If Jews are God's chosen people, why do they not believe in Christ?

Question

If God sent his only begotten son to die for our sins, how are Jews his chosen people when they do not believe Christ is the Savior. Or better yet, what exactly are they chosen for?

Answer 1

Jews do believe Jesus existed.. They just don't believe He was the Messiah. Most Jews believe Jesus was just a prophet.

Answer 2

The Jews are God's chosen people because God chose them for his only begotten son to be born into.Have you heard of the Jew's for Christ?
Yep! Many do believe that Jesus is the Messiah.

Answer 3

I think you may have answered your own question, but just in case the irony is lost on you...

Jews were chosen to receive the Torah, and ultimately, charged with keeping it. They were "chosen" for the ultimate burden. Doesn't sound like much fun, does it? Don't get me wrong, the reward is commensurate with the work, and the work our Creator assigned us is special, but it is substantial. It really is tough to be a Jew. And in addition with the difficulty of following G-d's Torah to the best of our abilities, toiling in it day and night, we were additionally made to shoulder the constant burden of idiotic, condescending questions by people who assume they know our scriptures, which were given to us, in OUR language, better than we do!

How about this: You take Jesus, and we'll take G-d. Sound fair?

If you really want to know why Jews don't believe in Jesus, and this isn't merely a rhetorical question, I would recommend that you check out any or all of the following:

http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/jewsandjesus.htm
http://www.jewsforjudaism.org
http://www.messiahtruth.com

I hope this helps.

Answer 4

Because Jesus is not the Messiah....and even if he was, chas v'shalom, the Messiah is not God.

Now, I know we disagree on the Messiah issue...but you'll just have to accept that we Jews know what our Sciptural Prophecies really say about the Messiah and that not only has it not happened yet, but at the time of Jesus, it could not have happened at all. Reason: The Temple still stood and was operational....two things that will be restored when the Messiah comes. How can something that is, be restored? It can't be. Jesus, for many more reasons that this, cannot have been the Messiah prophesized and we still await the coming of the true Messiah, hopefully his arrival is imminent.

Answer 5

Jews believe that Jesus was a prophet, a holy man, but not that he was the son of God. The Jews became the "Chosen People" long before Jesus was born, and to them, he was simply a young Jewish man with some new ideas.

Keep in mind that the title "Chosen People" is misleading - it means that God chose them to offer his covenant to, and they chose to accept it - it does not mean that they are his favorites or anything.

I don't see your train of logic - how would being God's Chosen People require a belief in Jesus as Christ?

Answer 6

Great question! OK, first, we don't believe that Jesus was the messiah because he did not fulfill a whole bunch of prophecies in our Bible about the messiah. Here's a list:

* The Sanhedrin will be re-established (Isaiah 1:26)
* Once he is King, leaders of other nations will look to him for guidance. (Isaiah 2:4)
* The whole world will worship the One God of Israel (Isaiah 2:17)
* He will be descended from King David (Isaiah 11:1) via King Solomon (1 Chron. 22:8-10)
* The Moshiach will be a man of this world, an observant Jew with "fear of God" (Isaiah 11:2)
* Evil and tyranny will not be able to stand before his leadership (Isaiah 11:4)
* Knowledge of God will fill the world (Isaiah 11:9)
* He will include and attract people from all cultures and nations (Isaiah 11:10)
* All Israelites will be returned to their homeland (Isaiah 11:12)
* Death will be swallowed up forever (Isaiah 25:8)
* There will be no more hunger or illness, and death will cease (Isaiah 25:8)
* All of the dead will rise again (Isaiah 26:19)
* The Jewish people will experience eternal joy and gladness (Isaiah 51:11)
* He will be a messenger of peace (Isaiah 52:7)
* Nations will end up recognizing the wrongs they did to Israel (Isaiah 52:13-53:5)
* The peoples of the world will turn to the Jews for spiritual guidance (Zechariah 8:23)
* The ruined cities of Israel will be restored (Ezekiel 16:55)
* Weapons of war will be destroyed (Ezekiel 39:9)
* The Temple will be rebuilt (Ezekiel 40) resuming many of the suspended mitzvot
* He will then perfect the entire world to serve God together (Zephaniah 3:9)
* Jews will know the Torah without Study (Jeremiah 31:33)
* He will give you all the desires of your heart (Psalms 37:4)
* He will take the barren land and make it abundant and fruitful (Isaiah 51:3, Amos 9:13-15, Ezekiel 36:29-30, Isaiah 11:6-9)


In addition, many of the "prophecies" from my Bible are due to poorly-translated Hebrew, or stuff taken out of context. Two quick examples: the Hebrew word "almah" , in Isaiah 7, does **not** mean "virgin". It means "young girl" to anyone who really knows Hebrew. Also, in Isaiah 53, the "suffering servant" is **clearly** Israel, not some person, when the chapter is taken **in context** with chapter 52.

Now, about chosenness. This is a concept that is almost always very, very, very poorly misunderstood. It has ***NOTHING*** to do with superiority.

When the Torah refers to the Jewish people as "chosen," it is not in any way asserting that Jews are racially superior. Americans, Russians, Europeans, Asians and Ethiopians are all part of the Jewish people. It is impossible to define choseness as anything related to race, since Jews are racially diverse.
Yet while the term "Chosen People" (Am Nivchar) does not mean racially superior, choseness does imply a special uniqueness.

What is this uniqueness? Historically, it goes back to Abraham. Abraham lived in a world steeped in idolatry, which he concluded was contradicted by the reality of design in nature. So Abraham came to a belief in G-d, and took upon himself the mission of teaching others of the monotheistic ideal. Abraham was even willing to suffer persecution for his beliefs. After years of enormous effort, dedication and a willingness to accept the responsibility to be G-d's representative in this world, G-d chose Abraham and his descendents to be the teachers of this monotheistic message.

In other words it is not so much that G-d chose the Jews; it is more accurate that the Jews (through Abraham) chose
G-d.

Chosenness was not part of G-d's "original plan." Initially all of humanity was to serve the role of G-d's messengers, but after the fall of Adam, humanity lost that privilege, and it was open for grabs. Only Abraham chose to take the mantle. If others would have (and they were offered the choice), they too would have joined in this special covenant which was sealed upon the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai.

The essence of being chosen means responsibility. It is a responsibility to change the world -- not by converting everyone to Judaism, but by living as a model community upheld by ethics, morals and beliefs of one God. In that way, we can influence the rest of mankind, a "light unto the nations" (Isaiah 42:6).

Answer 7

God chose the nation of Israel to be the people through whom Jesus Christ would be born – the Savior from sin and death (John 3:16). God first promised the Messiah after Adam and Eve’s fall into sin (Genesis chapter 3). God later confirmed that the Messiah would come from the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Genesis 12:1-3). Jesus Christ is the ultimate reason why God chose Israel to be His chosen people. God did not have to have a “chosen people,” but He decided to do it that way. Jesus had to come from some nation of people, and God chose Israel.


The Jews rejected Jesus because He failed, in their eyes, to do what they expected their Messiah to do--destroy evil and all their enemies, in this case the Romans, and establish an eternal kingdom with Israel as the preeminent nation in the world. The prophecies in Isaiah and Psalm 22 described a suffering Messiah who would be persecuted and killed, but they chose to focus on those prophecies that discussed His glorious victories, not His crucifixion.

Answer 8

That We Gentiles could be Grafted in;
Individual Jew and Gentile The (Church;) ;

One thing God has set aside Seven Yrs; To deal with the Israelites (Jew)

One Day that Nation will turn to Christ;
They will have all the Land promised to Abraham;
Wonderful Plan ; Read about it Romans ch"s 9-10-11

Answer 9

Jews do not believe in Christ because Jesus claimed to have equality with God, and to the Jew, that breaks the very first commandment.

Of course, having died and risen from the dead, he proved that his claims were true.

But to the Jew who doesn't already know Jesus as his Savior, it still has the "taste" or feel of breaking the 1st Commandment.

Answer 10

No one understands why the jewish people do no believe that jesus was the son of god and not just a prophet although some do read the "zion chronicles". It was prophisised in the old testament that this would happen and that jesus would die on the cross as this is what he was sent to earth to do.