Chapter 8 — How Christ Called the Ancient Jews to National Repentance

Jesus was disappointed with the way the Jews responded to His call to national repentance. He says He is also disappointed with the response of Seventh-day Adventists.

Fresh from His own experience of corporate repentance and baptism “in behalf of the human race,” Jesus demanded the same from the Jewish nation: “From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). And His disciples also “went out and preached that people should repent” (Mark 6:12).

Christ’s greatest disappointment was that the nation did not respond. He upbraided “the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent” (Matthew 11:20). He likened the nation to the unfruitful “fig tree planted in His vineyard. … For three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none” (see Luke 13:6-9).

The barren fig tree which Jesus cursed became a symbol representing not merely the mass of individual unrepentant Jews, but the corporate people which as a nation rejected Christ:

The cursing of the fig tree was an acted parable. That barren tree, flaunting its pretentious foliage in the very face of Christ, was a symbol of the Jewish nation. The Saviour desired to make plain to His disciples the cause and the certainty of Israel’s doom (Desire of Ages, page 582).

Our Lord had sent out the twelve and afterward the seventy, proclaiming that the kingdom of God was at hand, and calling upon men to repent and believe the gospel. … This was the message borne to the Jewish nation after the crucifixion of Christ; but the nation that claimed to be God’s peculiar people rejected the gospel brought to them in the power of the Holy Spirit (Christ’s Object Lessons, page 308; emphasis added).

Note how personal sin had grown to become national sin. It was accomplished by the nation’s leaders, and it bound the nation to corporate ruin:

When Christ came, presenting to the nation the claims of God, the priests and elders denied His right to interpose between them and the people. … They set themselves to turn the people against Him (Christ’s Object Lessons, pages 304, 305).

How National Ruin Followed National Impenitence

Only national repentance could have saved the Jewish nation from the impending ruin that their national sin invoked upon them:

For the rejection of Christ, with the results that followed, they were responsible. A nation’s sin and a nation’s ruin were due to the religious leaders (Ibid., page 305, emphasis added).

Paul showed that Christ had come to offer salvation first of all to the nation that looked for the Messiah’s coming as the consummation and glory of their national existence. But that nation had rejected Him who would have given them life, and had chosen another leader, whose reign would end in death. He endeavored to bring home to His hearers the fact that repentance alone could save the Jewish nation from impending ruin (Acts of the Apostles, page 247, emphasis added).

In Jesus’ last public discourse He made a final appeal to these leaders at the Jerusalem headquarters to repent. Their refusal broke His heart. With tears in His voice, the Saviour predicted the impending national ruin: ‘All these things will come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem …” (Matthew 23:13-37).

Christ certainly appealed to individuals to repent, for He said, “there will be joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:7). But there is a distinct difference between national repentance and individual repentance. He also appealed to “this … evil generation,” that is, the nation. “The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation, and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah” (Luke 11:32). The fate of a nation, not merely that of individuals, hung in the balance.

Like a lone flash of lightning on a dark night, this reference to Nineveh illustrates Jesus’ idea. National repentance is so rare that few believe it can ever take place. He used Nineveh’s history as an example to prove that what He called for was indeed possible. If a heathen nation can repent, He said in effect, surely the nation that claims to be God’s chosen people can do the same!

As Jonah became a sign unto the Ninevites, so also the Son of Man will be to this generation. … The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation, and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed, a greater than Jonah is here (Luke 11:30, 32).

The “How” of Heathen Nineveh’s Repentance

If one picture is worth a thousand words, Nineveh’s repentance vividly illustrates a national response to the call of God. A nation repented, not simply a scattered group of individuals. We find it easier to believe a “great fish” swallowed Jonah alive than to accept that a government and a nation can repent at the preaching of God’s Word. “The people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them” (Jonah 3:5). There is no reason to doubt this sacred history.

This repentance began with “the greatest,” and extended downward from the usual order in history to “the least of them.” “Word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles” (Jonah 3:6, 7).

It is true that this call to repent did not originate at the royal palace. But note that the government of Nineveh wholeheartedly supported it. The “city” repented from top to bottom. Fantastic! The repentance was both nationally “proclaimed and published,” and individually received. The divine warning had proclaimed a national overthrow of Nineveh; the leadership led the people to repent—a national repentance.

Jesus’ point was this: if this happened once in history, why couldn’t it happen with the Jews also? The Jews could have achieved national repentance easily and practically. (And why can’t it happen with us?) The high priest, Caiaphas, could have led out as well as did the king of Nineveh. Caiaphas needed only to accept the principle of the cross as Jesus taught it.

How Caiaphas Could Have Led Israel to Repentance

Let’s give Caiaphas the generous benefit of a doubt. At first he could have been sincerely uncertain how to relate to Jesus in the early days of His ministry. But by the time of Jesus’ trial he could have taken a firm stand for right. He needed only to make a simple speech such as this to the Sanhedrin: “For a time I didn’t understand the work of Jesus. You brethren have shared my misunderstanding. Something has happened among us that has been beyond us. But I have studied the Scriptures lately. I have seen that beneath His lowly outward guise, Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the true Messiah. He fulfills the prophetic details. And now, brethren, I humbly acknowledge Him as such, and I forthwith step down from my high position and shall be the first to install Him as Israel’s true High Priest.”

A gasp of surprise would have rippled through the Sanhedrin chambers if Caiaphas had said these words. Today he would be honored all over the world as the noblest leader of God’s people in all history. He could have done what Moses would have loved to do. (In fact, Moses refused Pharaoh’s throne!) The Jews, many of them, would doubtless have followed Caiaphas’ lead. We have already seen how the religious leaders fastened national guilt upon the people. It follows that the same leaders could as easily have led them into national repentance. Christ could have died in some other way than murder by His own people, and Jerusalem could today be the “joy of the whole earth” rather than its sorest plague spot.

If the remnant church ultimately chooses to follow ancient Israel in impenitence, Christ will suffer at her hands the most appalling humiliation He has ever endured. He will be crucified afresh, wounded anew “in the house of [His] friends” (Zechariah 13:6). Humanity’s final indignity would be heaped upon His sacrifice.

But God’s Word must proclaim good news. Christ did not sacrifice Himself to be defeated. The antitypical Day of Atonement resolves all doubt. In the light of the cross we see the assurance that the church will at last overcome this tragic ancient pattern of unbelief The church is His prized possession, “which He has purchased with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). In the end His people will not deprive Him of His reward.

For once in history, history will not repeat itself. His church will fully vindicate Christ. He will see that the infinite price He paid for their redemption was worthwhile. An infinite sacrifice will fully redeem and heal an infinite measure of human sin.

Though He was “a greater” than Jonah and “a greater than Solomon,” Christ did not appear in the glorious garb and pomp of Solomon. Nor did He “cause His voice to be heard in the street” as did Jonah (compare Matthew 12:42; Isaiah 42:2). Yet the Jewish leaders had evidence enough of His authority. The quality of His solemn call to repentance convinced them of what their pride refused to confess. No other “sign” would be given that “evil and adulterous generation.” Once she refused to acknowledge Heaven’s last call to repentance, nothing could stay Israel’s frightful doom.

And the sure evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work today resides in the True Witness’ solemn call to us to repent.

The Ingathering of Repentant Jews

There remains a luminous hope for ancient Israel’s literal descendants in our day:

Hardening in part has happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved. … For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. … Through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy (Romans 11:25-31).

Note that the fulfillment of the prophecy hinges on a repentant Christian church. In the days before us we shall see some surprising developments among repentant Jews:

When this gospel shall be presented in its fulness to the Jews, many will accept Christ as the Messiah. …

In the closing proclamation of the gospel, when special work is to be done for classes of people hitherto neglected, God expects His messengers to take particular interest in the Jewish people whom they find in all parts of the earth. … This will be to many of the Jews as the dawn of a new creation, the resurrection of the soul. … They will recognize Christ as the Saviour of the world. Many will by faith receive Christ as their Redeemer. …

The God of Israel will bring this to pass in our day. His arm is not shortened that it cannot save. As His servants labor in faith for those who have long been neglected and despised, His salvation will be revealed (Acts of the Apostles, pages 380, 381).

How can we call the Jews to such repentance, unless we experience it ourselves? God’s great heart of pity is moved on behalf of these suffering people, and a great blessing awaits them when we are prepared to be the agents to bring it:

Notwithstanding the awful doom pronounced upon the Jews as a nation at the time of their rejection of Jesus of Nazareth, there have lived from age to age many noble, God-fearing Jewish men and women who have suffered in silence. God has comforted their hearts in affliction and has beheld with pity their terrible situation. He has heard the agonizing prayers of those who have sought Him with all the heart for a right understanding of His word (Ibid., pages 379, 380).

One’s heart beats a little faster to read those words, so pregnant with hope and wonder. What joy it will be to witness the fulfillment of our beloved Paul’s bright visions of future restoration of the true Israel! Millions of Christians look to literal Israel in Palestine as the fulfillment. However, the servant of the Lord, in harmony with Paul’s concept of justification by faith, foresaw the genuine fulfillment to be the repentance of many individual Jews who will learn from the remnant church the principle of corporate guilt and repentance.

Could it happen in our time?

Yes, if we really want it. The Jews will be our pupils, to learn from us what they didn’t learn two thousand years ago—how to repent.