The Genesis Prophecy (Genesis 3:15), which states that the Seed (Jesus) of the woman (Israel) would crush the head (authority) of Satan, motivated the Devil to develop a two-fold strategy. First, he would try to prevent the birth of the man-child (Messiah) who would crush his head. Second, in case the first plan failed, he would try to destroy the Messiah before He could accomplish G-d's purpose. Jesus' death, in fact, appeared to be Satan's hoped-for victory. But Jesus' resurrection proved the opposite. Death could not hold Him in the grave and He lives as proof of the victory over the law of sin and death [The Man Who Sins Will Die]. His atonement for the sins of man crushed Satan's control, and restored G-d's judicial rule over mankind. Jesus' victory on the cross is judicially eternal. Everyone who accepts Jesus as his or her L-rd and Savior has been redeemed by G-d. Yet, most of the world has not experienced redemption. The majority of humanity is still under Satan's control even though they have been judicially released.
The apostle Paul explained redemption as a will (Hebrews 9:16). A will only goes into effect when a person dies. Then the heirs must make claim to the inheritance in order to take possession of what is lawfully theirs. Only then do the benefits become available to them. Therefore, Satan's first post-crucifixion strategy is to keep as many people as possible from knowing that there is a Will and, therefore, an inheritanceeternal lifemade available through Jesus' death on the cross.
Once Jesus was crucified and G-d's purpose fulfilled, it would seem unnecessary for Satan to continue his relentless mission to destroy the Jewish people. Yet, the history of Abraham's descendants from the crucifixion to the present day confirms Satan's protracted pursuit of their annihilation. To understand why is to understand Bible prophecy. The Devil continues to target Israel and the Jewish people for destruction because Israel still has a crucial role to play in G-d's plan for the physical redemption of all mankind. The apostle Paul states that when Israel is awakened to the knowledge that Yeshua is their Messiah, they will repent and claim their inheritance. It will be life from the dead for them and for the rest of the world as well (Romans 11:15).
"....they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn." (Zechariah 12:10)
At that time, the L-rd will use them to destroy those who have chosen to follow Satan before He Himself imprisons the devil and establishes G-d's theocratic rule in the world.
"In that day I will make the governors of Judah like....a fiery torch in the sheaves; they shall devour all the surrounding peoples on the right hand and on the left, but Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own placeJerusalem." (Zechariah 12:6)
"In that day the L-rd will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; the one who is feeble among them in that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like G-d, like the Angel of the L-rd before them." (Zechariah 12:8)
Because Israel must repent and accept their Messiah before G-d will crush Satan, the devil's strategy has been to destroy Israel and the Jewish people to prevent that from happening. The wicked, anti-Semitic activities that continued after thecrucifixion, most often through the so-called Church, were aimed at preventing the Jews from recognizing their Messiah.
Although the early believers were all Jews, most of the Israelites did not accept Jesus as the Messiah. The Jews fell under the curses of Deuteronomy 28 because of their rejection of the Messiah. Thus, in 135 CE, G-d allowed the Roman Empire to force the Jews out of Israel in a final expulsion from the land when they declared Bar Kochba to be the Messiah of Israel. Wherever G-d's chosen people wandered in the world, Satan sent suspicion, fear, jealousy, and hatred after them.
Meanwhile, Satan used the Roman Empire to persecute the mostly Gentile Church, his latest powerful enemy that G-d had equipped with His Holy Spirit. For the first three centuries of the Church's existence, almost 7,000,000 believers were martyred by Rome. Although the Roman Empire sought to completely eradicate Christianity, the Body of Messiah (Christ) continued to grow. By the time Emperor Constantine inherited the throne, over half the Empire was comprised of Christians despite the unrelenting persecution.
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Because G-d had mercy on the world, He used the Jewish disciples to bring the knowledge of Jesus (Yeshua) to Gentiles (non-Jews). Now G-d desires that Gentile believers should bring the knowledge of Yeshua's victory over the man of sin to unbelieving Jews first and then to the rest of the world (Romans 1:16).
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Satan, seeing that his plan to annihilate the Church had failed, devised an alternate plan to make the Church ineffective so that G-d could not use them to bring the Jews to repentance and faith in the Messiah (Isaiah 49:22; 52:7 for instance). To carry out his new plan, Satan caused Roman Emperor Constantine to end the persecutions and torture aimed at Christians. Instead, Constantine made Christianity his own religion and he himself became the head of the Church (instead of Jesus). He used Christianity to unify his pagan empire, drawing many idolators and their pagan practices into the Body of Christ. Instead of the Church conquering the world, the world (of the Roman Empire) had conquered the Church.
Constantine's virulent hatred of the Jews influenced his decision to erase every trace of biblical Judaism from the practices of the Church. His new religion became unrecognizable from that which was established by the Jewish apostles. Pagan festivals were substituted for those that were commanded by G-d to be celebrated (Leviticus 23); the Sabbath was abolished; and those who practiced the rituals established by G-d were shunned or persecuted, being labeled Judaizers.
From this point forward, Satan primarily used the guise of this new Christianity to persecute the Jews. This served his purpose in two ways. First, it insured that Jews would never repent and accept the Christian Messiah. And secondly, it kept many believers from being blessed by G-d (Genesis 12:3). Christianity took on the appearance of a religion that did not have its roots in biblical Judaism, the form of worship established by G-d Himself.
Satan was so successful in this campaign that by the latter half of the fifteenth century, anti-Jewish hatred reached global proportions. The Dutch scholar and first editor of the Greek New Testament, Erasmus, observed:
"If it is the part of a good Christian to detest the Jews, then we are all good Christians."
Most Christians are shocked and horrified to learn about the railings of the early Church leadership against Jews. To be an effective witness to the Jewish people, however, it is important to understand fully why most Jews are not interested in learning about a religion that has consistently persecuted them, a religion that claims the Jewish Jesus as their G-d, but hates His brothers the Jewish people. The following is a brief historical outline of affliction and torment perpetrated against the Jews by the Church or those who called themselves Christians:
Church councils mandated strict regulations against relationships with Jews. Christians were forbidden to eat with Jews, participate in mixed marriages, or observe Sabbath prohibitions on Sunday, or mingle with Jews during the Easter festival. No Jews could hold office or authority over Christians. Jews were considered the enemies of G-d.
During this period the Crusades were initiated with the intention of liberating the land of Israel from the hands of Muslims. In the name of Jesus, Jewish villages in the path of the Crusaders were attacked. The inhabitants were often forced into their local synagogue before the Crusaders set it on fire as their victims, imprisoned in the fiery cauldron, screamed for mercy.
It was during this era that false accusations were leveled against Jews of poisoning wells, thereby causing the Black Plague of Europe. Emperors guaranteed immunity from prosecution to anyone who murdered a Jew. Also during that time, pogroms (organized massacres) were perpetrated against European Jews culminating in the Spanish Inquisition. In 1492, all Jews who would not convert to Catholicism were either burned at the stake or expelled from Spain. In 1516, the first ghettos appeared which segregated the Jews from the general populace. The great reformer, Martin Luther originally rallied to the cause of the Jew, but by 1542 because he was unsuccessful in converting even one Jew, he changed his attitude. He wrote:
"Know, O adored Christ, and make no mistake, that aside from the Devil, you have no enemy more venomous, more desperate, more bitter, than a true Jew..."
Four days before his death, Luther wrote his last sermon which was entirely devoted to the obdurate Jews, whom it was a matter of great urgency to expel from all German territory. Adolph Hitler used Luther's writings as fuel for his final solution to the Jewish problem.
During this period, Pope Clement VIII banished Jews from the Vatican State; ghettos were established in Italy; Polish Cossacks massacred 100,000 Jews; blood libel charges caused Jews to be expelled from France; laws of Rhode Island forbade Jews from voting or holding office; Russia limited places where Jews could live and they had to pay double the taxes imposed on Christian merchants; Czar Nicholas I began a campaign to completely eliminate the Jews; Jews in the U.S. were falsely accused by both the South and North of aiding the enemy, smuggling, profiteering, and draft dodging during the Civil War.
Adolf Stecher of Germany began to preach anti-Semitism; in America signs began to appear saying, "We prefer not to entertain Hebrews"; Pogroms swept southern Russia; in France, the Jewish Captain Alfred Dreyfus was falsely accused of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment; racist, anti-Semite Houston Stewart Chamberlain published Foundations of the 19th Century postulating theories of a superior Aryan race, which became the basis of Nazism; Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, produced by secret police of Russia's Nicholas II, made Jews the scapegoats for Russia's economic and political problems. The Protocols implied that the Jews had devised a conspiracy to conquer and rule the world. Henry Ford published and promoted the work in America; the Ku Klux Klan began to espouse anti-Semitism; pogroms continued to be carried out in Russia, Poland, Siberia, Mongolia, and Hungary; and colleges in the U.S. began to limit the number of Jews admitted (Yale for instance).
Hitler began an economic boycott against Jews and started to build concentration camps; Jews were deprived of German citizenship; Charles E. Coughlin, an American Roman Catholic priest, began weekly anti-Semitic radio broadcasts in Detroit, MI; Nazis desecrated Jewish business and synagogues and imprisoned Jews in concentration camps; the Holocaust began with the German occupation of Poland and led to the gassing of Jews in concentration camps; the Holocaust ended with 6,000,000 Jews dead. After World War II, Jews continued to be murdered in Poland, Libya, and Prague; and Jews were deported from Egypt.
Anti-Semitism reported in America: 6400 acts of vandalism, bombings, arsons, cemetery desecrations, and harassment; Pamyat, a nationalist movement in Eastern Europe surfaced with its sole purpose to eliminate Jews and Jewish influence from Russia.
Anti-Defamation League report indicates nearly 40 million American adults hold strongly anti-Semitic views.
It would seem from the aforementioned history that Satan has succeeded in keeping Jews and Christians from enjoying the benefits of becoming the one new man:
"For He Himself is our peace, who has made both [Jew and Gentile] one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity....so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace...."( Ephesians 2:14-16)
But Jesus prayed a prayer of unity so that His glory would be manifested in us. G-d's plan is for His power and glory to be displayed through His unified body of both Jew and Gentile:
"....And the glory which You gave Me I have given them....that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me." (from John 17:20-23)
G-d demonstrated through Israel that He sovereignly blesses those who obey His Word and curses those who rebel against Him, Israel being the watershed of that doctrine. When any nation persecuted the Jews, G-d destroyed that nation's power in the world. When any nation received the Jews and protected them, He blessed that nation. G-d promised Abraham and his descendants:
"I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." (Genesis 12:3)
It is critical for true believers to have a godly relationship with Israel and the Jewish people even though it may result in their own persecution and suffering. It can be noted that along with the six million Jews, saintly Christians who would not bow to Satan risked their own lives to protect Jews and many also perished at the hands of Nazis during World War II. But the greatest onslaught of anti-Semitism to ever occur is about to come upon the nation of Israel and the Jewish people of the world because Satan knows his time is short. That persecution will spill over onto true believers as well because they understand the evil day in which we live and they will have the power of G-d to resist the devil and destroy the works of the enemy (John 14:12). Jesus said this before He left the earth:
"And shall G-d not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8)