Introduction
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” reads John 3:16. This is the central tenet of Christianity. That God sent his only begotten son to earth that he might, through his Passion death and Resurrection bring about the salvation of man. God became man to save his Children. Jesus as Messiah came to earth and became man for the salvation of souls. Judaism, the original faith from which Christianity arose, rejects this belief. Jesus is not the Messiah the God promised them. For Jews, they must sit quietly faithful for the time when the Messiah comes down to the earth and deliver them, as God promised.
Judaism: features
Jews believe that God is one and one only. The idea of a Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, is to them a blasphemy akin to polytheism or worship of multiple gods. The first commandment dictates. ‘I am the Lord your God you shall have no other Gods besides me. God alone is worshipped. Jews believe that God is non-corporeal and eternal and he is unlike man. This makes belief in Jesus even harder because Jesus, to Christians, is God that became man. Jews hold that they are the chosen people through Abraham’s covenant with Godless regarded are the Gentiles, Samaritans, and other non-Jewish cultures in God’s plan to them.
However, the Jews also believe in a Messiah. The old testament, which also forms the heart of the Torah, is replete concerning a Messiah, an anointed savior. Both Isaiah and Daniel speak of a Messiah who will come from the royal line of David to deliver the Jews from their oppressors. The traditional view, because David was a great warrior-king was that the Messiah would be a mighty warrior in his own right. The Jewish-Roman wars were inspired in part by people who claimed to be precisely this Messiah. It is worth noting that Jesus warned that such False-Messiah would come and lead the Jews to Perdition. To this day, Orthodox Judaism and Conservative Judaism believe that a future Messiah will come forth to usher a Messianic age of war before peace reigns in the world.
It is because of this temporal view of Messiah or savior and their strict adherence to a One Unified God that Jews find it hard to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. I.N.R.I. or Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews was abhorrent to them. He was the son of Mary who, according to Christian belief, is from the royal line of David. This fulfills the belief that he would come from David. He is a savior, but unlike the traditional belief of Jews in a Judge, like Samson, or a King, like David, who would come forth and deliver the Jews from their Physical enemies, Jesus delivered man from sin and eternal damnation.
The Jews and the Christians
In the beginning, this belief in the divinity and messiah-hood of Jesus was all that separated the Jews from the Christians. However, two thousand years of history and tradition have created great gulfs in the beliefs of the faiths. For example, the Tridentine mass of Roman Catholics includes a prayer calling for the conversion of Jews to the true faith. Naturally, Jews resent this as much as they resent the anti-Semitic belief that Jews were responsible for the murder of Jesus and existing Jews are just as liable for the crime as the ones who called for his crucifixion.
In fairness to the Jews, their faith is unique and is the oldest still practiced faith in the world. If resilience is the measure of truth in faith then the Jewish faith must be something indeed having endured the Diaspora and the Holocaust and still exist. The fulfillment of the Jewish faith lies in the arrival of a Messiah, a divine savior. Christians await the Second Coming of Christ. Perhaps both faiths are waiting for the same thing.
Reference
John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography.