Light of Christ Truth

The True Cause of Antisemitism

 

 

It has been on my heart for many months now to share with fellow Christians and Bible believers what is the true cause of antisemitism. So I began researching, yet for some reason I felt I wasn’t able to uncover the true cause. There are lots of theories. One theory is what I just learned about: Antisemitic tropes. These tropes are sensational reports, misrepresentations or out and out fabrications, actually lies about Jews, which I must confess, I believed some of them until I got to know them better and their history. Some of the most common fabrications seen today is the accusation that Jews control the banks and want to run the world or that Jews are greedy.

The Jewish people have faced significant catastrophes throughout history, including the Babylonian Exile, the expulsion from Spain, and the Holocaust, which resulted in the loss of six million lives. While many nations have experienced their own tragedies, the unique and prolonged history of persecution against Jews, particularly in the context of antisemitism, is notable.

Yet these accusations are not the real cause of antisemitism although they are used to find cause to hate the Jews. The questions I asked and sought answers to were “what early persecutions of Jews had a common cause behind them?” and “Why has there always been a force in history seeking to exterminate the Jewish people?” This phenomenon against the Jewish people and Israel is labeled as one of the world’s oldest hatred in history. The catastrophes endured by the Jewish people over three thousand years far exceed those of other nations.

So what has been the cause of this long-standing hatred? After months of on and off again studies trying to ferret out what this common cause could be I just surrendered the search all together. Then one night I couldn’t get back to sleep. So I put on some Bible studies. Listening to lectures can often stop my mind from unwanted thoughts and worry that keep me awake in the middle of the night. Somewhere in the middle of this one lecture I received the surprising answer to my search! While in and out of wakefulness I heard something about the Israelites and God’s promises to them then and their continuing importance to God and the Second Coming of Christ. Right there in the Bible I knew was the answer.

Hatred of Christians
It is not just the Jewish people hated, so are Christians and even the Bible itself. Early Christians were persecuted by the Jews and Romans. Today they are mostly persecuted by Islamic countries. Since Christianity is the largest religion in the world, Christians are the most persecuted in the world. This is not to say that Christians haven’t persecuted other religions, especially Jews and Muslims particularly during the Middle Ages and the Reformation. Christian persecution in the U.S. is mostly from destruction to religious property, although as recent as 2024 and 2025 two Christian schools were attacked and children's lives, as well as a teacher, were lost.¹

Hatred of the Bible
The Bible itself also has been under attack. For centuries political, religious and power hungry individuals have attempted to suppress, destroy, or manipulate the Bible and its message. Attempts to wipe out Scripture usually arose from leaders who demanded absolute loyalty. Kings and emperors who led this way found the Bible’s ethical teachings and moral authority troublesome and that authority stood in their way. The Scriptures, by exalting a higher divine standard, threatened the claims of tyrants who craved unbridled control. Passages such as Exodus 20:3 reminded believers to have no other gods, and to follow God’s laws, thereby undermining the authority of autocrats who often portrayed themselves as divine or semi-divine and exposes practices that deviate from God’s commands

In other instances, political entities or religious movements might have viewed these teachings as dangerous because they exposed corruption or denounced idolatry and challenged the prevailing moral climate. Yet the Bible has survived and flourished and is now one of the most widely distributed and translated book in history with over a thousand language translations.

One of the earliest recorded attempts to destroy the Scriptures took place around 167 B.C.E. during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. Jeremiah’s condemnations of Judah’s sinful state offended King Jehoiakim, and the Law’s prohibition of pagan rites offended Antiochus Epiphanes, who wanted to impose Greek religion and Hellenic worship on the Jewish people. Diocletian, witnessing Christianity grow across the empire, may have feared that the Scriptures nurtured loyalty to a divine King rather than to him. Those in power believed that silencing God’s Word would secure their positions. 

This attack upon the Bible is really a hatred of God, and the Jews as God’s chosen people. God used the Jewish patriarchs and prophets to bring forth His Word, His Laws and teach morality in a world of sin. And then God sent forth His son, Jesus, into the Jewish lineage to redeem the world of sin.

Thus, we could say the Bible is about a spiritual conflict between God and Satan, a war between good and evil, with Satan against God, His nation, His chosen people, and His son, Jesus Christ. While Satan is a powerful being, he is ultimately a created being and subordinate to God. God holds ultimate power and authority being omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent and will ultimately defeat Satan who will be cast into the lake of sacred fire.

Hatred of the Jews
The only rational explanation is found throughout the Bible; Israel is the chosen people of God, the special witnesses chosen by God on earth. Israel is to witness to the world that the God of Israel is the one true God.

Throughout the Old Testament the story is mostly about the creation of Israel and the Israelites and their up and down relationship with God as well as the prophecies of the future Redeemer who will save them from sin. The New Testament is all about the birth of this Redeemer, Jesus Christ, His life and teachings, death and resurrection, as well as the early Christian church.

Anyone who has read and studied the Old and New Testament knows God’s covenant with Israel and later the turbulent history and persecution of Israelites. The Bible tells us why beginning with Genesis 3:15 after the fall of Adam and Eve. After Satan’s temptation to Eve, God declares enmity between the serpent and the woman, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Some translations say “crush your head” foreshadowing the ultimate defeat of sin and death which we now know as a prophecy of Christ's victory over sin and Satan.

Since Eve is the “mother of all living,” (Gen 3:20) she is the mother of all mankind as her offspring—and through her seed—will come the Messiah who will ultimately triumph over sin/evil and death.

The serpent’s offspring can be viewed both literally and metaphorically. The serpent’s (metaphorical) offspring are demonic forces and the (literal) offspring are human beings who choose to follow evil rather than good and actively oppose God’s will.

The seed of the woman and the seed of Serpent will remain enemies throughout all generations until the ultimate triumph of one who will crush the serpent’s head. We understand the serpent who tempted Eve was either demonically influenced or Satan himself in disguise. Satan will not only oppose Israel but seek to destroy the validity of the Bible and water down God’s word or make it into a distortion fomenting doubt that the Bible is the true word of God. Thus, the root of antisemitism goes back to the time of creation.

The beginnings of the Israel
In Genesis 12:1-5 we find the beginnings of the Jewish people. God called out a man from among mankind to begin a new people through whom He would bring forth the "seed of the woman". God calls Abram (later renamed Abraham) to leave his home country for a new land where He will make a great nation. That land would eventually be called “Israel.” From that moment on, Satan has focused his hatred upon the Israelites. If Satan could destroy Israel, he could prevent the birth of the seed and his own subsequent demise.

After Abraham reached the land of Canaan² the Lord appeared to Abram and told him, ‘To your seed I will give this land’ (Genesis 12:7). For the first time God revealed that His promise would be made good through one of Abraham’s descendants. At that time Abraham had no children. The land God promises would be inherited by Isaac, then Jacob, (later called Israel) and eventually the twelve tribes.

There in Canaan Abraham built an altar unto the Lord—as he was asked to do—whereby he took possession of the land for God, and consecrated it to Him. Thus God establishes His first covenant—called the Abrahamic Covenant—with His future chosen people. “Then God said to Abraham … you are to undergo circumcision and it shall be a sign of the covenant between you and Me.” (Genesis 17:9-11)

The prophets who came after Abraham started referring to this future descendant as “the Messiah”. God chose Israel to be the people from which this Messiah would come—Jesus Christ, born of a Jew. The Bible is clear that the plan of God from the beginning of the fall was to bring into this world the Messiah through His chosen people—the Jews. There can be found the spiritual root of all antisemitism. Satan’s attempts at preventing the Messiah’s coming. After the birth of Christ Satan focused on the Jews and Israel.

The history of Israel defined by trials and challenges
The covenant relationship with Israel is further developed through the Mosaic Covenant at Mount Sinai where God gives them the Ten Commandments. Yet God’s people continued to alternate between obedience and disobedience to God’s commandments and various statutes and ordinances intended to guide them towards righteous living. As God’s chosen people, they were encouraged to grow by encountering hardships that tested their faith and reliance on Him. For example, the Lord said to Cain, when he was upset with God’s favoring Abel’s gift to Him, “But if you refuse to do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires you, but you must master it.”

When God’s people gave into sin and were not the master over it there were consequences to help them see the error of their ways. Still, after years of repeated disobedience and rebellion against God by worshiping idols, moral corruption and unable or unwilling to uphold the covenants God established to guide them sinning became the norm for the Israelites.

Consequently, divine judgment descended again and again but not without warning. For example, in Leviticus 26:14-17, God warns the Israelites of the repercussions of disobedience:

"But if you will not listen to Me and carry out all these commandments, and if you reject My statutes and despise My ordinances, and fail to carry out all My commandments, and so break My covenant, then I will do this to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting disease, and fever that will destroy your sight and drain your life. You will sow your seed in vain because your enemies will eat it. I will set My face against you, so that you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when no one pursues you."

When God’s chosen people did not heed God’s warnings through His prophets for their sinning they would learn that there were serious consequences. One of the early examples was the conflict between Joseph and his brothers. The story of Joseph told in Genesis 41:40-57 illustrates the moral depravity for which the family was exiled and eventually oppressed by the Egyptians.

Joseph’s brothers had plotted to kill him and end up throwing him into a pit where he is eventually sold as a slave to the Egyptians. But Joseph eventually thrives and because of his God-given talents he interprets the Pharaoh’s dreams of the seven years of plenty and seven following years of famine and is awarded with the appointment to governor of all Egypt.

Joseph then rescues his father and brothers from famine and they are given land and plenty in Egypt. Generations later the Israels have become fruitful multiplying greatly which a future king eventually deems their numbers are a threat to his kingdom. So they oppressed them with harsh labor but still their numbers multiplied.

God knew of His future kingdom’s propensity to sin and even told Abram before His people were even born they would be enslaved.

"Know well that your offspring shall be strangers in a land not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years; but I will execute judgment on the nation they shall serve, and in the end they shall go free with great wealth ... And they shall return here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." (Genesis 15:12-14,16).

But God would use their sin to fulfill His plan to eventually redeem His people as well as the gentiles.

Was God’s adversary, Satan, behind the sinning?
For thousands of years Satan has demonstrated an insane and insatiable drive to wipe out the Jewish people, but so far has not been able to fully accomplish his goal. Let’s review some of his major attempts that God allowed and even brought about to chastise and edify His people.

• Many Christians may wonder why Cain killed his brother Abel. From the verses about Cain it appears he killed Abel out of jealousy after God favored Abel's sacrifice over his own. (Genesis 4:4-8) If it was from jealousy was it Satan who encouraged it to get the first-born son to kill a true servant of God?
• A race of giants, the Nephilim, were created after the sons of God³ mated with the women of earth, which led to the corruption of earth. God sent a flood to wipe out all the corruption but for Noah and his family. (Gen. 6) Could Satan have influenced these fallen angels to interfere with humanity in order to corrupt the race and destroy the purity of the seed of woman?
• After the chosen people were in Egypt, Pharaoh ordered all male Hebrew infants to be murdered as he tried to prevent the Israel from being too numerous. (Exodus 2) If Satan was behind this act, could it be another attempt to stop the seed of woman and the birth of the prophesied one? For the ancient Egyptians believed in the concept of divine prophecy, which foretold of a future threat to Pharaoh's rule by a male child born to the Hebrew people.
• Over the next one thousand years the Jewish people fell into worshiping idols and committed all kinds of terrible sins. After so many years of warnings to the people, God finally allowed His people to be exiled in Babylon because of their sins. (2 Kings 17:7) and the Twelve Tribes were scattered across the nations. Did Satan continue to tempt the Israelites to sin and worshiping of idols in order to destroy the people through war, exile and enslavement?

So to deduct from history Satan’s thinking:

• If he can destroy the Jewish people, there will be no Messiah. That didn't work and Christ had His victory over death.
• If there is no nation of Israel, God will not have kept His promises for Israel to inherit their promised land. The nation of Israel was destroyed and scattered but has been reestablished in 1948, so that didn't work out.
• With the promised land was a promised kingdom and a promised throne in Jerusalem. Yet to come. The phrase "the promised throne in Jerusalem for His people" concerns a future reign of God and His Messiah over the earth, as promised in the Davidic Covenant, with Jerusalem as the center of His kingdom.

The End Times and Israel
Let me preface first that the end times as given to us in Revelation is riddled with many interpretations:

• Futurist view (events are future)
• Preterism (events are in the apostolic past, like the fall of Rome)
• Historicist (events span all of church history)
• Spiritual or Idealist view (symbols as timeless spiritual truths, not specific events)

Because these differing views affect our view of the future reign of Jesus Christ and have a direct impact on ones propensity to antisemitism, it is important to know the history of where these beliefs originated and what the Scripture is really saying. Part II will be forthcoming and cover this important subject. The following End Times scenerio and connection with Israel, is based on Biblical text more from a futurist view.

The future chosen people of God and their nation, Israel, are still a threat to Satan and his reign. Thus, the reason why antisemitism is still in existence today. The Prince of Peace shall reign, not Satan, and as Revelation 21 tells us first Satan will be bound for a thousand years. Then he will be released and a great battle will unfold but a great fire will come down from heaven and destroy them all and they will be thrown into the lake of fire in the second death.

During the tribulation period, as God begins to revive and restore the nation of Israel, Satan will intensify his attacks. We know that because of Revelation 12, where we are given an overview of Satan’s efforts to wipe out the Jewish people. John is given a vision describing the cosmic battle between good and evil, with the Woman representing Israel (and by extension, the Church), the Child being Jesus Christ, and the Dragon symbolizing Satan.⁴

Chapter 12 begins in verse 1 by introducing us to “a great sign . . . in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” The woman is called a “great sign,” which clues us in that she is symbolic. Thus this vision is symbolic of Satan attempting to destroy Israel.

Why is Satan after this woman who is about to give birth? We are told here in Rev 12:4-5 that the Dragon wants to kill the child she is about to deliver. And in verse 5 it reads: “She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.” The woman, Israel, gives birth to the Messiah and as previously pointed out, Satan certainly tried everything he could to not only prevent his birth but discredit Him during His ministry and have Him killed.

We are then told that after Christ's ascension back to heaven, Satan turned his attention on the woman, Israel, to try to destroy her. This would be at the root of the last 2,000 years of antisemitism. With little time left to carry out Satan's mission, in Revelation 12:6 midst the seven-year tribulation, Israel flees “into the wilderness" with Satan in pursuit. In Revelation 12:15-16 the serpent sends a flood but God miraculously diverts it. Then Satan goes after the "rest of her offspring, on those who . . . hold to the testimony of Jesus.” These are the Jews and converted gentiles/Christians.

Much tribulation continues for three and a half years (1,260 days) before the judgment comes and Satan is bound for a thousand years and then let loose for his last moments, the great battle and his second death.

 

Conclusion

 This is what the Lord says :

Thus if these celestial bodies cease to exist, only then would the nation of Israel cease to exist.

As Dr. David Reagan⁵ of Lamb & Lion Ministries wrote:

"God has regathered the Jewish people to their homeland for a reason. He is going the bring the whole world against them (Zechariah 12:3), not because He hates them, but because He loves them.

They (the Jewish people) have been a stubborn and stiff-necked people throughout their relationship with Him. When in trouble in Old Testament times, they always turned to Egypt for help. In modern times, they have relied on the United States. God has always wanted them to rely on Him.

In these end times, as the whole world turns against them, they will be forced to come to the end of themselves, and in their desperation, they will turn to God for their help, and they will finally accept His Son as their Messiah (Zechariah 12:10).

Jesus mentioned it when he rode into Jerusalem at the climax of His life. He said He would not return to this earth until the Jewish people were willing to say, “Baruch Haba B’shem Adonai,” meaning “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 16:22) 

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¹Violent attacks and systematic persecution of Christians occur globally, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. In 2024, the World Watch List reported that around 365 million Christians faced high levels of persecution, In the U.S. vandalism of religious property is the major problem. However, in March 2023, Audrey Hale, a trans woman, murdered three children and three staffers in a shooting at Covenant School in Nashville, Tenn. Then in August 2025, a Catholic school was attacked by a 23-year-old transgender male who shot through the church windows killing two and injuring seventeen. The FBI is investigating it as a hate crime targeting Catholics.

²The country of Palestine, received its name from the Philistines, who dwelt on the sea coast: it was called Judea, from Judah: and is termed the Holy Land, being the country where Jesus Christ was born and died. Canaan area is a bit differently found, though it was usually somewhere around modern Palestine. It comprises present-day Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, and the Southern portions of Syria and Lebanon.

³The Book of Enoch describes angels marrying women on earth, and the offspring were a giant type of beings. While Enoch is not the inspired, authoritative word of God Jews and early Christians held this book as part of their reading studies, while not completely true, it held nuggets of truth. The view that has increased in favor today is that the Nephilim were offspring of fallen angels and human women and that the "sons of God" were fallen angels who had relations with the "daughters of men" (Genesis 6:1-6) As a result, the Nephilim were born.  A verse that supporters of this position turn to is Job 1:6: "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them." Job 38:7 also tells us, "when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" These verses use the same term found in Genesis 6 referring to the Nephilim. Theologians historically have interpreted the "sons of God" as "angels," which fit right into the context of these verses. One main Scripture also used to defend this view is Jude 1:6-7:

"And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, he has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”

⁴The context of this Rev. chapter 12 clearly indicates the woman symbolizes Israel. The sun, moon, and stars appeared together in Joseph’s dream in Genesis 37, where they represented Israel. In Rev. 12:9 we learn who the dragon is. “And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan.” In Rev. chapters 13 and 17 the seven heads are the seven consecutive world empires: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and then a final, seventh kingdom, which will be ruled by the Antichrist.

The Dragon who has ten horns are ten kings.  Daniel 7 identifies these as ten kings who create an alliance under the Antichrist.

⁵Dr. David R. Reagan earned degrees in International Law and Politics. In 1980 he resigned after a 20-year career teaching and established Lamb & Lion Ministries — a Bible prophecy ministry that focuses on end-time prophecies concerning the return of Jesus.