[Question:]{.underline} I am annoyed to hear people refer to Christ as a Jew. Is it true?
[Answer:]{.underline} There are two meanings of the term “Jew.” The first meaning indicates that people and nation “chosen by God to maintain acceptable worship of the One True God, in preparation for the coming of Him who was to reestablish order in the world by the restoration of supernatural life.” (Fr. Denis Fahey, The Mystical Body of Christ, p. 150). In this sense “Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of Abraham” (Mt 1:1) was most certainly a Jew. Pontius Pilate declares this: “Am I a Jew? Thy own people and the chief priests have delivered thee to me” (Jn 18:35), as does Our Divine Savior himself: “for salvation is from the Jews” (Jn 4:22). As Father Fahey puts it: “Our Lord Jesus Christ, the supernatural Messias, True God and True Man, is at one and the same time the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity and a Jew of the house of David” (Ibid.) In this sense the Catholic Church succeeded to the Synagogue of Israel, applying to all who believe in the Messias the supernatural life of grace, for “there is neither Jew nor Greek…and if you are Christ’s, then you are the offspring of Abraham” (Gal 3:28, 29).
However, there is another sense in which we speak of the Jews, both as a religion and as a people. In the same way as the Pharisees of Our Lord’s time refused to recognize their Messias, and believe in Him, due to their proud, hypocritical “zeal” for arbitrary interpretations and hairsplitting decisions concerning the law, so also the Jews from their time until now who have refused to convert to the Catholic Church. “The Jews refused, firstly, to accept that the supernatural life of His Messianic Kingdom was higher than the national life and, secondly, they utterly rejected the idea of the Gentile nations being admitted to enter into the messianic kingdom on the same level as themselves… Having put their race and nation in the place of God, having in fact deified them, they rejected the supernatural Messias and elaborated a program of preparation for the natural Messias to come” (Fahey, The Mystical Body of Christ, p. 151). This is what we call Sionism. In this sense Our Divine Savior was most certainly not a Jew.
Consequently, it is not at all insulting to call Christ a Jew in the first sense, but rather an aspect of His divine mission. His baptism did nothing to change this origin according to the flesh, but was simply the opportune moment to manifest His divine filiation and nature: “This is my well beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mat 3:17). Nevertheless, it would be a complete denial of the mystery of the Redemption to call Christ a Jew in the second sense, or to pretend that we have any faith in common with such modern day Jews, or that they are in truth sons of Abraham.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.