The True Israel of God: the Catholic Church vs. the Synagogue of Satan
The True Israel of God: The Catholic Church vs. The Synagogue of Satan
By: Joe Moreaux
Many people today believe that the Jews are still the Chosen People of God, and that they still possess their own unique covenant with Him. Certain Protestant sects have advanced this notion tremendously, even advocating for the construction of the Third Temple in Israel. As well, the infiltrated Counter Church of Modernism has also adopted this heretical notion, going so far as to claim the Jews presently worship the same God as we do, even though Our Lord said their father was the devil due to their rejection of Him.
Here is the discourse between Jesus and the Jews who were doubting He was their Lord and the Messiah, taken from John 8:39-47:
They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did.” They said to him, “We have one Father—God.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires... Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”
The Magisterium, Sacred Tradition, and Sacred Scripture have given us clear guidance on these crucial issues, which are so blurred in today's global landscape.
This treatise will address these points: The Old Covenant has been nullified and revoked; the Church is the New Israel of God, the fulfillment of every promise made in the Old Covenant; the Jews are accursed for rejecting the Messiah, and need to repent and be converted to Christ and His Church. It will also address the modern day question regarding the proper Christian response to the charge of Anti Semitism. And finally, who is the Synagogue of Satan mentioned in the Apocalypse, and do the Jews worship the same God as Christians?
The Old Covenant Has Been Revoked
Let us first address Matthew 5:17, where Our Lord teaches, "Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill."
The word "destroy" is also rendered as "abolish" in other translations, and is also used in Acts 5:39 for "overthrow." Our Lord did not come to destroy and abolish the Law, which gives the connotation of obliteration. He does not come to discount the Law in this way, for the Law is what pointed to Him, and is now to be fulfilled in Him. Rather, he sets it aside because it is now useless.
Hebrews 7:18-19 states, "A former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness. On the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God."
So the Law is not abolished, however it is fulfilled, and thus it is nullified as having any binding authority. It remains as an integral part of our patrimony, even though it has been done away with, in order to establish a perfected covenant which completes it.
Hebrews 8:6-7 states, "But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second."
Hebrews 10:9 further says, "Christ says, 'Behold, I have come to do your will.' He does away with the first covenant in order to establish the second."
In St. Paul's letters, this teaching is also most prominent, considering all the work he had to do combating the Judaizer heresy which claimed that Mosaic laws were still required of Christians.
In 2 Corinthians 3:14, he writes, "But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away."
St. Paul also notes in Colossians 2:14, "Cancelling out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, He took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross."
In Ephesians 2:14-15, he teaches, "For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace."
To use an analogy, a corporation buys out a business. The new CEO reviews the company handbook that was in force, and decides to use it as a reference in composing a perfected handbook which best reflects the vision and expectations of the new merger. He does not throw it into a shredder and start from scratch. Rather, he perfects it according to his purposes, and then sets it aside. Once set aside, the new handbook takes effect and remains in force.
This is why Our Lord does not abolish the Law, but instead He fulfills and completes it. And consequently, the Old Covenant system is nullified. In place of it comes the New Covenant, which God now offers to all men for their salvation.
Jesus Himself is the fulfillment of the entire Old Covenant. The Jews were the chosen people insofar as God chose them to be the means by which the Messiah came to the world. And now, any individual Jew who wishes to inherit the promise of salvation must be born anew in Christ, and thus enter into His Body. This invitation is made to Jew and Gentile alike, to every man until the end of time (Romans 10:12, Galatians 3:28, 1 John 2:1-2).
In Genesis 17:7, God tells Abraham, "And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee."
St. Paul picks up on this in Galatians 3:16, carefully drawing out the point being made: "Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, 'And to seeds,' as referring to many, but rather to one, 'And to your seed,' that is, Christ."
Our Blessed Mother reflects this as well in her beautiful Magnificat, recorded in Luke 1:54-55, "He hath received Israel his servant, being mindful of his mercy: As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever."
Thus, the promise made to Abraham and his seed is fulfilled in Christ, and Our Lord in turn says we must be incorporated into Him, as a branch to a Vine and a body to a Head, in order to inherit this promise.
This teaching concerning the Old Covenant being revoked, and being fulfilled with the New Covenant, is also echoed in the testimony of Sacred Tradition. The Fathers taught it in the primitive centuries.
St. Irenaeus: "These things, therefore, which were given for bondage, and for a sign to them, He cancelled by the new covenant of liberty. But He has increased and widened those laws which are natural, and noble, and common to all, granting to men largely and without grudging, by means of adoption, to know God the Father, and to love Him with the whole heart, and to follow His word unswervingly."
St. Justin Martyr: "Now, law placed against law has abrogated that which is before it, and a covenant which comes after in like manner has put an end to the previous one; and an eternal and final law—namely Christ—has been given to us, and the covenant is trustworthy."
St. Augustine: "He who has given them the law by Moses, promises in place of it the new covenant of the gospel, that they might no longer live in the oldness of the letter, but in the newness of the spirit."
St. John Chrysostom: "Now, if the Law bestows the blessings, even life and righteousness, that promise is annulled. And so while no one annuls a man's covenant, the covenant of God after four hundred and thirty years is annulled; for if not that covenant but another instead of it bestows what is promised, then is it set aside, that which is most unreasonable."
The Ecumenical Councils and Holy Popes of the Church likewise reflected this truth as well.
Council of Florence: "That the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, of the Mosiac law... although they were suited to the divine worship at that time, after our Lord’s coming had been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began; and that whoever, even after the passion, placed hope in these matters of the law and submitted himself to them as necessary for salvation, as if faith in Christ could not save without them, sinned mortally."
Council of Trent: "Not even the Jews by the very letter of the law of Moses were able to be liberated."
Catechism of the Council of Trent: "The people were aware of the abrogation of the Mosaic Law."
Pope St. Leo the Great: "From the Cross of our Lord, there was effected a transfer from the Law to the Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from the many sacrifices to one Victim, that, as Our Lord expired, that mystical veil which shut off the innermost part of the temple and its sacred secret was rent violently from top to bottom."
Pope Pius XII: "The New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished... on the gibbet of His death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race."
The entirety of the Old Law is superceded and annulled with the arrival of the New Covenant. But, you may ask, what about the Ten Commandments? Yes, the New Covenant incorporates within it what it deems helpful from the Old. To use another analogy, the writers of the United States Constitution borrowed principles and ideas from the Magna Carta when drafting their document. But once their document was signed, it took effect. The Magna Carta no longer had any binding force. It was set aside by the Constitution.
Who is the True Israel of God?
In Galatians 6:12-16, St. Paul continues on the offense against the Judaizer heresy, and in the process notes that the Church is now the true Israel of God.
"It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God."
St. John Chrysostom, in a homily on Galatians 6, notes, "This our rule of life he calls a new creature, both on account of what is past, and of what is to come; of what is past, because our soul, which had grown old with the oldness of sin, has been all at once renewed by baptism, as if it had been created again. Wherefore we require a new and heavenly rule of life... Tell me not then, he says, of circumcision, which now avails nothing; but seek the new things of grace. For they who pursue these things shall enjoy peace and amity, and may properly be called by the name of Israel. While they who hold contrary sentiments, although they be descended from him (Israel) and bear his appellation, have yet fallen away from all these things, both the relationship and the name itself. But it is in their power to be true Israelites, who keep this rule, who desist from the old ways, and follow after grace."
Notice how the holy Saint connects the baptized who persevere in grace to be the Israel of God, showing that this title now belongs to the Church as a whole, and properly speaking to those who carry their crosses faithfully, imitating Christ.
This passage from Galatians 6 is truly phenomenal. St. Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, attacks two birds with one devastating stone. The two birds are the Judaizer heretics seeking to spread their errors in the Church, and also the Jews who were persecuting Christians. While both those groups prided themselves on the symbols of the Old Covenant, for example circumcision, St. Paul here takes the most compelling symbol he can from their worldview: Israel. And in so doing, he states that the true citizens of Israel are those who follow the rule of Jesus Christ. Heretics and apostates may want to call themselves "Israel," but it amounts to nothing in reality. That title now permanently belongs with the Church founded by Our Lord.
St. Justin Martyr writes, "Jesus Christ is the new law, and the new covenant, and the expectation of those who out of every people wait for the good things of God. For the true spiritual Israel, and the descendants of Judah, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham (who in uncircumcision was approved of and blessed by God on account of his faith, and called the father of many nations), are we who have been led to God through this crucified Christ."
The Jews are Accursed
So then what is the current status of the Jews in the context of the New Covenant? Like all other unbelievers, they must repent and be joined to Our Lord Jesus Christ through His Bride, the Catholic Church. Outside of Christ, there is no salvation. And outside the Church, there is likewise no salvation.
This explains why the traditional Church, in her mercy, prays for the Jews this way on Good Friday:
Let us pray also for the faithless Jews: that Almighty God may remove the veil from their hearts; so that they too may acknowledge Jesus Christ our Lord. Almighty and eternal God, who dost not exclude from thy mercy even Jewish faithlessness: hear our prayers, which we offer for the blindness of that people; that acknowledging the light of thy Truth, which is Christ, they may be delivered from their darkness. Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The once chosen people are now accursed because of their rejection of the Messiah. This rejection persists even to the present day. Their only hope for salvation is to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins (Matthew 16:16, Acts 2:38).
Hear the harmonious testimony of Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium to see the evidence for yourself:
Daniel 9:26 Christ shall be slain, and the people who shall deny Him shall not be His.
Romans 9:30-32 The Gentiles have attained to justice, but Israel has not come unto the law of justice. Why? Because they sought it not by faith, for they stumbled at the Stumbling Stone.
Acts 4:10-12 Christ is the Stone which was rejected which has become the cornerstone: nor is there salvation in any other. For, there is no other name under Heaven whereby we must be saved.
Matthew 8:11-12 Many shall come from the East and the West, and sit down in the kingdom of Heaven, but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out, into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
2 Paralipomenon 36:15-16 Early and often did the Lord send His messengers to them, for He had compassion on His people. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His warnings, and scoffed at His prophets, till the anger of the Lord against His people was so inflamed that there was no remedy.
Matthew 21:43 Therefore, I say to you: the kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and given to a nation yielding the fruits thereof.
Wisdom 3:19 Dreadful are the ends of a wicked race!
Ezechiel 4:12-13 Thou shalt eat bread and cover it with the dung that comes out of a man. Thus shall the children of Israel eat their bread all filthy among the nations wither I will cast them out, saith the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 2:14b-16 The Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and have persecuted us, do not please God, and they have become adversaries to all men, to fill up their sin always. . . . for the wrath of God has come upon them to the end.
1 John 2:23 Whosoever denies the Son does not have the Father.
John 5:23 He who honors not the Son, honors not the Father Who sent Him. He who hates Me, hates My Father also.
Isaias 1:3-4, 15 The ox knows his Owner, and the ass knows his Master's crib, but Israel has not known Me, and My people have not understood. Woe to the sinful nation, a people loaded with iniquity, a wicked seed, ungracious children. They have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they have gone away backwards. And when you stretch forth your hands, I will turn away My eyes from you, saith the Lord; and when you multiply prayer, I will not hear, for your hands are full of blood.
Our Lord Jesus Christ referred to Himself as "the Stone" (Mt. 21:44). Lying on the ground, it shakes whoever falls over it; coming from on high, it crushes the proud. The Jews have already been shaken by their previous stumble. What awaits them is to be crushed by His Coming. (St. Augustine)
The Jews wander over the entire earth, their backs bent over and their eyes cast downward, forever calling to our minds the curse they carry with them. (St. Augustine)
Judaism, since Christ, is a corruption; indeed, Judas is the image of the Jewish people: their understanding of Scripture is carnal; they bear the guilt for the death of the Savior, for through their fathers they have killed Christ. The Jews held Him; the Jews insulted Him; the Jews bound Him; they crowned Him with thorns; they scourged Him; they hanged Him upon a tree. (St. Augustine)
Do not add to your sins by saying that the Covenant is both theirs and ours. Yes, it is ours, but they lost it forever. (St. Barnabas)
Those of the seed of Abraham who live according to the Law of Moses and who do not believe in Christ before death shall not be saved; especially they who curse this very Christ in the synagogues; who curse everything by which they might obtain salvation and escape the vengeance of fire. (St. Justin the Martyr)
Jews are cursed and covered with malediction. The curse has penetrated them like water in their bowels and oil in their bones. They are cursed in the city and cursed in the country, cursed in their coming in and cursed in their going out. Cursed are the fruits of their loins, of their lands, of their flocks; cursed are their cellars, their granaries, their shops, their food, the very crumbs off their tables! (St. Agobard)
One who dies a Jew will be damned... Since His spouse, the Synagogue, refused to receive Him, Christ answered: "This is a harlot!" and gave her a bill of divorce. (St. Vincent Ferrer)
It would be licit, according to custom, to hold Jews in perpetual servitude because of their crime. (St. Thomas Aquinas)
O Jewish hearts, harder than rocks! (St. Ambrose)
How dare Christians have the slightest intercourse with Jews! They are lustful, rapacious, greedy, perfidious bandits: pests of the universe! Their synagogue is a house of prostitution, the domicile of the devil, as is the soul of the Jew. As a matter of fact, Jews worship the devil; their religion is a disease, their synagogue an abyss of perdition. The rejection and dispersion of the Jews was done by the wrath of God because of His absolute abandonment of the Jews. God hates the Jews, and on Judgment Day will say to those who sympathize with them: "Depart from Me, for you have had intercourse with My murderers!" Flee, then, from their assemblies, fly from their houses, and hold their synagogue in hatred and aversion. (St. John Chrysostom)
Jews are slayers of the Lord, murderers of the prophets, enemies and haters of God, adversaries of grace, enemies of their fathersÆ faith, advocates of the devil, a brood of vipers, slanderers, scoffers, men of darkened minds, the leaven of Pharisees, a congregation of demons, sinners, wicked men, haters of goodness! (St. Gregory of Nyssa)
And such are the prayers of the Jews, for when they stretch forth their hands in prayer, they only remind God-the-Father of their sin against His Son. And at every stretching-forth of their hands, they only make it obvious that they are stained with the blood of Christ. For they who persevere in their blindness inherit the blood-guilt of their fathers; for they cried out: "His blood be on us and on our children" (Mt. 27:25). (St. Basil the Great)
Poor Jews! You invoked a dreadful curse upon your own heads; and that curse, miserable race, you carry upon you to this day, and to the End of Time you shall endure the chastisement of that innocent blood! (St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori)
So clearly was the transition then made from the Synagogue to the Church that, when the Lord gave up His soul, the veil of the Temple was rent in two. (Pope St. Leo the Great)
Ungrateful for favors and forgetful of benefits, the Jews return insult for kindness and impious contempt for goodness. They ought to know the yoke of perpetual enslavement because of their guilt. See to it that the perfidious Jews never in the future grow insolent, but that they always suffer publicly the shame of their sin in servile fear. (Pope Gregory IX)
Crucifiers of Christ ought to be held in continual subjection. (Pope Innocent III)
Let the Gospel be preached to them and, if they remain obstinate, let them be driven away. (Pope Leo VII)
As wanderers, they must remain upon the earth until their faces are filled with shame and they seek the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Pope Innocent III)
Indeed, if any one of the clergy or faithful has taken a meal with Jews, he is to abstain from Communion so that he may be reformed. (Council of Elvira)
All the holy sacrifices sacraments and ceremonies of the old Testament had prefigured that he would come at some time. It firmly believes, professes and teaches that the legal prescriptions of the old Testament or the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, holy sacrifices and sacraments, because they were instituted to signify something in the future, although they were adequate for the divine cult of that age, once our lord Jesus Christ who was signified by them had come, came to an end and the sacraments of the new Testament had their beginning. The most holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the Mosaic Law cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation. Every one, therefore, who observes circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the Law, the Church declares not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation. (Council of Florence)
Revisiting the passage quoted above from 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16, notice the emphasis given by St. Paul. "The Jews... do not please God... have become adversaries to all men... fill up their sin always." This illustrates the urgent importance for individual Jewish believers to repent and embrace Our Lord for who He is, and to enter His Church for salvation. "For the wrath of God has come upon them to the end," St. Paul continues. They can not be saved in the system of the Old Covenant, and they can not wait around for another "Messiah" because it will be the Antichrist, and they will fall for it hook line and sinker. They can not claim to worship the one true God, because they are not children of Abraham, as quoted above from Our Lord. The God of Abraham is worshipped in the Catholic Church alone, today.
The Christian Response to the Charge of Anti-Semitism
In our present day, where Jewish elites have occupied such high positions of influence and power in every sector of global affairs, it is important to address the question of the proper Christian response to the charge of Anti Semitism. This term is thrown around frequently today whenever anyone, in any capacity, offers a critique of the Jewish Religion or challenges Jewish people to repent and convert.
Fr. Denis Fahey, in his book The Kingship of Christ and The Conversion of the Jewish Nation, wrote:
"The Hitlerite naturalistic or anti-supernatural régime in Germany gave to the world the odious spectacle of a display of Anti-Semitism, that is, of hatred of the Jewish Nation. Yet all the propaganda about that display of Anti-Semitism should not have made Catholics forget the existence of age-long Jewish Naturalism or Anti-Supernaturalism. Forgetfulness of the disorder of Jewish Naturalistic opposition to Christ the King is keeping Catholics blind to the danger that is arising from the clever extension of the term “Anti-Semitism,” with all its war-connotation in the minds of the unthinking, to include any form of opposition to the Jewish Nation’s naturalistic aims. For the leaders of the Jewish Nation, to stand for the rights of Christ the King is logically to be “anti-Semitic."
Fr. Fahey continues, "A day will come when the Jewish Nation will cease to oppose order and will turn in sorrow and repentance to Him Whom they rejected before Pilate. That will be a glorious triumph for the Immaculate Heart of Our Blessed Mother. Until that day dawns, however, their naturalistic opposition to the True Supernatural Order of the world must be exposed and combated."
The reality today is that we must increase our efforts on both fronts: combating and exposing the Jewish error of rejecting the Messiah, as well as continuing to grow in grace with genuine Christian charity, for as Our Lord instructed, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." At the end of the day, God truly "does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked," and He "desires all men to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth."
The Synagogue of Satan in the Apocalypse
Apocalypse 2:9 and 3:9 "Thou art blasphemed by them that say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan... Behold, I will bring of the synagogue of Satan, who say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie. Behold, I will make them to come and adore before thy feet. And they shall know that I have loved thee."
I shall treat this topic briefly by citing Rev. Sylvester Berry in his magnificent pre-Vatican II Commentary on the Apocalypse, 1921:
"The real Jew — the true son of Abraham is the Christian who has accepted Christ as the Messias promised to Abraham of old. These who call themselves Jews are but rebels against the God of Israel and the prophets of old. They are the synagogue of Satan. Wherever the Gospel was preached the Jews were its first and most bitter enemies. Tertullian writes, "The Jewish synagogues are the source ofpersecutions."
"These Jewish enemies of the Gospel will succeed in bringing on a persecution, but it shall be of short duration. The Christians must suffer for their Faith, yet there is nothing to fear; he who perseveres will obtain the crown of eternal life. This prophecy found a fulfillment in the persecution which raged for a short time at Smyrna about the year 155 A.D. St. Polycarp was its most illustrious victim. An account of his martyrdom was written by his brethren to notify the neighboring churches of their bishop's death. This work, known as the "Martyrdom of Polycarp, shows that the Jews took an active part in the persecution."
We see from Fr. Berry that he interprets "the Synagogue of Satan" to be those who professed the Jewish faith that then rejected Our Lord and persecuted His disciples.
Dr. Robert Sungenis, in his Commentary on the Apocalypse, goes one step further and notes that this phrase also applied specifically to Jews who were seeking to infiltrate the Christian Religion.
He writes, "Many of the early Christian churches were infiltrated by Jewish zealots seeking to dissuade Christians from their faith."
He then says that the phrase "Synagogue of Satan" refers to, "those Jews who pretended to be converts to the Christian faith only to gain a foothold in the church and upset the faith of the simple. Jesus designates these Jews in a similar way that he once did to the Pharisees: 'You are of your father the devil.'"
Taking these two interpretations together, we can conclude that the "Synagogue of Satan" refers in a wider general sense to members of the Jewish Religion who refuse to acknowledge Christ as their Messiah and Lord, and in a more strict specific sense to Jews who seek to infiltrate the Christian Religion for the purposes of leading others astray.
Do the Jews Worship the Same God as Christians?
John Paul II's Catechism, co-authored by Cardinal Ratzinger (the future Benedict XVI), contains many errors and compromises with Modernism. This is not surprising since it is a product of the Counter Church, so its influences stem from the infiltration and subversion of Jewish Freemasons and Communists.
Drawing from the documents Lumen Gentium and Nostra Aetate of Vatican II, it cites this in regards to the Jewish People, in section 839:
"The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews "belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ", "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable."
Notice how it cites Romans 9:4-5, where St. Paul expresses his anguish over the rejection of Christ as Messiah by most of the Jews of his day. The Compromised Catechism seeks to give the impression that St. Paul is saying the Jewish people (present day) possess the promises of the Old Covenant, but in context, St. Paul continues in verses 6 and 7 which immediately follow 4 and 5: "It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children."
This lines up with his theology cited earlier in Galatians 6:12-16 that the Church is the new Israel of God. So the promises, properly speaking, belong to children of Abraham, and as Our Lord said, those who reject Him do not have Anraham as their father. One can see the clever and deceptive tactics of Satan (the father of all who reject Jesus as Lord and Messiah) behind the Compromised Catechism.
This Catechism then continues to do something more heinous. It connects Romans 9:4-5 directly to Romans 11:29, "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable," giving the impression again that the irrevocable gifts and call of God belong to present day Judaism, when the reality is that St. Paul is speaking of the Remnant of Jews (known to God alone, beginning from the New Covenant to the Second Coming) that will repent by grace and join the Christian Religion, the Catholic Church, the true Israel of God.
It is the elect from Israel that is saved, and this term belongs to Jewish people who accept Christ as their Messiah and join His Church and follow the precepts of His Holy Religion. St. Paul makes this clear in verses 30-32, which immediately follow verse 29: "You who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy... God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." He is speaking of those who repent of their sins, confess Jesus as their Lord and Messiah, and become partakers of the New Covenant. As Hebrews 8:8 teaches, "For he finds fault with them when he says: 'Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.'"
The Counter Catechism then teaches in section 840: "And when one considers the future, God's People of the Old Covenant and the new People of God tend towards similar goals: expectation of the coming (or the return) of the Messiah."
Of course, we can all see that these are in no way "similar" goals. These are a complete contrast from one another. One group is awaiting a counterfeit Christ known as the Antichrist, while another waits for the Return of the King. And again, note the clever deception. The Counter Catechism calls the Jews, "God's People of the Old Covenant," in a present day connotation. The reality again is that God's People of the Old Covenant are the Children of Abraham who, present day, have taken Christ as their Groom and been born anew into the Catholic Church through Baptism.
Final Notes and Appeal
May this article help lead all unbelievers, Jew and Gentile, to discover the truth about Our Lord Jesus Christ and the necessity of belonging to His One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, the Christian Religion.
God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, and He desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. None of us are worthy of His Mercy. But He extends it to anybody who repents of their sins with a contrite heart and seeks to be sacramentally united to Jesus Christ.
Cast away false gods and false religions that can not save your soul. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. There is no Name under Heaven by which we can be saved. And He has one Bride, one Body. And she is the pillar and foundation of truth. Outside of Christ and His Church, there is no salvation. May you experience the joy and peace of the Sacraments, principally Confession and the Eucharist.
