There are two essential questions which this article will seek to address: one political and one theological. They are multifaceted and interwoven.

The political question is this: How should Christians view the situation in Israel/Palestine today, where two peoples claim the same territory? How should they regard the State of Israel? As a democracy or apartheid state? Should the Israeli authorities and Christian Zionists continue to resist Palestinian aspirations to autonomy and statehood? Should they continue to occupy, settle and annexe more and more of East Jerusalem, the West Bank
Gaza, creating small urban Bantustan reservations for Palestinians living under military occupation within an exclusive Jewish state? Or, do Palestinians have fundamental human rights and freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? For example, to live in the land of their birth, to freedom of movement, to work, education and religious practice. and collectively to the right of self-determination, political expression, autonomy and nationhood? That is the essential political question.

The central theological question is this: Does possession of the Land by Jewish people today, and the existence of the State of Israel, have any theological significance in terms of the fulfilment of biblical prophecy or within the purposes of God? Or, should we believe that this understanding of the Land is inconsistent with the gospel proclaimed by, and summed up in, Jesus Christ? The question is whether we have good biblical and theological reasons for giving whole-hearted support to the Zionist vision? Or, do we find in Scripture grounds for criticizing and rejecting this ideology as sub-Christian or even heretical?

I will attempt an answer under seven propositions taken from Scripture. Each of these can stand on their own, but each also forms a vital link in a logical and progressive argument based on the flow of biblical history and revelation.1

1 The Relationship of the Old Covenant to the New Covenant

Christian Zionism errs most profoundly because it fails to appreciate the relationship between the Old and New Covenants and the ways in which the latter completes, fulfils and annuls the former. It is fundamental that Christians read the Scriptures with Christian eyes, and that they interpret the Old Covenant in the light of the New Covenant, not the other way round. In Colossians, for example, Paul uses a typological hermeneutic to interpret the Old Covenant:

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. (Col 2: 16-17)

Similarly, the writer to the Hebrews stresses:

The point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man. Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already men who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: ‘See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.’ But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises. (Heb 8:1-6)

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming – not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. (Heb 10:l)

Under the Old Covenant, revelation from God came often in shadow, image, form and prophecy. In the New Covenant that revelation finds its consummation in reality, substance and fulfilment. The question is not whether the promises of the covenant are to be understood literally or spiritually as Dispensationalists like to stress. It is instead a question of whether they should be understood in terms of Old Covenant shadow or in terms of New Covenant reality. This is the most basic hermeneutical assumption which Christian Zionists consistently fail to acknowledge.

So, for example, in the Old Covenant animals and food are sacrificed anticipating the offering of the body of Christ. A portable tabernacle foreshadows the permanent presence of the Spirit of God indwelling his people. God provides Israel in the desert with manna from heaven, water from a rock and a serpent on a pole. All these images find their fulfillment not in more manna, or water or indeed in a higher pole but in the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus Christ of which the Old Covenant forms were but a shadow. By their very nature the Old Covenant provisions must be seen as shadowy forms rather than substantial realities. The same principle applies to the promises concerning the Land which also serve as revelational
shadows, images, types, prophecies, anticipating God’s future purposes, not only for one small people, the Jews, but the whole world, revealed fully and finally in Jesus Christ. Hebrews sums this up succinctly: ‘In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe’ (Heb 1:1-2).

2 The Meaning of the Abrahamic Covenant

Consideration of the Abrahamic Covenant begins not in Genesis 12 as Zionists prefer but actually in Genesis 2. The covenant began with God’s creation of a paradise in the garden. This was the place where people could receive all of God’s blessings and commune in fellowship with him. This is where the image of land begins in the Bible. This land of paradise was lost in the Fall but a foretaste of heaven is reflected in the imagery of the promise made to Abraham: ‘The LORD had said to Abram. “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you’” (Gen 12:1). In Genesis 15 God is more specific and indicates the extent of that land: ‘On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates’” (Gen 15:18). In Genesis 17 the promise is repeated and amplified:

17.1When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. 2I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.’ 3Abram fell face down, and God said to him, 4‘As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. 5No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. 6l will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. 7I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. 8The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.’ (Gen 17:1-8)

The promise that God was going to give access to the Land again is restated to Moses. The land is described as flowing with milk and honey in Exodus 3:8 and a number of other passages in the Pentateuch:

So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that Land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey –the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. (Exod 3:8)

These images are paradigms. The Land of the Bible does not and never ever did flow with literal milk and honey. It is indeed a beautiful land but the biblical imagery points to a restored paradise in the future. From the very beginning this Old Covenant shadow would have to wait for the New Covenant for the actual fulfilment of the promise. The Land in the Old Covenant was not an end in itself.

That is why the tabernacle, the place of worship in the Old Covenant, was never intended to have a settled location in God’s plan of redemption. It pointed to Jesus Christ who would ‘tabernacle’ among his people in the Incarnation and since Pentecost through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. The sacrificial system could never atone for sins but only foreshadow the ultimate sacrifice of the sinless, perfect Son of God. So the patriarch Abraham receives the promise of the Land but never possesses it himself. This is not to spiritualize the promise away. It will ultimately be experienced in paradise. This was the promise of the covenant, not the permanent and everlasting possession of the Middle East. In Hebrews 11 we learn that by this non-possession the Patriarch learned to look forward to the city with foundations whose architect is God. This is the only legitimate interpretation of the Abrahamic Covenant for Christians:

10For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11By faith Abraham, even though he was past age – and Sarah herself was barren –was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. 12And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore. 13All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. 14People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16Instead, they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. (Heb 11:10-16)

It is important to stress once again, in Hebrews, that the heavenly does not mean allegorical or spiritual or non-literal. Just the reverse, the heavenly is the consummate true state of reality. So, the Jerusalem above, the heavenly city for which the Patriarchs were looking, is not a nebulous ethereal idea. It is the ultimate reality which we can only foretaste in our present state. It is significant to note at this early stage in Genesis how the role of Jerusalem is central. Abraham paid tithes to Melchizadeck, the priest king of Jerusalem (Gen 14:20). At this significant place Abraham offered his son Isaac as an offering to God (Gen 22). But in both, these shadowy events pointed to the greater realities of the New Covenant, ultimately realized in the heavenly priesthood of Christ after the order of Melchizadeck (Heb 7) and the once for all sacrifice of the Son of God at Calvary.

Significantly the Land never belongs to Israel in the Torah. The Land belongs to God. Land cannot be permanently bought or sold. It cannot be permanently given away, let alone stolen or confiscated as has occurred in the Occupied Territories since 1967. The Land is never at the disposal of Israel for its national purposes. Instead it is Israel who is at the disposal of God’s purposes. The Jews remain merely tenants in God’s Land: ‘The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants’ (Lev 25:23).

There are four aspects to the Abrahamic Covenant. Any interpretation of the land aspect of the Abrahamic Covenant cannot be divorced from the other strands of the covenant. Christians generally have no difficulty in seeing the fulfillment of the promise in the person and work of Jesus Christ. In him God has indeed first, blessed people of all nations, second, drawn them into a covenant relationship with God in which, third, there is now neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, but all members of one holy nation saved by grace. If these three strands of the one covenant find their fulfillment in Christ in his church, how can the promise concerning the Land be put into a totally different category and possessed exclusively by the Jews?

The statement God made to Abraham that the Land would be ‘an everlasting possession’ is not necessarily understood in literal terms. Insisting on literal fulfillment is a double-edged sword. In 1 Chronicles 15:2, for example, David insists that the Levites would carry the ark of the Lord and minister before him for ever. Was this fulfilled literally on earth or figuratively in Christ? In 1 Chronicles 23:13 God similarly promises that the Aaronic priesthood would continue ‘for ever’. The same question may be asked, is this being fulfilled literally now on earth or figuratively in Christ? In 2 Chronicles 33:7 God says that he has put his name in the Temple in Jerusalem for ever. Is that being fulfilled literally now on earth or
figuratively in Christ and the church? In 1 Chronicles 23:25, God promises that he has come to dwell in Jerusalem for ever. Is that being fulfilled literally now on earth or figuratively in Christ and the church? Likewise in 2 Samuel 7:12-16, God promises that a descendant of David will sit on his throne for ever. Is that being fulfilled literally on earth or figuratively in Christ?

Christian Zionists insist that because the Jews have never literally occupied the entire land promised to Abraham, from the Nile to the Euphrates, this promise must still await future fulfillment. Hence their support not only for the occupation and settlement of the West Bank but implicitly the rest of the Middle East as well. Such reasoning ignores the way the Old Testament writers themselves understood the promise made to Abraham. God reaffirmed that same promise to Joshua: ‘Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them’ (Josh 1:6).

The question then arises, did Israel ever do so? While it is true that the Jews have never exercised political sovereignty over all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates, nevertheless Joshua makes clear that in that generation the covenant promise had indeed been fulfilled:

So Joshua took the entire land, just as the LORD had directed Moses, and he gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal divisions. Then the land had rest from war. (Josh 11:23)

So the LORD gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their forefathers, and they took possession of it and settled there. The LORD gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their forefathers. Not one of their enemies withstood them; the LORD handed all their enemies over to them. Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to the house of Israel failed: every one was fulfilled. (Josh 21: 43-5)

It is significant that we are told Joshua took ‘the entire land’ because the Lord had given ‘Israel all the land he had sworn to give their forefathers’. To the claim that certain promises have yet to be fulfilled, Joshua is emphatic: ‘Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to the
house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.’

Likewise, Nehemiah, writing after the second exile, looked back to the first exile and could testify in praise to God for the fulfilment of the promises made to Abraham: ‘You gave them kingdoms and nations, allotting to them even the remotest frontiers … You made their sons as numerous as the stars in the sky, and you brought them into the land that you told their fathers to enter and possess’ (Neh 9:22-3).

These passages record the first re-gathering of the Israelites to the Promised Land. Nehemiah even refers in the past tense to the fulfillment of the metaphorical promise to make Abraham’s descendants ‘as numerous as the stars in the sky’ (cf Gen 22:17). Since the promise given to Abraham concerning the Land is to be understood as intimately bound up with the covenant relationship with and blessings for all peoples of the world, to insist on an interpretation that now gives people of Jewish origin an exclusive title deed to Palestine in perpetuity runs contrary both to the promise itself within its Old Covenant context as well as its New Covenant fulfillment. The four strands of the Abrahamic Covenant comprise a package deal and are interwoven together, prefiguring the finished work of Christ.

3 The Promise of Exile and Return

The entire possession of the Land promised to Abraham was never realized. Dominion over the Land remained a constant struggle, an aspiration never fully achieved. Solomon, even at the zenith of his reign and power, ruins the prospect by introducing foreign gods, tolerating the noisy and abominable worship assemblies of his heathen wives and their priests just over the Kidron valley from the Temple Mount on the Mount of Olives. During this period invading armies sent by God chasten the Jews for defiling the Land. In fulfillment of the promises made through Moses and the Prophets, the Jews were dispossessed and driven out, exiled from the promise of the Land that had been given to their forefathers. Jerusalem was
safe from foreign armies only as long as the shekinah glory of God dwelt in her midst.

That is the significance of Ezekiel’s visions in which step by step he sees the departure of God’s glory from the city. Once the shekinah glory of God had departed, Jerusalem was as vulnerable as any other place on earth. It was no longer a consecrated city guaranteed by God’s protection. The exile and dispersion of Jerusalem’s inhabitants could not be averted. But the history of the Jews under the Old Covenant did not end with the exile. At God’s appointed time about 49,000 returned in contrast to the estimated 3,000,000 that had come out of Egypt 1,000 years before. They returned to only a small part of the original territory and built only a small replica of Solomon’s temple. But God’s prophets were not distracted from their vision of the greatness of God’s redemptive work. In fact they paint a picture of restoration so glorious that it could not be contained within the boundaries of the Old Covenant form of realization. Haggai and Zechariah, for example, paint a picture of the future that breaks out of the Old Covenant shadowy forms. Jerusalem becomes a city without walls. The reconstructed temple manifests a glory even greater than Solomon’s magnificent
structure: ‘“The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house”, says the LORD Almighty. “And in this place I will grant peace”, declares the LORD Almighty’ (Hag 2:9).

The language of the restoration prophets is very inspiring but the reality experienced under the return from exile was much less impressive. Indeed this extravagant picture of a great city without stone walls, a wall of fire around it and into which the gentile nations would come to worship, bursts the bounds of the Old Covenant wine skin. This vision found its fulfillment only in the New Covenant when Jesus taught that his followers would no longer worship in Jerusalem or Samaria but anywhere, since the shekinah glory of God would be omnipresent with every child of God (John 4). So, according to the irreversible fulfillment values of the New Covenant, the covenant below would no longer be the focus for God’s presence on
earth: ‘But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother’ (Gal 4:26).

This is not to be perceived in terms of some esoteric nirvana either. This Jerusalem is not a spiritualized or ethereal phenomenon. Indeed, according to the writer to the Hebrews (12:22), whenever Christians assemble for worship, they are already meeting in the presence of the angels in the real Jerusalem: ‘But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly’ (Heb 12:22).

Once this consummation had been achieved, the New Testament refuses to countenance a return to the paradigms of the Old Covenant. Retrogression to the older, shadowy forms of the Old Covenant was forbidden. God’s children have become temples in which his shekinah glory dwells. To suggest therefore that the shekinah is to return to a single local geographical shrine to which Jews and Christians must come to worship in Jerusalem in the imminent future once the Dome of the Rock has been destroyed is to regress from the reality to the shadowy, to re-erect the dividing curtain of the Temple, to apostatize from the New to the Old Covenant, since it impugns the finished atoning work of Christ. The Apostle Paul is quite emphatic in opposing those who attempted to reintroduce a judaizing theology to the church at Galatia:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel which is really no gospel at all… We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in
Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified. Consider Abraham: ‘He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’ Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law’. (Gal 1:6-7, 2:15, 3:6-10)

4 The Ethical Requirements of the Covenant Relationship

As has been stated, contrary to the insistence of Christian Zionists, the promise of land was never an unconditional right, but always a conditional gift. During the wilderness wanderings. God prepared his people with promises:

Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so 1 punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you. (Lev 18:24-8)

On the basis of such a passage, the present brutal, repressive and apartheid policies of the State of Israel would suggest another exile on the horizon rather than a restoration. As one Jewish peace activist put it: ‘how sinful do you need to be to get to be on God’s hit list?2

With reference to the treatment of aliens, for example, 36 times in the Hebrew scriptures the Jews were warned to be compassionate to strangers and aliens because they should remember their own collective experience living as aliens:

Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him for you were aliens in Egypt. (Exod 22:21)

When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God. (Lev 19:33-4)

The Exodus story, retold at every Passover, was meant to remind the Hebrew people that they should be freed from the need to dominate and persecute. In the Psalms the inheritance of the Land is celebrated as one of the greatest blessings of redemption. Psalm 37, for example, encourages the Jews not to despair over the prosperity of the wicked. They are told to trust in the Lord’s promises that they shall inherit the Land. In the context of other promises concerning the Land this must always be seen in terms of conditional residency rather than permanent possession. Six times in this Psalm this virtually identical phrase is used:

1Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong; 2for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.

3Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture… 8Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret – it leads only to evil.

9For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land… 18The days of the blameless are known to the LORD, and their inheritance will endure forever… 27Turn from evil and do good; then you will dwell in the land forever. 28For the LORD loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones. They will be protected forever, but the offspring of the wicked will be cut off; 29the righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever.

34Wait for the LORD and keep his way. He will exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off, you will see it. (Ps 37:1-40)

This Psalm was used regularly in Jewish worship and so it must have had the effect of strengthening the concept in the minds of the people that the land of Canaan was a gift of God. Only the righteous and faithful have the assurance that the Land would be theirs. Isaiah’s great prophecy begins with a similar warning:

16wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, 17learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow… 27Zion will be redeemed with justice, her penitent ones with
righteousness. 28But rebels and sinners will both be broken, and those who forsake the LORD will perish. (Is 1:16-17, 27-8)

Jeremiah reiterates the corollary: ‘Through your own fault you will lose the inheritance I gave you. I will enslave you to your enemies in a land you do not know, for you have kindled my anger, and it will burn forever’ (Jer 17:4).

Daniel and Nehemiah both personified the individual and corporate repentance required before God would bring back his remnant (Dan 9:1-19; Neh 1:4-11). Thus when God does bring the remnant back to the Land, he does so in accordance with the conditions described in Deuteronomy 30:1-5.

When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the LORD your God disperses you among the nations, 2and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, 3then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. 4Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the LORD your God will gather you and bring you back. 5He will bring you to the land that belonged to your fathers, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more
prosperous and numerous than your fathers. (Deut 30:1-5)

Repentance is always a condition of return. The assertion therefore that the events subsequent to the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 indicate God’s blessing on the Jewish people is totally without foundation in Scripture.

Jesus predicted that the Temple would be destroyed and the Jews exiled from the Land as God’s judgment for their failure to recognize him as the Messiah (Luke 19:41-4). The repentance required in the terms of Deuteronomy 30 would, from the perspective of the New Covenant, require recognition of Jesus as Messiah as a condition of return. Never therefore can the promise of the Land be claimed by those who fail to exercise true faith and
faithfulness in the Redeemer provided by the Lord in the Covenant. The Land is never promised to Israel unconditionally, but always requiring repentance, faith and obedience. To affirm that the Land is Israel’s right irrespective of her collective behavior is to contradict the most basic prophetic lesson of redemptive history in Scripture.

The challenge to Christian Zionists is therefore this. If they appeal to Genesis to claim the promise of the Land, what about Exodus and the commandments not to steal, kill and covet? If they believe in the predictive element of prophecy, what about the prophetic demand for justice? Palestinian theologians are not alone in seeing in the present Israeli government’s policy of forcibly judaizing the West Bank and East Jerusalem a twentieth-century parallel to Ahab’s theft of Naboth’s vineyard.3

What is needed among Christian Zionists are contemporary Elijahs who, out of love for the Jewish people, are prepared to speak a prophetic warning to the Ahabs in the government of Israel today. The stronger the claim to the Land is made, allegedly from the Old Covenant, the more Christian Zionists must expect and indeed invite the evaluation of what the Jews have done in the Land by the moral standards of those same Scriptures.

5 The Land in the Teaching of Jesus

Teaching about the Land is conspicuous by its absence in the Gospels and in the priorities of Jesus. There are four references to the Land in the Gospels and these are all indirect. The strongest is found in the Beatitudes. In Matthew 5:5 Jesus quotes from Psalm 37:11. The inheritance of the Land promised to the meek has been universalized to include the earth. The Greek term for ‘earth’ here is the same word used in the Septuagint for land yet the context of Jesus’ Beatitudes requires that the perspective be stretched beyond mere possession of Palestine. Either that or all Christians bearing the fruit of the Spirit may claim the Land as their rightful possession. Since the Land was such a fundamental part of Judaism at the time of Christ, his silence can only have been deliberate. Like the prophets before him, Jesus did however, predict the destruction of Jerusalem as a judgment upon the Jewish nation (Luke 19:41-4). But unlike the Prophets Jesus did not promise there would be another return to the Land. Instead he predicted the coming of the Kingdom of God in terms drawn from Daniel’s vision of the Son of Man coming to the Ancient of Days to receive his kingly authority (Matt 24:30-1; Luke 21:25-8; cf Dan 7: 13-14). It can only have been deliberate that Jesus had so little to say specifically about the Land and so much about the world (78 times in the Gospels alone).4

6 The Land in the Teaching of the Apostles

The turning-point for the disciples comes with the resurrection encounters and Pentecost. Until this point they seemed to share the same understanding of the Land as other Jews of the first century. They had looked forward to God’s decisive intervention in history which would
restore political sovereignty to the Jews within the Promised Land. This is reflected in the words of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, who confessed: ‘we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel’ (Luke 24:21).

It must also have been the idea in the minds of the disciples, when, before the ascension, they asked: ‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’ (Acts 1:6). John Calvin comments: ‘There are as many mistakes in this question as there are words.’5 Jesus’ reply shows him correcting not only their concept of time but also their priorities: ‘It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1:7-8).

Jesus now redefines the nature of the Kingdom of God and thereby the meaning of chosenness. The expansion of the Kingdom of God throughout the world necessitates the exile of the Apostles from the Land and indeed the turning of their backs on Jerusalem. They are sent out into the world but never told to return. Subsequent to Pentecost, the Apostles begin to use Old Covenant language concerning the Land in new ways.

So for example, Peter speaks of an inheritance which unlike the Land, ‘…can never perish, spoil or fade’ (1 Pet 1:4). Paul likewise asserts: ‘Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified’ (Acts 20:32).

In his letter to a predominantly gentile church at Ephesus, Paul applies the promise of the inheritance of the Land, specifically to obedient gentile children of Christian believers: ‘Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honour your father and mother” – which is the first commandment with a promise “that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth’” (Eph 6: 1-3).

The fifth commandment promised that obedient children would live long on the land the Lord God was giving them. Now Paul applies the same promise to the children of Christian parents living 700-800 miles from the land of the Bible. These children of gentile and Jewish Christians who submit willingly to the authority of their parents will, Paul promises, enjoy long life on the earth. Land in the New Covenant context has now come to fulfilment in the purposes of God. The limitations of the land type under the Old Covenant have been transcended so that it stretches through the Great Commission to the uttermost ends of the earth.6 In his letter to the predominantly gentile church in Galatia, Paul says:

21Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? 22For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. 23His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise.

24These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. 25Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. 26But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother… 28Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29At that time the son born in the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. 30But what does the Scripture say? ‘Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.’ 31Therefore,
brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman. (Gal 4:20-31)

In a quite shocking way Paul compares contemporary Jerusalem and its Judaism to Hagar and her slave children, whereas the gentile Galatian believers are likened to Isaac as children of the promise. This criticism surely applies to the modern city of Jerusalem just as much as it did in the days of the Apostles. Contemporary Jerusalem is literally in legalistic slavery, captive to the minority religious political parties. It cannot be presumed by Christian Zionists that those living in Jerusalem or Israel today without faith in Jesus Christ remain the elect, chosen people of God.

Apart from repentance and faith in Jesus Christ on the same terms as people in other parts of the world, the inhabitants of the present Jerusalem continue to be in slavery, without God and without hope in the world. To suggest anything else is to slight Jesus Christ and his sacrifice and at the same time imperil the souls of men by encouraging false presumption.

Chris Wright summarizes the main argument of Hebrews:

Hebrews’ affirmation of what ‘we have’ is surprisingly comprehensive. We have the land, described as the rest into which we have entered through Christ, in a way which even Joshua did not achieve for Israel (3:12-4:11); we have a High Priest (4:14, 8:1, l0:2l) and an Altar (13:l0); we have a hope which in this context refers to the reality of the covenant made with Abraham (6:13-20). We enter into the Holy Place, so we have the reality of the tabernacle and the temple (10:9). We have come to Mount Zion (12:22) and we are receiving a kingdom, in line with Haggai 2:6 (12:28). Indeed according to Hebrews (13:14), the only thing we do not have is an earthly, territorial city. ‘For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come’ (Heb 13:14).7

There is no evidence that the Apostles believed that the Jewish people still had a divine right to the Land, or that the Jewish possession of the Land would be an important, let alone central, aspect of God’s future plan for the world. In the christological logic of Paul, the Land, like the Law, both particular and provisional, had now become totally irrelevant.

7 The Future of the Jewish People

Paul did indeed look forward to a glorious future for the Jewish people (Rom 9-11). In Romans 9 where Paul emphasizes how the Lord has not forgotten the Jewish people and that their hardening toward the gospel would be temporary, he lists the blessings they have received:

…the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen. (Rom
9:4-5)

Paul omits only one blessing. He does not include ‘theirs is the Land’. Although Zionists argue this is implicit in the reference to the covenants, there is no suggestion in this passage that the future salvation of the Jews is related in any way whatsoever to the Land, the Law, temple worship or any other Old Covenant ‘shadow’ but only faith in Jesus Christ alone. Paul’s silence about the Land does not suggest that he still held to a Jewish theology of the Land, rather that he had universalized it. So, in interpreting the promises made to Abraham in Genesis. Paul insists: ‘It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith’ (Rom 4: 13).

Abraham’s descendants would now inherit not the Land but the cosmos. For Paul, the children of Abraham are both Jews and Gentiles who through faith in Jesus Christ have been made righteous. The promise of the Land has become a promise of the world. Now the imagery of the Land has become the picture of paradise restored and consummated. It is not, however, just a return to the original paradise, to the Land flowing with milk and honey, but to a reconstructed cosmos inhabited by resurrected people. An entirely new heaven and a new earth is promised, something that exceeds the original Adamic paradise. It is no longer merely a portion of the earth that is the consummation of God’s work of redeeming a fallen world, but instead the whole of the cosmos participates. In Ephesians 3 Paul understands the Old Covenant shadow as a mystery that has at last been revealed:

In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. (Eph 3:4-6)

Under the Old Covenant, on condition that they kept the covenant, Israel was promised: ‘Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation’ (Exod l9:5-6). Paul takes this promise to describe the effect of Christ’s atonement upon the church which is now made up of both Jewish and gentile
believers, ‘…who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good’ (Titus 2:14). Similarly, Peter quotes directly from Exodus 19 using the promise made to the Jews and applies it to the church: ‘But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light’ (1 Pet 2:9). Indeed Peter warned his Jewish audience soon after the Day of Pentecost that if they persisted in refusing to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, they would cease to be the laos of God: ‘Anyone who does not listen to him [Christ] will be completely
cut off from among his people’ (Acts 3:23).

Christian Zionists do violence to the flow of biblical revelation, when, in spite of the way in which Scripture interprets Scripture, they continue to regard the Jews as God’s covenant people: They are also in error to imply that only they give the Jews an important place in God’s future purposes.8 Postmillennialists, for example, held from the early days of the Reformation that there would be a great revival among the Jews before Christ returned.9 However: ‘Puritans did not believe that there are any special and unfulfilled spiritual promises made to Israel apart from the Christian Church.’10

How different from the future scenario for the Jews held by Christian Zionists such as Hal Lindsey and John Walvoord:

Many evangelical dispensationalists have committed themselves to a course for Israel, that, by their own admission will lead directly to a holocaust indescribably more savage and widespread than any vision of carnage that could have generated in Adolf Hitler’s criminal mind.11

8 Conclusions

Karen Armstrong is not alone in tracing in Western Christian Zionism evidence of the legacy of the Crusades. Such fundamentalists have, she claims, returned to a classical and extreme religious crusading’.12 The Ruethers also see the danger of this kind of Christian Zionism in its, ‘dualistic, Manichaean view of global politics. America and Israel together against an evil wor1d.’l3

The following quote from Senator Bob Dole is a good example:

American-Israeli friendship is no accident. It is a product of our shared values. We are both democracies. We are both pioneer states. We have both opened our doors to the oppressed. We have both shown a passion for freedom and we have gone to war to protect it.14

This ‘simple dualism’ and ‘highly dogmatic thinking’ is something a number of sociologists have observed as common to much American fundamentalism.15 Bishop Kenneth Cragg writes satirically:

It is so: God chose the Jews; the land is theirs by divine gift. These dicta cannot be questioned or resisted. They are final. Such verdicts come infallibly from Christian biblicists for whom Israel can do no wrong – thus fortified. But can such positivism, this unquestioning finality, be compatible with the integrity of the Prophets themselves? It certainly cannot square with the open peoplehood under God which is the crux of New Testament faith. Nor can it well be reconciled with the ethical demands central to law and election alike.16

The Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), representing the indigenous and ancient Oriental and Eastern Churches, has been highly critical of the activities of Christian Zionists, and the International Christian Embassy, (ICEJ) in particular. They assert, for instance, that Christian Zionists have aggressively imposed an aberrant expression of the Christian faith and an erroneous interpretation of the Bible which is subservient to the political agenda of the modern State of Israel. Indeed they represent a tendency to:

…force the Zionist model of theocratic and ethnocentric nationalism on the Middle East… [rejecting]… the movement of Christian unity and inter-religious understanding which is promoted by the (indigenous) churches in the region. The Christian Zionist programme, with its elevation of modern political Zionism, provides the Christian with a world view where the gospel is identified with the ideology of success and militarism. It places its emphasis on events leading up to the end of history rather than living Christ’s love and justice today.17

In 1988 the MECC went further, insisting that Christian Zionism had no place in the Middle East and should be repudiated by the universal church because it was ‘a dangerous distortion’ and significant shift away from orthodox Christocentric expressions of the Christian faith:

[This is] … a fundamental disservice also to Jews who may be inspired to liberate themselves from discriminatory attitudes and thereby rediscover equality with the Palestinians with whom they are expected to live God’s justice and peace in the Holy Land.18

Although ICEJ’s support for Israel is primarily political, MECC has been concerned more with its theological basis, and ICEJ’s attempt to sacralize a political ideology beyond human criticism or ethical standards and to treat the security of a Jewish State within the entire land presently occupied as a fundamental axiom of their supra-historical eschatology. The declarations following the first, second and third Christian Zionist Congresses, organized by ICEJ in 1985, 1988 and 1996, according to MECC, show a significant shift away from orthodox Christocentric expressions of the Christian faith. Based on the writings of ICEJ’s spokesman, Rev Jan Willem van der Hoeven. MECC argues that the ‘Christian Zionist’,

…is placed in a reductionist eschatology by engaging in actions designed to bring ‘comfort and support’ to modern political Israel. Accordingly, Jesus is de-emphasised, as is His death and resurrection, while salvation and judgment are redefined… Christians will be judged solely according to their actions on behalf of the state of Israel. True Christians are those who leave their Gentile background and become ‘Israelites of God’.19

It is therefore perhaps not surprising that among the Middle East churches generally, Christian Zionism is regarded as a devious heresy and an unwelcome and alien intrusion into their culture, which advocates an ethnocentric and nationalist political agenda running counter to their work of reconciliation, and patient witness among both Jews and Muslims.20 In the course of interviews conducted in 1993, one leading Anglican cleric said: ‘Making God into a real estate agent is heart breaking… They are not preaching Jesus any more.’21 They are, in the words of another Palestinian clergyman, ‘instruments of destruction’.22 Another senior churchman was equally forthright: ‘Their presence here is quite offensive … projecting themselves as really the Christians of the land … with total disregard for the indigenous Christian community.’23

Similarly outspoken criticisms of the Israel Trust of the Anglican Church (ITAC) were made by another Palestinian Anglican clergyman: ‘CMJ are propagating Zionism rather than Christianity. It is working against the interests of the Anglican Church in Israel.’24

Essentially, Christian Zionism fails to recognize the deep-seated problems that exist between Palestinians and Israelis; it distorts the Bible and marginalizes the universal imperative of the Christian gospel; it has grave political ramifications and ultimately ignores the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of indigenous Christians.25 It is a situation that many believe Israel exploits to her advantage, cynically welcoming American Christian Zionists as long as they remain docile and compliant with Israeli government policy. Consequently:

Local Christians are caught in a degree of museumization. They are aware of tourists who come in great volume from the West to savour holy places but who are, for the most part, blithely disinterested in the people who indwell them. The pain of the indifference is not eased insofar as the same tourism is subtly manipulated to make the case for the entire legitimacy of the statehood that regulates it.26

Cragg offers this astute critique of Christian Zionism:

The overriding criteria of Christian perception have to be those of equal grace and common justice. From these there can be no proper exemption, however alleged or presumed. Chosenness cannot properly be either an ethnic exclusivism or a political facility.27

Christian Zionism shows an uncritical tolerance of Rabbinic Judaism and endorsement of the Israeli political right, while at the same time demonstrating an inexcusable lack of compassion for the Palestinian tragedy and plight of the indigenous Christian community in Israel and Palestine. In doing so it has legitimized their oppression in the name of their interpretation of the gospel.

Steve Schlissel draws a useful contrast between dispensationalism and nondispensationalism, typified in the reconstructionism of Demar and North, but also representative of other post-millennialists and covenantalists:

Dispensationalists believe that the Jewish people have a title to the land that transcends virtually any other consideration, including unbelief, rebellion, and hatred toward Christ and his church. Consequently anti-zionism is equated with anti-semitism. The reconstructionist, on the other hand, makes a distinction. He believes that the Jewish people may exercise the title only when they comply with the condition of repentance and faith. He has nothing against Jews living in ‘eretz yisrael’ per se, but he recognizes that the far more significant question is Israel’s faith. In light of this, it might be appropriate to ask which theological system has the true and best interests of the Jews close to heart? If one’s heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel agrees with the inspired Apostle’s as recorded in Romans 10, can he thereby be called anti-semitic?28

The fundamental question Christian Zionists must therefore answer is this: What difference did the coming of Jesus Christ make to the traditional Jewish hopes and expectations about the Land? Christians may not interpret the Old Covenant as if the coming of Jesus made little or no difference to the nationalistic and territorial aspirations of first-century Judaism. Christian Zionists seem to read the Old Testament with the spectacles that the first disciples wore before their resurrection encounters with the risen Christ and before Pentecost. They seem to believe the coming of the kingdom of Jesus meant a postponement of Jewish hopes for restoration rather than the fulfillment of those hopes in the Messiah and new, inclusive, Messianic community.

In the process of redemptive history a dramatic movement has been made from type to reality, from shadow to substance. The Land that once was the specific locale of God’s redemptive working served well under the Old Covenant forms as a picture of paradise lost then promised, but under the New Covenant fulfillment this Land has been expanded to encompass the cosmos. The exalted Christ rules from the heavenly Jerusalem demonstrating
his sovereignty over the entire world. A regression to the limited forms of the Old Covenant shadow is apostasy:

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. (Heb 6:4-6)

The reality cannot give way again to shadow, for in the will and purposes of God the shadows no longer exist. The light has come in Jesus Christ: ‘By calling this covenant “new”, he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear’ (Heb 8:13). The destruction of the Temple and sacrificial system in AD70 fulfilled that prediction. Until the rise of the novel theology of Christian Zionism, unlike the Jews, Christians have never looked to or expected the Temple to be rebuilt. Christian attitudes to the Temple therefore crystallize the issue. The choice is between two theologies. One based primarily on the shadows of the Old Covenant and one based on the reality of the New Covenant.
Christian Zionism is an exclusive theology that focuses on the Jews in the Land rather than an inclusive theology that centers on Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world. Christian Zionism provides a theological endorsement for apartheid and ethnic cleansing, what Don Wagner calls ‘Armageddon Theology’29 rather than the inclusive theology of justice, peace and reconciliation which lies at the heart of the New Covenant.

Politically, Israel will only be able to maintain its hold over the Occupied Territories with continued massive funding from America for its by-pass roads and settlements and through repressive military control. She will never enjoy peace with her neighbours until she acts with justice and reciprocity toward the Palestinians. Until then there will never be peaceful coexistence. In the words of Naim Ateek, ‘justice delayed is justice denied’.30 Israel is a materialistic and apartheid State practising repressive and dehumanizing measures against the Palestinians in flagrant disregard of the United Nations and UN declaration of human rights. Theologically, Christian Zionists who endorse such policies would do well to heed Joshua’s final words:

Now I am about to go the way of all the earth. You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the LORD your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed. But just as every good promise of the LORD your God has come true, so the LORD will bring on you all the evil he has threatened, until he has destroyed you from this good land he has given you. If you violate the covenant of the LORD your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, the LORD’S anger will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from the good land he has given you. (Josh 23:14-16)

Like Isaac’s children Jacob and Esau, it is time to stop fighting over the birthright and start
sharing the blessings.31

STEPHEN SIZER

Endnotes:
1 I am deeply indebted to O P Robertson for many of the insights offered in this paper.
Palmer Robertson delivered a similar paper at a Theology of the Land Consultation, The
Levant Study Centre, Droushia, Cyprus, June 1996.
2 Yehezkel Laudau. In a seminar given at St George’s, Jerusalem, December 1998.
3 See Naim Ateek Justice Only Justice (Maryknoll: Orbis 1990)
4 The most readable commentary on the New Testament perspective of the Land, Jerusalem and
Temple is found in P W L Walker Jesus and the Holy City (Cambridge: Eerdmans 1996).
5 John Calvin The Acts of the Apostles 1-13 (Edinburgh: St Andrew Press 1965) p 29
6 Walker Jesus p I27
7 C J H Wright ‘A Christian Approach to Old Testament Prophecy Concerning Israel’ Jerusalem
Past and Present in the Purposes of God P W L Walker (ed) (revd edn Carlisle/Grand Rapids:
Paternoster/Baker 1994) pp 18-19
8 Hal Lindsey is quite offensive in The Road to Holocaust (New York: Bantam 1989) to suggest
that those who oppose a dispensationalist reading of scripture are anti-Semitic.
9 Peter Toon ‘The Latter-Day Glory’ in The Millennium and the Future of Israel: Puritan
Eschatology 1600-1660 Peter Toon (ed) (Cambridge: James Clarke 1970) see also Chapter 2.4
‘The Reformation and Puritan Attitudes Toward the Jews’.
10 Iain Murray The Puritan Hope: Revival and the Interpretation of Prophecy (London: Banner of
Truth 1971) p 77
11 Gary DeMar & Peter J Leithart The Legacy of Hatred Continues, A Response to Hal Lindsey’s
The Road to Holocaust (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics 1989) p 26. See also
Grace Halsell Prophecy and Politics: Militant Evangelists on the Road to Nuclear War
(Westport, Connecticut: Lawrence Hill 1986).
12 Karen Armstrong Holy War, The Crusades and Their Impact on Today’s World (London:
Macmillan 1988) p 377
13 Rosemary Ruether & Herman J Ruether The Wrath of Jonah, The Crisis of Religious
Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (San Francisco; Harper 1989) p 176
14 Near East Report vol 21. no 20, 18 May I977 p 78. Cited in Sharif Non-Jewish p 136.
15 Keith Roberts Religiott it1 Soc~ological Perspective (Belmonl, California: Wadsworth
1990) p 272
16 Kenneth Cragg The Arab Christian (London: Mowbray 1992) p 238
17 MECC What is Western Fundamentalist Christian Zionism? (Limassol: MECC 1988) p 13
18 MECC What is Western Fundamentalist Christian Zionism? preface
19 MECC What is Western Fundamentalist Christian Zionism? preface
20 MECC What is Western Fundamentalist Christian Zionism? p 1
21 Based on interviews with Palestinian clergymen (Interview 1993:3.9)
22 (Interview 1994:3.23)
23 (Interview 1994:3.12)
24 (Interview 1994:3.23)
25 Colin Chapman Whose Promised Land? (Oxford: Lion 1992) p 277
26 Cragg Arab Christian p 28
27 Cragg Arab Christian p 237
28 Steve Schlissel ‘To those who wonder if Reconstructionism is anti-Semitic’ The Legacy of
Hatred Continues: A response to Hal Lindsey’s The Road to Holocaust Gary DeMar and Peter
J Leithart (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics 1989) p 59
29 Donald Wagner Anxious for Armageddon (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald 1995)
30 Taken from an unpublished address given to a pilgrimage group in 1998
31 Yehezkel Landau. An illustration given at St George’s, Jerusalem, December 1998

Related Blogs

Romans 11:25–32

Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”; 27 “and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.” 28 As regards the gospel, they are enemies of God for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30 Just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, 31 so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. 32 For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.

Today I would like to address the issue of Israel’s relation to the “Promised Land” in the Middle East. This is not primarily an expository message from Romans 11, but an effort to draw out implications of Romans 11 and the rest of Scripture for a very vexing problem in the world today. The existence of Israel in the Middle East and the extent of her borders and her sovereignty are perhaps the most explosive factors in world terrorism and the most volatile factors in Arab-Western relations.

The Arab roots and the Jewish roots in this land go back for thousands of years. Both lay claim to the land not merely because of historical presence, but also because of divine right. I won’t try to lay out a detailed peace plan. But I will try to lay out some biblical truths that could guide all of us in thinking about peace and justice in that part of the world. What we think about this, and what we say, does matter, since politicians are influenced by their constituents in these religiously super-charged situations. And we need to know how to pray. And we need to know how to talk to others in a way that honors the truth. So for all those reasons, and for the reason that God is very much involved in this situation, we should talk about it in the context of Romans 11.

What we’ve seen in Romans 11 is that Israel as a whole—that is, as an ethnic, corporate people enduring from generation to generation—has a root in the covenant promises made to Abraham and his descendants. Verse 16b: “If the root is holy so are the branches.” We interpreted that picture in the light of verse 28: “As regards the gospel, they [Israel] are enemies of God for your [Gentile] sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers.” The “forefathers” here correspond to the root in verse 16. So the promises to the forefathers imply that some day the whole tree, with all its branches, will be saved.

Some day. Because verse 28 says, for now “they are enemies.” Verse 28a: “As regards the gospel, they [Israel] are enemies of God for your sake.” In other words, they are rejecting their Messiah and thus putting themselves against God. This is what Jesus said to Israel in John 8:42: “If God were your father you would love me.” Jesus is the litmus test whether anybody’s religion is worship of the true God. But Israel does not love Jesus as God’s son and her Messiah. So they are, for now, “enemies of God.”

So when verse 16 says, “If the root is holy so are the branches,” we take it to mean: “If God chose the forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for himself, and set them apart and made to them covenant promises, then someday (after this present time of enmity and hardening are over) their descendants are going to return to God through Jesus Christ, and become God’s set-apart, holy people. Unbelief and ungodliness will be banished from Jacob forever (v. 26).

So now we ask, is the so-called “Promised Land” part of the inheritance and salvation that “all Israel” (v. 26) will receive? And if so, what does that say about the rights of Israel today to the Land?

In developing the answer to this question I would like to maintain seven truths which are based on Scripture.
1. God chose Israel from all the peoples of the world to be his own possession.

Deuteronomy 7:6, “ The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”
2. The Land was part of the inheritance he promised to Abraham and his descendants forever.

Genesis 15:18, “On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.’”

Then in Genesis 17:7-8 God says to Abraham, “I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

Then God confirmed the promise to Jacob, Abraham’s grandson, in Genesis 28:13, “And behold, the Lord . . . said, ‘I am the Lord , the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring.” And when Jacob was dying he called Joseph to him and said (in Genesis 48:3), “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, 4 and said to me, ‘Behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply you and . . . will give this land to your offspring after you for an everlasting possession.’”

This, of course, creates a huge cleavage between the Islamic view of God’s covenant and the Jewish and Christian view of God’s covenant. But we believe that this is God’s word, confirmed by the Lord Jesus, and so we say, The land is destined to be Israel’s land.

But it’s not that simple. This is not an issue that can be dealt with in soundbites.
3. The promises made to Abraham, including the promise of the Land, will be inherited as an everlasting gift only by true, spiritual Israel, not disobedient, unbelieving Israel.

This was the point of Romans 9. When Paul grieved over the lostness of so many Jews who were rejecting Jesus and were perishing, he said in verses 6-7, “It is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.” In other words, the promises cannot be demanded by anyone just because he is Jewish. Jewish ethnicity has a place in God’s plan, but it is not enough to secure anything. It does not in itself qualify a person to be an heir of the promise to Abraham and his offspring. Romans 9:8 says it clearly: “It is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.” Being born Jewish does not make one an heir of the promise—neither the promise of the Land nor any other promise.

This was plain in the Old Testament, and it was plain the teachings of Jesus (which we will see under truth #4). For example, in the terrible list of curses that God promised to bring on the people if they broke his covenant and forsook him was this: “ And as the Lord took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the Lord will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you. And you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to take possession of it” (Deuteronomy 28:63). Throughout the history of Israel, covenant breaking and disobedience and idolatry disqualified Israel from the present divine right to the Land. (See also Daniel 9:4-7; Psalm 78:54-61.)

Be careful not to infer from this that Gentile nations (like Arabs) have the right to molest Israel. God’s judgments on Israel do not sanction human sin against Israel. Israel still has human rights among nations even when she forfeits her present divine right to the Land. Remember that nations which gloated over her divine discipline were punished by God (Isaiah 10:5-13; Joel 3:2).

So the promise to Abraham that his descendants will inherit the Land does not mean that all Jews inherit that promise. It will come finally to the true Israel, the Israel that keeps covenant and obeys her God.
4. Jesus Christ has come into the world as the Jewish Messiah, and his own people rejected him and broke covenant with their God.

When Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ [that is, the Jewish Messiah], the Son of the living God.” And Jesus responded to him, “ Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:16-17). And when the high priest asked Jesus, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus answered, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:61-62).

But even though Jesus was the Messiah and did many mighty works and taught with great authority and fulfilled Old Testament promises, nevertheless the people of Israel as a whole rejected him. This was the most serious covenant-breaking disobedience that Israel had ever committed in all her history.

This is why Jesus told the parable of the tenants who killed the Landlord’s son when he came for his harvest, and ended that parable with these words to Israel in Matthew 21:43, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.” And it’s why he said in Matthew 8:11-12, after seeing the faith of a Gentile centurion and the unbelief of Israel, “Many [Gentiles] will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Israel has broken covenant with her God and is living today in disobedience and unbelief in his Son and her Messiah. That is why Paul says in Romans 11:28, “As regards the gospel [the good news of the Messiah] they are enemies of God.”
5. Therefore, the secular state of Israel today may not claim a present divine right to the Land, but they and we should seek a peaceful settlement not based on present divine rights, but on international principles of justice, mercy, and practical feasibility.

This follows from all we have said so far, and the implication it has for those of us who believe the Bible and trust Christ as our Savior and as the Lord of history, is that we should not give blanket approval to Jewish or to Palestinian actions. We should approve or denounce according to Biblical standards of justice and mercy among peoples. We should encourage our representatives to seek a just settlement that takes the historical and social claims of both peoples into account. Neither should be allowed to sway the judgments of justice by a present divine claim to the land. If you believe this, it would be helpful for your representatives to know it.

We are not whitewashing terrorism and we are not whitewashing Jewish force. Nor is there any attempt on my part to assess measures of blame or moral equivalence. That’s not my aim. My aim is to put the debate on a balanced footing in this sense: neither side should preempt the claims of international justice by the claim of present divine rights. Working out what that justice will look like is still a huge and daunting task. I have not solved that problem. But I think we will make better progress if we do not yield to the claim of either side to be ethnically or nationally sanctioned by God in their present conflict.
6. By faith in Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah, Gentiles become heirs of the promise of Abraham, including the promise of the Land.

In the words of Romans 11:17, “You [Gentile], although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree”—that is, they become part of the redeemed covenant people who share the faith of Abraham. The reason, as Paul put in Romans 4:13, is that “the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.” So all who are united to Christ, Abraham’s Offspring, by faith are part of the covenant made with him and his offspring.

Here’s the most sweeping statement of this truth— Ephesians 2:12, “Remember that you [Gentiles] were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. . . . So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.”

Therefore Jewish believers in Jesus and Gentile believers will inherit the Land. And the easiest way to see this is to see that we will inherit the world which includes the Land. Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians will not quibble over the real estate of the Promised Land because the entire new heavens and the new earth will be ours. 1 Corinthians 3:21-23, “All things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” All followers of Christ, and only followers of Christ, will inherit the earth, including the Land.
7. Finally, this inheritance of Christ’s people will happen at the second coming of Christ to establish his kingdom, not before; and till then, we Christians must not take up arms to claim our inheritance; but rather lay down our lives to share our inheritance with as many as we can.

You recall that all-important word that Jesus spoke to Pilate in John 18:36: “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Christians do not take up the sword to advance the kingdom of Christ. We wait for a king from heaven who will deliver us by his mighty power. And in that great day Jew and Gentile who have treasured Christ will receive what was promised. There will be a great reversal: the last will be first, and the meek—in fellowship with the Lamb of God—will inherit the Land.

Therefore, come to the meek and lowly Christ while there is time, and receive forgiveness of sins, and the hope of glory.

SOURCE

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The early history of the Christian Church bears a remarkable witness to the profound reverence with which Gentile believers honored the names of the venerable fathers of the Jewish people. These grafts from an alien stock into the true vine felt peculiarly sensitive on the question of pedigree. The arguments so plentifully employed by the Apostle Paul to prove that in Christ Jesus there is no difference, sufficed not to disabuse their minds of inferiority. Just as we can now suppose that generations must elapse before the negro, not only liberated, but enfranchised, will cease to feel that his sable skin betrays a debased ancestry; so then, there was a sense of shame when reflecting on themselves, and a sense of envy when regarding their Jewish brethren, which prompted the converts of the Gospel — whether Greeks or barbarians — to seek out and establish some points of alliance with the blessed patriarchs and prophets of the Israelitish faith. Their very credulity is instructive. You might easily persuade them to submit in ripe years to the ordinance of circumcision; they would willingly observe any fasts or feasts, undertake long and tedious journeys to Jerusalem, or conform to any Judaical usages, lured by the tempting bait of association with the favored race “to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever.”

The epistle to the Galatians was written with an express purpose to check the Judaizing tendencies of those churches. In prosecuting this object, the apostle used extraordinary severity while denouncing the false teachers. But his tender sympathy towards the weak consciences of disciples is no less conspicuous. He gives and repeats assurance after assurance that their apprehensions of disability were groundless. They possessed an indefeasible title to all patrimonial and federal blessings. This was sealed by the Spirit of God, and would rather be compromised than confirmed by any carnal acts.

“If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

The Error Stated

An error of an opposite kind has attained some notoriety in our day. The Gentile element is predominant almost to exclusiveness in the Christian Church. Occupying a place of privilege which our forefathers knew not, there have arisen among us certain brethren who stealthily at first, and afterwards more boldly, have disparaged the Jewish patriarchs, and vaunted for themselves a superior claim to the love of God, and a higher place in the destinies of heaven than they deem it possible for the saints of the pre-Christian era to inherit. Profane rivalry! not more pretentious than unwarranted; not more audacious than unscriptural. Does the proposition admit of debate, or is it necessary to do more than refer every inquirer to the plain, unequivocal testimony of the New Testament? So we thought at first, as our spiritual instincts revolted at the heresy. In obedience to the divine counsel—“foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strife”—we would have contented ourselves with warning the flock we delight to feed. For divers reasons, the obligation of another article is forced upon us. We give place to no one in the intense sympathy we feel with the honest scruples of every soul that conscientiously seeks the light of truth. If he be a penitent who has stumbled on the very threshold of revelation, or if he be a believer who has fallen into the hands of unsafe guides, and become embarrassed in the effort to find his way into the deeper mysteries of its inner courts, we would offer our prayer to God for the Spirit of wisdom, that shall enable us to direct him aright.

Difference of Dispensation

From the tenor of the correspondence we have received, we infer that there are not a few such sincere believers in Christ, who have had their minds unhinged by the various tracts and publications which have been, for the most part, anonymously put into circulation. Their question is, “In view of the various dispensations under which it has pleased God to gather an elect and faithful people out of the world, has it not been reserved to the Christian dispensation to furnish the privileged company, which, in their unity, is called “the Church,” “the bride of Jesus,” “the Lamb’s wife?” We have already refuted this notion. Still, it appears that stumbling blocks have been laid in the path of those who diligently search the Scriptures, which, by the grace of God, we will endeavor to remove.

And, first of all, do not, we beseech you, be cajoled by any appeal to “God’s dispensational arrangements,” knowing that, however various they may have been, His covenant has endured the same through them all. It is a mere truism that Abel was not circumcised, that Noah did not observe the Passover, and Abraham was not baptized.

Only One Covenant of Grace

Difference of dispensation does not involve a difference of Covenant; and it is according to the Covenant of Grace that all spiritual blessings are bestowed. So far as dispensations reach they indicate degrees of knowledge, degrees of privilege, and variety in the ordinances of worship. The unity of the faith is not affected by these, as we are taught in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The faithful of every age concur in looking for one city, and that city is identically the same with the New Jerusalem described in the Apocalypse as “a bride adorned for her husband.”

Surely, beloved brethren, you ought not to stumble at the anachronism of comprising Abraham, David and others, in the fellowship of the Church! If you can understand how we, who live under the present economy and, unlike those Jews, have never been circumcised, are nevertheless accounted the true circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, and not in the flesh, you can have very little difficulty in perceiving that those Old Testament saints, who were participators in the faith of Christ’s death and resurrection, were verily baptized into Him according to the Spirit. Neither time nor circumcision founded the faith of Abraham. He rejoiced to see Messiah’s day; and he saw it and was glad. He believed in God who “Calleth those things that be not as though they were.” It were well for us to walk in the footsteps of the same faith.

The Church on Earth is Not Perfect

It was doubtless with an advance of knowledge, privilege and worship, beyond measure bright, that the Christian dispensation. like the kingdom of heaven upon earth, was ushered in. We may regard it as inaugurated by the personal ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, attested by His Resurrection, and unfolded by the Spirit of God. But who among us will venture to think that this economy, under which we are called, in contrast with the economies that preceded it is perfect? Perfect in what? Are we perfect in knowledge? We know in part, we prophesy in part; when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. Are we perfect in privilege? Alas! The great majority of believers walk in bondage, failing to enjoy a clear assurance of their pardon, a thorough immunity from the fear of death, or a joyful anticipation of the glory that is yet to be revealed.

Would you dream that we are perfect in organization? In how few instances are all the component offices of fellowship filled by men who are moved and actuated by the Holy Spirit! Is there in any one of the Churches, that claim allegiance to the commandment of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, such a complete presence of true believers, and such a complete exclusion of all unholy persons, as to warrant our supposing that that particular church represents the bride of Christ? Was it anticipated in the parables of “the kingdom of heaven,” that there ever would be?

Where is the Church on Earth?

Let the Plymouth Brethren define “the Church” from which, by injunction or consent of their leaders, Abraham, Moses, David, and others, “as individual servants,” are to be kept aloof. Their “plain papers” will tell us, “it is the actual living unity with Christ, and with each other of those who, since Christ’s Resurrection, are formed into this unity by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven.” Turn aside now and see this great sight. Where is it to be beheld? In the Ecumenical Church of Rome! In the Episcopal Church of England by law established! In the sections of Presbyterianism! Among the Methodist societies! Among the Congregationalists! Or is it, after all, among the Plymouth Brethren themselves, whose diversities and disunion are so notorious? We venture to suggest that the Church, which is the bride, has not her counterpart on this earth. While Christ, Who is our life, is absent, the life of the saints is hidden — hid with Christ in God. The new Jerusalem is out of sight. The Epiphany of the Church is a feast yet to be celebrated. That fair damsel has not yet (in the language of courtly fashion) come out. She has not been introduced. Her appearance will be the signal for nuptial festivities. Not all who claim to be Church members on earth, because they live under this dispensation, will be acknowledged in the day of the Lord. Nor will the accident or circumstance of having lived before this dispensation preclude the recognition of any saints in living unity with Christ at His appearing.

The Church in “Romans” and “Galatians”

We extract the following note from the January number of Things New and Old, the editor of whom is a gentleman to be easily recognized by his initials, as well as his name: ‘MG.’ —Your kind communication did not reach us in time for our December issue. The difficulty of your friend arises, very much, we should say, from not seeing that the Church, as such, is not before the apostle’s mind in Galatians or Romans. He is speaking of believers, and the ground on which they are individually justified before God. They are justified by faith, as Abraham was, and, hence, are morally the children of Abraham. And, further, though Abraham did not and could not belong to a body which had no existence, save in the purpose of God, until the Head ascended into the heavens, still, most assuredly, Abraham and all the Old Testament Saints will share in the heavenly glory. Very many, we doubt not, are perplexed as to this point, because they make it a question of comparing individuals one with another. If it be a question of personal worthiness, holiness or devotedness, Abraham might stand above the most holy and devoted among us. But it is not so at all, but simply a question of God’s dispensational arrangements; and if any be disposed to find fault with these, we are not disposed to argue with them. Some nowadays, have a way of turning the subject into ridicule, which savours far more of wit than of spirituality or acquaintance with the Word of God. But we trust that we shall never surrender the truth of God, in order to escape the shafts of human ridicule.”

Here is the very gist of the matter. But as for the remark that the Apostle Paul was handling “simply a question of God’s dispensational arrangements” this view is so contrary to that which he has himself put forth in his “Notes on Genesis,” that we need only refer our readers to his own Commentary on the 16th and 22nd chapters of Genesis, for a candid admission that Paul’s allegory drawn from the history of Hagar and Sarah referred to the Covenants, and not the dispensations. We may, however, still be allowed to express our profound astonishment at the declaration that the Church is not before the Apostle’s mind in either the epistle to the Galatians or that to the Romans. If “Jerusalem which is above which is Free” does not mean “the Church,” what does it mean? We are aware that some annotators have interpreted it of the Church militant, and others of the Church triumphant. The news has yet to reach us that “individuals justified before God” were alluded to in this maternity. Supposing that “the Church” is not the mother of us all, the inference stands transparently forth, “Abraham is the father of the faithful, but each justified man is his own mother,” qe. ducens ad adsurdum.

Let this suffice. We have no intention to open the pages of this magazine to vain jangling. An earnest study of those Scriptures which disclose

“The Everlasting Covenant”

as it was gradually but distinctly revealed, will do more than any arguments of ours to dissipate the mist of those strange doctrines we have referred to. That Covenant was declared to Noah; it was still further opened to Abraham and Isaac, it was confirmed to David; Isaiah rejoiced in its sure mercies, Jeremiah was privileged to relate many of its special provisions; and Paul avers in his epistle to the Hebrews that this is the Covenant under the provisions of which the precious blood of Christ was shed; it is the blood of the new Covenant. The priesthood of Christ is declared to be after the order of Melchizedec; it was, therefore, revealed in the days of Abraham. The word of the oath by which he was consecrated is communicated to us in the 110th Psalm, and so it was well known to David. In like manner, the gift of the Holy Spirit, though not bestowed till after the ascension of Christ, was explained by the Apostle Peter, on the day of Pentecost, to be the fulfillment of prophecy that was spoken before the Incarnation. The dispensational succession of events does not affect the Covenant. If it did, then Abraham could have no more interest in the Jewish than in the Christian economy, Canaan not having come into possession of his posterity till centuries after the patriarch’s sojourn on earth had terminated.

Interest in Christ’s Death

Had none of those believers any interest in the death of Christ, they must have died in their sins; but if they were interested in His death, why not in all the blessings that ensued? Is it pretended that although their welfare was deeply involved in the fact that “Jesus should die for that nation, and not for that nation only,” they are wittingly excluded from participating in the immediate consequence—“that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad?” According to the terms of the everlasting Covenant, and not according to the law, nor yet according to the tenor of any transient dispensations, the Old Testament saints were justified and accepted of God.

The testimony to the bride is not peculiar to the New Testament. Her praise and her destiny were sung by those who went before. And it does appear to us that the whole discussion that has been raised should excite a sigh deep and solemn in our breasts. Where has humility fled? Has it ceased to be a cardinal virtue among the followers of the Lamb?

Are we one with the Patriarchs?

When our readers lay down this magazine, let them take up the Gospel of Matthew and read at the eighth chapter, verse 11: “And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven.” Mark the words “kingdom of heaven,” so often used by Christ to signify the Gospel dispensation. The next words make this construction more obvious: “But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Let us implore you to invert the question you have propounded to us. Those blessed patriarchs are undoubtedly heirs of the promises. Christ has acknowledged them. You need not ask whether they shall sit down with you, but your enquiry may well be whether you shall sit down with them in the kingdom of heaven.

From Sword and Trowel, March, 1867

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If the phenomenal success of the bestselling Left Behind series indicates anything about the prevailing eschatological mindset across a wide swath of the evangelical landscape in modern America, then we would do well to pause and consider. Where is this fascination with the sensational, and frequently outright bizarre, interpretation of the significance of current events coming from? What is driving the obsession to see end-time prophetic events transpiring in every headline? What connection does this mindset have with the implacable opposition to any measure taken for peace in the Middle East which would leave the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, or any part of Jerusalem outside of the complete control of the modern state of Israel? More importantly, what ideologies, theological convictions, or ways of understanding the bible lie beneath these phenomena, and how much of an impact are they having on the theological moorings of the Church today? I suspect that the impact is significant enough to warrant a strong warning statement about the movement known as Christian Zionism, and the hyper-Dispensationalism which drives it, from the leaders of the evangelical Church. Unfortunately, however, it has not received the united front of resistance with which other threats to the health of the Church have been met with, such as Openness theology and gender-role confusion. Is this because many Evangelical leaders share enough theological convictions in common with the more extreme examples of the movement that they are loathe to give a clear denunciation? Or do they simply not perceive the errors as being a significant or widespread enough a danger to warrant the time and effort of a thoroughgoing rebuttal? Whatever the reason, there seems to be a general lack of attentiveness to a very rampant problem in Evangelicalism. Perhaps it is time to make clear just what Christian Zionism is (as well as all its theological bedfellows), what convictions are driving it, and what results it is tending towards in the thoughts and practice of the contemporary believer.

What is Christian Zionism?

Simply speaking, Christian Zionism is support for the Jewish movement to regain possession of their ancient homeland, which derives from a Christian theology and understanding of the Bible. In the most basic of terms, this Christian theological support comes from a literalistic reading of such passages as Genesis 13:14-15, where God promises to Abraham, “All the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your seed forever”. When this motif is conflated with such passages as Genesis 12:3 [spoken to Abraham], “And I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse the one who curses you…”; and Joel 3:2, “And I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will judge them there because of my people, even my heritage, Israel, because they scattered them among the nations and because they divided my land”; the obvious implication is that, anyone who fails to support modern Israel in all her struggles with her various enemies, or anyone who approves of a treaty by which the boundaries first promised to Abraham are divided between Israel and her neighbors, will be under God’s curse, and the object of his eschatological judgment. The glaring problem with this simplistic reasoning, of course, is that it fails to take into account the biblical qualification as to who is intended by Abraham’s “Seed,” and what is indicated by the land which he was promised (for the former, see Galatians 3:16; 3:28-29; Romans 4:11-17; for the latter, see Galatians 4:26; Hebrews 11:9-10; 12:22-24).

Of course, if there were only a handful of minor passages that this understanding affected, it would be somewhat inflammatory to call it dangerous, or even severely misguided. But the simple fact is that it affects one’s interpretation of a whole class of prophecies. For example, consider the following prognostication, involving a broad range of scriptural testimonies:

The situation in Lebanon portends that Israel may soon be involved in another war. Now that Israel has withdrawn from the buffer zone in south Lebanon, the situation may quickly escalate to military confrontation with Syria. There are a number of Bible prophecies that may be speaking of the situation just ahead. It’s important to have an understanding of these because fulfilled prophecy is one of the most powerful proofs of the veracity of the Bible. God has revealed the significant details of His plan for human history before they happen. This prophecy regarding the destruction of Damascus could occur very very soon, and we will be able to point to it as yet another evidence that the Bible is absolutely reliable, and that the things that God has spoken will soon take place.

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Where does the blame lie for the mess that our culture is in? Are the “bleeding-heart liberals” or the government schools to blame? Not according to the Apostle’s Peter and Paul. Why? Because judgment begins with the church, “For the time has come for the judgment to begin from the house of God. And if it first begins from us, what will be the end of those disobeying the Gospel of God?” (1 Peter 4:17). God will not demand the obedience of the nations until we, the church, are brought into obedience – “…bring[ing] into captivity every thought into the obedience of Christ; and having readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.” (2 Cor. 10:5-6).

So what does all this have to do with the subject matter? It is the endeavor of this writer to demonstrate from Scripture that we, the church, have departed from the orthodox view of Biblical Christianity for a view of theology that has broken continuity with history as well as the Word of God. In this article we will examine that view which I believe has made the church impotent in this latter half of the twentieth century – the view known as dispensationalism – and its teaching concerning the church and Israel. It is this author’s intention to show from Scripture that the church (ekklesia) is, has and always will be the true Israel of God. And by our misunderstanding of that truth, we have brought the curses of the covenant upon our nation and our children’s’ children.

A PROPER HERMENEUTIC

Scholarship is a word that brings jeers from most pew-sitters and clergy alike. Even the so-called evangelical or conservative churches seem to passionately despise the very word. It is implied that to be involved with scholarship is to be locked in an “ivory tower” – thereby ignoring your job as a “soul-winner”. There are some who even referred to that institution where Christians would seek to further their understanding of the Word of God, seminaries, with the supposedly amusing term “cemeteries”, thereby implying that those who go to theological schools have a dead or non-emotional faith. Everything has become touchy-feel good. Scholarship as well as systematics, is viewed as being unprofitable. The great Princeton theologian, Dr. Charles Hodge, solidly rebuked these modern day Gnostics with this rebuttal, “Mysticism (i.e. experiential) in its application to theology has assumed two principal forms, the supernatural and the natural. According to the former, God, or the Spirit of God, holds direct communion with the soul; and by the excitement of its religious feelings gives it intuitions of truth, and enables it to attain a kind, a degree, and an extent of knowledge, unattainable in any other way. [They] assume that God by his immediate intercourse with the soul, reveals through the feeling and by means, or in the way of intuitions, divine truth independently of the outward teaching of His Word; and that it is this inward light, and not the Scriptures, which we are to follow”.1

God gave us His Word or Scripture ‘for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16-17). And knowing how to properly handle His Word is paramount to our understanding of our responsibility to Him. Because God’s Word is our final rule of life and faith, one must know how to interpret it properly. As you read this article, you are employing the laws of hermeneutics, even though you may not be aware of it. Hermeneutics are simply the rules of interpretation. These rules teach us how to understand what is/was being said in the historical as well as the grammatical context.

Most rules of interpretation are similar, but with the advent of dispensationalism a new hermeneutic was introduced. In his popular book on interpretation, dispensational author J. Edwin Hartwill defines this new principle as the “first mention principle”. He defines this methodology as “That principle by which God indicates in the first mention of a subject, the truth with which that subject stands connected in the mind of God. The first time a thing is mentioned in Scripture it carries with it a meaning that will be carried all through the Word of God” (Principles of Biblical Hermeneutics, pg. 70). An easy Scriptural demonstration will show the fallacy of this principle. In the fourth chapter of Malachi, verse 6 predicts the return of Elijah before the “great and terrible day of the Lord”. If one applies this new hermeneutic to the passage, he would miss this sign of the advent of Christ. A so-called “literal” reading of the passage using this new principle would seem to indicate that Elijah himself would return. This is the mistake the Pharisees made.

One can see how detrimental this hermeneutic can be when one tries to define Israel. When Jesus began His earthly ministry, he interpreted Malachi 4 as being fulfilled in John the Baptist. (Matt 11:14; 16:14; Luke 1:17; 9:8,19; John 1:12). That which stands in contradistinction to the “first mention principle” is what is called “apostolic hermeneutics.” Basically stated, who better to interpret the Old Testament than Christ and His Apostles? The answer is obvious. This principle can be explained in the adage, “the New Testament is in the Old Testament contained, and the Old Testament is in the New Testament explained”. It is with this understanding, allowing the New Testament to explain and define the Old Testament that we shall use to identify who is and is not Israel.

Who is NOT Israel?

One of the most convincing passages for defining who is NOT Israel comes to us from Paul in Romans 2:28, “For he is not a Jew (Israel) who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that of the flesh…;” Paul, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, tells us that being a Jew has nothing to do with outward appearances or ceremonies.

A.W. Pink comments on this passage, “What could be plainer than that? In the light of such a Scripture, is it not passing strange that there are today those-boasting loudly of their orthodoxy and bitterly condemning all who differ-who insist that the name ‘Jew’ belongs only to the natural descendants of Jacob…” 2 The great Presbyterian commentator Matthew Poole states, “He is not a Jew; a right or true Jew, who is heir of the promise made to the fathers, that is one outwardly…” 3

In fact, this passage shines light on the statement in the gospel of John, chapter 1 vs. 12-13. One must understand that the title “children of God” was a name given to the saints of old (i.e. Old Testament Israel, Ex. 4:22; Deut. 14:1; Is. 1:2-4; 63:8; Jer. 31:9; Hos 11:1). In this passage, John declares, “But as many as received Him, He gave to them the right to become children of God, to those who believe on His name-who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but were born of God”.

Jamieson, Fausset, & Brown comment that this statement does away with the arrogance of the Jews of Christ’s day by informing them that to be a child of God had nothing to do with natural descent, nor of supposed “superior human descent,” not of man in any way. To be a true “Jew” or “Israelite” never meant that you were such because of where you were born or to whom you were born, save God Himself. 4

In Romans 9:6, Paul records these revealing words, “…for not all those of Israel are Israel; nor because they are the seed of Abraham (natural descendants) are they all children (of Abraham or God).”

Dr. Charles Hodge in his commentary states, “…the promise was not addressed to the mere natural descendants of Abraham. For they are not all Israel which are of Israel, i.e. all the natural descendants of the patriarch are not the true people of God…, All descendants from the patriarch Jacob called Israel, are not the true people of God; (in the same way) all who are in the visible church (who are members of a local congregation) do not belong to the true invisible church.” 5

Who is Natural Israel?

This may be the hardest section for some to swallow. Jesus stated something vitally important to the Jews of his day in their dialogue with Him found in the eighth chapter of John, verses 33-44 (please read the whole section).

Starting at verse 33, the Jews declared they were the seed of Abraham. Jesus responded by saying that He knew they were the (natural) seed of Abraham and then stated, “but ye seek to kill me, because my word has no place in you”. He then adds why His word has no place with them, “I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and you do that which ye have seen with your father”. Then, again, the Jews declared, “Abraham is our father”. Jesus rebuked their false view of what it means to be a child of Abraham by stating, “IF ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham”, and proceeds to state that Abraham would not seek to kill Him. In fact, he stated that Abraham rejoiced to see His (Christ’s) day, (John 8:56). Jesus explained “IF” you were the children of Abraham, you would rejoice to see my day, henceforth, since you do not rejoice to see my day, you are NOT the Children of Abraham. In fact, Jesus concluded by telling the Jews that the true living God was not their Father and tells them who was. In verse 44 He declares, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lust of your father ye will do”.

The understanding of this passage sheds light on Christ’s statement in Revelation 3:9, “Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie”. Here Jesus identified the leading Jewish religious institution of the day and referred to it as the synagogue of Satan. He further stated that these people who claimed to be Jews (by birth), were not and that they were lying. Now go back to John 8:44 and you find the motivation for this lie!

Matthew Poole comments on this passage,” …the synagogue of Satan; so He calls all (natural) Jews that opposed Christianity…which say they are Jews and are not, but do lie. For he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is circumcision that of the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, &c., Rom. 2:28-29.” 6

Dr. David Chilton, in his exhaustive commentary on Revelations writes, “…the apostate Jews are revealed in their true identity the synagogue of Satan. Again, there is no such thing as ‘orthodox’ Judaism; there is no such thing as a genuine belief in the Old Testament that is consistent with a rejection of Jesus Christ as Lord and God. Those who do not believe in Christ do not believe in the Old Testament either. The god of Judaism is the devil…. when Christ-rejecting Jews claim to follow in the footsteps of Abraham, Jesus says, they lie.” 7

Who is True Israel?

Paul answers the above question in Romans 2:29, “But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but God”

Matthew Henry comments, “Assemblies that worship God in spirit and in truth, are the Israel of God” 8 Matthew Poole states.” He is a right and true Jew, an Israelite indeed…that worships God in Spirit, rejoices in Christ Jesus…Such are the (true) circumcision and Jew. 9 A true Jew is one who has been circumcised in his heart, i.e. born-again, John 3:6, “that which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

In God’s covenantal promise to Abram he asked God to give him a seed to be heir to his estate. God responded by not only promising Abram a child, but also adding “…look toward heaven, and count the stars, if thou be able to number them: and He (God) said unto him, so shall they seed be. And he (Abram) believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness”, 10

Paul, in the Epistle to the Galatians chapter three explains, “Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same ARE the children of Abraham.” 11 He elaborates, “So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.” 12 Verse sixteen Paul continues, “Now to Abraham and his SEED were the promises (of the covenant) made.” Verse twenty-six adds, “For ye are all the children of God by faith.” The chapter ends with this statement, “There is neither Jew (natural) nor Greek (natural) there is neither bond nor free, their is neither male nor female: for ye are all one (not two) in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then ARE ye Abraham’s SEED, and heirs according to the promise (covenant).” i.e., the true children of Abraham.

Matthew Poole comments on this last passage, “Lest these Galatians should be discouraged, because the promise was made to Abraham and his seed, since they were not the seed (natural) of Abraham; Paul tells them, if they were Christ’s, then they ARE the seed of Abraham, that seed to which the promise was made; and though they were not heirs of Abraham’s according to the flesh, yet heirs according to the promise.” 13 Needless to say, the third chapter of Galatians is pretty self explanatory, yet there are those who still want to insist that God has two separate people: Old Testament Israel and the Church.

Let us look at one more passage. Jesus provoked the chief priest and Pharisees, those who represented national Israel with this statement in Matthew twenty-one verse 43, “Therefore I say the Kingdom of God shall be taken from, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.”

David Chilton comments, “The (prophesied) destruction of apostate Israel and the Temple (Matt Twenty-four) reveal[s] that God had created a new nation, a new temple…” 14 Matthew Henry states, “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you. To the Jews had long pertained the adoption and glory, to them were committee the oracles of God, and the sacred trust of revealed religion, but now it shall be no longer. They were not only unfruitful in the use of their privileges, but, under pretenses of them, opposed the Gospel of Christ, and so [He] forfeited them.” 15

Dr. Curtis Crenshaw, a former student of Dallas Seminary replies, “Who is this nation that was given the Kingdom of God? The answer is the church, which elsewhere is designated a nation 1 Peter 2:9.” 16 John A. Broadus, the great Southern Baptist theologian of whom Broadman Press was the namesake states, “The Kingdom of God, the Messianic reign, with its privileges and benefits shall be taken from you. This was fulfilled [with the] destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish State (70 A.D.), and in the fact that most Jews through their unbelief failed of the Messianic salvation and given to a nation shows distinctly that it was to be taken away not merely from the Jewish rulers, but from the Jewish people in general”. 17

CONCLUSION

“Racial Israelites” who disobeyed God, by rejecting Christ, have had the light removed from them. They are not Jews in the true sense of the word. Whatever former blessing they may have had by natural descent has been given to the church. In other words, those who are “Jews” by race are not true Jews at all in God’s eyes.

The Church of Jesus Christ (by no means does this imply a denomination) is/was and always shall be the Israel of God! This group consists of both believing natural Jews and Gentiles; both Old and New Testament saints.

The Church is Israel. This does not mean that the Church replaced Israel, nor does it mean that a natural Jew cannot be grafted back into the true Israel. They can, but only by bending a knee to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. God established Abraham and promised to bless his seed and all those who believe like Abraham. God reckons their faith as righteousness. They become children of the promise given to Abraham, the children of God.

The covenant carries with it a series of blessings and curses. Because dispensationalism does not acknowledge the covenant that God made with (true) Israel, the church is reaping the curses of the covenant found throughout the Word of God, (Hosea 4:6 cross reference with Deut 6:4). Let us understand that those who believe are Israel, then let us seek out God’s Word concerning what He expects of a covenant people and obey with all our hearts, with all our souls and with all our strength. Then maybe we can find true revival and reformation again!

1. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979 vol. 1, page 7

2. A.W. Pink, The Divine Covenants, Baker Book House, 1973 page 272

3. Matthew Poole, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Hendrickson Publishers, vol. 3, pg. 486

4. Jamieson, Faucet & Brown, A Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, volumes I & II, Zondervan, 1953, Volume II page 128.

5. Charles Hodge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1993, page 305

6. Matthew Poole, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Hendrickson Publishers, vol. 3, page 958

7. David Chilton, Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the book of Revelation, Dominion Press, 1987, page 127-128

8. Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Royal Publishers, 1979, vol. 3, page 456

9. Matthew Poole, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Hendrickson Publishers, vol. 3, pg. 486

10. Genesis 15:5-6

11. Galatians 3 verse 7

12. Galatians 3 verse 9

13. Matthew Poole, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Hendrickson Publishers, vol. 3, page 652

14. David Chilton, Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the book of Revelation, Dominion Press, 1987, page 278

15. Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Royal Publishers, 1979, vol. 3, page 109

16. Crenshaw, Curtis and Grover Gunn, Dispensationalism: Today, Yesterday, and Tomorrow, Footstool Publications, fifth printing 1995, page 126

17. John A. Broadus, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, American Baptist Publication Society, 1886, page 443

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Reacting against a perceived tendency to reduce Paul’s teaching to answering the question, How can I be saved?, the trend today is to say that the real question that concerns Paul (as it did all first-century Jews) was, Who are the people of God? In other words, it’s a question of ecclesiology (defining “Israel”), not soteriology (how one gets in). However, Paul’s arguments in Romans 9 to 11 especially demonstrate that he is interested in both questions and that,in fact, neither can be successfully answered in isolation from the other. Thus far in Romans, Paul has emphasized that since all people, Jew and Gentile alike, are “in Adam,” condemned by the law, under the sentence of death and divine wrath, the only way to be saved is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
Who Is Israel?

The problem is that the covenant that the people made with God at Sinai was being allowed to determine the answer to these questions. How are we saved? By fulfilling the law. Who is Israel? Those who fulfill the law. Paul held this view before his conversion, as a Pharisee and persecutor of the church, but on the Damascus Road everything was turned upside down when he encountered a vision of the very “cursed” one according to the law (“cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”) triumphantly seated at the Father’s right hand in glory. Now the questions receive different answers that are, in fact, perfectly consistent with the expectations of the prophets. How are we saved? We are saved in the same way that all of the saints in redemptive history were saved: by trusting in God’s promised Messiah. Who are the people of God? The children of promise-those who share Abraham’s faith. The heirs of the Sinai covenant (and thus of the earthly land) are those who are ethnic descendants of Abraham, circumcised in the flesh; the heirs of the Abrahamic covenant (fulfilled in the new covenant) are all people, Jew and Gentile, who are “in Christ” through faith alone, circumcised in heart.

Throughout his epistles, therefore, Paul labors the contrast between these “two covenants,” represented by two mothers (Sarah the free woman versus Hagar the slave), two mountains (Zion and Sinai), and two Jerusalems (heavenly and earthly) (see especially Gal. 4). Pulling together his teaching across these epistles, we can offer a list of contrasts (see chart below).

Paul has been unveiling the free grace of God in the Abrahamic covenant to all those who are “in Christ”: pre-destined, called, justified, glorified (8:30-31). He has stressed the un-conditional basis of this everlasting covenant. So now, especially for those who had confused the Abrahamic and Sinai covenants, the likely question is raised: So, Paul, is this election that you are talking about a new and different one from the election of Israel? Has God failed in his saving purposes for Israel, so that now he finds himself having to resort to “Plan B” (the church)?

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The following passage really makes up the heart of Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians. Here he reveals a great mystery which was hidden in previous ages:

“Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ … So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.”

Notice in this passage that Paul speaks to Gentiles as having been previously separate and alienated from Israel and the covenants of promise, but in Christ, Gentiles have also become citizens of Israel. The phrase “brought near” was their modern day parlance for Jewish proselytes. According to this passage we Gentiles now partake of the same promises and are no longer strangers to the commonwealth of Israel, but citizens of it. Notice the clear reference to Jesus Christ as the true Israel, and this includes are all who are joined to His body. Let’s have a closer look: Verse 12 “alienated from the commonwealth of Israel” Paul now joins Gentiles to (vr. 19) “you are no longer strangers and aliens”. No longer aliens to what? No longer aliens to the commonwealth of Israel. That means that Gentiles who are in Christ are now “citizens” (v. 19) of Israel built as a house with Christ as the chief cornerstone. In other words, Jesus Christ is the True Israel of God (its fulfillment and foundation) as are all who are joined in union to Him. To say it another way, both OT and NT saints who are in union with Christ are now citizens of Israel. Likewise According to Ephesians 3: 4-6, God made known a mystery to Paul “…the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”

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Join host Jerry Johnson for this week’s edition of “Against the World”, as Jerry discusses how he noticed that the monikers, names, and labels God used for Israel in the Old Testament were applied to the Church in the New Testament.

SEE VIDEO HERE

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What is the true and biblical “Hope of Israel”? It was because of Paul’s view and preaching in regard thereto that he was so furiously persecuted by the Jews, and was finally sent to chains in Rome. Inasmuch as what Paul had been preaching, both to the Jews and also the Gentiles, was the gospel of Jesus Christ, and nothing else, it follows that the true “hope of Israel” is part of the gospel; and therefore it is a matter regarding which we cannot afford to be mistake. Had he been preaching what the Jews themselves believed to be, and what their rabbis had given them as, the true interpretation of the prophecies (namely, that God’s promise to Israel was a kingdom of earthly character which should have dominion over all the world) they would have heard him with intense satisfaction.

But what Paul and all the apostles preached was, that what God had promised afore by His prophets in the Holy Scripture was a kingdom over which Jesus Christ of the seed of David should reign in resurrection, and one into which Gentiles are called upon terms of perfect equality with the Jews. Thus the teaching of Christ and His apostles in respect to the vitally important subject of the Kingdom of God, the hope of Israel, came into violent collision with that of the leaders of Israel; and because of this He was crucified and the apostles persecuted.

Originally published in 1928 this theological classic demonstrates that modern Dispensationalism’s doctrine of the restoration of an earthly kingdom to national Israel is a revival of the very same teachings which led to the crucifixion of Christ and the persecution of the early Christians by the apostate Jews.

Type in coupon code HOPEOFISRAEL. Coupon code MUST be typed in and the apply button clicked at time of purchase. We are unable to refund or type in the code for you! Offer ends May 24, 2012.

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Dispensationalists recognize that Abraham has a “spiritual seed.” We see this in the New Scofield Reference Bible (NSRB, p. 1223 at Ro 9:6). But dispensationalists do not like the idea that since Abraham has a “spiritual seed,” (NRSB p. 1223), there may also be a spiritual Israel.

Nevertheless, Paul applies the name “Israel” to Christians: “And as many as walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God” (Gal 6:16). The “and [Greek: kai]” preceding “Israel of God,” is probably epexegetical, which means that we should translate the passage: “mercy upon them, that is, upon the Israel of God.” Dispensationalists see Galatians 6:16 applying to Jewish converts to Christ, “who would not oppose the apostle’s glorious message of salvation.” But such is surely not the case, for the following reasons.

Galatians’ entire context opposes any claim to a special Jewish status or distinction: “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26–28). In the new covenant Christ does away with all racial distinctions. Why would Paul hold out a special word for Jewish Christians (“the Israel of God”), when he states immediately beforehand that we must not boast at all, save in the cross of Christ (Gal 6:14)? After all, “in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation” (Gal 6:15).

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