Judaism: God’s Pathway to Race-Free Christianity

While serving at a church in Maryland, Julaine and I developed a close friendship with a couple, Nicole and Donnie Christianson. One day, Nicole made this casual but powerful statement to Julaine, saying that Christianity without Judaism just didn’t make sense to her. That simple comment redirected our entire theological journey from replacement theology to the realization that Judaism and Christianity are not rivals but siblings within the same Abrahamic inheritance of Hope.

Let me begin by acknowledging something that makes Judaism pretty unique historically. It created what some call a “portable homeland.” Think of it as a spiritual and cultural dwelling place that is capable of traveling rather than being tied to land or politics. For centuries, Jewish life revolved around sacred texts like the Torah, the Talmud, Halakha (its codes of conduct), and traditions. That’s how Jewish communities managed to preserve their identity and continuity, even while living in many different countries—including some that were hostile to them.

One of Judaism’s significant contributions to God’s ongoing plan is that it provided Christianity with foundational concepts, including monotheism, messianic hope, the prophetic tradition, covenant theology, and a scriptural framework that Jesus and early Christians relied on heavily. It is a common belief among various Jewish traditions that every human being inherently embodies a portion of the sacred. That understanding stems from the idea that we’re all created “b’tselem Elohim,” which essentially means “in God’s image.”

The basis for this belief is found in Genesis 1:26-27: “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.” It is important to note that in God’s image does not simply mean a reflection, a resemblance, or a doppelganger, but a genuine embodiment of the original. Let me put it another way. Human beings occupy a unique status in creation because we are created with a divine spark. That means we possess divine-like capacities that enable us to act ethically and help repair a broken world.

In Kabbalah, a Jewish mystical way of understanding God, this divine spark is called “neshamah,” meaning a literal piece of the divine essence that lives within every person. That concept is not so strange if we consider the historical Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling. That’s important to remember because that shows this Christian understanding is not without precedent. Additionally, there is a text within the Jewish Orthodox tradition called the Tanya, which goes even further, stating that every living soul literally contains a part of God.

That said, the Talmud, a central text of Rabbinic Judaism, really drives home how precious this makes each person. To paraphrase Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5, “Destroying one person’s life is like obliterating all of creation, while saving one person’s life is like redeeming all of creation.” That’s how much divine value is believed to exist in each person, regardless of their race, gender, cultural origin, political leanings, or differences in physical and cognitive abilities.

That isn’t just abstract, it’s practical. I am arguing that this understanding should completely shape how we live together. It’s why human dignity is so central to Jewish ethics and why we should not ignore the prophetic call for Christians to identify and develop our own set of ethics. Why? Because this ultimately results in a sensitivity to racism that is not influenced by politics, cultural histories, or socio-economic benefits. That is because when you truly believe that everyone carries this divine spark, then how you treat other people becomes a matter of treating that divine presence (God) in the world.

In my view, racism and, by extension, other distortions of “loving thy neighbor” have never been about “hate” but result from a gross misunderstanding of our responsibilities and obligations before God. While some segments of Christianity seem to be moving toward competing for attendance and societal influence rather than radical hospitality, Judaism gently reminds us to treat strangers with compassion. For example, that concept is deeply embedded in Jewish teaching, indicating that they were to love the stranger as much as they loved themselves, for they were once strangers in Egypt.

Based on what was just said, Judaism tends to ask, what does it look like to treat others with the love and respect we craved when the Pharaoh of Egypt enslaved us? Rabbi Jonathan Sacks reflected on this idea, suggesting that God’s message to the Jewish people was: Confront the hatred dwelling in your heart as I (God) confronted the ruler of the dominant empire for your sake. I designated you as the perpetual outsider so you would become defenders of all the outsiders within your community and beyond. You are to do so without regard to race or cultural heritage, for even when they don’t look like you, remember, they still carry the divine image.

We cannot hope for a race-free Christianity today without first recognizing and then being sensitive to the deep pain of those who have been made vulnerable, rejected, and oppressed within the very body that Jesus sacrificed himself to provide shelter for experienced. The truth is, most marginalized people groups throughout history have had to make their way past obstacles placed before them by the powerful to pursue the peaceful existence God intended for every person: bar none!

Here is the good news, and why I continue to find hope. The further we travel on this shared path towards a loving God, the clearer it becomes that both traditions have been heading in the same direction, i.e., the Kingdom of Heaven, where racial roadblocks have never existed. My foundational belief is that once we acknowledge that Jewish people and Christians descend from the same source, we can celebrate the possibility that all humanity shares the divine spark from our creator, and that this will one day unite us all.