Introduction
Israel and Zion(ism) are two words that raise passions in our world today, yet why should these words which fill the pages of Scripture have come to be regarded as so pejorative by many within the Church. Didn’t the prophet Isaiah say?
"The Lord will have compassion on Jacob; once again he will choose Israel and will settle them in their own land. Aliens will join them and unite with the house of Jacob. Nations will take them and bring them to their own place. And the House of Israel will possess the nations as menservants or maidservants in the Lord’s hand" ( Is 14:1) or in Isaiah 62 "For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet till her righteousness shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch" (Is 62:1)
In these two readings lies the redemption of these names which have become the source of such bitterness. They hold out both the hope of reconciliation between Arab and Jew, Israeli and Palestinian, and also the glorious destiny of Jerusalem within the eschatological purposes of world redemption when instead of being a source of division, she becomes the centre of Kingdom of God. Isaiah writing of this time said:
"In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The Lord Almighty will bless them saying, "Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance." (Isaiah 19:23f) This glorious vision of reconciliation has clearly yet to be fulfilled.
As I look at the whole bible including the maps at the back, the whole of biblical revelation finds its focus in this one nation Israel. Our theological understanding is shaped by the story of Israel and centres on person of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, who embodies and represents Israel around whom the people of God, both Jew and Gentile, find their identity, mission and goal. Israel is the name Jesus uses to describe the land and the nation to whom he is its chief citizen. It is the name that remained throughout the whole canon of Scripture.
Yet as I grew up another name for the land had become the common name for the land-Palestine. Bible books would refer to Palestine in the time of Jesus. Yet the name Palestine came into being only in AD134 after the Romans finally crushed the second and last Jewish revolt against its rule. They renamed Israel, Syria-Palestina, after the Philistines Israel’s most implacable enemy, as a deliberate affront to Jews. There began the great Jewish exile from the land and the battle for the soul of the land.
Today the names of Israel and Palestine have become powerful symbols around which the Church has divided and polarised as Israelis and Palestinians each seek to assert national sovereignty and to claim the moral, historical, physical and indeed spiritual right to the land. The issue of the restoration of Israel has become the focus of appalling disunity within the Body of Christ.
The Vision
How have we got into this position and is there any way those differences can be reconciled?
Perhaps we can begin by raising our sights to the bigger picture of God’s great purpose for world redemption with which I began. The bringing of the nations under the Lordship of Christ through the whole people of God, Jew and Gentile.
The overarching message of Scripture is about the establishment of the Kingdom of God in which the Kingdoms of this world become the Kingdoms of God and of His Christ. It is epitomised in that image from Daniel 2 of the huge statue representing the empires of this world being brought to nought by the stone from heaven which eventually grows to fill the whole earth. A picture of the coming Kingdom of God
The establishment of God’s kingdom then is played out in the theatre of nations and through the instruments that God has brought into being to fulfil his purposes, namely Israel and the Church.
The final outcome of that work is seen in the pictures given both in Hebrews and in Revelation. In Hebrews 11 the writer recording the faith of Abraham says of him that "he was looking forward to a city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God." In Revelation that city is described as the New Jerusalem on whose gates are inscribed the twelve tribes of Israel and whose wall’s foundations are inscribed with the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
In this profound picture of the new heaven and earth we see the ultimate goal of God’s redemptive purpose in which God comes to dwell with humanity. It marks the reconciliation of earth and heaven, of nature and spirit, of Israel and the Church. It marks the goal of redemption when God indeed dwells on earth with man
In Matthew 19 verse 28 Jesus said
"I tell you the truth at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."
This passage is significant because it encapsulates the core issue that divides the Church today-the restoration of Israel. In two separate commentaries on this passage, the authors reach very different conclusions about the relationship between the twelve tribes and the twelve apostles. R.T. France concludes that the twelve apostles supersede the twelve tribes and rule over them as the New Israel whereas Edward Schweizer sees the apostles as being installed as regents over Israel which itself will be restored at the eschaton to its full complement of twelve tribes.
The climax or goal is reached when as I Corinthians 15:24 states "Then the end will come, when he, Christ, hands over the Kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power."
As I have made clear from Revelation, on the New Earth that parity of relationship between Israel and the Church is restored as symbolised by the gates of the tribes of Israel and walls of the apostles of the Church in the New Jerusalem wherein dwells the presence of God. It answers that question of Solomon after the dedication of the Temple in I Kings 8:27 "But will God really dwell on earth?"
Christian Division over Israel
That is the vision, but at present we are far from that reality
Christians in the West are deeply divided and deeply involved, for good or ill, in the conflict between Israel and the Arab/Islamic states that surround her. Whether for or against Israel, Christians are far from neutral in their theology or politics. The Christian Church, from either perspective is therefore not impartial, yet despite this is called by God to engage in bringing about reconciliation and justice.
The very title of this conference has already by implication pre-judged both Zionism and Christian Zionism and concluded they are deeply flawed ideologies and theologies underpinning the State of Israel which it sees as the root of the oppression of the Palestinian people.
The dominant theology of the Church, replacement or covenant theology, however for the last 2000 years has itself been responsible for a far greater oppression of the Jewish nation than that for which Israel is being accused in her handling of the conflict with the Palestinians. Yet no such critique is being made by the Church of her own deeply flawed, theology towards the Jewish people which has bred such bitter hatred and mistrust between Christians and Jews and to such virulent and violent anti-Semitism.
Anti-Zionism
Anti-Zionism, a view held by many within the Church today is but the logical outworking of a theology that at its root has dispensed with any ongoing role for the Jewish nation within the purposes of God. Anti-Zionism is, therefore not morally or theologically neutral. It is deeply embedded in the long, sad history of Christian anti-Semitism which in the words of one commentator is as great now as it was in the 1930’s and on a worldwide scale.
Anti-Zionism in an almost mirror image of Zionism and Christian Zionism in its often uncritical support of the Palestinian cause is guilty of the same distortions to which it accuses those who they believe give uncritical support to Israel. Anti-Zionism then works in tandem with forces for Arab and Palestinian nationalism and indeed with resurgent Islam that have created a powerful set of myths concerning the origins and outworking of the Arab/ Israeli conflict.
Anti-Zionism has its origins in the doctrine of the Early Church Fathers which severed the roots between Israel and the Church and led to Gentile dominance at the expense of Jewish believers. The doctrine of the supercession or replacement of Israel by the Church has led to the denigration of Jewish people as ‘Israel only according to the flesh’ and to the arrogation of the name by the Church as the ‘New Israel’ or ‘Israel according to the Spirit’. This doctrine is itself a distortion rooted in Christian arrogance and supremacy which has led to the victimisation and oppression of the Jews as a race throughout much of the Church era and, in our day, to the denial of a) any ongoing role for the Jewish nation within the purposes of God and b) the denial of the legitimate national aspirations of Jewish people to their historic homeland. Anti-Zionism is therefore rooted in:
- The denial of the eternal and irrevocable covenant with the Jewish people (The Abrahamic covenant) and to which Gentile Believers are grafted in.
- The denial of the divine origin and election of Israel and God’s promise that they will never cease to be a nation before him.
- The rejection of the historical connectedness of the Jewish people to the land.
- The denial of the centrality of Jerusalem to Jewish affections and of their tenacity in maintaining a presence within the city down through the centuries..
- The denial of the near continuous occupation of the land by Jewish people since AD70 and AD134 or that there has been a remnant, often tiny, to maintain continuity with the land during its almost 2000 year exile.
- The denial of the continuous religious and cultural connections of Jews in the land with those in diaspora through its centres of learning in Safed, Tiberias, Hebron and Jerusalem.
- A systematic attempt to delegitimise Israel’s right to exist as a nation.
Anti-Zionism itself
- Imputes an historical Palestinian national identity and consciousness which defies historical examination.
- It asserts a demographic cohesiveness which has also been challenged by historians. Much of those who regard themselves as Palestinian today are as recent arrivals as Jews who have returned from diaspora since the 19th century.
- Creates a powerful national Palestinian myth which has led to historical revisionism that interprets political event through a distorted lens attributing sole blame for the crisis on Zionism without an objective appraisal of Arab Nationalism or the resurgence of Islamic hegemony.
- Flouts the will of the international community, firstly, to create a Jewish National Home in 1920 and secondly by challenging the United Nations decision to create a Jewish state in 1947.
Anti-Zionism then is as deeply rooted within the Church as Christian Zionism and has its own theology and ideology for rejecting the restoration of Israel as of God. The theology of the restoration of Israel is, like replacement or covenant theology , rooted, as we see later, not in the relatively recent manifestation of Christian Zionism, but in the teachings of the early church. Both Christian Zionism and Covenant Theology have, as they say, form!
Causes of Zionism
Whilst there is no doubt about the strong influence of Christian leaders such as Lord Shaftesbury in supporting and advocating the restoration of the Jews to Palestine in the 19th century. Indeed many were key figures in pressing the British, and indeed European governments, for such a Jewish National Home, nevertheless the impetus to return to the land lay within the Jewish community.
It was precisely the pogroms in Holy Russia that led Jews to the conclusion that their future lay elsewhere and led to the pioneer settler movement to Palestine in the late 19th century. The move, then, to return to the land predates Zionism. It was only later Theodor Herzl in his outrage over anti-Semitism in, so called, emancipated Christian Europe concluded that if even well assimilated Jews ultimately could find no place, then the only solution was the creation of a Jewish State.
Again it could be argued that Christian anti-Semitism was the main catalyst for Zionism and not the many voices, both religious and international, who in the 19th Century called for the restoration of Israel. Zionism arose then as reaction to centuries of oppression by largely Christian nations and as a legitimate expression of Jewish self-determination for nationhood in a state they could call their own. Zionism was not always too violently opposed by the Arab nation either and indeed Emir Faisal recognised in the Balfour Declaration the legitimate aspirations of the Jewish people to return to their historic homeland. He welcomed that return and the economic and social benefits that it would bring to all peoples of the region. A vision never allowed to be tested.
[Today the Church has become so polarised over this issue that it is itself part of the problem not part of the solution. With rhetoric on both sides getting ever more strident and condemnatory of the other, neither position is helping to bring a resolution to the conflict. If I have already been labelled a Zionist or Christian Zionist and condemned for it, what further way forward is there for debate.]
The title I gave Michael when he invited me to speak to this conference is deliberate, for I wanted to address not an apologetic for Christian Zionism per se, but to address the very issue that most divides the Christian world- 'The Restoration of Israel' to which historically there have been other theologies than Christian Zionism.
With both sides appealing to the Bible to legitimate their arguments, is it possible to re-examine the respective theologies of Christian Zionism or Replacement Theology that lie behind the current entrenched positions. Is there a way of exploring Scripture with a fresh perspective?
Dualism
It has been said that the one blank page between the Old and New Testament has been the cause of many of the problems between Christians and Jews because it introduces a break in what was intended as a seamless whole in Scripture. It has created an unhelpful separation so that instead of seeing Scripture as an integrity, we see it in two distinct parts.
The simplest caricature is that the Old is for Jews, the old people of God, the New for Christians, the new people of God. This has led in turn to a dualism in which various strands of the Judeo-Christian tradition and revelation are set at variance one with the other-Law/Grace, Spirit/Nature, Israel/Church. Instead of there being a continuity and complementarity between the Testaments, they are almost put in opposition and contradiction with one another. Our view of Scripture becomes distorted with a Plan A/Plan B mentality, in which the Old Covenant is seen as but the precursor to the New Covenant. Old Israel is, if you like, seen merely as the instrument through which the New Israel, the Church, emerges like the capsule from a discarded rocket from which it has been launched.
John Walvoord writes in Major Prophecies Unfulfilled "Though the entire Bible bears witness to a gracious, loving God, there is a sharp contrast between the basic revelation of the Old Testament compared to the New. This is captured in the simple statement of John 1:17, "For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" The Old Testament is not entirely law, nor is the New Testament entirely grace, but there is a broad contrast between the two"
The emphasis then in each covenant is different in the Old Testament, Israel is the dominant motif with the Law central to revelation. The Ecclesia, the community called to live by faith, is secondary, hidden, mysterious but present as the writer to Hebrews makes clear when he lists the great saints of the Old Covenant. Likewise, in the New Testament although Israel is the theatre of God’s operation, the emphasis is the Kingdom of God with the calling out of the Ecclesia, comprised of "neither Jew nor Gentile, male nor female, slave nor free". There is a judgement upon the leadership of Israel in which the Kingdom is taken from them and given to another who will bear the fruits of repentance. This is an indictment on Israel’s leadership and not an annulment of God’s covenant with Israel
The Kingdom, then, is not divorced from Israel, but it finds its focus in the one who fully represents Israel, Jesus. Jesus himself makes clear that Law, the heart of the Old Covenant, is not done away with, for he has come not to abolish but to fulfil the Law. The only true Israelite who has fully kept the Law becomes the cornerstone for the whole people of God and inaugurates the New Covenant which is centred in himself. Yet as David Torrance says in his chapter ‘The divine vocation and destiny of Israel in world history’ from The Witness of the Jews to God.
"Ultimately, of course, the salvation and renewing of mankind depend on the reconciling and resurrecting power of Christ himself, but if the actual unification of world humanity is to come about it must involve at it’s very centre the reconciliation of Jew and Gentile in Jesus Christ. And how is this to take place except through the vicarious role which, precisely because God’s covenant with Israel is not annulled, remains very much in force."
There is then a deep connectedness between Israel as a people and a nation with Jesus as the representative, and indeed King, of Israel, to which Gentiles are grafted in and who together become the whole people of God.
We need then to understand the wide-ranging plan and purpose of God through nations and individuals, Israel and the Church if we are to begin to understand the ongoing role for Israel in our day.
Interpreting the Scriptures
The Apostles had only the Hebrew Scriptures to interpret the Coming of Jesus, they were the Scriptures. It was only much later in the Church era that the final New Testament canon was compiled and recognised as equally authoritative as Scripture to that of the Old Testament. Christian theology and creeds recognise the Two Comings of Christ yet the Church has often evaluated the Hebrew Scriptures only in the light of His First Coming. Large tracts of the prophetic writings in the Hebrew Scriptures have in effect been written off as irrelevant to any future role for Israel in the light of the Second Coming of Christ. Thus many prophecies which speak of the re-gathering of the Jewish people to the land, are either regarded as allegory, or fulfilled with the return from exile in Babylon or fulfilled in the person of Jesus as the embodiment of Israel.
In the Church’s bid to establish herself as separate from or indeed the successor to Israel it has had to spiritualise away much of Scripture which speak of an ongoing role for Israel and the Jewish nation. Although all Scripture is for spiritual edification, it is not at the expense of the clear and unambiguous meaning of the text.
David Torrance writing in his chapter 'Israel today in the light of God’s Word' in 'Witness of the Jews to God' says:
"To many theologians, accustomed to demythologise and to see only the ethical implications of the Word of God and not to see particular or material implications of that Word, the events of the Holocaust and the restoration to the land must be disturbing in the extreme. Accept the hand of God behind these events and we see in them a confirmation and unfolding of much that God has said through prophets and apostles. For many this must involve a reappraisal of the very nature of the Word of God, and their understanding of it and a readiness to accept the Jewish position or Hebraic understanding that, whereas prophecy has abiding spiritual value, it does have also a particular literal application".
The fact that the Church has had to tie itself in knots to make sense of many of the prophetic writings of the Old Testament and indeed the New has often been the consequence of a failure to heed the literal and clear meaning of the text.
The Declaration of the Roman Catholic Bishops of Germany on the Church’s relationship to Judaism on 28th April 1980 recognises that a prophecy of the final restoration of Israel is contained in Acts 1:6,7 "When the disciples came together they asked Jesus, ‘Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’ Jesus did not reject their question as wrong in itself, he does not deny that there will be a restoration of the kingdom to Israel, instead he says ‘it is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has set by his own authority.’
In Hebraic understanding the restoration of that kingdom is not possible without a restoration to the land. The kingdom was, and indeed, still is associated with the earthly reign of the Messiah over Israel and the nations. Jesus remains the King of the Jews who has yet to reign over the nation of Israel in any physical sense.
As David Torrance goes on to say ’It is therefore all the more surprising that in the light of their own exegesis about the restoration to Israel, the Bishops have omitted any reference to the Land, in their declaration.
Teaching of the Church Fathers
An omission perhaps more to do with the unsettling questions that arose as they have sought to come to terms with the Church’s historic enmity toward the Jewish people which has its roots in the teaching and councils of the early church fathers.
The post-Nicene Church Fathers bear a huge responsibility for the development of this distortion in the way the plain meaning of Scripture has been allegorised away. It has done irreparable harm in developing a Christian apologetic that denies any further role for the Jews as a nation and ultimately to the antisemitic edicts which cut the Church from its Jewish roots and anathematised the Jews.
What is clear is that both the roots of Christian Zionism and Covenant or Replacement Theology go back to the respective positions of the pre- and post Nicene Fathers. From these positions one can see the development of the two major theologies concerning the Second Coming of Christ and the role of the Jews.
Pre-Millennialism has it’s roots in a theology that sees a restoration of the Jews and national conversion to their Messiah as a prelude to the Messianic age in which Christ rules with the Church for a thousand years, the earth is renewed and transformed and the nations acknowledge the Lordship of Christ. A view reflected in Jewish thought in which it is believed that in the Olam Haba, the age to come, the Messiah will reign for exactly one thousand years
Post-Millennialism, by contrast, sees the emergence of a triumphant and victorious Church which rules with the unseen Christ for a thousand years and prepares for the glorious, visible Second Coming of Christ. Its theology is rooted in the Kingdom of God being present now, growing and expanding to fill the earth. Christendom has largely been based on this belief in which the world gradually and eventually becomes Christianised.
Church Arrogance towards the Jews
This view has, however, bred an arrogance towards the Jewish people, in so far as it sees itself as having replaced or superseded national Israel or Israel according to the flesh. This doctrine is rooted in the ascendancy of Rome over Jerusalem as the centre of the Gentile Church. As Torrance says "It was evidently in justification of its own claims that the Roman Church gave currency to the false idea that Israel was the People of God only according to the flesh and had to be replaced by the Church of Jesus Christ as the People of God according to the Spirit. That doctrine alone has, as we shall see later, sown the seeds of contempt by the Church towards Jewish people.
The Christian world then mirrors this divide with one part advocating for and supporting Israel and the other coming to the rescue of part of the beleagured church oppressed by a nation that it regards as having no ongoing spiritual significance and indeed no right to be there at all. Both Israel and Palestine have become powerful symbols of these respective positions. This is reflected in the way in which each side seeks to demonise the other and a powerful testimony to the disunity of the Christian world over this issue.
Polarisation
A few years ago at the National Christian Resources Exhibition at Esher our CMJ stand was right next to the Rediscovering Palestine stand. Quite an irony when you consider the perspectives of each stand, on the one hand a Society committed to the restoration of Israel and the other committed to the national aspirations of the Palestinians.
As you can perhaps imagine there was an uneasy relationship as we sought to present our respective causes to those attending the exhibition. On one stand there was a map of Palestine without any reference to Israel which could equally well have been mirrored on the other stand with a map of Israel with Judea and Samaria transposed over the West Bank.
The map and the respective claim of Israel and Palestine to the land reflect the polarisation of the issue and the suspicion that each side is committed to the ultimate destruction of the other.
Intolerance of different views
Within the Christian world this polarisation is reflected by an intolerance of any alternative way of seeing things. An Anglican bishop, on one occasion, bluntly asked me why we supported the restoration of Israel, as if this could not possibly be a viable theological or indeed historical/political position. That struck me as precisely the arrogance that the Church has traditionally adopted to any possible claim by the Jewish people to national restoration and a denial of the miracle of Jewish preservation through 2000 years exile from their land.
Entrenched positions have inevitably led to accusation and counter accusation with neither side attempting to understand or relate to the convictions held by the other.
Naim Ateek, for example, in the 2003 winter edition of Cornerstone says in his article "The dark side of Religion" "Without any shadow of doubt, Christian Zionism is one, if not the most dangerous, biblical distortion that is challenging us today"
By contrast Derek Prince, in probably his final message "A call to Britain" gives a warning of judgement to the church if it persists in its belief that the Church has replaced Israel. He says "The truth of the matter is, we determine our destiny on how we respond to what God is doing for Israel. He goes on to quote from Isaiah 60 "The nation and the kingdom that will not serve you, re-gathered Israel, will perish. Those nations will be utterly ruined.
Is there any way back from the abyss, the chasm, that divides the Church or are we destined to carry on the fight until one or other side delivers the knock out blow? One way forward perhaps lies in the teaching of St Paul from Romans.
Romans 9-11
Romans 9-11 have been described as the key to understanding of the ongoing relationship between Israel and the Church. Indeed it could be argued that the whole of Romans seeks to clarify that relationship.
In St Paul’s teaching from Romans 9-11 Paul makes it crystal clear that the judgement against Israel for disobedience is a judicial hardening, so that the Gentiles can now be included as co-recipients of the Kingdom with Israel under the rule of the Messiah.
In grieving at his own nation’s rejection of the Gospel, Paul says "I have great anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off for the sake of my brothers those of my own race, 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 all the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all forever to be praised." Paul is not saying these are past riches, but Israel’s present inheritance.
Later in chapter 10 St Paul says "Brothers, my hearts desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved."
This inevitably led to his reflection on the future role of the Jewish people in which he recognises their rejection of Jesus as a stumbling, but concludes they are not beyond redemption as a nation.
"Did they the Jewish people stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all. Rather, because of their transgressions, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious"
Paul makes a startling observation that somehow even in the rejection of their own Messiah, Israel is being called to bring blessing to the Gentiles, and which in turn is designed to make Israel envious of that salvation which she herself has spurned.
Debt of Gratitude
Paul implies that for the Gentile branch of the Church we have a debt of gratitude to Israel for their disobedience and unbelief without which we could not be included as the people of God. The Church has done many things to Israel, but I’m not sure it has ever yet made her envious.
As David Torrance says "The time has come for the whole Church of Christ to recognise far more profoundly and sincerely that it is a debtor to Israel, for it could not exist as Church except as it is grafted on to the stock of Israel. Israel remains the servant of the Lord with a vicarious function to fulfil even for the Christian Church, so that without heeding Israel or listening to its witness the Christian Church cannot properly understand its own existence or mission. But the Church today cannot relate sincerely to Israel without acknowledging to the full the piled-up guilt of its rejection and persecution of Israel throughout the Christian centuries."
Later on in Romans 11 Paul gives a vivid picture of how we who are Gentiles have been grafted into Israel’s olive tree.Paul says that some, not all, of the natural branches, Israel, were cut off and a wild olive shoot, the Gentiles, has been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root. All the blessings to Israel are rightly ours, because we through Christ are spiritual descendants of Abraham, but that is not to exclusion of Israel, the Jewish nation. Paul later makes clear God’s judgement against Israel is not permament.
Warning against arrogance
Hereafter Paul gives some health warnings to newly ingrafted Gentiles. He goes on to say "Do not boast over those branches ( that have been broken off). If you do, consider this. You do not support the root, but the root supports you." The implications of this are considerable, the Gentile Church, is sustained only as it remains grafted into Israel. It has no independent life of its own.
Psalm 80 says of the Lord "You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land"
This metaphor is of Israel and in John’s Gospel, Jesus takes this metaphor to himself when he says I am the vine, earlier the true vine; you are the branches…if anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers, such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burnt."
We are united to Israel only is so far as we are united with its representative as we remain branches deriving nourishment , life and fruitfulness from the true vine. Paul then rams home the point concerning the arrogance of the Church to Israel in Romans 11:19-20 "You will say then, branches were broken off, so that I could be grafted in. Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith."
The New Covenant to which the Church so often lays unique claim, is the superior covenant. Those who break it come under greater judgement. With a warning that has been singularly ignored by the Church, Paul goes on to say "Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God, sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in that kindness. Otherwise, you will also be cut off"
What has the Church done to Israel for 2000 years? It has been arrogant to the Jewish nation. It has boasted that it is now the true Israel. It has forgotten the grace and kindness of God, in its lack of compassion to Israel down through the long centuries of Christian anti-Semitism and persecution.
As a people called out by grace, the Church has failed to act with mercy. It has failed to make Israel envious through its harsh treatment of the Jews culminating in their near genocide in the heart of Christian Europe.
In 1917 Britain, I believe, was given an entrustment by God, to bring the Jews home precisely because God in his foreknowledge knew the holocaust was imminent. Sadly Britain at a time when it could have done a considerable amount to pre-empt the holocaust was turning Jews away from the land it was internationally mandated to rule as the Jewish National Home.
The Church, and the Church especially in the West, has blood on its hands for it’s teaching concerning the Jewish people. When it comes to Israel, in our day, the Church’s own history negates having a message that will be heard by Jewish people without repentance for that bitter legacy.
After the Second World War, Christian anti-Semitism, largely went underground, yet today it has returned in a new more virulent form as anti-Zionism, or anti-Israelism, which at its root is a denial of the Jewish people to nationhood. That in turn has its roots in the very first schism between Jews and Christians when the Church began to define itself over and against the Synagogue.
The first schism
As David Torrance has written in the Vocation and Destiny of Israel "The bitter separation between Church and Synagogue that set in after the Bar Kochba revolt in the second century after Christ was one of the greatest tragedies in the whole of our history not only for the people of God but for all western civilisation."
The outcome of that separation was that the Jewish branch of the Church faded or was assimilated, as the Gentile branch came to dominate. The only identity for any Jewish believer was only in relation to it’s incorporation into the dominant Gentile Church. The Jewish expression of the Church was left to "wither on the vine", and indeed after the Council of Nicaea, to which no Jewish bishop was invited, it was cut off altogether as the Gentile Church deliberately broke it’s Jewish connectedness through Israel’s feasts and observances. In doing so it effectively sawed its own branch from the olive tree. It could be said that the Church has substantially been in error, and certainly imbalanced, ever since!
Torrance later asserts that the proliferation of schisms within the Church has its root in that radical split between the Gentile Christians and Jews. Only with the deep healing of that split in a deep-going reconciliation will all the other deep divisions with which we struggle in the ecumenical movement finally be overcome. The Gentile Church more than ever needs to rediscover its Jewish counterpart. Only then united as one will it discover it’s true calling as the People of God, Jew and Gentile.
Restoration
In the Old Testament, and indeed the New, is a wonderful picture of the restoration of Israel. The restoration of Israel is a major theme of both the major and Minor Prophets and one which the church has substantially opposed since the Council of Niceae..
In Romans 11:23 Paul offers hope to Israel the natural branches, "And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. After all if you, the Gentile Church, were cut off from an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature, how much more readily will these the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree." He goes on to say, " I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may be conceited. Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved"
In case we might be tempted to think that this means now the whole people of God, Paul makes it clear that it applies to national Israel, the Jewish nation. All the major commentators have concluded that Israel here means the nation of Israel as is clear from the use of Jacob, as a metaphor for Israel - "The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away my sins" The hardening of the nation of Israel is temporary and for our benefit. As Paul says "As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs. For God’s gift and his call are irrevocable".
God never has or ever will abandon the Jewish people. God’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is permanent. The Land of Israel has been given to them as an everlasting possession. God has not revoked his covenant.
Just as the judgement of Israel led to blessing for the Gentiles, so the restoration of Israel will bring even greater blessing. The fulness of the Gentiles gives way to fulness to the Jews. As Paul says, "If their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fulness bring."For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead."
Just as Jesus as representative of Israel and its Suffering Servant endured the agony of Golgotha, so too its people for the last 2000 years have gone through a similar role as vicarious suffering servant among the nations. If the holocaust marked its denouement, its own Golgotha, then the regathering of the Jews to their land and the rebirth of Israel is but the first tokens of its national resurrection that will be the fruit of their restoration and will ultimately bring so much blessing to the nations.
True Zionism
The call of Abraham in Genesis 12 embodies the ultimate mission of God which is to bless the nations through Israel. "The Lord said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people, your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse; and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you" Later by an unconditional and royal covenant the Lord sets out the terms of the covenant. "To your descendants I give the land from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates-the land of the Kennites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites." This is ratified in a further covenant of circumcision in which the Lord promises to Abram "The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien. I will give it as an everlasting possession, to you, your descendants after you, and I will be their God."
The covenant was again ratified with Isaac and Jacob and much later with Moses.If we are left in any doubt as to the permanence of that covenant Jeremiah leaves no escape clause. As it is written, "Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done," declares the Lord.
Through the succession of covenants thereafter Mosaic, Davidic and New God sets out his plan to redeem the world and bring the nations under his kingship. The kingship of David, a type, for the Messianic kingdom that David’s greater Son will usher in at the eschaton when David’s fallen tent , a metaphor for Israel, will once more be rebuilt.
This is true Zionism, for it is God’s agenda to establish his earthly reign over the nations from Jerusalem. It is the nations that seek to thwart that goal. Indeed God makes it clear that he is holding the nations accountable through their support or opposition to His Son and to Israel
At the beginning of his life and at his end Jesus was given the title King of the Jews. At the Annunciation in Luke 1 the angel Gabriel says of Jesus "He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."
There is one in heaven who is both Saviour of the World and King of Israel. In Acts 2 Peter is addressing Israel when in his speech he says "Therefore let Israel be assured of this God has made this Jesus both Lord and Messiah." Later he says again addressing Israel "He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything as he promised long ago through his holy prophets". Peter is under no illusion that the great prophets of the Old Testament which speak of the restoration of Israel should be taken as anything other than literal. For him this is no allegory that can be spiritualised away. Anyone reading these great prophecies can only be struck by the great detail and specific nature of them. How any one can allegorise them is beyond me.
In that great Messianic Psalm 2 the Lord the Psalmist asks "Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?" This theme is picked up in other Psalms such as Psalm 83 "With cunning they conspire against your people; they plot against those you cherish. Come they say, "let us destroy them as a nation, that the name of Israel be remembered no more" How apposite are those words today!
However the real purpose of conspiracy is unfolded in Psalm 2, "The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One (The Messiah). Let us break their chains, they say and throw off their fetters". The Psalmist goes on to say, "The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. He rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath saying "I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill." Clearly here Zion cannot refer exclusively to heavenly Zion, but to Jerusalem, the seat of God’s earthly government. True Zionism is then about the outworking of God’s purposes for Israel and the nations with its focus on Jerusalem. In case we may be under any illusion about its prophetic significance, the Psalmist goes on to warn "Therefore you kings, be wise; be warned you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son (note Son is in capitals), let he be angry and you be destroyed in the way."
The Day of the Lord in the apocalyptic writings was always seen as the decisive day of reckoning not only for Israel but for her enemies. True Zionism then must ultimately be seen in its right perspective of bringing about God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
No one in their right mind looking at the Church as it is presently constituted can see that the Kingdom is already here through the Church.
Kingdom people are here and the Lord indeed is gathering his people; the stone, in the words of Daniel has been thrown from heaven, is rolling down the mountainside, ready to destroy the kingdoms of the world as presently constituted. But the kingdoms remain at present.
It is only after the destruction of the kingdoms opposed to the rule of Christ, that the Lord establishes his Kingdom that will grow and fill the earth with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters covers the seas.
At present, as in Jesus’ day, the kingdom is embryonic and rudimentary, evidence of the Coming kingdom will be seen through transformed lives, signs of its emergence will become evident, but the full expression of the Kingdom only comes after the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ.
The conflict in the Middle East is not ultimately about Jew or Arab, Palestinian or Israeli, but about the nations’ intention to thwart the coming of Israel’s Messiah and King. The issue is about his right to reign over the nations.
The Church will be judged by where it stands in relation to the restoration of Israel and to whether it has colluded with the nations to oppose the purposes of God. Just as Israel was judged for its disobedience and apostasy so too the Church. In the Church’s case more harshly because the revelation given to her is greater than to Israel.
In the parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25, tha nations are gathered before Christ for judgement. The judgement of each nation is according to how they have responded to his brothers "according to the flesh" that is the Jewish people. For 2000 years the Jewish people have been scattered among the nations, and so each nation will be judged in the way they have treated the Jews among them. The criteria will be "whatever you did not do to one of the least of these you did not do for me".
Today the world sits in judgement on Israel, but one day the tables will be turned as the Lord judges the nations but their treatment of Israel. At present, as I see it, many parts of the Church stand perilously close to judgement as it seeks to support those who would delegitimize Israel’s right to exist as a nation and sow the seeds of antisemitism.
Just as the judgement of Israel led to blessing for the Gentiles, so the restoration of Israel will bring even greater blessing. The fulness of the Gentiles gives way to fulness to the Jews. As Paul says
"If their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fulness bring."For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead."
What of Israel today?
We may wonder given the way the government of Israel is today, how can the return of Jews to Palestine possibly be of God. Indeed as David Torrance states "Many people seem to be hindered in their acceptance of the restoration of Israel to the land as a fulfilment of the Word of God, by the actual events taking place in the Middle East today.
Israel’s restoration to the land has brought about great suffering to many Arabs and unrest to the rest of the world: so many things the government of Israel is doing do not seem in accord with the Word of God and with his love for the people of all nations. So often Israel breaks its own ethical code toward the stranger in the land.
Whereas God loves the Jews, he loves the Arabs just as much, indeed has given great promise to them as a people group. How then can we affirm that God who is God of love, is behind these events and that Israel restoration to the Promised Land is a fulfilment of the Word of God.
In Ezekiel 37, the prophet in the picture of the valley of dry bones portrays a two stage restoration of Israel in which the nation is first physically restored then spiritually. Zechariah sees the nation acknowledging their rejection as they see the One who was pierced for them and in grief repenting before their own Messiah. A remarkable insight hundreds of years before the crucifixion
At present Israel is like any other nation, godless, and far away from her Messiah. She has been physically brought back to the land, yet she awaits the One from Zion who will deliver her. This is her destiny with the Church’s as together they await the Lord’s return to establish his glorious kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
Let us finish this part with a collect from the Anglican liturgy "Almighty Father, whose will is to restore all things in thy beloved Son, the king of all: govern the hearts and minds of those in authority and bring the families of the nations divided and torn apart by the ravages of sin to be subject to his just and gentle rule; who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit one God, now and forever."
Rev’d Tim Price, former National Field Co-ordinator, Church’s Ministry among Jewish People