The Last Temple Discourse

175:2.1The fact that the spir­i­tual lead­ers and the re­li­gious teach­ers of the Jew­ish na­tion one­time re­jected the teach­ings of Je­sus and con­spired to bring about his cruel death, does not in any man­ner af­fect the sta­tus of any in­di­vid­ual Jew in his stand­ing be­fore God. And it should not cause those who pro­fess to be fol­low­ers of the Christ to be prej­u­diced against the Jew as a fel­low mor­tal. The Jews, as a na­tion, as a so­ciopo­lit­i­cal group, paid in full the ter­ri­ble price of re­ject­ing the Prince of Peace. Long since they ceased to be the spir­i­tual torch­bear­ers of di­vine truth to the races of man­kind, but this con­sti­tutes no valid rea­son why the in­di­vid­ual de­scen­dants of these long-ago Jews should be made to suf­fer the per­se­cu­tions which have been vis­ited upon them by in­tol­er­ant, un­wor­thy, and big­oted pro­fessed fol­low­ers of Je­sus of Naz­a­reth, who was, him­self, a Jew by nat­u­ral birth.

175:2.2Many times has this un­rea­son­ing and un-Christ­like ha­tred and per­se­cu­tion of mod­ern Jews ter­mi­nated in the suf­fer­ing and death of some in­no­cent and un­of­fend­ing Jew­ish in­di­vid­ual whose very an­ces­tors, in the times of Je­sus, heart­ily ac­cepted his gospel and pres­ently died un­flinch­ingly for that truth which they so whole­heart­edly be­lieved. What a shud­der of hor­ror passes over the on­look­ing ce­les­tial be­ings as they be­hold the pro­fessed fol­low­ers of Je­sus in­dulge them­selves in per­se­cut­ing, ha­rass­ing, and even mur­der­ing the later-day de­scen­dants of Pe­ter, Philip, Mat­thew, and oth­ers of the Pales­tinian Jews who so glo­ri­ously yielded up their lives as the first mar­tyrs of the gospel of the heav­enly king­dom!

175:2.3How cruel and un­rea­son­ing to com­pel in­no­cent chil­dren to suf­fer for the sins of their pro­gen­i­tors, mis­deeds of which they are wholly ig­no­rant, and for which they could in no way be re­spon­si­ble! And to do such wicked deeds in the name of one who taught his dis­ci­ples to love even their en­e­mies! It has be­come nec­es­sary, in this recital of the life of Je­sus, to por­tray the man­ner in which cer­tain of his fel­low Jews re­jected him and con­spired to bring about his ig­no­min­ious death; but we would warn all who read this nar­ra­tive that the pre­sen­ta­tion of such a his­tor­i­cal recital in no way jus­ti­fies the un­just ha­tred, nor con­dones the un­fair at­ti­tude of mind, which so many pro­fessed Chris­tians have main­tained to­ward in­di­vid­ual Jews for many cen­turies. King­dom be­liev­ers, those who fol­low the teach­ings of Je­sus, must cease to mis­treat the in­di­vid­ual Jew as one who is guilty of the re­jec­tion and cru­ci­fix­ion of Je­sus. The Fa­ther and his Cre­ator Son have never ceased to love the Jews. God is no re­specter of per­sons, and sal­va­tion is for the Jew as well as for the gen­tile.