadow of the cross after Golgotha speaks of man’s unwillingness to acknowledge Divine love, of the darkness apart from the Messiah—the darkness of Divine judgment! We must recognize God’s hand in all of this.
Yet this must never tempt us, even for a moment, to condone or even approve of the horrific persecution of the Jews. Indeed, we are to pray for them, and not only for them but also for Muslims, and all unbelievers. In our Book of Praise[iv] we have a “Prayer for all the needs of Christendom” which includes these words: “We pray for the mission among Jews, Muslims and heathens, who live without hope and without you in the world.”
Let’s continue to do so, praying that many may yet come to worship God for His awesome deeds of creation, for His gloriously gracious work of salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord, and for His powerful work of recreation through the Holy Spirit.
[i] Josh Frydenberg on his memoir A Grateful Son, moral leadership, and a potential political comeback | The Australian, 10 October 2026.
[ii] Ibid
[iii] P. Jongeling, “De Joden en Israel” (The Jews and Israel), Christus en de Volken (Christ and the Nations), Stichting Gereformeerd Gezinsblad, 1959, pp. 240ff.
[iv] Book of Praise: Anglo-Genevan Psalter, Premier Printing, Winnipeg, 2015, p. 636.