Like Paul, I love the Jewish people. There is not an ounce of anti-Semitism in my blood. I owe them my Christian faith. And I long for the day when they will see that in Christ, their long-sought Messiah has actually appeared.

I was in Holland a few weeks ago, and stumbled across a very interesting exhibition in Amsterdam’s De Nieuwe Kerk.

The exhibition, ‘Judaism: A World of Stories’ was a fascinating glimpse into Jewish life and history. A collaborative project between international museums and private collections, the exhibition housed some five hundred objects telling the story of over three thousand years of Jewish religion and culture.

Given that all the roots of my Christian faith are Jewish, the opportunity was too good to miss. The foundational documents of my religion are Hebrew ones, the determinative patterns of my worship were in the synagogue, and my Saviour had a Jewish identity. How could I not be interested?

The collection itself was a bit eclectic; I was more interested in the Torah scrolls than in the modelled wedding outfits (not that Jewish weddings do not feature in my sacred texts), and in the religious artefacts more than in the household items. But the whole exhibition was worth the hour’s exploration.

Some items captured my interest more than others. For example, there was the painting by the nineteenth-century German Jewish artist Moritz Daniel Oppenheim depicting the preparation for a circumcision. In the foreground, the Go’el sharpens the knife for the cutting off of the child’s foreskin, while in the background the mother hands the baby over to the father. A rabbi leans over the torah, while a group of youngsters prepare to witness the ritual.

I was really quite overcome by the title of the painting: ‘The Child enters the Covenant’. Oppenheim has brought to life the remarkable Old Testament provision by which God’s covenant was incised into the flesh of the sons of Abraham. As a Reformed paedo-baptist, I believe that the same principle holds for children in the New Testament church: the painful, bloody rite of circumcision has been replaced by the painless sprinkling of water as a sign of God’s covenant promise to his church.

In spite of the theological and ecclesiastical controversies that the issue of baptism has engendered, one of the most moving rites of passage in our church tradition is the bringing of our children into the covenant. God’s claim is on them, and his blessings surround them.

Another item which fascinated me was the fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls. I have always been compelled and intrigued by the story of the discovery of ancient copies of texts of the Old Testament in the Qumran caves in 1947. Some of these provide us with the oldest surviving copies of Old Testament texts.

Hidden away so as to be concealed from various groups of attackers, the Jews of the Qumran desert little realised the legacy they were bequeathing to subsequent generations of scholars and Bible students. To come face to face with these fragments in the exhibition was quite something.

After all, many manuscripts of antiquity have not survived the passing of the years; they have been lost or destroyed in one way or another. Yet the biblical texts have had a remarkable survival record; more than of passing historical interest, these texts are the Word of God, and the preservation of the Scriptures is as remarkable and as wonderful as their inspiration was in the first instance. We have a Bible because these manuscripts, as the Confession of Faith puts it, ‘by God’s singular care and providence, [were] kept pure in all ages’. The appearance of the scrolls from the Dead Sea is simply another wonderful example of that fact.

Then there were the huge scale models: one of Solomon’s temple and one of the tabernacle of Moses. In the Old Testament history there was a remarkable correlation between these two buildings: the temporary tabernacle eventually gave way to the more permanent temple.

The scale of the models was quite astonishing, capturing the details with breathtaking accuracy. The linen-clad priests could be seen moving among the animals and people around the altar; the coverings of the inner temple were lifted to reveal the sacred actions inside.

The temple, with its awe-inspiring corridors and rooms was modelled on a massive scale, and gives credence to the glory which the Old Testament ascribes to the house which David’s son built for his father’s God.

As I wandered around the exhibition, I was reminded of Paul’s words in his letter to the Romans, as he describes his own Jewish relations: ‘they are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises’. The Jewish roots of the Christian faith are strong and irrevocable; so much so, that one of the reasons that Paul gives for the death of Jesus on the cross is so that the blessing of Abraham would come on the Gentiles.

And that is precisely the rub. For Christians believe in a replacement theology; without denying the place that Judaism had, and may well yet have, in the revelation of God’s purposes of grace, the Jewish Messiah has in fact demonstrated that God chose Israel to be a light for the nations, and that in the worldwide message of the cross, the God of the Jews would also covenant to be the God of the Gentiles.

That is why Paul labours the point that ‘not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel’. The people of God are not to be identified with one particular ethnic group, or even with one particular religious tradition. In Christ there is no Jew nor Gentile. But the true sons of Abraham are those who have trusted in God’s promised Messiah, and in the son of David who came to have mercy on all.

Like Paul, I love the Jewish people. There is not an ounce of anti-Semitism in my blood. I owe them my Christian faith. And I long for the day when they will see that in Christ, their long-sought Messiah has actually appeared.

This article by Iain D. Campbell first appeared on his blob, Creideamh, and is used with permission.