LCJE Responds to Vatican Commission Document, “The Gifts and Calling of God Are Irrevocable

On December 10, 2015, the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews released a document titled, “The Gifts and Calling of God Are Irrevocable” marking the fiftieth anniversary of Catholic-Jewish dialogues known as the ‘Nostra Aetate,” launched in 1965 by the Second Vatican Council. Described as “far-reaching” by the New York Times, according to the document Jewish people do not need to believe in Jesus in order to be saved.

In a key section of the document that is a direct repudiation of what the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 11, the Commission authors state that, “From the Christian confession that there can be only one path to salvation, however, it does not in any way follow that the Jews are excluded from God’s salvation because they do not believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah of Israel and the Son of God… That the Jews are participants in God’s salvation is theologically unquestionable, but how that can be possible without confessing Christ explicitly, is and remains an unfathomable mystery…”

If these assertions in the document were true, then there would be no need for evangelism to the Jewish people – they would automatically be saved simply because they are Jewish. LCJE’s response to the Vatican document can be found here.

Kehila News in Israel also carried the LCJE response, which can be found here.