Bible Dictionaries
Unbelief

　　One of the great problems of the Apostolic Age was to account for the unbelief of the Jews. Unhappily, it was only too clear that the Jews not only had brought Jesus Christ to the Cross through their representative leaders, but also after Pentecost had refused to listen to the gospel preached by the apostles, and had become the main opponents of the Christian faith. To those whose eyes had been opened to see the glory of God in Christ Jesus, it seemed the strangest of all experiences that those whom God had taken to be His peculiar people, and to whom He had granted so many privileges, should have turned away in unbelieving scorn from the Lord who had come to be their Redeemer. Hence the poignancy of the confession: ‘He came unto his own, and they that were his own received him not’ (John 1:11). In the apostolic history that experience was sadly repeated (Acts 13:45).

　　Three chief questions were raised by this unbelief of the Jews. (1) Did this unbelief not cancel the early promises made by God? (2) Did this unbelief not defeat God’s plan? (3) Could God’s salvation be complete apart from the Jewish people? These questions are dealt with by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans in the sympathetic method that might be expected from one whose pride in his ancient lineage was never concealed, and whose faith was clear and enlightened as well as intense. To the three-fold problem St. Paul made reply. (1) The promises of God did not depend upon man, for God would keep His word whatever man might do. God would be true and faithful however His people might be convicted of falsehood and unbelief (Romans 3:4). (2) God’s purpose was both narrower and wider than was commonly supposed. In all the Jewish history the purpose of God was to redeem some within the Hebrew race to be the means of blessing, and even in the Christian era, as of old, there was a ‘remnant’ that believed and shared in the purposes of God. So too God’s purpose was wider than was supposed. From the earliest times His plan looked forward to embracing the Gentiles within its scope, and through the very unbelief and defection of the Jews there had come a marvellous fulfilment of this wider purpose. ‘By their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles’ (Romans 11:11). (3) St. Paul believed with all his heart that the Kingdom of God would not be complete apart from the Jews. This was so far true even in the Apostolic Age. ‘Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace’ (Romans 11:5). But in the future there would be a glorious return of the chosen people. St. Paul represented the Jews as being subjects of unbelief and disobedience, so that in the gracious purpose of God they might be objects of the Divine mercy. The Most High would unfold all the width of His salvation when after their period of darkness the Jewish people would come forth into the light. Then would come the final consummation, and the receiving of them would be truly ‘life from the dead’ (Romans 11:15).

　　The same problem of the unbelief of the Jews was treated in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The discussion in this Epistle centred round the rest of God into which God Himself entered after the work of creation, and to which He called His people. This rest was offered to Israel in the time of Moses and was not realized by them through unbelief. The mere entrance into Canaan under Joshua was no true fulfilment of the promise, for ‘if Israel had believed they would have entered in, the Rest would have been appropriated, and God’s gracious design satisfied, and a Rest would have been no more “left” for others’ (A. B. Davidson, The Epistle to the Hebrews, Edinburgh, n.d., p. 98). When their unbelief left this rest still open, it was offered again by God in the new revelation that He made. His voice was heard through His Son in the end of those days in which He had spoken to the early believers on to the time when He should come again. Thus the promise that was unrealized in the Old Covenant was renewed in the New Covenant. These conclusions are largely the same as those reached by St. Paul-that unbelief marked the Jews in all their history, and that their unbelief opened the way to the receiving of the Gentiles. But there is not in this Epistle the forecast of the glorious future yet in store when Israel would turn again, only an insistence upon the need of giving diligence to enter into that rest, ‘that no man fall after the same example of disobedience’ (Hebrews 4:11).

　　It is worthy of note that in all these apostolic discussions unbelief and disobedience are almost interchangeable terms. Both words, ; 1 Peter 3:1). On the other hand, marriage of a believer after conversion with an unbeliever was deemed an un-Christian act (2 Corinthians 6:14). The other practical question was with regard to the practice of Christians carrying their quarrels before unbelievers. The Corinthians were litigious as well as licentious, and even after they adhered to the Christian faith they were beset by their old weaknesses. They were guilty of quarrelling, and insisted so much on their presumed rights that they did not hesitate to go to law with a Christian brother before pagan judges. St. Paul denounced this practice as showing the lack of Christian love, as bringing disgrace upon the whole Christian community, and as implying that there were none within the Christian fellowship able to settle the petty differences that had arisen. Even the Jews exercised jurisdiction over internal affairs, and reckoned as guilty of impiety any of their number who brought a matter of law before idolatrous judges; much more should Christians shun heathen courts, and seek rather the judgment of their fellow-Christians, especially when they remembered that to believers was given by God the judgment of the world, and even of the angels in heaven (1 Corinthians 6:1-6).

　　D. Macrae Tod.