What Is Driving The Resurgence Of Antisemitism In Our Modern World?
What is driving the resurgence in antisemitism in our world today? Is antisemitism equivalent to racism, or is it different somehow?
First of all, we believe that the Jewish people, as understood biblically, exist today. Do you realize there are more and more people who believe they don’t even exist and that they’ve been wiped out as a people? That’s wrong. Secondly, we believe that the Jewish people have a continuing role and purpose in God’s unfolding plan of the ages. God has appointed for them to remain as a people until the return of Jesus Christ in glory. Jesus said this to Jerusalem, “You will see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord’” (Matthew 23:39). I don’t think the population of Jerusalem was saying that in 70 A.D. That would be Preterism, which is an eschatological view that considers all biblical prophecies as having already been fulfilled, primarily with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
Matthew 23:39 tells us that not only will the Jewish people exist as a people until the very end times, but that there will be a national revival, and they will welcome Jesus. Paul recounts the same idea Romans 11. These Scriptures teach us that God has determined that the Jewish people will survive and that He has chosen for the Jewish people to have an important role in His unfolding plan of the ages. That makes them targets for the hatred of Satan, which I believe is the best explanation for the illogical and pathological Jew hatred. I prefer that term to antisemitism. It is a demonically orchestrated conspiracy to hate what God has said He loves and will preserve for His good purpose. We seem to see a very definite role for national Israel. When Christ returns, He comes to reign on the throne of David, over His geopolitical regathering of the people into the land.
Is Jew hatred satanic? I believe it is, at its root. When the Church was carrying out pogroms, persecutions, executions, and aspects of Jew hatred throughout its history, I don’t think they were consciously operating in Satan’s service. But just like Peter was the spokesman of Satan when he told Jesus to not go to the cross, although he wasn’t aware of it, so a person can be unwittingly used as a tool in Satan’s hand. I think that the Jew hatred and the justification of it plays into a satanic purpose.
It’s tragic to see the resurgence of this hatred against the Jews. It’s absolutely true that the world, especially the western world, had a lot of pity and compassion on the Jews after the Second World War, and that effected a great change. Part of the post war consensus was that it’s bad to murder the Jewish people, that we feel sorry for the Jewish people, and that they should survive as a people. That was the general consensus following World War II.
It’s disturbing to think that such thinking in the period after the Second World War might be coming to an end in the thinking of many people in the West. If that change of heart was simply an aberration, and we’re going to go back to the more established history of Jew hatred, it would be tragic.