Do Christians and Jews worship the same God?

from the old testament

• In Old Testament times, God chose Abraham to be the Father of Israel. Israel was God’s chosen nation here on earth. Since the nations of the world were worshiping false gods, God chose Israel to be his witness to the nations that He alone was the true God. God even gave Israel their own land. This land was strategically located at the crossroads of the world. God’s plan was that as people traveled through Israel, they would hear about the true God and come to faith in him (Genesis 12:1—3).
• Unfortunately, Israel did not always follow God and oftentimes fell into idol worship. This can be seen almost immediately after Israel came out of slavery in Egypt. The people of Israel made a golden calf to worship as Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving God’s laws (see Exodus chapter 32). In Amos 5:25,26 God said of Israel as they were wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, ”Was it to me you were bringing sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, Israel? No, you served your pagan gods—Sakkuth your king god and Kaiwan your star god—the images you made for yourselves.”
• In the book of Judges, Israel fell away from God seven times over 400 years. As a result, God sent different nations to oppress Israel until they came back to worship Him.
• In the days of the prophet Elijah, one of Israel’s darkest spiritual times, there were only 7,000 people of Israel who had not bowed down to worship Baal, a false God. God said to Elijah; ”Yet I will preserve 7,000 others in Israel who have never bowed down to Baal or kissed him!” (1 Kings 19:13). Out of a couple of million people, 7,000 is not very many. So one thing that is very important to understand is that within the nation of Israel as a whole, there has always been a group of people who did not fall away and worship idols. They worshiped the true God of Israel.
• This group of true believers who stayed faithful to God is known as “the remnant of Israel.” Today, about one million Jewish believers in Jesus live in the world. These are the “remnant of Israel” in our day who worship the same God as Christians.

from the new testament

• In the New Testament, we discover that most of Israel rejected Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus said to the religious Jews, who claimed to be worshipping the true God just as Abraham did, but did not accept him as the Messiah: ”Jesus told them, 'If God were your Father, you would love me, because I have come to you from God. I am not here on my own, but he sent me. For you are the children of your father the devil…'” (John 8:42-44a).
• God had revealed Himself through the nation of Israel. This is seen in the days of King Solomon, when the Queen of Sheba traveled to the land of Israel to hear his wisdom (see 1 Kings 10). As a result, she became a believer in YHWH. Even Jesus said about her,  “The queen of Sheba will also stand up against this generation on judgment day and condemn it, for she came from a distant land to hear the wisdom of Solomon. Now someone greater than Solomon is here—but you refuse to listen” (Matthew 12:42). The one greater than Solomon was Jesus, and the Jews rejected Him. Ironically, the Jews were to point people to God, but they rejected the very One they were called to reveal to the nations. Rather than drawing the nations toward God, many rejected Jesus and became a stumbling block to those who needed to see and know Him.
• Since the religious Jews in the days of Jesus did not believe in him, Jesus said they were not worshipping the true God. God was not their father; in fact, Jesus said that Satan himself was their true father unless they came to faith in him. Jesus said in the Gospel of John, “In addition, the Father judges no one. Instead, he has given the Son absolute authority to judge, so that everyone will honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son is certainly not honoring the Father who sent him” (John 5:22—23). Jewish people today who claim to worship the true God are, in fact, not worshipping God the Father if they do not believe in Jesus.
• Many New Testament verses teach that Jesus is God in the flesh and that Jesus and God the Father are one (John 1:14, 10:30—32, 14:8—9; Colossians 1:15—16).
• When Jesus' disciples began spreading the news of His resurrection, Israel's religious leaders forbade them from teaching in the Temple in Jerusalem (Acts 4:1–21; 5:17–18, 27–28, 40). The religious leaders also began to persecute the early church. They killed James, the brother of John, imprisoned Peter, and sought to kill the Apostle Paul because he taught people to put their faith in Jesus (Acts 12:1–5; Acts 23:12–15; Acts 25:2–3). Stephen was also stoned to death after boldly proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah (Acts 6:8–15; 7:54–60), and Saul—who later became Paul—actively persecuted the church before his encounter with the risen Christ (Acts 8:1–3; 9:1–6). These actions reveal a profound spiritual opposition to Jesus and His followers, raising the question of whether these religious leaders truly knew and worshipped the God they claimed to serve (John 8:19, 42–47; 1 John 2:22–23).

implications for today

Since most Jewish people have rejected Jesus, does this mean God no longer has a plan for them?

There are many Christians today who believe that because Israel rejected Jesus, God is finished with them and no longer has a plan for Israel. This, by the way, was the attitude of the church in Germany in the days of Adolph Hitler. This is also why there was very little opposition to Hitler and the Nazis' goal to exterminate all of the Jewish people in Europe, which they came very close to achieving.

However, the Apostle Paul said God is not finished with Israel;

“I ask, then, has God rejected his own people, the nation of Israel? Of course not! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham and a member of the tribe of Benjamin” (Romans 11:1).

Would you be willing to pray for Israel as the Apostle Paul did?

Antisemitism continues to persist in this world. Even though the Jewish people beat Paul with rods five times (2 Corinthians 11:24), Paul still prayed for them and loved them so much he was willing to go to hell for all eternity in their place (Romans 9:3), and Paul’s prayer;

“Dear brothers and sisters, the longing of my heart and my prayer to God is for the people of Israel to be saved” (Romans 10:1).

What does the future hold for Israel and the Jewish people?

God is not finished with the Jewish people today; in the future, He will also use 144,000 Jewish men to lead the greatest revival in the history of the world, as upwards of a billion people will come to faith in Jesus during the seven-year tribulation, according to Revelation 7.

Paul writes that there will come a day when all of Israel will accept Jesus as the Messiah;

“And so all Israel will be saved. As the Scriptures say, “The one who rescues will come from Jerusalem, and he will turn Israel away from ungodliness" (Romans 11:26).

When Jesus returns to earth, He will rule the world for 1,000 years from Jerusalem, Israel. At that time, God will hear the prayers of all of the Jewish people, as Isaiah says in Isaiah 65:24.

In summary, of the some 15 million Jewish people in the world today, including around 6 million now living in Israel, only Jewish believers in Jesus are worshipping the same God as Christians. The rest still need Jesus. That's less than 10% of the Jewish population. We should never allow antisemitism or hostility toward Jewish people to have any place in the life of someone who follows Jesus. Instead, we should pray for the Jewish people to recognize Jesus as their Messiah and experience the salvation that comes through Him. God has not forgotten Israel, and His promises remind us that He is faithful even when people are not. Will we share Paul’s burden and pray, “My heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved” (Romans 10:1)?