What is the relationship between Christianity and Judaism?

Christianity did not appear out of nowhere. It grew directly out of the soil of Judaism, out of the covenant God made with Abraham, the law given through Moses, the temple worship of Israel, and the promises spoken by the prophets. Jesus was a Jew, born under the law (Galatians 4:4), circumcised on the eighth day, and raised observing the feasts and Sabbaths of His people. The earliest church was made up entirely of Jewish believers who saw themselves not as founders of a brand new religion but as Jews who had found their long-promised Messiah.

Understanding this relationship rightly protects Christians from two opposite errors: treating Judaism as a completely separate, unrelated religion, and treating the church as though it has simply replaced Israel with no ongoing relationship to God's original covenant people. Scripture points to something more organic, a single unfolding story of redemption in which the church is grafted into, not substituted for, Israel's story.

Jesus was clear about His relationship to the Hebrew Scriptures: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17). Christianity does not claim to be a new religion invented to compete with Judaism; it claims to be the fulfillment of everything Judaism had been pointing toward all along, the sacrifices, the priesthood, the promises to David, and the hope of a coming redeemer.

This is why the New Testament writers quote the Old Testament so extensively and why the book of Hebrews argues at length that Jesus is a better priest, offering a better sacrifice, mediating a better covenant (Hebrews 8:6). None of this language makes sense apart from Judaism; Christianity is, in a real sense, incomprehensible without it.

This continuity runs even into the terminology Christians use for their own Scriptures. The prophet Jeremiah promised a coming day when God would make "a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah," one in which His law would be written on hearts rather than merely on tablets of stone (Jeremiah 31:31-33). Christians believe Jesus inaugurated exactly this new covenant at the Last Supper, saying of the cup, "This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood" (Luke 22:20), and the author of Hebrews quotes Jeremiah's promise at length to show that the new covenant does not abolish God's earlier promises to Israel but fulfills and forever secures them (Hebrews 8:8-12).

Paul uses a vivid image to describe how Gentile believers relate to Israel: an olive tree, where some natural branches, unbelieving Israel, were broken off because of unbelief, and wild branches, believing Gentiles, were grafted in to share in the tree's rich root (Romans 11:17-18). He warns Gentile Christians sternly against arrogance toward Jewish people, reminding them, "remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you."

This picture rules out any Christian pride that looks down on Jewish people or Judaism as obsolete or discarded. Paul insists that ethnic Israel remains beloved for the sake of the patriarchs, "for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" (Romans 11:28-29). The church's existence does not erase God's ongoing purposes for the Jewish people.

Despite this deep continuity, the relationship involves a real and significant parting of ways over the identity of Jesus. Christianity holds that Jesus is God incarnate, the Messiah who died for sin and rose again, and that faith in Him, not law-keeping, is now the basis of a right relationship with God (Romans 10:4). Historic Judaism does not accept this claim and continues to await a Messiah, while structuring covenant life around Torah observance rather than faith in a crucified and risen Savior.

The split became formalized in the first century as Jewish believers in Jesus were increasingly excluded from the synagogue and as the church grew to include large numbers of Gentiles who had never practiced Judaism at all. What began as a movement within Judaism became, over time, its own distinct community, though one that never stopped claiming the Hebrew Scriptures as its own.

Christians thinking carefully about this relationship need to steer clear of two opposite errors. The first is often called replacement theology or supersessionism in its harshest form, the idea that the church has entirely replaced Israel and that God's promises to the Jewish people are simply canceled or transferred away with no remaining significance for ethnic Israel. Paul explicitly rules this out: "I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means!" (Romans 11:1), pointing to himself, an Israelite, as living proof that God has not abandoned His covenant people. Any reading of Scripture that leaves no room for God's ongoing purposes for Israel goes further than Paul himself was willing to go.

The opposite error, sometimes called two-covenant theology, claims that Jewish people can be saved through Torah observance apart from faith in Jesus, since they already belong to God's covenant with Moses. This view is pastorally appealing because it avoids uncomfortable conversations, but it cannot be squared with the New Testament's insistence that salvation is found in Christ alone, for Jew and Gentile alike: "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). Paul's own anguished prayer for his kinsmen, that they would be saved, only makes sense if Torah observance alone were not already sufficient (Romans 10:1).

For Christians today, this history calls for both conviction and humility. Conviction, because the New Testament's claim that Jesus is the promised Messiah is not incidental to Christian faith but central to it, and cannot be softened for the sake of comfort. Humility, because Christians owe an enormous debt to the Jewish people, through whom the oracles of God were first entrusted (Romans 3:1-2) and from whom, according to the flesh, is the Christ (Romans 9:5).

Paul's own longing for his kinsmen, that they would be saved (Romans 10:1), should shape how Christians relate to Jewish people and to Judaism today: not with triumphalism or hostility, but with gratitude for the root that bears us and prayerful hope that many more branches will be grafted back in.