Please read Why I Ended My Belief in the 'End Times'
Part 1 The Rapture and its Dirty, Little Secret"
Part 1 The Rapture and its Dirty, Little Secret"
 | |
| John Hagee, founder and pastor of Cornerstone Church, San Antonio, Texas, and leader of the Christian Zionist movement in the U.S. |
That indisputable truth compels us to share the Second Coming of Christ with the people around us, and allows us to work together in unity and love despite our differing opinions.
However, some "end times" beliefs are troubling, particularly when they endorse systematic persecution of people groups--even other Christians--in the name of God.
Such opinions grievously misrepresent the message of Jesus Christ and paint yet another portrait of the Christianity that is mean-spirited and hypocritical. It is this belief system, not my brothers and sisters in Christ, that I am confronting.
Christian Zionism is at an all-time fervor. It's adherents are mostly American evangelicals who embrace the dispensationalist message and its core-teaching of an any-minute Rapture. What makes it so dangerous is that its leaders wield a two-edged sword of Christianized politics and political Christianity; a bullying, war-mongering blade of church and state that is neither biblical nor constitutional.
Contrary to Christ's proclamation of THE Kingdom of God, Christian Zionists proclaim there are actually two Kingdoms – an earthly, material Kingdom promised to the Jewish people and a spiritual Kingdom promised to Gentile believers in Jesus Christ. (This theme was made popular in the Scofield Reference Bible.)
Therefore, they claim many of the Old Testament Scriptures have yet to be fulfilled to the Jews in the modern state of Israel. Because God has a continuing special relationship with and for the Jewish people that stands apart from the Church, Jews have a divine right to possess the land of Palestine. (John Hagee: Christian Zionism's Cause or Effect?)
I want to point out two Scripture themes Dispensationalists use to defend their position: the Abrahamic Covenant and The Vine and its branches. Gary M. Burge, Ph.D., Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College & Graduate School, addresses these in an An Alternative Evangelical Reading of Scripture:
In Genesis 12, 15 and 17 God promises the Holy Land to Abraham and his descendants. To Christian Zionists this promise of land inheritance was permanent and unconditional. And it is as true in Biblical times as it is today.
This means that for Christian Zionists, the covenant of Abraham continues to be in play today . And as Christians, this forces them to have what we call a "two covenant" theology: one covenant for the Jews and one for the Gentile church.
Reformed theologians (like myself) believe that something decisive happened in Christ. His covenant affected not simply the covenant of Moses – making a new and timeless form of salvation – but it also affected every Jewish covenant, including Abraham's covenant. Christ fulfills the expectations of Jewish covenant life and renews the people of God rooted in the OT and Judaism. Thus Jesus is a new temple, the new Israel , there are 12 tribes/apostles, etc.
When it comes to the land promises to Abraham – a crux for dispensationalists – I open immediately to Galatians 3:16. The Apostle Paul wrote: "Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say 'And to his offsprings,' referring to many; but referring to one, 'And to his offspring,' which is Christ."
Remarkably Paul argues from the singular noun in Genesis to show that the promises to Abraham – and this means land – point to Christ! Christ is the locus of the promise of land! The promises to Abraham have been realized in Christ – he holds everything Judaism desired – and knowing him gains access to such promises.
Jesus' splendid homily in John 15 does the same. This is the great vine and branches sermon Jesus told in the upper room. The Old Testament image of Israel is that of a vineyard filled with many vines rooted in the soil of the Holy Land. You can see this outlined beautifully in Isaiah 5. But Jesus upends this. We see a vineyard again but now we learn that there is one vine – Christ – and the only question turns not on gaining access to the land but being attached to him.
To think Christianly about land and promise is to think differently than Judaism. In short, the NT changes the spiritual geography of God's people. The Kingdom of God is tied neither to an ethnicity nor to a place. And because the early Christians understood this, they carried their missionary efforts to the entire world. At a time when Jews were debating the meaning of Holy Land , Jesus' prescription was quite remarkable: "the meek will inherit the land" (Mt 5:5), not the aggressor or the conqueror.
The work of Christ is definitive. There is one covenant. And it is with Christ.
I am not a member of a reformed church, but like Mr. Burge, I think Christianly, not Judaically. I think in covenant terms, and how all covenants made between God and man in the Bible were fulfilled in Christ. I do not believe that God deals differently with mankind in dispensations of time.
Bible teacher and author Gary DeMar gives us further insight from his article "Prophetic Speculation Under the Microscope":
Tim LaHaye and many popular prophecy writers see Matthew 24:32 as the key New Testament prophetic passage: “when a fig tree is used symbolically in Scripture, it usually refers to the nation Israel. If that is a valid assumption (and we believe it is), then when Israel officially became a nation in 1948, that was the ‘sign’ of Matthew 24:1-8, the beginning ‘birth pangs’—it meant that the ‘end of the age’ is ‘near.’
If Israel is the fig tree in Matthew 24:32, then Israel is the fig tree in Matthew 21:18–20 where Jesus says, “‘No longer shall there ever be any fruit from you.’ And at once the fig tree withered.” The fig tree of Matthew 24 was a leaves-only tree. There is no fruit on the tree. A fruitless tree is to be cut down (Luke 13:6-9). The tree was fruitless for three years. The land owner wanted to cut it down. The vineyard-keeper asked for one more year. If it did not produce fruit the next year, it was to be cut down.
The tree that represents Israel is the olive tree. The olive tree sunk its roots in the first pages of Genesis and continued throughout the Old Testament period and into the New Testament where Gentiles were grafted in. That’s the tree that we should focus on.
True indeed; and a careful, contextual understanding of the Scriptures reveals that the Vine is and always has been Christ, and the natural branches are those Old Testament Jews who believed by faith; therefore, it was accounted unto them as righteousness. Gentiles who are saved by grace through faith in Christ are grafted into the Vine.
And when all have come in--Jew and Gentile (a number chosen and known only to God)--He will then consider "all (meaning here the sum total) of Israel saved". (Romans 11: 13-26)
I appreciate the clarity that blogger/author Derek Ouelette brings to this issue:
And when all have come in--Jew and Gentile (a number chosen and known only to God)--He will then consider "all (meaning here the sum total) of Israel saved". (Romans 11: 13-26)
I appreciate the clarity that blogger/author Derek Ouelette brings to this issue:
The story of the scriptures, of Creation-Fall-Redemption, is a story of a God who has chosen to make things right through covenants. He has chosen Abraham and established an unconditional covenant with him (Gen 15) in which God in essence says, “if what I promise does not come to pass, may what happened to these slaughtered animals happen to me”.
But only two chapters later (Gen 17) conditions are added to the covenant; so that while God will unconditionally keep his promise to Abraham and his descendants the question becomes, who are Abraham's descendants?
And as Paul would later put it, “not all Israel are Israel” (Rom 9); because Abraham’s descendants prove to be unfaithful and end up exiled from the presence of God (cf. Adam’s exile from the garden). What is God to do? He must find a “true Israelite indeed” with whom he can keep his unconditional promise.
This is the principle of representation: enters the Messiah. The Messiah is the true Israelite whose mission embodies the role of Israel, so that through His faithfulness God fulfills his part of the covenant. The question again becomes, who is “in” Israel or who are the children of Abraham? The answer is: those who are of faith and are in the Messiah.
Hebrews 11: 39-40: "And these all (Old Testament saints), having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better things for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." (The word for perfect is Telelioo; and in this passage it specifically refers to completion only in the sense of reaching one's prescribed goal).
In other words, God's singular purpose all along was for the Salvation of mankind--Jew and Gentile---to be saved by faith alone in His One Son, One Plan, Jesus Christ!
Prior to the spread of dispensationalism, this is exactly what most of the Church-at-large believed: Israel as a nation-state had served Her prophetic purpose in redemptive history. The Israel of God, with no natural distinctions, no physical or ethnic borders, was and would remain preeminent---made up of believers from all nations, tribes, and tongues. The Israel of God includes individual Jews who come to Christ by faith--not relying upon the works of the Mosaic Law, their genealogy, or Israeli citizenship.
But let's turn our attention to the modern state of Israel and its citizenry:
Zionists claim modern-day Israelis have a God-given right to the land, yet only a small percentage (a little over 8%) embrace the Mosaic Law as a personal rule for life. 17% are secularists that publicly participate in the religious customs and traditions, but keep the separation between church and state; they also separate personal devotion (or lack of it) from outward ceremonies. As they see it, participation in a time-honored ritual makes one a good Jew.
55% are a diverse group of modernists. They will participate in religious customs that they agree with or find attractive, or "reform" them to suit their particular ideology. In other words, the participation is more cultural than religious. Most modernists drive on Saturdays, cook, and do other things traditionally forbidden. They consider that nationalism (national identity and pride) IS Judaism. A remaining 20% are a mix of atheists or other religions.
As you can see, the modern--day Israeli is NOT the covenantal Jew of the Old Testament!
Today, only 63% of Jews in Israel believe completely in the existence of God. The percentages drop when you ask if they: believe the Torah was given to Moses on Mt. Sinai (55%); the Torah is God's command for living (47%); in the coming of the Messiah (39%), there is a next world (35%), and that those who don't adhere to the Mosaic Law will be punished (27%).
Ultra-Orthodox Jews worldwide, those who still faithfully abide by the Torah as a rule for life and redemption, have always been against the establishment of a modern Israeli state. They emphatically state that Jews were scattered off the land due to disobedience to God's Word!
They insist the Torah teaches that only at the coming of the Messiah will they be ingathered through REPENTANCE from the four corners of the earth--by a divine act of God (not man's political expediency). Indeed, they believe what took place in 1948 was man's striving to make an Ishmael, rather than waiting for God to bring forth an Isaac!
We mentioned earlier that evangelicals embrace the Rapture teaching, but have no idea how it came about or how its origin defies many of their current doctrines. Similarly, the majority of conservative evangelical, Christian Zionists believe the most reliable text for translating Old Testament Scriptures is the Masoretic Text.
Although the Septuagint version in Greek was widely distributed by Jesus' time and even quoted by Him, as well as being used in the early Church, the Jews took issue over this hi-jacked "Christianized" version. Consequently, the Masoretic scribes brought forth what was to eventually become the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible.
Isn't it interesting...on one hand, Evangelicals insist on using only a version of the Old Testament that was preserved by orthodox men faithful to the Torah, but on the other hand summarily reject the orthodox interpretation from the same Scriptures as to how Israel will be genuinely restored!
If you want to know more about these Jews who still believe in God and His commands as a standard for faith and morals; as well as what they believe about the illegitimate Israeli state, I recommend these two sites:
Jews Against Zionism (articles by Rabbis)
The Jews Not Zionists site is engaging and features an excellent article, "The Difference between Zionism and Judaism", which every Christian should read.
Another eye-opening article is "Judaism is a Religion--Not a Race" by Rabbi Moses Jakubowicz:
In other words, God's singular purpose all along was for the Salvation of mankind--Jew and Gentile---to be saved by faith alone in His One Son, One Plan, Jesus Christ!
Prior to the spread of dispensationalism, this is exactly what most of the Church-at-large believed: Israel as a nation-state had served Her prophetic purpose in redemptive history. The Israel of God, with no natural distinctions, no physical or ethnic borders, was and would remain preeminent---made up of believers from all nations, tribes, and tongues. The Israel of God includes individual Jews who come to Christ by faith--not relying upon the works of the Mosaic Law, their genealogy, or Israeli citizenship.
But let's turn our attention to the modern state of Israel and its citizenry:
Zionists claim modern-day Israelis have a God-given right to the land, yet only a small percentage (a little over 8%) embrace the Mosaic Law as a personal rule for life. 17% are secularists that publicly participate in the religious customs and traditions, but keep the separation between church and state; they also separate personal devotion (or lack of it) from outward ceremonies. As they see it, participation in a time-honored ritual makes one a good Jew.
55% are a diverse group of modernists. They will participate in religious customs that they agree with or find attractive, or "reform" them to suit their particular ideology. In other words, the participation is more cultural than religious. Most modernists drive on Saturdays, cook, and do other things traditionally forbidden. They consider that nationalism (national identity and pride) IS Judaism. A remaining 20% are a mix of atheists or other religions.
As you can see, the modern--day Israeli is NOT the covenantal Jew of the Old Testament!
Today, only 63% of Jews in Israel believe completely in the existence of God. The percentages drop when you ask if they: believe the Torah was given to Moses on Mt. Sinai (55%); the Torah is God's command for living (47%); in the coming of the Messiah (39%), there is a next world (35%), and that those who don't adhere to the Mosaic Law will be punished (27%).
Ultra-Orthodox Jews worldwide, those who still faithfully abide by the Torah as a rule for life and redemption, have always been against the establishment of a modern Israeli state. They emphatically state that Jews were scattered off the land due to disobedience to God's Word!
They insist the Torah teaches that only at the coming of the Messiah will they be ingathered through REPENTANCE from the four corners of the earth--by a divine act of God (not man's political expediency). Indeed, they believe what took place in 1948 was man's striving to make an Ishmael, rather than waiting for God to bring forth an Isaac!
We mentioned earlier that evangelicals embrace the Rapture teaching, but have no idea how it came about or how its origin defies many of their current doctrines. Similarly, the majority of conservative evangelical, Christian Zionists believe the most reliable text for translating Old Testament Scriptures is the Masoretic Text.
Although the Septuagint version in Greek was widely distributed by Jesus' time and even quoted by Him, as well as being used in the early Church, the Jews took issue over this hi-jacked "Christianized" version. Consequently, the Masoretic scribes brought forth what was to eventually become the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible.
Isn't it interesting...on one hand, Evangelicals insist on using only a version of the Old Testament that was preserved by orthodox men faithful to the Torah, but on the other hand summarily reject the orthodox interpretation from the same Scriptures as to how Israel will be genuinely restored!
If you want to know more about these Jews who still believe in God and His commands as a standard for faith and morals; as well as what they believe about the illegitimate Israeli state, I recommend these two sites:
Jews Against Zionism (articles by Rabbis)
The Jews Not Zionists site is engaging and features an excellent article, "The Difference between Zionism and Judaism", which every Christian should read.
Another eye-opening article is "Judaism is a Religion--Not a Race" by Rabbi Moses Jakubowicz:
Judaism is a religion, not a race. Throughout history, whoever joined the Jewish religion was called a Jew, no matter what his race, and whoever abandoned the Holy Torah was not considered a Jew.
The proponents of Zionism, for their own political and financial advantage, have transformed the Jewish religion into a race. Similarly, they have taken the Torah, a book of Divine law which teaches fairness, peace and piety, and transformed it into a vehicle for their political goals, a source for their claims to a piece of land.
Gary Demar once again adds
additional insight into the dangers of Rapturist/Zionistic thinking from
his article Why Some Dispensationalists are Like Evolutionists:
One of the biggest problems that even some dispensationalists take note of is the spiritual condition of Jews living in Israel since their return. Stanley A. Ellisen, who earned a Th.D. in Bible exposition from Dallas Theological Seminary, makes some significant points on this topic:
It remains to put the divine plumbline to the house of Israel claiming Palestine today. Has she met the biblical conditions for restoration?
To put it bluntly, she has no biblical right to the covenant land. She has never recognized the Messiah God sent, let alone mourned over his wounding. Though many in Israel admit to Jesus’ greatness as a Jewish teacher, they adamantly reject him as Messiah. They see him as but one of several prominent pseudo-messiahs.
Ellisen’s book includes an endorsement by John F. Walvoord who describes it as “must reading.”
If Israel’s entry into the land (Num. 13–14) and stay in the land were based on faithfulness to the covenant, and exile from the land was based on the rejection of covenant obligations, then how is it possible that the return to the land would not be based on the same standards?
The condition for returning to the land was a repentant heart and obedience to God’s commandments (Deut. 30), something that happened after Israel’s return from exile (see Ezra 9). To argue that the spiritual condition of modern-day Jews living in Israel is of little or no consequence and is somehow a fulfillment of Bible prophecy goes against what the Bible teaches.
Ellisen: "The State of Israel will allow nearly every deviation from Jewish orthodoxy in its policy of toleration and pluralism. Even Jewish atheists are welcomed as citizens—but not believers in Jesus.
Though the Law of Return of 1950 granted citizenship to anyone born Jewish, it was amended in 1970 to apply to anyone who is “born of a Jewish mother or has been converted and is not a member of another religion.”
(Note: That amendment has been clarified to state that..."The rights of a Jew under this Law and the rights of an oleh (one who returns) under the Nationality Law... are also vested in a child and a grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew". Missing in this update was any mention of conversion to Judaism.)
Ellisen concludes: "Judged on biblical grounds, the nation of Israel today does not pass divine muster. The promise of the land is directly tied to the nation’s response to Messiah.
God’s chosen people are those who enter into a covenant with Him through Jesus Christ—a covenant the Jewish people of old rejected nationally; but a covenant that is still offered to every Jewish person around the world and to everyone living in Israel today.
The kingdom that shall reign on earth when Christ returns is not restored Judaism, but a new spiritual race:
The kingdom that shall reign on earth when Christ returns is not restored Judaism, but a new spiritual race:
But you are a chosen race, A royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9).
And He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father-- to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.” ( Rev. 1:6).
And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth. (Rev. 5:9,10).
I highly recommend the ministry of Dr. Stephen Sizer, vicar of Christ
Church, Virginia Water, southwest of London. He has been in ministry
for over thirty years, and is a respected expert on
Israeli-Palestinian issues and Christian Zionism.
If you only read one book on Christian Zionism, I recommend Dr. Sizer's groundbreaking classic, Zion's Christian Soldiers? This link not only introduces the book, but features audio presentations from each chapter to acquaint you thoroughly with this important work.
A notable article by Dr. Sizer for a quick read is The Historical Origins of Christian Zionism. It documents what the Church believed about Christianity's relationship with Israel, when the shift toward dispensationalism began.
If you only read one book on Christian Zionism, I recommend Dr. Sizer's groundbreaking classic, Zion's Christian Soldiers? This link not only introduces the book, but features audio presentations from each chapter to acquaint you thoroughly with this important work.
A notable article by Dr. Sizer for a quick read is The Historical Origins of Christian Zionism. It documents what the Church believed about Christianity's relationship with Israel, when the shift toward dispensationalism began.
I also recommend the Challenging Christian Zionism site for a wealth of resources on the subject by noted Christians.
In our next post in this series, I will tell how the modern state of Israel came into being--a history very few American Christians know. I will also acquaint readers with their suffering brethren--the Palestinian Christians--and address misconceptions that are difficult to correct because of Zionist propaganda.
In our next post in this series, I will tell how the modern state of Israel came into being--a history very few American Christians know. I will also acquaint readers with their suffering brethren--the Palestinian Christians--and address misconceptions that are difficult to correct because of Zionist propaganda.