This is a CHEAT-SHEET of short rebuttals to common anti-Jewish misinterpretations of biblical prooftexts.

PROOFTEXT: “Galatians 3:28 says that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek!”

ANSWER: It also says there is neither male nor female. This verse doesn’t mean Jesus abolished gender, nor does it mean He abolished ethnicity. It simply means that everyone—Jew or Gentile, male or female—has equal access to God’s salvation through the Messiah. Jews and Gentiles are equal in Messiah, but we don’t stop being Jews and Gentiles.

PROOFTEXT: “Romans 9:6 says not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. This means the Jews aren’t really Israel, and true spiritual Israel is the Church. Israel isn’t about ethnicity.”

ANSWER: Paul is discussing an “Israel within Israel,” so to speak. Not all ethnic Israelites/Jews are part of this inner “Israel”—but nowhere does Paul say that *non-Israelites* (Gentiles) become part of it either. He is narrowing “Israel” for the sake of his argument here, not redefining or replacing ethnic Israel with the Church. Note that in the two verses right before (Romans 9:4–5), Paul explicitly calls unbelieving Jews “Israelites” and says the covenants and promises still belong to them. Paul is not revoking God’s calling of ethnic Israel; he is affirming that the blessings of that calling are confirmed to the faithful remnant who believe in the Messiah—even when the majority of Jews are straying from their calling.

PROOFTEXT: “Romans 2:28-29 says that one is not a Jew who is so outwardly, but one is a Jew who is so inwardly. In the New Testament, being a Jew has nothing to do with ethnicity—Christians are the true Jews!”

ANSWER: In this section of Romans, Paul is speaking directly to the Jews in his audience. He is telling them that in order to be the Jews that God made them to be, they need to walk in that calling and make it an inward heart-condition by walking faithfully in Messiah. Paul is saying that Jews need to also be Jewish inwardly—he is not saying that Gentiles become Jews inwardly.

PROOFTEXT: “Revelation 2:9 and 3:9 calls Jews the Synagogue of Satan!”

ANSWER: No it doesn’t. It explicitly says that these people *say* that they’re Jews, but they’re actually not. It refers to a group of Gentiles who lied by claiming to be Jews. There is no reason in context to understand “they are not Jews” as anything except “they are not Jews,” as it plainly says.

And no, modern Jews aren’t Khazarians or Edomites or Kenites or anything weird like that—Jews are still Jews, and have a contiguous ethnic history and heritage tracing back to the biblical people of Judah. When we say we’re Jews, we aren’t lying. Don’t believe antisemitic revisionist pseudo-history.

PROOFTEXT: “Galatians 3:16 says that the promises to Abraham are to one seed: Christ. The promises are all fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus is the true Israel, ethnic Israel isn’t really Israel.”

ANSWER: Paul is showing the dual meaning of God’s promises to Abraham, not redefining the promises. The word “seed” (as used throughout the book of Genesis and other places in Scripture) is singular for grammatical reasons, but it is regularly used in overtly plural contexts to refer to the entire nation of Israel. Paul’s point is that the singular form of the word “seed” hints at the fact that Israel’s promises culminate in the coming Messiah—but this does not negate God’s national promises to the Jewish people. The covenants are to Abraham and to his seed—the promised people of Israel, and the promised Messiah of Israel.

PROOFTEXT: “Matthew 21:43 (also Mark 12:9 and Luke 20:16) says that Jesus took the kingdom from the Jews and gave it to the Gentiles!”

ANSWER: Two verses later, the narrative specifically says that He wasn’t talking to the entire Jewish people, but specifically to the Pharisees and other corrupt leaders. And then it specifically contrasts the Pharisees with the Jewish crowds, who esteemed Him as a prophet. This passage is about God’s judgment of the Pharisees, not God’s rejection of the Jewish people.

PROOFTEXT: “In Matthew 21:19, Jesus cursed the fig tree to never bear fruit again. God has cursed and rejected Israel forever!”

ANSWER: He never calls the fig tree “Israel.” In fact, He doesn’t even say the fig tree is an allegory or a parable. He simply uses it as an example of the power of faith, saying that if we have faith, we can do even greater things than make fig trees wither! The fig tree has nothing to do with the Jewish people.

PROOFTEXT: “1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 says that Jews killed Jesus and they’re enemies of all mankind!”

ANSWER: No, it says that *the group of Jews who killed Jesus* were enemies of all mankind. Paul is encouraging the Thessalonian believers, saying that they aren’t alone in being persecuted by their countrymen, because the Jewish believers in Judea were also persecuted by their countrymen—the same countrymen who had Jesus crucified in the years prior. Paul is speaking as a Jew himself, and also talking about the other Jewish believers. This is not a blanket condemnation of the entire Jewish ethnicity.

Additionally, Jews and Gentiles both participated in the crucifixion. Yes, Jews killed Jesus, but so did Gentiles. It is not biblically tenable to pin Jesus’ execution solely on Jews, nor to spread that guilt to the entire Jewish people, nor to transmit that guilt down through the generations.

PROOFTEXT: “John 8:44 says that Jews are children of Satan!”

ANSWER: No, it says that *the specific group of Jews* that Jesus was addressing were children of Satan, because they were slanderous and murderous like Satan. Anyone who acts like Satan—Jew or Gentile—is a son of the Devil. Jesus was not condemning this group of Jews because they were Jewish, but because of their actions. Likewise, when antisemites slander Jews and seek to harm them, the antisemites are the ones who are children of the devil.

PROOFTEXT: “Jeremiah 3:8 says that God divorced Israel!”

ANSWER: God divorced the *Northern Kingdom of Israel* but He never divorced the Kingdom of Judah, from whom modern Jews descend. God always preserves Judah as a remnant of Israel. And even God’s divorce of the Northern Tribes is not permanent, and He will bring all Twelve Tribes of Israel back together one day. God will always be faithful to the Jewish people.

PROOFTEXT: “Galatians 3:7 says that it is those of faith who are children of Abraham! It’s not about physical lineage, it’s spiritual.”

ANSWER: Paul doesn’t say that ONLY those of faith are children of Abraham. God made multiple promises to Abraham, some fulfilled physically and some fulfilled spiritually. Ethnic Jews are children of the promise by flesh, Gentile believers are children of the promise by faith, and Messianic Jews are children of the promise both by faith and by flesh.

PROOFTEXT: “Galatians 6:16 says that the Church is the Israel of God!”

ANSWER: No, it doesn’t. Paul uses the term “Israel of God,” but he never equates it with the Church. There is not a single verse in the Bible where the word “Israel” is completely divorced from an ethnic definition. There is nothing in the context here which gives us the liberty to view this verse any differently. The Israel of God likely either refers to all Messianic Jews (members of Israel who are faithful to God through Messiah), or more specifically to the Messianic Jews who weren’t trying to Judaize the Gentile believers and convince them to convert and get circumcised.-Josiah Geoffrey