Bible Study

Jewish Writers on the Two Covenant Theory

Today, many Jewish people widely believe in two separate covenants. In The Mission of the Jewish People in History and in the Modern World, Arthur Gilbert states:

Judaism allows for religious pluralism and does not consider it scandalous. …We do not believe that God’s plan for salvation requires your conversion to Judaism nor mine to Christianity. But it does require our cooperation, our concern for, our joint effort to repair the world.

Former associate director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Department of Interfaith Affairs, Leon Klenicki, expands on this in an essay discussing Jewish-Christian dialogue:

The dialogue involves a process of meeting and recognition between two faith communities, two experiences of God: Christianity and Judaism. It is an encounter of subjects, not faith, not objects of contempt, two equal testimonies to God. For each partner it means the recognition of the other as a constituent in God’s design, the acceptance of a different approach to the Eternal, a different though not conflicting spirituality.

In The Resurrection of Jesus, Orthodox Rabbi Pinchas Lapide summarizes the view of co-existing, co-equal, and complementary faiths:

We Jews and Christians are joined in brotherhood at the deepest level. …We are brothers in a manifold ‘elective affinity.’

Christians and the Two-Covenant Theory

There are also many Christians that believe in a two-covenant theology. These views generally extend from certain mainline denominations. None of which have retained a full belief in the inerrancy and authority of Scripture. For example in The Resurrection in Jewish-Christian Dialogue, Lutheran theologian Carl Braaten writes:

Christianity is the Judaizing of the pagans. The task of Christianity is to preach the gospel among the Gentiles. …The task of Judaism meanwhile is to remind Christianity of its original biblical roots.

Similarly, a number of Roman Catholic theologians have taken the pronouncements of Vatican II and Pope John Paul II’s 1991 Redemptoris Missio to their logical conclusion, namely, that religious dialogue with members of other religions is to replace actual missionary efforts:

Former Christian considerations of Judaism (as well as of other religions) encouraged proselytism. That is, Christians believed it not only legitimate but praiseworthy to exert economic, psychological, or spiritual pressure on non-Christians in order to gain new members for the Church. The dialogical position, however, is one in which the parties accept one another as mutually equal partners.

Christians who accept and believe in the Bible as the inerrant Word of God are increasingly being found to accept the two-covenant theology. To illustrate, at the time George Sheridan was the East Coast Regional Director for the Southern Baptist department of Interfaith Witness, he asserted in Critique of the Two-Covenant Theory that God’s bond with the Jewish people was never superseded by the first coming of Jesus:

The Jews of today, as ever, receive salvation through their having been chosen by God in covenant with Abraham, Moses, and the prophets. …My position is that the Jews do not require evangelization.

The Origin of Two-Covenant Theology

Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929) is prominent in virtually every historical work examining the factors that have influenced modern Jewish-Christian relations. Rosenzweig’s beliefs were like the proverbial stone that began an avalanche. The stone was an idea, a theory that created a storm in the history of ideas, especially in the history of religion. Just as avalanches begin slowly, picking up speed, energy, and mass—so it was with Rosenzweig’s “two covenant” theory of atonement.

Rosenzweig postulated the two-covenant theory in a work called The Star of Redemption shortly after the WWI. His two-covenant theology developed after a long series of discussions with Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, his friend and a Hebrew Christian philosopher of religion.

At one point in his life Rosenzweig was on the verge of accepting Christ as his Messiah, but his desire to learn more about his own Judaism caused a change of heart in what can only be compared to King Agrippa in Acts 26:28

Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.

Raised in Cassel, Germany in a largely assimilated Jewish household, he decided to attend a Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) service in Berlin first, saying, He would enter Christianity through Judaism. Like the earliest Christians, he would only enter as a Jew and not as a pagan.

Instead of believing in Christ, Rosenzweig became fascinated with his Judaic roots. Nahum Glatzer writes about this in the 1961 biography, Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Thought:

What the day [Yom Kippur] conveyed to him was that essential as a mediator may be in the Christian experience, the Jew stands in no need of mediation. God is near to man and desires his undeviated devotion.

The two-covenant theory of salvation, which Rosenzweig subsequently developed, basically states that God has established two different but equally valid covenants, one with His people Israel and the other with the Gentiles. The Covenant in Moses and the Covenant in Jesus are complementary to each other. Glatzer quotes Rosenzweig on this as follows:

Christianity acknowledges the God of the Jews, not as God but as “the Father of Jesus Christ.” Christianity itself cleaves to the “Lord” because it knows that the Father can be reached only through him …We are all wholly agreed as to what Christ and his church mean to the world: no one can reach the Father save through him. No one can reach the Father! But the situation is quite different for one who does not have to reach the Father because he is already with him. And this is true of the people of Israel (though not of individual Jews).

And so that’s how there are two ways of salvation, one for the Jewish people and another one for the Gentiles.

Glatzer continues, explaining Rosenzweig’s thoughts:

The synagogue, which is immortal but stands with broken staff and bound eyes, must renounce all this work in the world, and muster all her strength to preserve her life and keep herself untainted by life. And so she leaves the work in the world to the church and recognizes the church as the salvation for all heathens in all time.

Rabbi Jakob Josef Petuchowski was an American research professor of Jewish Theology and Liturgy, and professor of Judeo-Christian Studies at the Jewish Institute of Religion at Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, Ohio. He was born on July 25, 1925 in Berlin and died November 12, 1991 in Cincinnati. Rabbi Petuchowski says this about the two-covenant theory:

Rosenzweig conceded more than any Jew, while remaining a Jew, had conceded before him. He admitted the truth of John 14:6. (Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.) This is immediately qualified, though, by the assertion that “the Jew does not have to come to the Father. He has been with the Father ever since Sinai.”

Imagine for a moment seeing millions and millions of people, standing in a long line. They are of different ages, male and female, some very young and others very old.

As we look at them, we see that they are all carrying Bibles under their arms or in their hands. Many of these Bibles evidently are well read, marked and worn from usage. In fact, an incalculable number of these people have large portions of their Bibles memorized, some entire sections or books.

Imagine also that these people are faithful in attending church, worshiping regularly and tithing. They are active not only in their churches but also in their communities. Many, if not most of these individuals, live exemplary lives. And then, imagine seeing all these people—in a line that goes on and on as far as the eye can see—walking into the eternal flames of hell with Bibles in their hands!

This image conveys an idea of what the Apostle Paul may have been thinking as he wrote to the church in Rome—a long line of very religious, good people who are nonetheless lost and on their way to an eternity in hell because they either never understood or accepted the Bible’s message of salvation. In an extremely personal and moving portion of Scripture, Paul spoke of his fellow Israelites, the Jewish people, in these words from Romans 9:2–4, (KJV):

That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;

Strong’s Enhanced Lexicon defines pertaineth as:

1. to belong as a part, member, accessory, or product
2. to belong as an attribute, feature, or function
3. to belong as a duty or right

A Chosen, Holy and Special People

In Deuteronomy 7:6 Moses writes,

For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.

The common understanding for a Jewish person is that he or she belongs to “the chosen people,” but in actuality according to Scripture the Jewish people are not only “chosen,” but they are also “holy” and “special.”

In Zechariah 2:8 our LORD Himself tells us, “For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you [The Jewish People] toucheth the apple of his eye. [the Lord’s eye]”

There’s no doubt that the Bible teaches that the Jewish people hold a special place in God’s heart and in Paul’s heart. But does this mean that they will automatically go to heaven when they die because of God’s special favor to them? At least one man, Franz Rosenzweig, thought so. His two-covenant salvation theory proposed shortly after WWI fell upon itchy ears like an avalanche until today, many denominations and mainstream theologians accept this theory as truth. But what does the Bible have to say on the matter? As we dive more deeply into Scripture, let me leave you with this hint from Romans 10:1:

Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.

The Book of Ruth opens with the report of a famine in the land of Israel. Because of the famine, Elimelech from Bethlehem-Judah decides to pick up his household and move to the country of Moab. His family includes his wife Naomi and their two sons Mahlon and Chilion.

The country of Moab is named after the son of Lot who was born out of an incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughter. The history of the relationship between Moab and Israel can be characterized as tempestuous at best. It was no easy thing for Elimelech to move his family, but times were desperate.

After moving to Moab, Elimelech died leaving Naomi a widow. Their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, married Moabite women named Orpah and Ruth. After 10 years, both of these men died as well, leaving these two widows with their mother-in-law Naomi. Naomi decides to return to her home in Judah.

The people of this period observed what is known as the levirate law which literally means ‘husband’s brother.’ When a married man died without a child his brother was expected to marry his wife. Children of the marriage counted as children of the first husband. This custom is found among other peoples besides the Hebrews.

And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.—Genesis 38:8, (AV)

If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her. And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel. And if the man like not to take his brother’s wife, then let his brother’s wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband’s brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband’s brother. Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he stand to it, and say, I like not to take her; Then shall his brother’s wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother’s house. And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.—Deuteronomy 25:5–10, (AV)

Out of a sense of obligation to the law, Orpah and Ruth travel with Naomi to Judah, but only for a while. Along the way, Naomi gives her realistic assessment of the situation to the women and encourages them to return to their own home lands. Naomi is old and beyond her child bearing years. She’s not going to have any more sons, and even if it were possible, it would take years before they were old enough to marry either of these women. Orpah and Ruth are both young. They have a lot of years before them where they can raise a family. Naomi tells them that they’d be better off if they return to their own homes and find new husbands. She releases them both from their obligation to her and the law.

Orpah takes Naomi up on the offer. They kiss and say goodbye. Ruth on the other hand, provides one of the most loving thoughts you can find anywhere in the Bible. Ruth 1:16 says:

And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:

No longer obligated under the letter of the law, Ruth voluntarily accompanies Naomi to Judah in the spirit of the law and out of a deep sense of love and commitment to her.

After the loss of her husband, sons, and home, Naomi becomes bitter. When she arrives in Judah she says to her people in 1:20,

And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.—Ruth 1:20, (AV)

The name “Naomi” means “My Delight.” Naomi was no longer delightful. She had been through devastating circumstances and returned home bitter. The name Mara literally means “bitter.”