Friday, 22 January 2016

Seeing Judaism Anew: Christianity's Sacred Obligation,
Ed. Mary C. Boys, Rowman and Littlefield, 2002
Chapter 11, "Jesus as the Universal Saviour" (pp. 127-137), page 127-129

Writing as a Roman Catholic, Peter Phan responds to the way in which recognising G-d's covenant with the Jewish people as eternal affects a Christian understanding of salvation. He accepts that

This recognition that Judaism continues to function as a way of salvation, at least for Jews, poses serious challenges to Roman Catholics. It seems, at first sight, to contradict the church's longstanding double teaching that Jesus is the unique, universal and absolute saviour, and that outside he church there is no salvation.

He then talks around some of the wording in Nostra Aetate (from Vatican Council II), ending:

it affirms explicitly and unambiguously the reality of divine revelation and grace - and not merely "elements of truth and grace" or "secret presence of G-d" or "seeds of the Word" - in Judaism as well as the continuing validity of G-d's covenant with Israel.