“To Proclaim the Cross of Christ as the Sign of God’s All-Embracing Love”1: A Response to David Neuhaus on “Salvation and the Jews” By Rev. Andrew Liaugminas, S.T.D.
When it comes to the topic of “Salvation and the Jews,” one could pursue various avenues of inquiry, ranging from the soteriological self-understanding of the Jews to the unique and fundamental role the Jewish people play in the Christian understanding of salvation. Yet, our focus here lies in neither of these topics per se, but in how a Christian should understand the relationship of Israel outside the Church to the salvation that comes from Christ and his Church. Stated succinctly, Neuhaus asks, “Whereas the Church indeed affirms that our salvation is from the Jews, where is salvation for the Jews from according to Church teaching?” In his lecture, “Salvation and the Jews,” Neuhaus discusses various significant elements for answering this question, including God’s faithfulness to the covenant he made with Abraham (Romans 11:29), the rediscovery of the Jewishness of Jesus, respect for our Jewish brothers and sisters, and hope for a final, eschatological convergence of the Jewish expectation for the Messiah and the Christian hope in the Second Coming of Christ (Romans 11:26). In the meantime, Neuhaus suggests that the proper posture of the Church vis-à-vis the Jewish people is to witness “to a Jesus Christ who brings the fullness of salvation,” for “Jews who seek to live Torah are ‘not far from the Kingdom of God’ (Mark 12:34).” In my remarks, I would like to engage a few of these points in particular and then extend the dialogue on how these elements might come together to form a Catholic response to the question regarding where salvation for the Jews is from according to Church teaching. First, I will discuss the place of the Church in connection with the universal centrality of Christ for salvation. Second, I will engage how we are to understand the soteriological import of God’s fidelity vis-àvis Israel. Third, I will consider the place of fidelity to the commandments of the Torah in relationship to the salvation that Christ has won for us. Fourth, I will explore briefly the centrality of the Paschal Mystery and the agency of the Holy Spirit in the participation of those outside the Church in the mystery of salvation. This will lead me, finally, to raise a point about mission, witness, and the role of the Church today. The primary theological framework in which I will engage these points from a doctrinal perspective will be the texts of the Second Vatican Council. The Place of Christ and the Church in Salvation Among the elements Neuhaus discusses in relationship to this topic, he affirms multiple times the salvific universality of Christ and rejects any theory that would propose a separate path of salvation for Jews and Christians. 2 Indeed, this is a fundamental point and I will return to it shortly, but prior to considering the essential place of Christ in our redemption, I would like to address the soteriological implications of the revelatory dimension of the Incarnation for God’s relationship with the Jewish people. In the Incarnation, God reveals himself fully in Jesus Christ. 3 The One who says, “whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9; cf. 1:18), who is the perfect self-expression of God to man is himself—in the flesh—a son of David (i.e., Matthew 22:41-46; cf. Psalms 89:3-4, and 2 Samuel 7:1-16). 4 As the Christological article of Gaudium et Spes (no. 22) makes clear, Christ also “fully reveals man to himself and makes his supreme calling clear.” 5 The perfect and definitive