According to the beliefs of “Messianic Jews” whoever doesn’t believe in Jesus will be eternally punished in Gehenna-Purgatory, both the righteous and the evil together.
As is well known, Judaism claims that even non-Jews have a part in the world to come and they get judged according to their good and bad deeds just as the Jews do. That is why if a non-Jew wants to convert we tell him straight out that it isn’t necessary. He can keep the seven mitzvoth of Noah and he is considered a fine human being and will earn a place in the world to come. Judaism believes that redemption will come to the entire world and all the nations will serve G-d together. Judaism was always a global religion for all of mankind and sees every person as created in G-d’s image.
The Catholic religion on the other hand, was from its inception a religion whose central point was belief in Jesus and it claims that whoever doesn’t believe in that crucified one or didn’t hear about his apostles will be judged to purgatory eternally. This catholic belief that in our opinion borders on cruelty to the point of insanity was always part and parcel of Christianity and even priests asked how it can be possible that a kind and merciful G-d could punish even the righteous that didn’t ‘merit’ hearing about Jesus in purgatory for eternity! This horrifying belief is also the belief of Jews for Jesus.
It’s hard to believe, but according to the messianic Jews anyone who didn’t ‘merit’ believing in Jesus has one judgment- to purgatory! It doesn’t matter how many good deeds and kindnesses he had done in his lifetime. The Catholics don’t have a concept of righteous gentiles as exists in Judaism, rather it all boils down to one thing; belief in the crucified one. Everyone is either going to heaven if they believe or sentenced to eternal purgatory if they don’t. Nice and simple and extremely primitive.
This primitive belief claims that all the Jewish sages for all generations are immediately sent to purgatory because they denied and didn’t recognize Jesus. Not only the sages but even the simple Jews for whom it wasn’t enough that they were tortured and executed or burned in the crusades or inquisitions because they didn’t believe, they will (adding insult to injury) also go straight to purgatory. Of course the murderers that killed these innocent Jews will go straight to heaven for killing non-believers. Not only that, but the messianic Jews believe that the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust all went to purgatory afterwards only because they didn’t believe in Jesus! I assume there will be those that will define this belief to be considered an “Anti-Semitic belief!
It is both strange and ironic that the messianic Jews describe their belief in Jesus as a belief full of love and endless compassion when according to one of their main tenets it ended up being cruel and blind from the outset without any logic or sense of right and wrong.
I can’t even imagine a rational Jew who would consider any Jewish sage and all of the Jews who were killed for their belief as people who are right now sitting in a fiery purgatory forever because they didn’t believe together with the millions of other nonbelievers. It’s difficult to hold back from answering these people ‘if what your saying is true I’d rather be in purgatory with all the holy sages and people who died for being Jews than to be in heaven with all the blood thirsty murderers that killed Jews but believe in Jesus.’
Our sages taught us that “Jews are compassionate, shy and kind”. (Yevamot 79a) according to this principle we believe that G-d is the Father of all compassion and from him compassion comes to people. As compassionate and kind people we cannot in any way shape or form believe in this pagan belief that is so cruel even if we (G-d forbid) wanted to! The Catholic belief that the messianic Jews also believe doesn’t fit at all for Jews.
