Israel is my firstborn son (Exodus 4:22). David Coote considers the Word’s ire against Israel.
Fourteen one-thousandths
Bear this statistic in mind as you read through this article and consider the relentless aggressive focus on Israel by the United Nations and the western media. The world’s total land mass is 148,940,000 Km2. Israel’s land mass is 22,145 Km2 which is fourteen one-thousandths of one per cent of the planet’s total land mass.
Yet it is within this tiny sliver of planet Earth that the world at large is determined to deny to the Israeli people, except on terms that might well be regarded as rendering it a physically un-defendable country, a place of guaranteed safety.
But perhaps that is the real point? The world does not want the Jewish people to have a place of safety and security. In reflecting on this we must bear in mind God’s promises to a defined People group of a particular parcel of land …..
The world gathers …..
In 2021 the United Nations General assembly passed 14 resolutions singling out the Jewish state. It is notable that out of twenty resolutions specifically criticizing a nation, seventy percent focus on Israel. The political driver behind these efforts is the delegitimization and ‘demonization’ of Israel.
One UN resolution (# A/76/L.14) places the blame solely on Israel for the lack of peace in the Middle East yet makes no mention of terror attacks and human rights violations by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas or the PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad). The European Union (and sadly Britain, which in its Foreign Office organization has a long history of anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism) broadly backed these resolutions, but signally failed to introduce a single resolution on human rights abuses in China, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Turkey, Pakistan, Vietnam, Algeria or a host of other countries. Since 2015 the UN General Assembly has passed 115 resolutions condemning Israel and only 45 against other countries.
Why is the world’s ire, hatred and relentless partisan scrutiny so focused on an area of fourteen one-thousandths of one percent of the world’s surface? Is the real reason spiritual in nature? If so, precisely which spirits are in evidence? Surely Australian writer Kelvin Crombie hits the proverbial nail right on the head when he writes “perhaps the world system just does not want to see that there is a God, as a restored and harmonious Church would be the clearest evidence to the existence of God; or of the God who has a covenant relationship with the nation of Israel”.
Whither Israel?
This is a relatively short article, not because our subject is unimportant, but because the question of Israel has been comprehensively addressed by so many other able writers, in more detail, and with perhaps more authority than your author hopes to achieve here. In this article we want only to make a few salient points, especially for those readers who may not, hitherto, have considered Israel in the last days, or indeed in the end-time, scenarios.
End time dimension?
We suggest that the end time cannot be properly understood in the absence of a clear biblical insight into God’s ongoing purposes for His Covenant people, Israel. Nor, indeed, can we decipher current events without a clear Israel perspective.
Your author strongly recommends that people should not attempt to ‘read’ every news bulletin and global development solely from the Israel perspective. Such an approach is, we believe, adopted by some of what might fairly be described as on the ‘fringes’ of biblical interpretation. These interpreters have the right general idea, but are apt to interpret the world through a very narrow prophetic lens and draw predictable (and sometimes repetitive) interpretations that may in themselves be questionable; even highly questionable, on occasions.
We repeat, however, that a clear Biblical insight into God’s persisting activity in, and around, Israel is extraordinarily helpful in these, our present times.
The World’s view
There are essentially three predominant perspectives on the question of Israel.
The first is the World’s view. In speaking in this way we are styling ‘the World’ as all that mass of Mankind at present ill-disposed towards its creator God and resistant to His ultimate purpose expressed through Yeshua His Son – our Messiah.
The World’s view of Israel is that it is both a nuisance and an aberration. Israel is seen as a danger to ‘peace’ as a supposedly non-legitimate State, foisted upon the world-community through Europe’s collective guilt at Europe’s unleashing of the Shoah/Holocaust in the 1940s. The World’s view today is essentially hostile to Israel at a political level, and hostile to Jewish people, at a practical level.
This view, whilst claiming to be anti-Israel (or ‘anti-Zionist’), is normatively anti-Semitic and often does not try to disguise the fact. The World will try to ‘solve’ its Israel problem in its own way and in the light of its own ‘wisdom’. For the past 40 years the World has sought a “final settlement” or even a “final solution” to this ‘question’. The preferred mechanism has been something called a “two-state solution”, but this is presently being amended to a “one-state solution”. Yet the outcome for Israeli Jews seems to be much the same …..
The favoured “solution” to the World’s Israel-problem seems to be to corral the Israeli people (and in this they mean Jews, as many Israelis are actually of Arab extraction and live safely and contentedly within Eretz Israel’s national borders) into small, solely Jewish-governed areas.
These anticipated Jewish areas will not be contiguous, nor defensible in any realistic understanding of that term ‘defensible’. We wonder whether the term ‘Jewish ghetto’ may most aptly describe the World’s ambition for Israel’s collective security within its own land. A useful proxy for ‘the World’ in this context might be considered to be The United Nations Organisation (UN) which has been singularly anti-Israel almost since the UN’s inception in 1945, even before the rebirth of Israel in 1948.
Today the UN acts as both judge and jury in its condemnation of Israel, having issued more ‘resolutions’ about Israel than about any other country on the planet!
One, or Two?
At the time of preparing this article, a “one-state solution” remains as a discussion point, in the context that several Arab nations settled upon a form of peace with Israel (‘The Abraham Accords’ process) which, in turn, had reduced the so-called Palestinian question to one of secondary status. At that time Syria was in civil war and Egypt was deeply concerned about terrorist violence within its society. At a practical level, some of the support for a two-state solution had simply evaporated.
A one-state solution seemed to entail the political cantonment of Israel and an enhancement of the political rights of Arab Israelis (as opposed, presumably, to Jewish Israelis) as a form of positive discrimination. Demographically, the Arab population seems likely to overtake the Jewish population, so a one-state solution may prove to be a quicker mechanism to undermine the reality of Israel as a Jewish state, than the stalled ‘two-state solution’.
Proponents of a so-called ‘two state/final solution’ never trouble to answer the obvious question: should “Palestine” be created as it were, out of thin air, what would stop this new ‘country’ becoming yet another Lebanon, essentially a non-country wracked by internecine warfare, and constantly firing ordnance at Israel? How would some new “Palestine” create security and peace? And what would the world say when the new ‘Palestine’ lobs bombs at Israel?
Replaced by the Church
The second predominant worldview on Israel emerges from within those institutions collectively referred to as “the Church”. In using this term your author draws a clear distinction between “the church” as a series of Man-made institutions, versus the spiritual Body of Messiah Jesus collectively referred to as “church” in the sense of being His corporate body, of which Messiah Jesus is the Head.
Your author would style that Christ-focused “church” as being the true church, and Jesus Himself surely made that distinction (Matthew 16: 18).
The institutional Church’s collective understanding of Israel, both as a political / geographical entity, as well as a cultural people collectively and globally thought of as “Israel”, can be summarized by the term Replacement Theology (or “Fulfillment Theology” which, at a practical level, amounts to the same thing). Via this ‘theology’, the institutional church perceives itself as being the new Israel, having assumed responsibility from, and replaced, ‘old Israel’ which it sees as being terminated by, in, and through “the New Covenant”.
‘Replacement Theology’ is sometimes modified into ‘Two Covenant Theology’ in the minds of some church folk who may be slightly better disposed towards Israel. The idea here is that Jewish people do not need to hear the good news of Yeshua Messiah as they will be ‘saved’ (if at all) by adherence to Rabbinic Judaism and their observance of the Torah.
By this view Christians are to be ‘saved’ through their altogether easier and more comfortable “New Covenant” of grace, wherein Jesus has already “paid the price” for the penitent sinner. Jews, by contrast, have to ‘earn’ their Salvation through Torah observance.
We surely do not need to state that this obtuse view is nowhere supported in Scripture, nor the specific teachings of Jesus.
Classical Zionism
The third popular view on Israel can best be summarised by the term Classical Zionism which understands that His covenants with Israel are not abrogated by God, nor are they ‘replaced’ by the New Covenant. This view, rather, sees the New Covenant as augmenting the older covenants and being the end-point in God’s covenantal purposes.
Classical Zionism takes the text of the Bible in its plainest sense and accordingly sees God’s unconditional prophetic promises to Israel as remaining in force and not ‘fulfilled’ in, or via, some other entity. Enlargement Theology is the prism through which we understand God’s over-arching purposes, as opposed to Replacement Theology. Rev Alex Jacob’s seminal work “The Case for Enlargement Theology” is the clearest exposition of this hermeneutical approach.
All of this has been widely explored in the literature before. Liberal (or ‘progressive’) Christians do not see the Bible as authoritative. Thus, in their own estimation, they possess their ‘get out of gaol free card’, and can ignore Israel as an issue. They “interpret” the Bible using their hermeneutic of eisegesis (reading-in to Scripture what they want or expect to be there) and use that mechanism to eliminate Israel from God’s eternal story.
God’s dealings with Israel
Christians who fail to gain a thoroughly biblical insight into God’s ongoing purposes for Israel will be increasingly perplexed in the years ahead. Why? As Israel continually pops up in the world’s media and some Church folk state, categorically and with certainty, that Israel has a distinct and continuing role in God’s end-time purposes, so naive or biblically illiterate Christians will be torn between the World’s unswervingly anti-Israel (and pro Palestinian) narrative, whilst the Bible seems prima facie to demonstrate God’s equally unswerving commitment to, and ongoing purposes for, His ancient Covenant People.
What to believe? Whom to believe? Something has to give! In this situation it is generally Biblical exegesis that “gives” and many church folk find it impossible to swim against the tide of anti-Israel rhetoric.
Of the holy Spirit, or of Satan?
Views on Israel are inevitably polarizing. A bit like “Brexit”, people tend to be pro- or anti-, with very little middle ground. As Peter Sammons argues extensively in his book “Last Days and End Times” (see link at end of this piece) God has not abrogated His promises to the Hebrew people, rather God continues to work out His covenantal purposes.
Some Christians ‘get’ this entirely. Others rather wish the problem would simply go away. Yet others (especially Catholics and Orthodox, but shared by many Protestants) perceive the Christian ‘church’ to be the new Israel.
Given the tempo of world events, sitting ‘on the fence’ as regards Israel shall become an increasingly uncomfortable position for many church-attending Christians. One question that purportedly faithful Christians must address, sooner or later (and it cannot be dodged) is this:
Is Israel of the Holy Spirit, or of Satan?
Time to get off the fence ………..
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Defending Christian Zionism (David Pawson):
https://christian-publications-int.com/default-29.html?ID=90
The Case for Enlargement Theology (Alex Jacob):
https://christian-publications-int.com/default-30.html?ID=86
Last Days and End Times (Peter Sammons):
https://christian-publications-int.com/Last_Days_and_End%20Times.html
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