Some years ago, Martin Saunders (of Youthscape) wrote an excellent article highlighting four issues which often prevent evangelicals from understanding what has been happening in the Israel/Gaza conflict—and these problems come up each time the conflict hits the news. It seems particularly pertinent at the moment.
First, he comments ‘It’s not as simple as good guys vs bad guys’—though interestingly who is now the good guys and the bad guys appear to have switched in the last year or two. This is something which I have commented on in the past, (11 years ago now!) though social media is not helping with this. Second is ‘The fear of accidental antisemitism’, something we need to take really seriously, as the rise of antisemitism across Europe highlights; this last week anti-Semitism has been reported as rising five-fold.
But Martin’s third point is that ‘We’re not clear what the Bible says’ about Israel and the land.
For many Christians (often termed Christian Zionists), the Bible clearly states that God has a special plan for Israel which includes a lasting covenant with the physical ‘land’. For others, that covenant was fulfilled by the cross (Matthew 5:17)…Whatever we believe, we can’t claim to hold a ‘biblical’ position if we haven’t read scripture. There are no short-cuts; you can argue anything with a proof text. Only by reading the Bible as a whole, and by understanding the grand narrative of Scripture, can we truly understand God’s relationship with the land and the people of Israel.
In the light of this, I offer some reflections on the status of ‘the land’ in Scripture. Two things need to be considered at the outset. The first is that it is simply not possible to identify ‘Israel’ in the Bible with ‘Israel’ the modern nation-state. Despite what the vast majority of commentators say, Israel is not a ‘Jewish’ state—you do not have to be a Jew to live there, even though it privileges immigration access to Jews in the global diaspora. (I am amazed how many people online have no idea that 2.1 million Arab Muslims (‘Palestinians’) live there with full democratic rights, something they would not enjoy in neighbouring Arab states.) Modern Israel is in fact constitutionally a Western-style liberal democracy, whereas biblical Israel was for most of its history a monarchical theocracy.
Secondly, both in Hebrew and in Greek, the word for ‘land’ and ‘earth’ (i.e. meaning the whole world) are the same: eretz (Hebrew); and ge (Greek). So, for example, in the first creation narrative the dry ground is called ‘eretz‘ (Gen 1.10), yet the term specifically used for the territory promised to God’s people is eretz Israel. We need to look out for the way that the biblical writers can, at times, transform their meaning and vision on the basis of this linguistic ambiguity.
Perhaps the most striking thing about the ‘land’ within the OT narrative of Israel is that, contrary to one dimensional claims about promise and inheritance, it actually has multiple significance, and its theological meaning always eclipses its geographical significance.
The first dimension is the land as a sign of the unmerited generosity and gift of the sovereign God. This is found in the promise to Abraham in Gen 12.1–3:
“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 peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
Already we can see the tension between the local and the global: the giving of the land to Abraham (how else can he become ‘a nation’?) will have global consequences of blessing—whether all peoples will be blessed or will ‘bless themselves by you’ (the Hebrew is ambiguous).
This theme of unmerited grace appears in a number of different forms in the narrative. It is shown in the choosing of this (small and insignificant) people in Deut 7.7:
The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.
and in the repeated phrase ‘a land flowing with milk and honey’ (e.g. in Moses encounter at the burning bush, Ex 3.8). The significance of ‘milk and honey’ probably has to do with the fertility of the land, perhaps that the blessing comes from unexpected sources, but also that these things occur naturally. Unlike growing and harvesting crops, these things simply come to you, as Samson on one occasion found (Judges 14.8). This is paralleled in the Deuteronomic tradition with the inheritance of ‘cities you did not build, cisterns you did not dig, and groves you did not plant’ (Deut 6.11, Joshua 24.13).
Note that, in all this, the most important thing is the truth that it points to about God (not about the people)—one who is an abundant generous giver to those who do not in any way merit this generosity. This truth in relation to the land (of Israel) is one that is writ large on the land (of the whole of creation), and is prominent in the creation narratives. The abundance of the creation is a reflection of the generosity of the creator.
This link is important in the second theme underlying the idea of ‘the land’: God’s project of the restoration of humanity, and the role of Israel in this project. The Abraham story follows hard on the heels of the account of ‘the fall’, which is found not just in Gen 3, but in Gen 3–11; the turning from God in the garden which is known as ‘sin’ unfolds itself as a power which brings death and despair and disrupts relations in families and nations and destroys the fruitfulness and abundance of the earth.
The juxtaposition of this chaotic picture with the story of Abraham carries a strong implicit message: with Abraham God is beginning the task of restoration of humanity, hence the global significance of the story of this individual. It is a link that Paul makes in Romans 1–4; these chapters start with humanity’s idolatry which leads to unfruitfulness of the body, and they end with Abraham’s obedience leading to surprising fruitfulness of his body. This new people, in this new land, are to be a ‘light to the nations’, (Is 42.6, Is 49.6) a destiny which is fulfilled in Jesus followers (Matt 5.14) because it is fulfilled in Jesus himself (John 8.12).
This has a key related strand, which is particular emphasised in the ‘Priestly’ tradition in Leviticus. If the people given this land are part of the restoration of humanity from sin to holiness, then the occupation of the land must be inextricably linked with moral restoration. In fact, the expulsion from the land of the resident Canaanites is given a specific moral dimension: because of their unholy practices, the land has ‘vomited them out’ (Lev 18.25), and the life of the holy people of God is defined in contradistinction to those who lived there previously.
These three ideas—of divine grace and generosity, of the restoration of humanity, and of moral distinctiveness—are constantly brought together in the prophetic tradition. The promise of return following exile is a mark, not of the ‘specialness’ of the people, but of the faithfulness of God. No political power, and not even the past disobedience of the people, can thwart God’s plans or undo his faithfulness. And because of this, God’s grace in restoration is destined to overflow ethnic boundaries—a particular theme of the second and third parts of Isaiah. And in light of this, the return to the land must involve a rediscovery of obedience to God’s law—a particular theme of Ezra and Nehemiah.
All this means that ‘the land’ has a particular theological meaning. It is, on the one hand, the place of receiving God’s blessings, but on the other, the arena of obedience to God’s commands. In fact, the land itself has almost greater theological significance in these regards than the ethnic identity of God’s people. The ‘resident alien’ who is not an ethnic member of God’s people, but does reside within the geographical space of ‘the land’, is to both enjoy the privileges and blessings of God’s people, but also must take on the responsibilities of observance (see, for example, Lev 19.34). This idea is key as we now turn to look at the way the New Testament interprets these ideas.
There are significant indications that the gospels are located in the context of some sort of expectation of restoration of the land with the coming of messiah (though it is now broadly agreed that there were a variety of expectations in the first century, and a variety of ideas about who the messiah was, what he would do, or whether in fact one was needed). We can see this in Zechariah’s prophetic poem now known as the Benedictus (from the first word in the Latin Vulgate):
Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come to his people and redeemed them.
He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David
(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us—
to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant,
the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
and to enable us to serve him without fear
in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. (Luke 1.68–75)
In context, the main ‘enemy’ is of course Rome, and it is oppression by Rome that is preventing Israel from ‘serving him without fear in holiness.’ So implicit in this expectation is the hope of restoration of the sovereignty of Israel as a nation, inhabiting the promised land. To make this even clearer, Zechariah goes on to allude to Is 40’s proclamation of the one who will ‘go before the Lord to prepare his way’, which is also used in Mark’s introduction in Mark 1.2–3. These verses (from Isaiah and Micah) are all about the people returning from exile and being restored to the land in fulfilment of God’s promise of faithfulness. This is one part of a complex of expectations, which Tom Wright characterises under the headings return from exile, restoration of Temple, renewed covenant, giving of Spirit, keeping of Law, no king but God, and God’s anointed agent (Heb messiach Greek christos) (N T Wright The New Testament and the People of God chapter 10 ‘The Hope of Israel’).
But from the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, these expectations are starting to be transformed. Even the most sceptical commentator agrees that the proclamation of the nearness of ‘the kingdom of God’ was a core part of the teaching of the historical Jesus. This phrase, which hardly occurs at all in the OT, shifts the focus from the land in which the people occupy to the reign or authority under which they live. The separation between the free occupation of the land and obedience to God, still held together in the Benedictus, is most decisively broken in Jesus’ answer to the question about taxes:
“Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” (Matt 22.19–20)
The shock of this is not to do with the separation of the ‘political’ from the ‘religious’ as such, but the overturning of the expectation that the restoration of the land is tied in with the coming of God’s kingdom. Living freely in the land is not the prerequisite to forgiveness of sins and living in holiness.
Consequently, the New Testament strikingly shows no interest in the further question of the land itself, and instead focus on the other elements in Wright’s list. This is shown clearly in the responses of gospel writers to the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. Mark’s gospel, probably written in the 60s before the temple was destroyed, shows most interest in the immediate events and Jesus’ predictions about them (Mark 13). Matthew’s similar account in Matthew 24, most likely written after 70, includes similar details to Mark, but then goes on to focus on Jesus’ words about the parousia, Jesus’ second coming to complete the work begun in the first. John’s gospel goes even further, and does something quite distinct. With the temple gone, and the tension between the now exiled Jews and Jesus’ Jewish-and-gentile followers mounting, John makes clear that Jesus is the temple for those who follow him.
The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
They replied, “It has taken forty–six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. (John 2.18–22)
This is not so much about Jesus replacing the temple, but Jesus being the fulfilment of the purpose of the temple—and with it the land. (Note that this is not an idea made up by John and read back into the story about Jesus; reference is made to it in the trial of Jesus in Mark 14.58. This is good example of one of many ‘undesigned’ historical connections between the gospels.) This again is why John’s gospel is so ‘Jewish’, in focussing on Jewish habits of eating, washing, and attending the pilgrim festivals, all the major festivals occurring in John’s narrative. They all find their fulfilment and true meaning in Jesus.
We see in Acts 2.46 that the first generation of believers continued to visit the temple, though of course now with new understanding. While the temple was standing, then Jewish followers of Jesus would continue to worship there. But once the temple was gone, there was no need to long for its restoration, since its meaning was embodied in the person of Jesus. If the land was the arena for knowing the blessing of God and taking on the responsibilities of obedience, that role was now fulfilled in Jesus. So, as with the temple, there is now no need to long for physical return from exile and occupying the territory of the land—all this was now available to those not ‘in Israel’ but ‘in Christ’. I think this is why the phrase is so important in Paul. Where, in the OT, both Jew and gentile ‘resident alien’ enjoy God’s reign when they are ‘in Israel’, now for Paul the (theological) space where this happens for both Jew and gentile is ‘in Christ.’
That is why Peter, writing to an audience containing at least some gentiles, can address the whole group as the ‘diaspora’, the term previously used of Jews scattered and awaiting (at least in principle) a return from exile to the land (1 Peter 1.1). The scattered followers of Jesus are awaiting not their return from physical exile but the return of Jesus to restore all things. Even more explicitly, in the book of Revelation, John sees the fulfilment of the gathering of God’s people from all the nations (Deut 30.3, Jeremiah 32.37, Ezekiel 11.17, 20.34, 36.24) in this uncountable, Jewish-gentile people redeemed by the blood of the lamb (Rev 7.9, also in Rev 5.9, 11.9, 13.7 and 14.6). This is just the way Matthew has understood Jesus’ teaching in Matt 24.31.
Note that reading the NT in this way is not ‘supersessionism‘, where ‘The Church’ replaces ‘The Jews’ as the people of God; this only happens where the Jesus movement is detached from its Jewish historical context and expression. Instead it is a redefinition of what it means to be the people of God beyond ethnic boundaries, just as happened in the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 and as Paul starts to do in his argument in Romans 2.28–29.
So the New Testament holds out no expectation that ethnic Jews will return to the territory of the land of Israel as part of the fulfilment of the promises of God. All those promises are fulfilled in Jesus, who now becomes the place of God’s blessing and his people’s obedience.
(It is perhaps worth noting that those who argue that the modern state of Israel is the fulfilment of prophecy have to appeal to OT texts alone, and ignore what the NT does with such texts—as well as ignoring the fact that a return to the physical land was actually fulfilled in the return from exile.)
This leaves the one ‘bogie’ text of Romans 11.26: ‘All Israel will be saved’. There is a massive literature on this, some following the view expressed by Tom Wright that ‘all Israel’ refers to all those who are part of God’s new Israel i.e. all those now redeemed through Jesus, and others believing that ‘all Israel’ here refers to ethnic Jewish people, indicating that there will be an ‘end times’ turning of Jews to faith in Jesus. For now, I note some key points in the discussion:
1. There is no reference whatsoever to the idea of Jews returning to the land of Israel. So to fit these two ideas together is an artifice.
2. Verse 26 does not say ‘And then all Israel will be saved’ but ‘and in this way all Israel will be saved.’ So Paul is talking about the hardening of the Jews and the incoming of the gentiles as the means by which God’s purposes of salvation are accomplished, not as something that happens prior to this. I think this strongly supports Wright’s reading.
3. Paul then cites texts from Isaiah and Jeremiah, which he clearly sees fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus: the deliverer from Zion who establishes a (new) covenant and takes away sins.
4. It has been objected that Paul only ever uses ‘Israel’ to mean those who are ethnically Jewish. But Gal 6.16 is a counter-example to this, and Paul certainly uses the language of ‘Jew’ in literal and metaphorical ways earlier in Romans.
A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God (Romans 2.28–29, TNIV).
Within his argument at this point, Paul is primarily highlighting that having the outward, ethnic and ritual signs of being a Jew doesn’t actually make you one, since being part of the (chosen) people of God is about inward transformation, and always has been. But a consequence of this is that an ethnic gentile can actually be a ‘Jew’ in this sense, and so ‘Israel’ no longer (because of Jesus) simply refers to an ethnic grouping. Paul sees this logic, by immediately answering it in the next verse. If all who follow Jesus are ‘Israel’, and gentiles have been grafted in to be part of the olive tree, the idea of ‘Israel’ returning to the land makes no sense.
5. It seems very odd to me to think that Paul would describe an ‘end-times’ turning of the last generation of Jews to faith in Jesus with the term ‘all Israel.’ This leaves all the (not believing in Jesus) Jews of all the intermediate generations excluded from this, so at the most it could mean ‘all those Jews alive when Jesus returns’. This hardly makes sense of the phrase.
6. We also need to note that, for Paul and others in the New Testament, the ‘end times’ were already upon them, as signified by the resurrection of Jesus, the outpouring of the Spirit, and the ingathering of the Gentiles.
No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people… (Acts 2.16–17)
These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the end of the ages has come (1 Cor 10.11)
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Cor 5.17)
For more on the eschatological perspective of the New Testament, see my Grove booklet Kingdom, Hope and the End of the World.
Because of all this, I do not believe that, remarkable though it is, the establishment of the State of Israel in 1947 is a ‘fulfilment’ of ‘end times’ ‘prophecies.’ Neither do I believe that Israel has a divine right to the land which trumps all other rights. I do want to defend the right of Israel to exist, and to be a particular homeland for Jews around the world, and to use reasonable force to defend itself—like any other nations. But I do this on grounds other than ‘divine right’ or ‘prophecy.’
In the current conflict between Israel and Gaza, we need to appeal to other grounds to support whatever view we have on the matter.
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For those, like me, reading through wondering what the fourth point was:
> PROBLEM #4: The conflict isn’t primarily about Christians
In context, the main ‘enemy’ is of course Rome, and it is oppression by Rome that is preventing Israel from ‘serving him without fear in holiness.’
I think not, because Zechariah is speaking by the Holy Spirit, and therefore the meaning is that which God has in mind, not what hearers in their 1st century context might assume.
Isaiah 40 principally looks forward to the second coming, not the first.
So, as with the temple, there is now no need to long for physical return from exile and occupying the territory of the land.
This does not follow. Prophecy, not least though not primarily Matt 24, show us that this thinking is in error. The Law itself makes it clear: Deut 30:4f. When Christ returns, he will return to Jerusalem, a city again inhabited by Jews (Zech 12:4f, 14:4) and the Temple, where he will have his throne and residence, will be rebuilt. The system of sacrifice will be restored (Ezek 40-48).
There are many references in the OT to Israel being restored to its land. Another is Ezek 20:42. Christ himself will lead them in after the neighbouring nations have driven them out. Another is Ezek 37:14.
The Jews have no right to the land at present because they do not recognise and follow their Messiah. That is why, in AD 70, they were thrown out, in accordance with Ezek 4:6, and why they will be thrown out again. That is what makes events of the past year deeply significant.
Anyone interested in the truth about these things should read my commentary on Revelation, When the Towers Fall: A Prophecy of What Must Happen Soon, where all such questions are discussed and answered, scripturally. Revelation is a prophecy for our time.
Hi Stephen…
“I think not, because Zechariah is speaking by the Holy Spirit, and therefore the meaning is that which God has in mind, not what hearers in their 1st century context might assume.”
Though I don’t see any basis for relegating to second place a prophet’s message to his contemporaries and making it essentially “future”. Original setting is primary surely? The prophets were sent to the people of Israel/Judah with a message from God which was primarily for “then”. Then the 1st Century Christians would be exploring what “it” might mean for them without throwing the original baby out. Clearly as believers explored the scripture other strands of meaning the Holy Spirit had planted emerged… some of them with a much bigger time scale in mind.
Prophecy is a word from God into a moment of time, some of which has future implications. I may be wrong ( apologies in advance! ) but your emphasis seems to be on it as mainly predictions to other than a word from God to original hearers.
Not sure about this either ” “the vision of the four horsemen came to pass in 1870-1945″. By what authority do you say that?
Blessings…
The title of the Grove Booklet contains the key.
What, where, when, how and why is the Kingdom of God?
And his land is the whole of Creation, with the Genesis mandate and recapitulate in Jesus’s mandate.
Our Triune God’s kingdom is theocratic and not geo-centric, nor demographic, nor ethnographic. It is the Kingdom of King David’s greater Son, King of Kings, LORD and King, Jesus.
A book worth considering is, “Bound for the Promised Land – the land promised in God’s redemptive plan” by Oren R. Martin in the New Studies in Biblical Theology.
Hence Jews only believe in the Old Testament, they do not see Jesus as the Messiah or agree with the suggestion that his coming means that all people who follow him are people of God. Instead for them Israel remains their promised land and the home only for the Jews of Moses as it was in the Old Testament
That is an incorrect generalisation. It is not correct scripturally, not in reallity. There are Jews for Jesus, Messianic Jews, believers in Jesus the Jew.
At its core Islam is theocratic and geocentric and land based in its spread.
Most Jewish communities consider Messianic Jews Christians not Jews
Israel is glad to have them in the IDF…
which of course means they are indeed considered to be Jews.
Objection. ‘it is simply not possible to identify ‘Israel’ in the Bible with ‘Israel’ the modern nation-state.’
Response. God’s promises to the patriarchs regarding the nation (people) of Israel and the land of Israel have never been revoked since God is faithful to his promises and these promises include promises concerning the land (Genesis 12.1,7). Perhaps there was an excuse not to believe this before 1947, but there is no excuse this side of history in view of God’s miraculous restoration of the Jews to the land and their miraculous protection in the subsequent conflicts.
To deny this is to deny Providence and to revert to neo-Deism. ‘Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.’ (Isaiah 66. 8).
Objection. ‘Perhaps the most striking thing about the ‘land’ within the OT narrative of Israel is that, contrary to one dimensional claims about promise and inheritance, it actually has multiple significance, and its theological meaning always eclipses its geographical significance.’
Response. We agree that as a Divinely inspired book, the Bible operates on more than one dimension of meaning. There is a theological meaning to the Old Testament promises and there is a geographical meaning, a spiritual and a literal (Galatians 4.25). The spiritual does not replace the literal. The literal already contains the spiritual within it.
The resurrected Jesus ascended from a geographical location and he will return to a geographical location because He is forever united with a human nature and a human body. (Acts 1.11; Colossian 2:9). He is forever the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Revelation 5.5).
Moreover, the end time events prophesied in Christ’s Oliver discourse centre around a geographical location. ‘Where Lord? And he said unto them ‘Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.’ (Luke 17.37). This geographical location is recapitulated throughout the book of Revelation, for example chapter 12 – the woman in the desert.
The restoration to the land is only the first stage of their restoration however, it must be followed by the spiritual rebirth (Ezekiel 37). Christ is the True Israel ‘out of Egypt I have called my son’ (Hosea 11.1) means that he experiences the sufferings, the travail of Israel, including the unspeakable pains of the holocaust but also the resurrection of Israel. That is why Isaiah 53 is both about the nation and about Christ. Christ identifies with his people acocording to the flesh and according to the spirit. Simeon prophesied to Mary that her son was destined for the fall and rising again of MANY in Israel. (Luke 2.34). When Israel returns to her Messiah it will be ‘life from the dead’ ( Romans 11.15; Ezekiel 37.12-14).
However, there is a timing to God’s purposes. ‘Will you at this TIME restore the kingdom to Israel?’ (Acts 1: 6). ‘blindness in part is happened to Israel UNTIL the fullness of Israel comes in’ (Romans 11: 25).
The future salvation of Israel is prophetically foreshadowed in the remarkable story of Joseph, who is a type of Jesus Christ. Joseph was sold into slavery by his own brothers, who believe he is dead, yet he is alive. Joseph becomes lord over all the land of Egypt through the foreknowledge and sovereignty of God. His brothers do not recognise him because he speaks in a foreign language and wears foreign clothes. But when he reveals himself to them, they are overcome with remorse. They bow down to Him and are saved. (Genesis 37-50).
Again, in 2 Kings 8: 1-8 a woman whose son was raised from the dead is exiled from her land for 7 years, but as the testimony of the resurrection is related to the king’s official so her land is also miraculously restored to her. The resurrection of the son led to the restoration of the woman’s land. The woman is a prophetic type of Israel. Her son is a type of Christ. This reading is confirmed in the New Testament record in Revelation 12.
Many years ago I read a powerful defence of the historical resurrection of Jesus by an orthodox Jew called Pinchas Lapide. The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective, In the book, Lapide defends the historical truth of the resurrection because of the precedents such as the above passage and Ezekiel 37 in the Hebrew Bible. At the time of writing however (1975), his eyes had not yet been open to believe that the resurrected Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. But that day is coming for the whole nation of Israel.
‘For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved’ Romans 11:25-26
Tom Wright is wrong to equate ‘Israel’ in this text with the Church in Romans 11:26. It cannot refer to the Church because verse 27 continues to refer to ‘them’ who are immediately described as ‘enemies’ concerning the Gospel. The Church is not an enemy concerning the Gospel! Yet these ‘enemies’ are ‘beloved for the fathers sake’ concerning the ‘election’. (28). The fathers are the patriarchs to whom the promises were made.
Even Galatians 6.16 does not teach that the Church is the Israel of God, since the use of the conjunction ‘and’ (kai’), preserved in the King James translation links two groups of people those who ‘live by this rule’ and the ‘Israel of God’. ‘And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.’ This supports the reading that Israel refers to the ‘natural branches’ who also believe. These are they who are foreknown and not forsaken (Romans 11.2).
The future salvation of Jews cannot be merely ‘remnant-wise’ since it has always been remnant-wise but the future of the Jews is contrasted with the present by the words ‘fulness’ and ‘life from the dead’ (Romans 11.12,15).
Nor is the teaching that ‘all Israel will be saved’ a novelty of American dispensationalism. Aquinas already recognises it’s truth in his commentary on Romans 11.25. https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~Rom.C11.L4.n912.3 God is not finished with Israel because the gifts and calling of God are without repentance (Romans 11.29). There is a future for Israel and that is reassuring, as it means there is a future for all of us.
Does the State of Israel have a divine right to the land?
This question as phrased does not have a Yes/No answer. But I believe that a closely related question does:
“Has God granted to the Jewish people in perpetuity the title deeds to Canaan, with occupation whenever God is not punishing them for some sin by exiling them?”
To this question I hold that the scriptural answer is Yes. Occupation of the region specified in Numbers 34 (with minor subsequent tweaking), corresponding roughly to interwar Mandatory Palestine, should be seen theologically as the rule, and exile (no matter how long) as the exeption. May 1948 provided an opportunity for exegetes to improve their theology from something forged in the 16 centuries of institutional church antisemitism and 18 centuries of Jewish exile. I shall offer my exegesis in a separate post.
No doubt the 1948 declaration of the State of Israel induced cognitive dissonance in some theologians at the time; but how can you possibly see the people that 2/3 of the Bible is about, the people of whom Jesus Christ is a member, back in the land where it all happened after 18 centuries and suppose that it is just an accident of history?
Thanks for this Ian. At Wadsley we have been preaching through Revelation, and through Acts ( and now Psalms) at our midweek communion. I was very struck by Peter’s speaking to the crowds in Acts 3 and especially verses 17-26. That starts with Peter talking about the ignorance of the crowd, and the ignorance of the leaders. He asks for the leaders to repent and turn to God, so that their sins might be wiped out and that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that they may be blessed by turning from their wicked ways. Times of refreshing are not just for charismatics! We should pray that somehow people who are leaders in the Holy Land may come to repentance and experience times of refreshing from the Lord.
So much of the misreading of this question has to do with a failure to treat Romans properly, or Paul more widely. I remember have a series of brief but nevertheless quite tense arguments with a fellow church member several years ago who was absolutely insistent that use of the terms ‘Israel’ and ‘Jew’ in Paul (but within Romans especially) must be entirely consistent throughout the letters (by which he meant always referring to the same thing; namely national/ethnic Israel), and who accused me in no uncertain terms of exegetical heresy when I suggested that Paul was more than capable of using the same language to make more than a single point. Like you, I tried to point to Galatians 6 as an example, but to no avail. 😉
I agree with all the points in your final paragraph, and we are in accord when it comes to the theology here. The Old Covenant’s promises of the land are met and realised in the New Covenant’s inauguration of the Kingdom, through Jesus Christ.
With that said, and following one of the comments in your Facebook sharing of this, I am not sure I agree with your definition and handling of what it means for Israel to be (or not be) a ‘Jewish State’.
While I agree that this phrase is not an exclusive one, as there are indeed many non-Jewish citizens of Israel (something that I agree should be emphasised!), I think it is plain that in character, design and purpose the nation is Jewish in identity and posture. As you say, this is how many residents of it self-determine, and how the media overwhelmingly describes it, and many actions the state of Israel takes make little sense unless it believes it has, however small, a proselytising purpose for Judaism. I would not go the other way, to be clear, and describe Israel as an ‘Apartheid State’ explicitly privileging Jews within it at the exclusion of others, but it certainly treats Jewish identity as the default, the rights of which are extended to others, rather than from a neutral basis that starts with the inclusion of all.
This is semantics of course, I am just not sure that it is helpful to claim that Israel is not a Jewish State. Yes, it’s different from the nation of Israel as it relates to the political and cultural entities of history, so we do need to emphasise distinction, but I don’t think we should do this by erasing the modern Jewish identity it does have.
‘Proselyting’ is the wrong word here, forgive me. ‘Ambassadorial’ would have been better.
This piece seems to me to be a polemic rather than a quest to understand the Scripture better.
The closing sentences have an air of finality a concrete [in every sense of the word] fixed position.
One would require as many words as Ian to rebut, though some have begun the effort with credit.
As with fixed positions on the return of Christ so I think on this issue
We may yet be surprised when God make His thinking known conserning the whole of these questions aka Job and his friends.
Job 38:2 Who is this that darkened counsel by words without knowledge?
Job 42:3 Who is he that hides counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.
I actually agree with some of Israel’s foes that there is tension between Israel as a democratic nation and Israel as a Jewish homeland. I doubt that the Arabs of the ‘West Bank’ and Gaza would ever be given the vote – as Arabs presently are in Jewish-run parts of former Mandatory Palestine – in view of their numbers. But this is, perhaps, something for Jews to worry about only if the prospect ever becomes likely.
I disagree with Ian that “the New Testament holds out no expectation that ethnic Jews will return to the territory of the land of Israel”. The question of the disciples to Jesus in Acts 1 about when he would restore the kingdom to Israel was answered elliptically, but His clear meaning was “Yes, but I’m not going to tell you when.” An angel then told them that he would return just as he had departed but in reverse, i.e. he would descend from the skies. Where to? The same place, Jerusalem – “you will not see me again until you say ‘Blessed is he whom comes in the name of the Lord ‘” (Matthew 23:39). (He is hardly likely to touch down at the Vatican or Lambeth Palace, is He?)
I believe that times will be hard for the Jews in their land while they continue to reject their Messiah – as we see – but equally I do not believe that they will be exiled again. Numbers of Jewish believers in Him are rising, from virtually zero in 1948 to some 30,000 estimated today. That is only 1% of the Jews there, but it continues to increase…
Thank you Ian and I agree that this is how the New Testament authors interpret and universalise the promises to Israel in the Old Testament but it doesn’t seem very fair to me. I can quite understand how the majority of Jewish people in the first century rejected this as the fulfilment of the promises. The plain meaning in the original context of verses such as Amos 9:15 which says “I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them,”says the Lord your God.” is about the inhabitation of physical land. It seems rather misleading to promise this and then later claim it is actually talking about membership of God’s Kingdom. Perhaps if the first century Jewish revolutionaries had followed Jesus’ advice about the meek inheriting the land, they would not have risen up against the Romans and so lost the land but this would make the promise conditional on human behaviour. How do you, Ian, deal with the claim that this reinterpretation of OT promises is not fair? Personally I don’t think it is good enough to just say, as some have done, that it is not what was promised but it is better than that so it is not unfair. It troubles me and I would be interested in your view.
If I promise you an apple, and then give you a banquet, how can that be unfair? How can the offer of Christ be a poor substitute for the land?
That is a poor analogy. Let’s deal with the reality. A king rules over a people and a land in which they live. All three go together and are not complete without each other.
After Jesus returns He will rule on this earth from Jerusalem for a fixed period (this is *before* the coming of the New Jerusalem, when there is no more sea) as king of Israel and emperor of the world.
So why do we need resurrection bodies (which occupy space)? Wouldn’t it be better to have a purely spiritual existence, like angels? But God thought otherwise.
Then again, has being a Jew lost all its meaning today? Is it just some chrysalis that can be dropped among the way in pursuit of some ‘purer’, more ‘spiritual’ Christianity? Unfortunately that has some echoes in Marcionism and German theology since Kant.
Like Anton, I cannot think of the modern State of Israel as just some anomaly of modern politics, like the state of Pakistan (which is truly an ‘apartheid state’), which has no intrinsic significance, and – in the eyes of many – the world would do well without. Certainly the ayatollahs believe that! Perhaps the current state is a kind of anti-fulfilment of prophecy. But in view of the Shoah I do not think it an aberration.
As I understand Revelation and the apocalyptic discourses in the Gospels, the world will indeed move toward Armageddon. When or how, I know not; but I cannot extricate from my thinking the idea that the State of Israel is part of that scenario.
This was my reply to Ian and his apple.
Here’s why this is a poor analogy. Suppose you say I can have an apple, unconditionally, and that I can have a banquet too if I trust the donor’s son and other people may get to the banquet the same way. But I say no, I don’t trust the son. That might be reprehensible of me but you still need to give me an apple or you are breaking your word.
Paul says in Romans 11 that gentile believers enter spiritually into Israel. We are ‘grafted in’, because we are in Christ and Christ is an Israelite. This view can be termed Enlargement Theology – God’s covenant people are increased and encompass gentile believers in Christ as well as the Jews, not ‘instead of’; both-and holds here, not either/or. The ‘instead of’ view corresponds to Supersessionism or ‘Replacement Theology’, the notion that the church replaced the Jews at the Crucifixion as the sole people of God, and that God has thrown the Jews on the scrapheap of history for rejecting His Son. This view derives implicitly from the view that the Mosaic covenant replaced, rather than supplemented, the Abrahamic covenant (and is now just the ‘old covenant’). But that view contradicts Paul’s statement in Romans 11 that God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable, and it implies that God knowingly deceived Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who would have taken a physical meaning of ‘descendants as numerous as the stars’ in the covenant made with them. It also doesn’t match the grafting image, for when one plant is grafted on to another, both are meant to survive. Christians are grafted into the Abrahamic covenant, but Jews are not cast out of it. In Romans, Paul speaks of Israel co-existing with the church. Nowhere in scripture is the church called the ‘new Israel’. Replacement theology often gives rise, unfortunately, to replacement geopolitics.
A very fair and reasonable article – with which I agreed. I thought that it didn’t really say anything except for the obvious, but from the comments below the line, I now see that it was a brave article to publish – and I thank Ian Paul for writing and publishing it.
The correct identification of covenants is important here. All believers in Jesus – Jew and gentile – understand that the Mosaic covenant is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. (This is the theme of the Letter to the Hebrews.) But what about the other covenants in the Old Testament? It will not do to lump them all together as “the old covenant” and call them obsolete in contrast to the new covenant in Jesus Christ. In that case you must regard the covenant with Noah as obsolete, and start worrying when it begins to rain. The covenant with Abraham, inherited down the line of Isaac and Jacob/Israel, is the one that is relevant here, and Paul is explicit in Romans 11 that it is still in force with the Jews. This is the covenant under which they have returned to Canaan.
How I long for a Jewish believer in Jesus to join this debate!
Indeed the covenants with Abram/Abraham are pertinent, and extant in Jesus, who was before Abraham, ‘I am’.
Abraham was called out by God from Ur the Chaldees, from pluralist worship of local foreign Gods.
Israel is ‘son’ pointing to Jesus the Triune God’s true Son, who is our true Elder brother who shares his inheritance with his believing brothers and sisters, who fulfilled the Covenants as fully man and fully God, the last Adam, and second man.
The Jews are to be ‘ provoked to jealousy by gentile believers, who are not tethered to a particular geographical location. Gentile believers are grafted into the Vine, Jesus, adopted, as it were into Israel. We are all in union with the Christ Jesus.
Ouch!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly1cPYSqgR4
Where do the prophecies of Zechariah fit in with this discussion especially chapter 14 e.g All the nations coming against Jerusalem and half being exiled before the Lord returns?
[1] A day of the LORD is coming, Jerusalem, when your possessions will be plundered and divided up within your very walls.
[2] I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city.
Zechariah 14:4-5 (NIV)
[4] On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south. [5] You will flee by my mountain valley, for it will extend to Azel. You will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.
That is exactly the right question.
Given that Zechariah refers both to ‘the one they have pierced’ and a fountain from Jerusalem providing forgiveness of sins (ie Jesus’ death, resurrection and the giving of the Spirit), surely that plants at least some of Zechariah’s prophecies securely in the 1st century? Why presume the above passages must refer to the future from now?
Thankyou Anton very succinct.
Thank fully you have the time and will to engage on this.
Some comments on here, to me, traduce the very veracity
and faithfulness {Loyalty} of our God Jehovah.
God’s demonstrated faithfulness to his ancient covenants’ {promises} and people give great comfort to we who are saints.
If God had not demonstrated His faithfulness,
how could we possibly have any confidence in Christ or His Word?
“Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” 2 Pet 1:4
James informs us Jam. 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
Nowhere in Scripture are we informed that God has ever repented of any of His promises [ covenants]
Luther’s anti-Jewish polemics of 1543 are among his most notorious works.
In them he sought to demonize Jews and to demand that the political authorities treat them harshly, by confiscating their wealth, homes, books, and synagogues, or even forcibly exiling them.
Hitler was influenced by those who appropriated and reenergized Luther’s anti-Jewish polemics.
Chillingly, in November 1938, just two weeks after Kristallnacht,
Martin Sasse, bishop of the Evangelical Church of Thuringia, published a pamphlet titled
“Martin Luther and the Jews:” “Away with Them!”
Be aware of the Emotional Intelligence of God.
Shalom.
You said “Nowhere in Scripture are we informed that God has ever repented of any of His promises [ covenants]”
Hebrews 8.13 “In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.”
1) Hebrews 11; 8-14 may be relevant here.
2) NOT supersession or replacement but a continuity between OT Israel and the NT Church (in Greek the word for both is ‘ekklesia’). But ipso facto, ethnic Jews who refuse to follow the Messiah effectively forfeit covenant rights.
3) In the new covenant period does God really have two separate peoples, Church and Israel, operating on completely different principles and goals?
Can anybody give information on the Christian mission in the Middle East? Even if there were a settlement whereby everybody seemed to accept it and live in peace and harmony, it wouldn’t actually mean very much for the people living there – other than a life of relative peace for three score years and ten, longer for those who have the strength, with the inevitable postscript ‘and then he died’. Aren’t Christians a bit more ambitious than this? Aren’t we supposed to be looking at eternity? What of the Mission to bring the Word of God – and through it, the Holy Spirit brings people under conviction of sin, so that they turn to Christ?
Anton, you said “Christians are grafted into the Abrahamic covenant, but Jews are not cast out of it”
Who are the branches that are broken off in Romans 11.17-24? Doesn’t being “broken off” imply complete removal from the vine? And if they believe, they get grafted back in (23).
It seems natural to conclude that Jews who recognise Jesus as Messiah are those branches that remain on the vine. Gentiles who recognise Jesus as Messiah are the branches that are grafted on. Jews who do NOT recognise Jesus as Messiah are broken off from the vine, but they may also be grafted back on if they subsequently recognise Jesus as Messiah.
Ingrafting is conditional on faith, Paul makes clear. What benefits does faith bring? Salvation! So that is what being part of Paul’s imaginary tree signifies. Both Jew and gentile need to believe in Jesus for salvation from one’s sins.
A Jew, unlike a gentile, can be in (Abrahamic) covenant with a God in whom he does not believe. Even atheists and pagans are covered by the covenant with Noah promising no repeat Flood.
‘A Jew, unlike a gentile, can be in (Abrahamic) covenant with a God in whom he does not believe.’ Everything that Paul (and Jesus) says contradicts this.
The Abrahamic covenant does not command faith – it is unconditional apart from circumcision; and how interesting that even secular Jews continue to do that to their sons.
If that is true, why did Jesus so easily dismiss Jewish ethnicity as irrelevant. It seems to me He was saying, dont think you can call on your supposed covenant with God to save you. It wont!
Neil Cameron – I personally agree with everything you wrote here – but you hit the reply button to my post (and not to Anton’s).
Gentile believers in Jesus are told how to get the message across to Jews: make them jealous. It has to be said that the church has done a pig-awful job of that, but the love of many Christian Zionists (or Zionist Christians as Iprefer it) is unconditional. And Jewish believers in Jesus are free to preach to other Jews as they choose; I have seen on YouTube a clip of some of them reading out Isaiah 53 on the streets of Jersusalem and asking passers-by if they can think of anybody who matches the description.
It’s easy to say that from the pov of someone living in peace. Let’s not spiritualise everything as if physical life means nothing.
Land. Theology of land is the whole topic, of Oren R Marten’s book mentioned above, covering the whole sweep of scripture, including covenants, and the position of dispensationist. There is both continuity and discontinuity of the covenants in Jesus as fully man and fully God.
As the author says, land of an important topic in the Bible, but it is rarely studied as a Biblical theological subject.
Where truly is our home? In Ephesus, Paul emphasizes that believers were citizens of Ephesus and heaven, at home raised in Christ.
The New covenant is founded on “better promises” not different promises.
The church is founded [upon Christ}and upon “the Apostles and Prophets”.
Even the scattering of the 10 tribes worked together for
Good. The knowledge of the one true God was disseminated
throughout the world thus preparing the easy way of the Gospel progress.
Their claim to be “the chosen people of God”
Has always caused them a great deal of popular opprobrium
and subsequent tribulations and persecutions throughout their history. Yes, God has blessed them with great riches which have ever been the envy of their fellows.
In their current zeal to posses the Land they are indeed
Uniting the Nations to rise up against them in condemnation, perhaps a harbinger of the final battle and judgement of the Nations. centred at/on the Land.
Israel’s judgement against their enemy is horrific to the extreme but little compared to the advent of the Judgement of God on all the Nations. “Hosannah Lord”.
Lord have mercy on Palestine and Israel. “Shorten the days”.
Thank you, Ian, for a piece that addresses the concerns of many Christians just now. I think it is a problem that many Christians think they understand modern Israel and its context because they have read the Old Testament. Actually I think this can apply to both pro-Israel and anti-Israel sentiment, when people suppose Israel is repeating the destruction of the Canaanites. This has reinforced the strong prejudice against the Old Testament that exists in many Christian circles. After al , the expulsion or destruction of the Canaanites (genocide?) is the biggest moral challenge the OT presents for Christians.
The problem consists in imagining Israel has stepped straight out f the pages f the Bible and knowing very little of the long history of the Jews and Judaism between the Bible and the present. That includes many centuries of antisemitic persecution, the origins of Zionism as very much a secular movement in the context of 19th century European nationalism (most rabbis were very opposed to it), and of course the Holocaust. This history explains much about modern Israel, including the key idea of Israel providing a safe place for Jews, the only place in the world where they can be safe. This, rather than biblical history, explains how almost all Israelis, even those who had been active in seeking peace and reconciliation, reacted to the Oct 7th massacre (the worst since the holocaust). Even here, it seemed, Jews were not safe,
It s really important to realise that most Israelis, who rarely if ever attend synaggue, do not think they have a divine right t the and, merely a historic right to the only land their ancestors ever possessed. (That is the right that Arab Muslim propaganda seeks to deny by arguing that there was never a Jewish temple on mount Zion and the events of the Old Testament took place in Arabia, not Palestine.)
Maybe the biblical book we should really be reading is Esther. It is more or less the first documentation of antisemitism in the sense of hatred specifically directed against the Jew as a people different from all others. t describes a plot to wipe out the whole Jewish people. It doesn’t mention the land, only the worldwide diaspora. It does not mention God (though God’s purpose is surely implicit). Read every year at Purim, it mattered throughout Jewish history and was read n Auschwitz. I imagine that when Israeli extremists after Oct 7th referred to Hamas as Amalek, they did not have in mind so much the Amalekites of the Torah and the books f Samuel, but Haman, the villain of the book of Esther, the last Amalekite and the archetype of antisemitism. Luther, who sadly was nit free f antisemitism himself, and had his own ideas abut the canon of Scripture, said: “I hate Esther so much that I wish it did not exist.” But it is in the canon, maybe partly as a permanent scriptural warning against antisemitism,
Thanks Richard—very helpful. (I was on a kibbutz in Israel during Purim, and remember the celebrations very well!)
You are spot on when you say it the history of the last couple of centuries in Europe, not the OT, which explains the current situation. And I have been very distressed at how ignorant people are about that!
Well, yes and no. I know a bit about the pre-Nazi history of antisemitism in Europe and not a few things about Jewish history and its complicated relationship with European Christendom, and conclude that even in unbelief or semi-belief the Jews have retained an inescapable sense of being a chosen people, so that they have no simply immersed into the general gene pool of the nations, like the forgotten peoples of the ancient world. No doubt many of them did disappear – I suspect many of the ancestors of the Palestinian ‘Arabs’ were actually Christians (as Syrians were) before the Arab conquests in the 7th century and before that, many of them would have been Jews. And many German and other Jews in the 19th century formally adopted Christianity (as Heinrich Heine did, and Karl Marx’s father, and Disraeli’s father), but the ancestral identity is not so easily shucked off. It keeps reasserting itself, even in religiously complicated political forms like socialist Zionism.
This fact calls for some theological evaluation, not dismissal. Similarly the return to the land and the astonishing way this has become the cockpit of world politics, as the Dar ul-Islam lines up against world Jewry. Why else should the Mayor of London or the former First Minister of Scotland (or the possible next Mayor of New York) or half a dozen of more MPs in England be fixated on Gaza? Especially when far worse catastrophes affecting Muslims are unfolding in Yemen and Sudan. This is a subject on which oldline Anglican (and Catholic) church figures in the west have nothing to say, so frightened are they of Muslims in the midst of British society.
As an addendum to the comments on Esther, Purim and ‘Haman the Amalekite’, where is the Anglican commentary on the fact that the leading force in the world that has been trying to destroy Israel is the Islamic Republic of Iran?
They are no Palestinians or Arabs or even Sunni – but they have been consumed by a fanatical wish to destroy ‘the Zionist entity’. The roots of their hatred are religious, not economic or nationalist.
It’s only to be expected that Israeli nationalists would dray parallels with the biblical account of an attempted Holocaust.
Where is the Anglican commentary on Iran’s theopolitics?
/crickets
Yet again the bishops show themselves to be moral cowards.
The Church of England is better off with Canterbury vacant.
It is a basic rule of life for bullies, cowards, virtue-signalers and the rest of who just want a quiet life that you should only criticise those who are not going to retaliate in any significant way.
Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour, because Islamic regimes and Communist states do use terror against their small and vulnerable Christian communities and will use the excuse of western criticism to attack them.
But often it is cowardice or bigotry (‘We don’t expect any better from these people’) that dictates official responses. Nobody is going to get blown up for criticising Israel.
Richard Baukham and Ian Paul – I agree, but hard information is actually quite hard to get – we know that everything thrown in our direction by BBC and main stream media is highly partisan. It is clear that the constitution of the State of Israel did help enormously with the self-interest of the U.S.A. at that time.
The arguments presented by Richard Baukham and Ian Paul (concerning modern Israel) are convincing.
I also think that the Jews on this matter are the innocent victims of Zionist ‘Christians’. We get enormous numbers of people (we see them here) who use Scripture for prognostication (Deuteronomy 18 tells us that we aren’t supposed to do this – I’d say it’s particularly evil if Scripture is used for this purpose), who read the (Scriptural) tea leaves and tell us that the re-constitution of Israel in 1947/48 was predicted by Scripture, we should expect this to be the start of weird and wacky things, leading to Jesus coming back again and ruling the world for approximately 1000 years from a nice comfortable office in Jerusalem ….. When we see the sort of support that this argument gets, it’s not surprising that some people become extremely sceptical.
You describe accurately my position and then you call me a Zionist ‘Christian’, with inverted commas.
Kindly provide evidence that I am not a Christian, distinct from your belief that my exegesis of the scriptures about Israel and eschatology is wrong. Either evidence, or withdraw the clear and disgraceful allegation that I am not a Christian. I have always said that discussion of Israel and eschatology should take place *as well as* evangelism, not in place of.
Any time you want to discuss those things with me, I am ready. What do you make of the fit of Isaiah 11:11-12 to the modern era? And on what basis do you call Revelation 20 a recapitulation of the church era, rather than what succeeds it?
Anton – I wasn’t aware that this was the position you held – it therefore wasn’t directed at you personally. I also have no idea if you are in a state of grace or not – and it is something I don’t want to discuss. I simply wanted to point out that (a) Ian Paul and Richard Baukham are correct (in my view) that there is a good case for a state of Israel in the Palestine where Jewish people can feel safe and that (b) this is not based on any sort of ‘divine right’ to the land.
I was simply pointing out that certain arguments put forward (which seem to me to be based on the evil of prognostication and, even worse, using Scripture for prognostication) are very off-putting and make one wonder what it really is all about.
You mention the views of the USA and Russia in November 1947; as I understand it, these are both ‘evil empires’, in the sense that USA foreign policy has always been governed entirely by self-interest and not by moral considerations (e.g. turning a blind eye to huge swathes of oppressive evil going on within Saudi Arabia, because it is in the strategic interest of the USA to have them as allies).
You must have noticed that there is a ‘lunatic fringe’ of those who read the tea-leaves (prognostication using Scripture), decide that God has made wonderful promises and think it a great thing to organise USA military force to bring it all about. I can’t help thinking of the three witches in Macbeth – and the promises they made to Macbeth were all fulfilled, but not quite in the way that he expected.
As I indicated, I believe that the pro-Israel side has very good arguments (given by Ian Paul and Richard Baukham), but they have ‘friends’ whom they don’t really need – and who are doing an awful lot more harm than good.
I’m sorry, Jock, but I don’t believe that you were unaware of my position, which I have stated repeatedly on these threads with as much clarity as I can muster.
Anton – I tend to skip over your comments.
Who else here did you have in mind as advocating the view that you wrote against and whose faith in Christ you were putting in question?
Anton – briefly – a ‘Livets Ord’ church in Södermalm that I was unfortunate enough to attend once when I was living in Stockholm. After some research, I found that much of the stuff it was advocating that I found extremely off-putting and disturbing was alarmingly common in some circles (and that the Swedish ‘Livet Ord’ people hadn’t made it up all by themselves and that it wasn’t restricted to Sweden).
But you spoke about persons here. Jesus told us to watch for the signs he gave, and when we do you accuse us of prognistication.
Anton – you are correct that I was reacting against what I saw on this thread – but general trends rather than anyone in particular. I heard the whole game, in its horrible details, many years ago when trying to find a decent church in Stockholm.
Yes – I do think those who take the same line as you are using Scripture for ‘prognostication’ and I put the word ‘Christian’ in inverted commas because the whole business doesn’t really look so Christian to me. The world contains two communities: one community is the community of forgiven sinners, those who are ‘in Him’ and therefore have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them. This is what unites them and makes them a community. The other community is those have not been convicted of their sins and have not put their faith in Christ and His work on Calvary to deal with their sins. This other ‘community’ isn’t really a community – it is very divided (and Scripture, particularly the book of Revelation, leads us to understand that this and the reasons for it). Our mission, as Christians, is to give a reason for the hope that we have – namely, Christ and what he did for us on the cross – and in so doing, those who are not saved will be convicted of their sins and put their trust in Christ.
All this is very, very basic and shouldn’t have to be said – but the whole discussion about whether people of a particular genetic descent have a right to a particular piece of land – does seriously take the ‘eye off the ball’.
No Jock, you are backpedalling – you spoke about
Zionist ‘Christians’
and you spoke about them writing on this thread.
I do know some Christians I would describe as ‘Israel nuts’ and others I would call ‘endtime nuts’. But I at least have always advocated living these scriptures AS WELL AS those about evangelism for Christ, not instead of.
As for prognostication – too bad that the Christians in Jerusalem in AD70 remembered the Lord’s words and escaped, following which when everybody else got massacred, eh? They engaged in prognostication. How disgraceful! Or are you going to invent some rule that supposedly explains how it was alright for them but not for us?
I think it is worth avoiding the term ‘Zionist’, as people mean different things by it.
Anton – no ‘backpedalling’ – as you rightly inferred (and as I actually stated when you pushed me – I certainly wouldn’t have done it without that) it is not at all clear to me that you personally are in a state of grace (and, for this reason, long ago I stopped reading your contributions unless they were in direct reply to something I had written).
The reasons put forward by Ian Paul and Richard Baukham for a State of Israel where Jewish people can feel safe look like good arguments that I can accept and which seem to me in line with the Christian idea of a social conscience; I cannot square your line (i.e. taking the line that Israel has a divine right to the land) with the line I expect Christians to take – it doesn’t seem in line with the Christian mission. I also note (with great interest) the style of discussion that you employ.
You haven’t engaged with any of my points about specific scriptures or whether the Christians in Jerusalem in AD70 were wrong to engage in prognostication. I am uninterested in diverting into the personal. Will you – can you – break your silence on those matters?
Are you aware that both the USA and Russia voted in favour of a 2-state solution at the end of November 1947?
The Jews of Mandatory Palestine accepted it, the Arabs rejected it (they told the UN so on April 16th, 1948).
Can you link me to the Arab statements?
Jamal Husseini, the Palestinian Arab leader, told the UN Security Council during the fighting, on 16th April 1948: “The representative of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday that they were not the attackers, that the Arabs had begun the fighting. We did not deny this. We told the whole world that we were going to fight.”
I have personally verified this quote online (otherwise I would not cite it) but I did not retain the URL. I’m sure that google will find it.
Yes–thanks.
Jock
I had to look up “prognostication” in the dictionary, I had no idea what it meant. Being a bear of very little brain, I call it ‘peeking behind the curtain’, which as I understand it we are not empowered to do, something along the lines of “it is not for you to know the times and the seasons”. However there are times when the Holy Spirit speaks to us through scripture, and that is a different matter. As always, a precarious fine line (a tightrope one excellent vicar used to call it) judging between the two, but (my vicar would say) that is the nature of the Christian life, walking a spiritual tightrope. By and large I am with you on this, but as always, there are sometimes Holy Spirit given exceptions.
Frank
Richard
I think you are correct in seeing Haman as the archetypical Amalekite, but according to my Jewish sources, the primary scripture why the IDF (not just a few extremists) consciously consider themselves to be in constant conflict with Amalek is Exodus 17:16, which in the LXX reads “The hidden hand of the Lord will be at war against Amalek from generation to generation”. Whether this is seen as a blood-line continuity of some kind, or Amalek simply as a cipher for Israel’s enemies, I am not sure.
There is a severe (but presumably deliberate) textual conflict here with the preceding sentiment in 17:14 which offers to “completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven”. However there is an even more perplexing conflict within verse 14 itself, in that the act of “blotting out the memory” is to be recorded on a scroll for remembrance! Whatever the interpretation there is a conscious theological tension regarding continuity embedded here.
The Jewish understanding which I have been offered is that God was so angry with Amalek he determined not simply to wipe them out, but to repeat the process all over again in every generation. Take that as you will, but I understand it to be a sentiment which informs IDF and other Jewish political motivation in this area.
before attacking Amalek the Kenites were told to come out from them. There seems to be no such offer these days.
The view that the State of Israel does not have a divine right to the land has been in crisis since May 1948.
Our host and Richard Bauckham hint that those who think differently from them are in ignorance of history. James patently is not, and I have long been very familiar with the relevant parts of this document:
https://www.maranathacommunity.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/The-State-of-Israel-An-Appraisal.pdf
Perhaps we just think that scripture is more important even than human history and that God works in mysterious ways.
The persistence of the Jews (and ‘the Jewish problem’) was a theme in 19th century literature and thought and long before – think of George Eliot’s ‘Daniel Deronda’. I have seen this theme in French novels as well.
And it was there in the 17th century, in Marvell’s little marvel:
I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
Why won’t they just ‘go away’ – be assimilated into Christendom (or mutatis mutandis into Islam)? Yet even when they did convert, this wasn’t enough for the Nazis – or the Jew-haters of Poland and Lithuania and Ukraine: the search for ‘blood purity’ had to be conducted.
The knottiest problem for the Church is to understand its relationship to the Jews (and the Land), which isn’t just a pragmatic matter, it’s first of all spiritual in nature.
But England was philosemitic in the 19th century whereas France and Italy were the opposite.
In 1809 Joseph Frey, a Jewish believer in Jesus, founded the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews (also known as the London Jew Society, today the Church’s Ministry among Jewish People). Other founders included Charles Simeon, a leading Anglican evangelical, and the anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce. Its patron was the Duke of Kent, a son of King George III and the father of Queen Victoria; its complex of buildings, close to the Jews of London’s East End, was named Palestine Place. In 1826 several more British evangelicals founded the Society for the Investigation of Prophecy, which convened conferences to study – sympathetically – what the Bible said about the future of the Jewish people.
In 1839 a British consulate was permitted in Jerusalem after the British had helped the Turks to expel the Egyptians, who had invaded Syria a decade earlier. (Palestine was regarded as part of Syria at this time.) Some 6000 of Jerusalem’s population of 17,000 was Jewish, and London told its consul to look after Jewish interests as best he could.
During 1839-41 The Times newspaper published many letters from clergy calling for the restoration of the Jews. At this time Anthony Ashley-Cooper, who became the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, persuaded the Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, to press the Ottomans to allow Jews into Palestine. (Ashley-Cooper, a committed Christian, went on to become a great social reformer.) This suggestion found no favour with the Sultan, but an Anglican mission organisation to Jews had succeeded in buying land within the Jaffa gate. A protestant bishop of Jerusalem was appointed, and based himself in the compound; he was a Jewish ex-rabbi who had come to Christ in England, Michael Solomon Alexander. His congregation numbered some 25-35 ethnic Jewish believers in Jesus Christ. A church building was begun, officially as the consul’s chapel; this became Christ Church, Jerusalem, and it held a daily service of worship in Hebrew.
In 1844 the clergyman Samuel Bradshaw, in his tract A plea for the Jews, made a call to raise five million pounds to establish the Jewish people in Jerusalem. Prominent British churchmen calling for the restoration of the Jews in the Victorian era included CH Spurgeon, the Baptist ‘prince of preachers’; Murray McCheyne, from the Kirk; and Henry Grattan Guinness, who set up a missionary training centre in London’s East End, Harley College, that became a centre of Restorationism. The evangelical Bishop of Liverpool JC Ryle, preached a sermon, Scattered Israel to be gathered. Britain had a Jewish Prime Minister, the Tory Benjamin Disraeli (a nominal Anglican). How different is all of this from the anti-semitism shown in the Dreyfus affair in 1890s France (which sparked Theodor Herzl); or the distressing Mortara case in the Papal States in the 1850s.
I knew a bit about the Anglican-Lutheran Jerusalem bishopric, and went to Christ Church in Jerusalem some years ago – maybe I’ll ger there again but not ‘l’shana haba birushalayim’, as things are right now.
The Mortara case is a fascinating one which I don’t think I knew of. There have been a few (very few) cases of Jews becoming Catholic clerics, of whom the most famous would be Aron Jean-Marie Lustiger, the Archbishop of Paris, who had written on his epitaph, ‘I was born a Jew and I remain one, as did the apostles.’
Paul’s definition of a ‘Jew’ would apply to that Archbishop.
Well said Anton, excellent summary. Will you be at CMJ conference next year, if so maybe we should meet & chat?
It is interesting that while men like (Wesley), Wilberforce, Shaftesbury and Simeon could see from scripture that one day the Jewish people would return home (and acted accordingly), those who might consider themselves their evangelical successors for some unclear reason want to deny any divine involvement when it is actually happening in their own lifetime. It seems to me that if the sovereign God of history had no involvement in the events of 1947 AD, then likewise he had no involvement in the events of 597 & 587 BC; personally I think Jeremiah would disagree, rather strenuously in fact.
Blair Pascal was once asked by the French king what evidence there was for the existence of God. He replied “The Jews, your Majesty, the Jews”. And the Jewish people were not even back in the Land at that stage.
Similarly Karl Barth (who I think even Ian Paul might concede was not a theological pygmy) once said “There is no proof for the existence of God, except for the return of Israel in 1947”. (I used to be able to provide the precise reference for that quotation, but sadly I have lost it now.)
It is interesting too that both Ian Paul & Richard Bauckham clearly both have a God-given heart for Israel and the Jewish people, they just don’t understand (yet) quite why. Apologies if that sounds patronising – they are both theological giants, whereas I am not even a theological pygmy, but St Paul does say something about foolish things (like me – very much so) confounding the wise.
I would love to see Ian Paul seriously consider the ministry of Steve Lightle, who travelled throughout the Soviet Union for so many years, calling the Jewish people home, and was both followed by the KGB and protected by angels on so many occasions. I have known various people who have met with angels, but no-one to the extent of dear Steve in his ministry with the Jewish people. Ian would either have to discount it as fictional rubbish, or carefully re-evaluate his theology in the light of what God is actually doing in our generation.
So much more could be said !
Frank,
I would simply be glad if a Jewish believer in Jesus who had made aliyah entered discussions on this blog and gave his point of view. I think that many committed Christians who are not personally antisemitic have been drinking at theological wells which they do not realise have been poisoned by historic antisemitism.
I once tried to trace that dialogue “Give me proof of God – The Jews, Your Majesty” and found that the monarch supposedly involved was variously Frederick the Great of Prussia, Louis XIV of France, and Queen Victoria (with Disraeli). Last time I checked, this exchange was not on the Wikiquote page of any of these. (Wikiquote demands sources.) It’s a good argument but I suspect the tale is apocryphal.
Barth appears to differ from “the heavens declare the glory of God”, an argument (or ‘proof’) which Paul insists in Romans 1 is available even to pagans.
Yes I do hope to be at CMJ’s annual conference next year!
James, I couldn’t agree more with your final sentence, if by ‘spiritual’, you mean (which I think you do); something rather different from what the late John Stott stated in his IVP commentary on Galatians and with reference to 3: 15 – 18 ( God’s promised inheritance to Abraham): ” Paul realized that both the ‘land’ which was promised and the ‘seed’ to whom it was promised *were ultimately spiritual!” Now if the NT says little about the land, then where does it declare that Paul had this wonderful, ethereal realization? Moreover, methinks that this exegetial slight of hand could at least to some extent be traced back to one Augustine of Hippo.
Your incorporation of the wider political ramifications in the current debacle serves to undermine the obsessive preoccupation (in state and church) with Israel’s role in the whole issue . And what of Hamas? How many have made even a cursory study of their 1988 and 2017 Charters? At the very least, their primary concern is not the creation of a ‘just society’ as in Western understanding. The doctrine of Dar al-Harb may well be at work here. And this is why James is correct in seeing the issue as spiritual . What we are witnessing in the Middle East and on a wider plane is a conflict of deified proportions.
PS This refers to James’ contribution of today at 4- 08pm
It’s the ‘correct understanding’ of Scripture that is important. And I think the mysterious ways is precisely shown in Jesus.
Coming late to this discussion but there are few points that might be of interest.
Ge (land) is used in the Sermon on the Mount (“the meek shall inherit the land”, quoting Psalm 37:11) which, in the Psalm clearly refers to the Promised Land but which we take to mean the earth. Similarly (and more powerfully) Luke’s version of the Great Commission (Acts 1:8): “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth/land”. I have never heard anyone preaching on this who did not assume it referred to the whole earth, yet is obviously the OT formula for the Promised Land. Jesus himself at the end of Luke’s gospel refers to his fulfilling everything written about him in the Old Testament and the need to witness to all nations. Thus Acts 1:8 is best translated “earth”, and all missionaries have assumed that is the case. In short, Jesus himself tells us that ge is now the earth, not the “Promised Land”.
Why did Jesus not refer to the Promised Land? Apart from these two references to ge, it seems entirely absent as a subject. But surely this cannot be, as the subject was red-hot at the time of Christ. The answer is straightforward: the Promised Land is encapsulated in the “Kingdom of God”. What is a kingdom? A land over which there is a sovereign. As Tom Wright points out, the problem for the Jews of Jesus’ time was not presence in the land, but sovereignty over it. Jesus comes as king, and they expect him to conquer the land (John 6:15, Acts 1:8 again). But the whole point is he refines the Promised Land/Kingdom of God as something more wonderful (it is among you [plural], it is a banquet including outsiders etc). It is no longer piece of real estate in the Middle East, but the place of his children wherever they are, to be completed in a new heaven and new earth. This is how the promise to Abraham is fulfilled, to people of faith.
Finally, Jesus fulfils the promise by himself being the true Israel. He says, “ I am the true vine” (John 15:1) where the vine is the well-known symbol of Israel (Psalm 80 etc). He is Israel; we are grafted in as Gentiles, and Jews remain or are broken off if they are no longer faithful. There is, presumably, an “untrue” vine. In his skirmishes with the Pharisees, Sadducees and the rest, it is not difficult to see who they are! Ethnic descent is no longer enough (it never was). We need to be born again, as was Nicodemus. “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything: what counts is a new creation” Gal. 6:15. [i.e. the Israel of God, redefined in Jesus].
Or, as Paul puts it in 2 Cor. 1:20, “no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ”, including the covenant of the Promised Land.
Thanks–that is helpful.
But doesn’t the pattern of Acts confirm that ge in 1.8 is ‘ends of the earth…’?
Jesus is not Israel or Jerusalem. This excessive spiritualising is alien to the Hebraic mindset of the scriptures. We are resurrected embodied and need somewhere to live. Ultimately we get a New Jerusalem, in particular.
Moreover, if as John says: ” Jesus fulfils the promise being the *true Israel* then how can, for example, the ‘Church’ also be the ‘true Israel’ or the ‘new Israel’ – or even the ‘ Israel of God’!!
the church (Jew and Gentile believer) is the body of Christ. Logically then the church is also the true Israel.
So you disagree with John that Jesus is the ‘true Israel’? Re the above statement: the connection you make between the body of Christ and the church as the ‘true Israel’ is not logical. It is spurious. To begin with, the term ‘body of Christ’ is biblical; true Israel is not!
I think Ian is right.
Given how both Jesus and Paul dismiss Jewish ethnicity (ie being born a Jew) as completely irrelevant to salvation (Jesus referred to raising up stones!), I think when Paul says ‘In this way all Israel will be saved’, ‘Israel’ here means ‘true Israel’. That is, all those Jews and Gentiles together who are saved by Jesus. Paul does, after all, define how he views what a ‘Jew’ means, again emphasizing the inward Spirit, not ethnicity as shown by for example physical circumcision.
So I think those who believe ‘Israel’ here refers to all Jewish people are wrong. Whilst there ‘may’ be a significant turning of ethnic Jews to the Messiah if the ‘time of the Gentiles’ ends before Jesus’ return, it is still only those ethnic Jews and Gentiles together who recognise who Jesus is who make up ‘Israel’.
Dear PCI, you appear to have a propensity for guesswork, as you have not produced here one speck of biblical material to bolster your case. Ergo, you declaim “so I think”. In this, however you are not alone. For example, on previous occasions, attention hs been drawn to Romans 9:5f, but 9: 1 – 4 conveniently ignored. I would suggest you peruse 10: 10 to 11: 1f to obtain a more coherent picture.
I think as in, this is what I think based on Scripture. Ian has already given the Biblical material, I simply restated in my own language, as I understand it.
Re Romans 9:1-5, Paul said he has great sorrow and anguish, logically because he can see how most Jewish people have rejected the Messiah Jesus. He sees the tragedy of this given their history and that the rejected Messiah was born from them. Hence his sorrow.
But v6 then explains why Paul has hope. He clearly views those Jews (by birth) who have or will accept the Messiah Jesus as Abraham’s children (by grace just like the Gentile believers), and therefore truly part of Israel. Jesus had said essentially the same thing – if Abraham was truly your father you would believe me, as Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day. But their actions against Him showed they were not part of Israel, the children of Abraham.
Dear PCI I appreciate your reply in terms of the fact that you have made a serious attempt to get to grips with this part of Romans.
Romans 9: 6 carries echoes of Romans 2 : 28f (re circumcision). This in turn takes us back to the Torah; specifically to Deuteronomy [10:15f] re the unrighteousness of the nation of Israel [ 10:12 f]. The command here is taken up by Jeremiah in the period of the Babylonian exile[4: 3-4] in relation to Judah/Jerusalem. Once again is the issue of judgement which is central. But equally, circumcision raises the crucial significance of the Abrahamic Covenant; an everlasting covenant that includes Canaan as an everlasting possession and circumcision as the sign of the covenant [Gen 17:7-14]. Forgoing the issue at this juncture of the land: when Paul makes his assertion :”Not all who are ascended from Israel”, he is making a distinction between national Israel { vv 1-5} and those who have rejected the promises of God, revealed through Isaac ( the “children of promise” [9:8]. I for one do not reject the concept of remnant. Nevertheless, two important factors must be borne in mind:
First: when you say that ” their actions against ‘him’ (Abraham?) showed they were not part of Israel, the children of Israel”, what do you mean by ‘Israel’ in this context? When Paul refers to Israel in this second setting he means children of Abraham. But the primary meaning here [ 9: 1- 4] is *national* Israel!As I pointed out , Romans 10 :21 can hardly refer to the children of Abraham; likewise 11:1ff!
Finally, returning to Romans 2:29: from tome to time, I have encountered the idea that from that juncture onwards the ‘true Jews” are now the church! Romans 2 is concerned with universal judgement; for the Gentiles and Jews ” all who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law (Gentile) and all who sin under the law (of Moses) will be judged by the law [Romans 2: 12].”
correction: line beginning :”first when you say —— “they were not part of Israel !” for ‘Israel’ read Abraham.
Him refers to Jesus. They showed they were not children of Abraham and therefore not part of Israel by rejecting the Messiah. One thing is clear, Paul uses Israel in different ways. I agree with Ian’s understanding.
Then if you agree with Ian, then please tell me how his description of these passages I have quoted above from Romans differ from what he has writtn in his latest article on the meaning of “church”?
In his recent post Ian states that in Paul’s view the Israel of God is now made up of Jewish and Gentile Jesus believers. I agree. THAT is how all Israel will be saved.
Really! Ian also affirms that Romans 2 and 8 contain references to national Israel . The expression ‘All Israel’ does not come from Galatians 6:16. It comes from Romans 11, and Romans 9-11 are replete with references to *national* Israel! It is “God who has the power to graft them in” [Romans 11: 23]. If you want further help, please read my contribution to the latest blog!
1st line should read Romans 9 not 8. I compiled this in a state of exasperation.
And as I’ve said a number of times Paul used Israel in different ways. I don’t need help thanks.
If I understand correctly, this article concludes that the land is irrelevant to the nation of Israel just like the temple because Christ fulfilled their role and now we, the believers in Christ are the temple and the kingdom of God reigns on whichever land we happen to be. So if we carry on this principle, the body of Christ is the Church and therefore Jesus does not have a physical body anymore. When Jesus comes back, he does not come on Mount of Olives (the same place he left from) and there is no river from Mount Zion down to the Dead Sea which will be teeming with life.
The author lacks understanding of Biblical geography significance. Naaman the Syrian understood that well. (2Ki 5:17)
What understanding do I lack?
Geography. Specifically, that the Beautiful land (Daniel 11:41) is not the same as the whole earth as you deduce. God divided the world in boundaries (Deut 32:8) and they are still significant. Location still matters, God chose Zion as a place for His name and it’s still there, not in our hearts only.
“See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation;
the one who believes will never be shaken” This stone was rejected by the (Jewish) builders and many tripped on it and fell off. On others, this stone fell and crushed them.
This stone is still there in Jerusalem and many from the nations are obsessed with the fact that Jews have control over it. So, “when all the nations of the earth gather against her, I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who would heave it away will be severely injured”
I’ve witnessed many Christians, like yourself, trying to move this stone away from that land and got hurt.
Another thing I perceive you don’t understand is the distinction between “Israel” and “Judah” (ioudaios or Jews). I recommend Jason Staples on this subject.
“I will keep a watchful eye on the house of Judah, but I will strike with blindness all the horses of the nations. […] On that day I will make the clans of Judah like a firepot in a woodpile, like a flaming torch among the sheaves; they will consume all the peoples around them on the right and on the left, while the people of Jerusalem remain secure there. The LORD will save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the house of David and of the people of Jerusalem may not be greater than that of Judah. On that day the LORD will defend the people of Jerusalem, so that the weakest among them will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of the LORD going before them.”
The prophet sees the Jews in the city of Jerusalem going through this before they “believe in Jesus” as he continues: “Then I will pour out on the house of David and on the people of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and prayer, and they will look on Me, the One they have pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son.” (Zecharia 12)
So the events in Zechariah 12 happened before the arrival of the Messiah and His death. I tend to agree. It is not in the future, though it was from the prophet’s time.
Agreed. I had to read the whole of Zechariah to get the sense of it.
I am surprised by your comment: ‘This stone is still there in Jerusalem’. Both Jesus and the apostles (including Peter) are quite clear: this ‘stone’ is Jesus.
Are you suggesting that there are *two* ways of being saved—being Jewish or following Jesus? Isn’t that exactly what Paul was arguing against in Galatians, Ephesians, and Colossians?
What do you think Paul means in Eph 2 when he says ‘The two have been made one’?