If we believe the Bible, then shouldn't we all be Zionist?
There are a lot of things I feel that mature Christians can disagree about -- for me, I think there are a number of issues that are certainly important, but it's probably okay if believers don't come to clear conclusions on them because the issues aren't necessarily clear themselves:
1. Predestination vs. Free Will
2. Creationism vs. Biblical Evolution.
3. Different Eschatologies
4. Other important issues.
But I do feel like all Christians who take the Bible seriously should be Zionist.
I bring it up because my roommate is anti-Israel. Not anti-Semitic, I'm pretty sure, just anti-Israel.
There's something of a progression for the Gentile believer, and I guess I'll lay out some of the thoughts that go into it. What do you make of verses like these?
I establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. -- Genesis 17
How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! If I do not remember you, let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth -- if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy. -- Psalm 137
For Zion's sake, I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake, I will not rest, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness and her salvation as a lamp that burns. The Gentiles shall see your righteousness and all kings your glory. As a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall God rejoice over you. -- Isaiah 62
I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; They shall never hold their peace, day or night. You who make mention of the Lord, do not keep silent, and give Him no rest till He establishes and till He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth. And they shall call them The Holy People, The Redeemed of the Lord; And you shall be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken. -- Isaiah 62
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate, for I say to you, you shall see Me no more, until you say, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!" -- Matthew 23
And of course, the entirety of Romans 11.
The Christian believer now runs into a few options, all of which have many subscribers:
a) Replacement Theology. The Church is effectively the new Israel.
b) Christian Semitism. We are called to love the Jewish people because of Jesus.
c) Christian Zionism. We are called to love the Jewish people and support the state of Israel because of Jesus.
Here's a link that'll give you a lot to think about.
Do some thinking and praying. This is important -- it is clear that the matter is important to God. As a Christian, are you called to feel or act a certain way towards Israel or the Jewish people? I'll update this one later, but what do you think?
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Some people keep prayer journals, to archive their thoughts and experiences with God and with life. I think I'd lose an actual journal if I kept one, but it's a lot harder to misplace the Internet. So here are my thoughts about God and about life. I am not always right, but I am always honest. I put them online because I think real community begins when we open doors that we normally keep shut.
3 comments:
Interesting thoughts Matt. To be honest, my guess is that most Christians simply ignore the issue altogether. For my part, I think I will consider it some more myself. Thanks for the blog!
Kurt
Errr...do you consider yourself a Jew or Gentile? How does one define who is part of Israel and who isn’t?
I suppose that I could begin by challenging your list of issues that aren’t incumbent for believers to be clear on. Of the three you listed, I can see how each of them, if wrongly understood, can lead to great faults in the lives of believers. In the end, doctrines are statements on the nature and character of God, and false doctrines are false statements. It borders on blasphemy and is warned against many times in the New Testament (1 Timothy 1:3-10, 4:16, 6:3; 2 Timothy 4:3; Titus 1:9, 2:1).
Second, and this goes to the question I asked at the beginning, who is Israel? The promise of Genesis 17 is made to Abraham’s descendants. Yet, is it not clear that those who obtain righteousness by faith, be it Jew or Gentile, are descendants of Abraham (Luke 19:9, Romans 4:11, 16; Galatians 3:7-9, 29), the “father of many nations” (Genesis 17:5)? Romans 9:6 says that “for they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel,” and Galatians 6:16 goes so far as calling those circumcised of heart through Christ “the Israel of God!” I guess that puts me in the camp of Replacement Theology, but that’s what screams to me in the Word.
Third, I do believe in God’s sovereignty over His covenants. But covenants are two-way contracts, God won’t break them, that doesn’t mean Israel won’t. Jeremiah 18:5-10 and Romans 9 clearly demonstrate this concept. Even Romans 11, which you cited, seem to this point. Paul declares that there is a “remnant” of Israel that He will save (11:5), and yet in the same chapter he declares that “all Israel will be saved” (11:25). How is this possible? I’m not sure, but I do believe it is because a remnant of ethnic Israel will join the spiritual Israel that is in Christ, of which all will be saved. This is clearly illustrated in between those two verses of Romans 11 in 11:17-24, where the Gentiles are seen as being “grafted” into the tree of God’s salvation, and certain Jews will also be grafted back into spiritual Israel “if they do not continue in their unbelief” (11:23).
Fourth, and here let me grant you that Israel must physically return to Zion for the eschaton to come, what is the appropriate action of the Christian? Because it is prophesied, is it incumbent on a Christian to make that prophecy come true? And at any means? If you lend credence to the cries of the Palestinians, was displacing an entire peoples, and then later subjecting them to continued apartheid (to use Jimmy Carter’s terminology) the right thing to do to accomplish this task? I see no clear indication in the Word that commands Christians to restore Israel and it would be a confusion of “narrative for normative” to say that it is our task to make sure biblical prophesy comes true. If it is, I hope I can be one of the horseman of the apocalypse.
1. Granted, and point well made. I guess I tend to interchange practices and doctrines more than I should, and practices aren't so incumbent (Romans 14) as doctrines. Thanks for the distinction, I agree with you.
2, 3. I'm not saying that there isn't a lot of merit to us identifying ourselves with Israel in a spiritual sense. And yes, people weren't able to attain righteousness with the Old Law, so Christ came down to make a provision for all of us. But there are a lot of things that I feel are too ignored by Replacement Theology.
I feel like God's Word pretty directly makes statements about "Jerusalem" and "Zion" that we can't freely extrapolate to the spiritual seed of Abraham or leave as mere historical context. I also think that there's a strong case for prophecy that lends itself to Israel being special to God outside of being a metaphor for modern believers. There's a strong case for 1948 as a prophetic fulfillment of Isaiah 66:8, for example. If the Jews messed things up, and didn't hold up their end of the bargain, then why are they still around, except for God's faithfulness to His promise to keep the remnant alive, despite Satan's best attempts throughout history to wipe them out? Why did Israel come back? It seems extraordinarily unlikely except in light of God's promises to Israel, which He apparently hasn't forgotten, even if His people didn't follow their end of the bargain. To me, that's one of the bigger indicators of the extent of God's faithfulness -- that He is faithful even if the deal should've been over long ago.
I agree that we, as Gentiles, share in some of the spiritual inheritances once granted to Israel as God's chosen -- grafted into the tree, one in Messiah. But if we're grafted, then shouldn't we share in the things that God loves? And didn't God love Abraham dearly, but also choose Isaac and Jacob over Ishmael and Esau? (Malachi 1).
I'm not saying there's not a lot of justice to the Palestinian plight, and I'm not saying we have to agree with Israel politically, and I'm not saying we're not called to love everyone, but I do think there's enough history between God and Israel that we should follow suit. The way I see it, that transcends the idea of church as a new Israel.
But Mithun, I do think you're smarter, better read, and better thought-out than I am, so you're probably right.
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