Are the Scriptures anti-Semitic?

There is not a single passage in Scripture that so much as implies that Jews are inhuman, that they are without sin, that they did not fall in Adam and don't need the Messiah. Indeed, salvation is first to the Jews. But if Jews were without sin they would not need salvation. The entire sacrificial system (which is what the book of Leviticus is about) points to the fact that every person is a sinner who desperately needs the Messiah, who ultimately comes to shed his blood to save them. There are a number of Jewish people both commended by God and condemned by God in the Torah. Consider the sons of Korah, swallowed by the earth. They were Jews. The greatest heroes of the Hebrew Scriptures are Jews. And many great sinners spoken of in the Hebrew Scriptures are Jews. Is it anti-Semitism to say that Jews too are under the fall and the curse, that Jews too are sinners, that Jews too need the Savior?

Randy Alcorn (@randyalcorn) is the author of over sixty books and the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries

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