Introduction
:
This paper is my summary challenge to Christians
who argue that there is a supportable interpretation of the Bible regarding Israel’s
activities in the land of Palestine. I contend there is No such support. Christians
in our generation need to know that there is historical scholarship for a valid
Biblical point of view which dissolves the arguments that support Christian
Zionism. Christian Zionism is defined loosely as unreserved support for the
actions of the present nation of Israel justified by a misguided belief that Jews
must be re-gathered to their ancient lands prior to the Lord’s return.
Of itself, this paper
does not claim to be a work of theological scholarship, but it does lean
heavily on the work of three well qualified theologians for its Biblical
accuracy and continuity. The study of theology depends on both the sincerity
and the humility of a scholar in order to permit the Scriptures themselves to interpret
Scripture. To this exercise we truly bring …….no new thing. Faithfully using
this method avoids the human pitfalls of presuming the meaning with only partial
information or bringing preconceived human notions to the Bible in order to
justify them.
After some years of
casual study, I conclude that the sources I have used are faithful to the whole
counsel of God and that this paper is worthy of your consideration.. I contend
that a great many Christians are supporting a Zionist regime because they assume
that Dispensationalism, the popular eschatology of our time, is the only
option.
If this is your
position, you will for certain have come under pressure to support Zionism which
lays aside all the Christian principles you have learned in the Sermon on the
Mount for policies that are nothing short of “Apartheid” toward the
Palestinians. I urge you therefore to carefully re-consider the matter so that your
support is properly placed in the cause of justice and mercy.
References
1- Abraham’s Four Seeds - John
G. Reisinger http://www.amazon.com/Abrahams-Four-Seeds-John-Reisinger/dp/0966084543/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1390963079&sr=1-1&keywords=abraham%27s+four+seeds
2. The Momentous Event - W.J. Grier
3. Sermons on Romans 11 – Martyn Lloyd
Jones
Without doubt, the
present nation of Israel, reconstituted in Palestine, by a unilateral United
Nations decree dated at sundown 14 May 1948, has been responsible for disturbing years of peaceful
coexistence between Jew and Muslim in the land . Wherever there is controversy,
books and articles follow passionately written from differing points of view each
seeking to explain or justify one side or the other. This is doubly so in this
case because the arbitrary decision to insert a nation called Israel into an already
settled Palestine was pre-loaded with religious implications for three of the world’s
major religions - Judaism, Islam and Christianity.
The purpose then of this paper is to republish the historical
Biblical interpretation of God’s promises to Abraham, which if graciously
received, will bring a correct perspective to Christians who want to do the right
thing by the Jewish people and to also promote peace in a troubled area of the
world.
Contrary to the world’s historical record, the Christian worldview
itself is not antagonistic toward the Jews. However, confused persons through
the centuries, who have claimed association with Christianity have been
intensely anti-semitic to the extremes of tragic persecution and death.
But Christian doctrine,
rightly held, rejects the evil they have perpetrated on the Jewish people. Christianity
recognizes that Abraham’s Natural Seed (the
Jews ) were the family first, and then the nation that was chosen to bring the Lord
Jesus Christ into the world. He arrived in time, to live perfectly under the
Mosaic Law, and then to become the Acceptable Sacrifice for all who would believe
that his death would pay for their sin. Ironically, the Jews were also the people
that brought about his death on a Roman cross. But Christianity also believes that
God the Father sovereignly planned that Sacrifice in eternity past, and that God
the Son was obedient unto death in order to save Abraham’s Spiritual Seed. These are people, from all ages, both Jew
and Gentile, who would believe experimentally that His death covers their sin
and that they are delivered from the curse of the Law. *(…the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Ezekiiel
18:4 )
The Bible tells the story of Abraham and the promises made to the natural
and the spiritual seed. If we understand and embrace this interpretation as the
Divine plan, we will not become pawns in support of the present day Israel’s
irrational drive for racial mastery in the land of Palestine.
To begin, if God in three persons, planned before the foundation
of the world to rescue a people for His Name, (the Church), then that plan must
emerge in Genesis and conclude in Revelation and the whole counsel of God on the
matter be complete in Holy Writ.
God called Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees (1) to be the human
instrument for this plan. But , Abraham and Sarah had problems conceiving, so Abraham
fathered (1)
Genesis 12:1-3
Ishmael by an Egyptian servant girl named Hagar. Ishmael under God’s
promise of Abraham’s natural seed, became the father of 10 nations known as the
Arabs. (2) But
then God permitted Abraham through a deliberate preplanned miracle, to father Isaac
when he and his wife Rachel were humanly speaking - too old to have children. Isaac,
unlike Ishmael, was identified by God as Abraham’s Spiritual Seed. (3) Isaac in turn, married
Rebekah and fathered twin sons Esau and Jacob. Again, it was God himself who chose
Jacob as the spiritual seed and left Esau as he was - a natural seed.(4)
As difficult as it may seem to our sense of fairness, God chose
some from Abraham’s family to be the Spiritual Seed who would believe the Gospel
of a coming deliverance through a Messiah, and he left the rest in their unbelief.
So two peoples were at one and the same time--inside Abraham’s
family – The Spiritual Seed, those who believed in the promise of the Messiah (5) and those who,
although natural sons of Abraham, did not believe. Further,
Abraham , Isaac and Jacob were all in their turn, the spiritual Fathers of the Spiritual
Seed for the Gentiles of all the ages. (6)
The Old Testament then, is the Jews earthly story and the
beginnings of a heavenly story for all peoples. Through the Hebrews, and the nation of Israel, God produced a type or an illustration of the
Church. The nation of Israel itself, was brought into existence from Jacob’s
enslaved descendants in Egypt on the night the death angel passed over the
Hebrew homes that had the blood of a lamb daubed on the lintel and door posts .
In the Egyptian homes all the first born died. In the Hebrew homes marked by blood,
everyone lived. (7)
This is a type of the Lord’s crucifixion. As the Hebrews
were protected by the blood daubed about the door, all who are covered by Christ’s
blood sacrifice will look to Him and be justified (made righteous) and live
forever. (8) Those
that do not, though they live for a time on earth, are under an eternal
sentence of death.
The Exodus from Egypt is the saga of God’s patient work with
an earthly people to whom he gave the Law and the Oracles . Yet despite the Red
Sea crossing , the firey pillar, the manna and quail, the rock in the desert that
spewed a river of water, the people built an idol at the foot of the mountain while
God was writing the 10 commandments on Moses’ tablets of stone (9). The majority in
the nation were rebellious unbelievers and because of their failure to believe
Joshua and Caleb concerning the promised land, God made them wander in the
desert for 40 years until all the adults who had left Egypt had died.
You can read the rest of the story for yourself as the
pattern remains the same . In every generation through to the birth of the Messiah,
God called only a remnant from the nation of Israel to believe the Gospel of the
Messiah’s future saving work on a the Roman cross . These were the Spiritual Seed
of Abraham and the remainder of the nation were left in their superstition,
idolatry and unbelief.
(2)
Genesis 21:13 (3) Genesis 21:12 (4) Romans 9: 11-13 (5) Galations 3:26 (6) Galations
3 24-29
(7)
Exodus 12:13 (8)Isaiah 45:2 (9) Exodus 32:1
As to the land, when God promised Abraham the land of
Palestine,(10) it
was also a type of things to come . It’s true that following the Exodus from
Egypt, Joshua more or less conquered the land. But Israel, because of disobedience,
had only partial success through the time of the Judges and the Kings.
Rebellion and unbelief eventually caused them to be judged for their idolatry and they became a conquered people.
But back to the beginning, when Abraham received the land promise he knew that he was not
looking for the ultimate fulfillment on earth (11) . Abraham knew
that if Israel as a nation was to bring forth the Messiah, an earthly territory
would indeed be necessary, but he also knew that the land was a type of a
heavenly kingdom which he would one day see in glory.
God’s promises for Jewish rights to the
land of Palestine were also made Conditional.
(12) If then the
condition of obedience was broken what of the promise ? We know from the
Biblical record in the prophets , that the majority of the people of Israel were disobedient, rebelled
against God, burned their children in the fire to Moloch, worshipped many false
Gods and forsook the Gospel. In fact, the prophets were ruthlessly killed because
their message was damning to the majority conscience.(13) So God stopped sending prophets 400
years before the Messiah although the Gospel remained by which a remnant
in every generation were saved.
When Jesus did come, the scribes and Pharisees had so modified
the Law of Moses and the Gospel, that a whole set of human traditions had been overlaid
on top of the Sinai Law perverting its meaning. When you read the Sermon on the
Mount, (14) look
for all the corrections Jesus made to their errors. They hated him for it, for they
had what they wanted ,- respect from men. As far as they were concerned, any
and all excuses to reject Jesus’ authority, were valid.
The crucifixion without doubt is the pivotal point in
history. The Old Testament and New Testament are on different sides of the
crucifixion, yet they both proclaim that the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.... is
the same. Both Jews and Gentiles from Abraham to the last trumpet have been and will be, called to be members
of the Bride of Christ - the Church.
When Jesus died the veil of the temple,through which the high priest priest passed once per year to offer sacrificial blood for
atonement, was ripped supernaturally from the top to the bottom because it was no longer needed. With Jesus sacrificial death, the Priesthood of the Believer had been
established .
At the resurrection, the Hebrew nation and all the ceremonial
law depicting Jesus’ sacrifice were also finished . The nation through sovereign
Providence had fulfilled its role all the way from Abraham to the cross. In 70
AD the Roman General Titus
(10)
Psalm 105: 6-11 (11) Hebrews 11: 8-10 (12) Deuteronomy 30: 15-20 (13) Hebrews
11: 36-40
destroyed the last vestiges of the nation and its religion by
slaughtering the inhabitants of Jerusalem and destroying the temple completely
.
The Lord predicted this would happen for with His ascension
to his Heavenly throne and the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the “Israel
of God” was now proclaimed a spiritual kingdom. There was no further need of
earthly types. The earthly nation of Israel had fulfilled the purpose for which God had
brought it into existence and it is now gone forever. The Bible needs no other support,
but it is significant, that some important sects who are current followers of
Judaism agree that God has not recalled Jews to the land to re establish the nation of Israel.
At Pentecost, as Jesus promised, the followers of Christ were
visited by the Holy Spirit and empowered . In one day 3000 souls from many nations
and tongues were converted to begin spreading the Christian message out across the world
.
The apostles, those that had been chosen by the Lord, and
Paul who had been under the Lord’s instruction in the third heaven, are our
best authority on just how to view these events. They interpret the Old Testament
in many passages of the New Testament. The literal depictions of the Old Testament
then, should never be imposed on the New Testament . The prophets knew and
accepted the Gospel of the coming Messiah, but when they did prophesy the
future, they saw only shadows and types. The New Testament apostles therefore interpret
with authority the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies and their interpretation
declares that the Lord now reigns in His Kingdom in heaven (15) and that the time
that has elapsed since his ascension are the last days prophesied by the prophet Joel.
(16) The
final event we can anticipate is the Last Trumpet - His Second Coming, where
ALL the dead of ALL ages will be raised to stand before him.(17)
So what of the Jews themselves ? Is God finished with them?
Following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the Jews
were dispersed throughout the nations . They clung to the memory of their Old
Testament privilege and based on portions of Old Testament scripture called the
Talmud, they founded the religion of Judaism . Over the centuries there have been
many conversions to Judaism among non-Semite peoples . So who among the Jews
today, are Abraham’s natural seed? I am sure there are many, but not one of
them is able to trace his lineage with any certainty to the Jews of Jesus time.
Therefore any self-proclaimed racial identity is a voluntary willingness to be
associated with either the religion of Judaism, the present Jewish culture or the
political movement Zionism.
Nevertheless, Paul the apostle in Romans 11 says that God still
has plans for the descendants from Abraham’s natural seed. But do not make the mistake
of equating the Jews with the former nation of Israel or any present counterfeit. Paul
prophesies in the book of Romans that one day the Jews will recognize their
Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, and will turn "en masse" to Him in repentance and
faith .(18)
(14)
Matthew 5 (15) Acts 2: 29-35 (16) Acts 2:14-21 (17) 1 Thessalonians 4: 16-17 (18)
Romans 11:26
He also says that this event will strengthen and encourage
the true Church world wide, and that this will all come to pass during this present Kingdom
Age . (19)
This event does not define the day or the hour of the
second Coming but the Holy Spirit through Paul does promise that God will save
his people the Jews before Jesus returns. The Jews as individual
persons will be converted wherever they are on the earth, and their conversion will graft
them into the Church - the Bride of Christ .
The land of Palestine or the current nation of Israel is irrelevant
to the fulfillment of this prophecy. None of the New Testament writers make any
reference to a re-gathered Jewry in the land of Palestine. The apostles agree with
Abraham that they look for a heavenly Kingdom which is far better than an earthly
one.(20) Admittedly
this is an argument from silence, but the New Testament writers were all
Jews and they were under pressure from the Jews who were certain that the
Gospel of Jesus Christ was bent on destroying their religion. Surely, under the
circumstances, if national Israel was to be a factor in the future, the apostles
would have mentioned it.
So how should this impact your view of the present tragedy
in Palestine ?
Using the Nazi Holocaust for all its worth and more, the
Zionist movement has persuaded much of the western world to hold their peace while
they carry out “ethnic cleansing” on the Palestinians, wholesale expulsions
from their historic lands, and acts of aggression against neigboring Arab
nations -- all in the name of a resurgent nation of Israel.
If the historical perspective in this paper is correct, many
Christians are in real danger of being complicit in quietly accepting the
Zionist Program for reasons that are not Biblical. The Zionists are not Joshua cleansing
the land under God’s specific instructions, nor are they regathered to the land as a precondition of the Lord's return. …And finally, the Lord Jesus
Christ has given us the Sermon on the Mount to guide us in our behavior and all
Christians should therefore be compelled by conscience to advocate a peaceful
compromise that foundationally, establishes true democracy and human rights for
all ?
(19)
Romans 11: 32-33 (20) Hebrews 11: 8-10
