Dear Friends,
“Doomscrolling” has sadly taken on new meaning this week in light of the escalating war between Israel and Hamas in Palestine. It’s been difficult to see the gruesome pictures and hear the heartbreaking reports stemming from so much violence and hate; in a word: brutal. (For one of the better succinct summaries, read my friend Seth’s latest edition of The Five.)
With few delusions of grandeur (and mostly because I’m teaching on it tomorrow night), I’m sending out this special edition of Second Drafts with a particular angle that I hope will at least be thought-provoking to you. Granted, it’s a little heavier than usual on some of the theological stuff, but trying to understand some of the theology involved might help.
I’m not looking for a theological fight, nor am I trying to convince anyone I’m a scholar on the Middle East (I’m not and I’ve never been). But I do think there’s something to everyone’s preoccupation with the issue at hand below, so if it helps, to God be the glory.
And if not, may it be like water in the desert…preferably the desert outside of the Gaza Strip.
Praying for the peace of Jerusalem,
Craig
PS: If you’re in the Springfield, IL, area and would like to attend Thursday’s night’s symposium, email me for the location and time. You would be most welcome to join us.
Why the “Holy Land” Isn’t
As God would have it in his sometimes hard providence, Thursday night’s Christian ethics symposium that I am set to teach on the “Holy Land” comes six days after the Hamas attack on Israel on the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
In the wake of the weekend invasion (as well as the imminent military response from Israel), many Christians have promulgated online a variety of perspectives as to the theological and eschatological implications of this development in the Middle East, playing into fears in the hearts of people everywhere.
And I get it. If you are convinced an attack on the state of Israel and its “Holy Land” is the gateway to Armageddon’s end of days, you are going to be afraid, particularly when viewing the horrific brutality of Hamas’ attacks, not to mention the possibility of other nations (including the United States) being drawn into world war.
But as I’ve seen the memes and posts and links concerning what’s going on in Israel and the Gaza Strip fly around the inter webs, I’m reminded of how one particular eschatological (“end times”) perspective informs many of our evangelical churches (as well as, believe it or not, our American military doctrines) regarding Israel.
And, while I support Israel and condemn the Hamas attacks, I do so for reasons having nothing to do with the fighting taking place over God’s so-called “Holy Land.” I mean no offense; I just don’t believe the land is any more “holy” than my back yard.
“Historic,” definitely. But “holy”? Not anymore.
Without minimizing outrage at Hamas’ stated goal of Israeli genocide by way of its barbarous attacks, nor dismissing critiques of the state of Israel’s at-times harsh occupation of the Palestinian people and the Gaza Strip, now seems an important time to review the place of “the Holy Land” in modern history, its biblical significance (past, present, and future), and any hope for its people.
Background and Four Christian Theologies
Back in my Covenant Seminary days (2005-2011), one of my professors, concerning the history of Israeli/Arab tensions and the contested region’s modern arrangement, wrote:
“It is certainly ‘right’ that Israelis who began to return to the land of Palestine from the early 1800s onward were eventually granted the right to form a state of Israel, first by the colonial power of Britain, and later by the United Nations. It is certainly ‘wrong’ that Arab nations would not acknowledge the right of Israel to exist as a nation, and twice were prepared to go to war to try to destroy Israel as a nation. However, once the right of Israel to form a nation was granted and recognized, there was also an imperative need to create a state of Palestine, and an obligation to make some form of reparation to the millions of Arabs whose homes and fields were taken from them. The failure of these two things to happen, and the ongoing settlements, destruction, and dispossession, is an abiding cause of Palestinian anger, resentment, and violence.”1
A year or so later, in a succinct summary entitled, “The Church and Israel: The Issue,” Cornelis Vanema wrote in Ligonier of four different theological perspectives on the place and purpose of the state of Israel:
“Throughout the history of the Christian church, the question of Israel’s place within God’s redemptive purposes has been of special importance. In modern history, with the emergence of dispensationalism as a popular eschatological viewpoint and the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the theological question of God’s intention for Israel has become even more pressing. After the Holocaust, the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews throughout Europe during World War II, the issue of the relation between the church and Israel has also been affected anew by the sad reality of anti-Semitism, which some allege belongs to any Christian theology that insists upon one way of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, whether for Jews or gentiles.
In order to orient the discussion of this critical issue, we need to begin with a clear understanding of the major views on this question that are represented today within the church.”
Here are four brief theological summaries of what Venema went on to present:
#1 Premillennial Dispensationalism: God’s Special Purpose for Israel - Although premillennial dispensationalism is a relatively new viewpoint in the history of Christian theology, its position on God’s special purpose for Israel has shaped, even dominated, recent debates among evangelical Christians on the relationship between the church and Israel.
Two distinct peoples: an earthly people, Israel, and a heavenly people, the church
God administers the course of the history of redemption by means of seven successive dispensations or redemptive economies through which God has a separate purpose and a distinct manner of dealing with His earthly people, Israel
During the present era, the dispensation of the church, God has “suspended” His special purposes for Israel and turned His attention to the gathering of the gentile peoples through the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ to all the nations
However, when Christ returns at any moment to “rapture” the church prior to a seven-year period of great tribulation, He will resume God’s special program for Israel; this tribulation period will be a prelude to the commencement of the future dispensation of a one thousand-year kingdom upon the earth, during which God’s promises to Israel, His earthly people, will receive a distinct, literal fulfillment; only at the end of the dispensation of the millennial kingdom will Christ finally vanquish all of His enemies and introduce the final state
Though dispensationalism acknowledges that all people, whether Jews or gentiles, are saved by faith in the one Mediator, Jesus Christ, it maintains a clear and permanent distinction between Israel and the church within the purposes of God; the promises of the Old Testament are not fulfilled through the gathering of the church of Jesus Christ from among all the peoples of the earth but are given to an earthly, ethnically distinct people, Israel, to be fulfilled in a literal manner during the dispensation of the kingdom following the present dispensation of the gospel
#2 The Traditional Reformed View: One People of God - Traditional Reformed theology insists on the unity of God’s redemptive program throughout history; that is, when Adam, the covenant head and representative of the human race, fell into sin, all human beings as his posterity became liable to condemnation and death (Rom. 5:12–21). By virtue of Adam’s sin and its implications for the entire human race, all people became subject to the curse of the law and heirs of a sinfully corrupt nature.
God initiated the covenant of grace after the fall in order to restore His chosen people to communion and fellowship with Himself; while the covenant of grace is administered diversely throughout the course of the history of redemption, it remains one in substance from the time of its formal ratification with Abraham until the coming of Christ in the fullness of time
There is no ultimate separation between Israel and the church; the promise God made to Abraham in the formal ratification of the covenant of grace (Gen. 12; Gen. 15; Gen. 17), namely, that he would be the father of many nations and that in his “seed” all the families of the earth would be blessed, finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ; the seed promised to Abraham in the covenant of grace is Jesus Christ, the true Israel, and all who through faith are united to Him and, thus, heirs of the covenant promises (Gal. 3:16, 29)
The gospel of Jesus Christ directly fulfills the promises of the covenant of grace for all believers, whether Jews or Gentiles; Israel and the church are not two distinct peoples, but the church is the true Israel of God, “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” (1 Peter 2:9)
#3 “Two-Covenant” Theology - Two-covenant theology teaches that there are two separate covenants, one between God and Israel and the other between God and the church of Jesus Christ; however, rather than there being one way of redemption through faith in Jesus Christ for Jew and Gentile believers alike, God‘s original covenant relationship with His ancestral people, Israel, remains separate from His new covenant relationship with the gentile nations through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Within the setting of a post-World War II concern over the legacy of anti-Semitism in the Christian church,2 the two-covenant-theology position has become increasingly popular among many mainline Protestant churches; even within the Roman Catholic Church, some theologians have appealed to the pronouncements of the Second Vatican Council and Pope John Paul II’s Redemptoris Missio (1991), which advocate dialogue between Christians and Jews, in order to oppose continued efforts to evangelize Jews
In the two-covenant viewpoint, the Christian confession regarding the person and work of Christ as the only Mediator or Redeemer holds true within the framework of God’s covenant with the church; however, since God’s covenant with Israel is a separate covenant, which is not fulfilled in the coming of Jesus Christ in the fullness of time, Christians may not impose upon Israel the terms of God’s covenant with the church
#4 Extreme Replacement Theology - Because many of the Jews did not acknowledge Jesus Christ to be the Messiah of promise, God replaced Israel with the Gentile church. Because the church is the true, spiritual Israel, any peculiar focus upon God's saving intention for Israel is no longer permitted.
Extreme replacement theology represents the opposite end of the spectrum from the two-covenant position; rather than speaking of a distinct covenant relationship between God and Israel that continues even after the coming of Christ and the proclamation of the gospel to the nations, replacement theology maintains that God’s program for and interest in Israel has ended
Full disclosure: though having grown up under much more the Premillennial Dispensationalism View (#1), I hold the perspective of the Traditional Reformed View (#2) now. Neither is sinful nor sacred, but both influence whether one sees events of this weekend as the biblical beginning of the end (#1) or not (#2).
So What about the Land?
With regard to Palestine being the so-called “Holy Land” that belongs to Israel, Christopher J.H. Wright, in his Old Testament Ethics for the People of God, looks through a New Testament typological lens and helpfully frames the question:
“There can be no doubt that the New Testament writers regarded Jesus as the Messiah who fulfilled and embodied the mission of Israel. Consequently the Christian church, as the messianic community of those who are ‘in Christ,’ stands in spiritually organic continuity with Old Testament Israel. The Messiah is the embodiment of the people of God, the fulfillment of the Old Testament people of God, and the foundation for the New Testament people of God. Whether Gentile or Jew, the believer in Christ is the spiritual seed of Abraham, and heir to the covenant and promise (Galatians 3:26-28)...If all the great themes of Old Testament faith and ritual converge typologically on Christ, where does the land fit in?”
From Wright’s perspective, it doesn’t. His arguments:
The land is almost completely absent from the New Testament and the physical territory of Palestine is nowhere referred to with any theological significance in the New Testament
The vocabulary of blessing, holiness, promise, gift, inheritance and so on is never used of the territory inhabited by the Jewish people anywhere in the New Testament as it so frequently is in the Old
The “holiness” of the land, and indeed all its other attributes in Old Testament thinking, was transferred to Christ himself, as the spiritual presence of the living Christ sanctifies any place where believers are present since Christianity “Christified holy space”3
The geographical land of Israel has no place in New Testament teaching regarding the ultimate future of God’s people; no doubt Paul would have included the land among the great gifts that he Jews had enjoyed from God, but the whole context and drift of his argument shows that he regarded all that Israel had received from God as being focused, fulfilled, and surpassed in the person of the Messiah, Jesus (cf. Romans 9:4-5; 10:4)
In the New Testament, the promise of salvation through Jesus is available to anyone living anywhere in any land and there was no special privilege or advantage to those living in the particular land of Israel’s Old Testament inheritance; their faith, their hope, and their worship was to no longer to be localized in a particular land, but on Christ alone, as Jesus, not the land, from now on was to be the focus of the spiritual worship of God (cf. John 4:20-26)
The sustained argument of the book of Hebrews is that we now have in Jesus all that was real for Israel; to affirm, as Hebrews repeatedly does, that what we have in Christ is ‘better,’ is not (as it is sometimes disparagingly called) ‘replacement theology,’ but rather ‘extension,’ or ‘fulfillment,’ theology (consider, for example, what we have as part of this fulfillment):
A ‘land’ (described as ‘rest’), we can enter through Christ (Heb. 3:12-4:11)
A High Priest (Heb. 4:14; 8:1; 10:21)
An altar (Heb. 13:10)
Hope through the covenant (Heb. 6:19-20)
Confident access into the Holy Place, so we have the reality of tabernacle and temple (Heb. 10:19)
Mount Zion (Heb. 12:22)
A Kingdom (Heb. 12:28)
Indeed, according to the book of Hebrews, the only thing we do not have is an earthly territorial city (Heb 13:14), but there is no need for a ‘holy land’ or ‘holy city’ for Christians because we have Christ.
Relating to Jews Today
But what about the people? Are ethnic Jews within the state of Israel still God’s chosen people? What about those who are Palestinian? Again, the words of my professor (informed by the Apostle Paul) help us think biblically about the question:
“Israel is the olive tree of God into which we Gentiles have been grafted. They are the ‘natural’ inheritors of God’s salvation. We are the ‘unnatural’ or ‘wild’ branches. Gentile Christians ought to be careful not to be arrogant towards, or dismissive of, the Jewish people, as if God finished his work among them when the major part of the nation rejected Christ. He has not finished his work. There will be a great renewal of God’s saving mercy extended to the people of Israel (cf. Romans 11).
There will be a time when great numbers of Jews will believe in Jesus. It is possible that this promised outpouring of grace has already begun, for there are large numbers of Jewish converts to the Christian faith here in the U.S. and in other parts of the world (more than at any time since the New Testament period). In addition, there is a small but steadily growing number of Christian Jews within the nation of Israel today. They are discriminated against by the state and they are sometimes persecuted by members of their own families, by their neighbors, and by the synagogues. But the church of Jesus is growing among the Jewish people. This is cause for a psalm of praise! For blessing! For doxology!”4
Indeed. My prayer for the people of Israel (and the people of Palestine) is that, in the midst of surviving the atrocities and agonies of this latest and largest conflict, they would turn to God in repentance and be saved, not trusting in the possession of land or on the basis of ethnicity, but recognizing Jesus as their long-awaited Messiah.
Yes, absolutely, “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6).
But do so on behalf of the people, not the land.
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“Israel - Its Place in God’s Purposes for Humanity,” class notes (name withheld as I did not have time to secure attribution permission).
Read Bernard N. Howard’s, “Luther’s Jewish Problem,” a helpful article considering this unfortunate history.
W.D. Davies, Gospel and the Land, 368.
“Israel - Its Place in God’s Purposes for Humanity,” class notes (name withheld as I did not have time to secure attribution permission).