The Church’s Idolatry of Israel’s False Zionism
American Christians can’t seem to be honest mediators between Israel and the Palestinians because of two false concepts of Zionism they struggle under.
It’s time the Church world start looking upon “Christian Zionism” to be the heresy it is. The stance of so many American Evangelicals especially towards Israel, is exceptionally confusing to the whole world, very damaging to our witness, and emboldens Israel to act with impunity.
It is in fact, a contradiction in terms, a self-inflicted wound. If the Bible teaches any kind of Zionism, it’s that we the Church are part of a heavenly Zion of God (Heb 12:22). The Zionism unbelieving Jews are pursuing at present is one that is earthly, centered in Jerusalem (Gal 4:24,25; James 3:14,15), and involves a literal return to a hotly-contested land.
It is no surprise then, the carnal struggle they are locked into with the Arabs, who consider Jerusalem to be a holy city to the Muslim faith, if not two others (Christianity and Judaism), depending on who you ask. They are alarmed and incensed that the plan seems to be to conquer a large part of the region, from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates River no less, per God’s promise to Abram (Gen 15:18), a common assumption in the Middle East. But how is this supposed to be accomplished righteously?
For us to take bitterly partisan (i.e., pro-Zionist) sides in such a matter is a form of false witness, sort of akin to the early Hebrew Christians who kept sacrificing animals in the Temple. In so doing, they were bearing false witness to the work of Jesus Christ Who rendered all those rituals null and void (Dan 9:27; Heb 10:8-10). So likewise, whenever Church people give a blank check, literally and figuratively to Israel, we are bearing a false witness as to who the true people of God are at this time (Rom 11:25,26). It also fosters for the Israelis the false hope that all this is not going to end in disaster for them (Joel 2:1-11; Zech 14:2, etc).
This is not to say that the fate of earthly Jerusalem and the Jewish people are irrelevant to the Second Coming of Christ and His future reign over the earth (Rom 11:23). Indeed, He will be sitting on the throne of David in Jerusalem for a thousand years (Isa 9:7; Jer 23:5). But obviously we’re not there yet, and in the meantime, there is only one Door to salvation for Jew or Gentile (Jn 14:6). This is the argument we should be making.
Some Thick Theology Here
He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears.
-Proverbs 26:17
I get about as much pleasure in taking on the question of Israel, Judaism and related subjects as this proverb puts it regarding dogs. And I’m sure just about every other person in the world who does so because it’s their job—political, academic, religious, journalistic or whatever—feels the same way.
But alas, it is my “job” to do so too, (my calling to be more specific), since the prophecies of the end times are my focus. Of all the subjects covered in the Bible, I simply cannot find anything more consequential in this hour, nor timely than this one.
I know that Israel couldn’t care less about my religious beliefs about this, however. They quite frankly don’t believe in the prophecies anyhow, much less the catastrophe ahead for them called Armageddon. All they really care about is the political support millions of American Christians provide for them, and on this level they might be surprised by “where I’m coming from.”
My political stance on Israel is pretty much that of every US Democratic President from Jimmy Carter on—that the US should position itself as an honest and unbiased mediator between these two warring parties. In doing so, Democrats have ironically been closer to the role Jesus called His people to be—peacemakers (Mt 5:9) in the spirit of the Prince of Peace (Isa 9:6)—than the ultra-religious and highly partisan Republicans who, with Trump now, are just giving it all away to the Israelis.
So no, I don’t want to see the Jews “driven into the sea,” nor “sent back to Europe” or whatever. I am not “anti-Semitic”; in fact, I probably admire Jews on the whole more than any other ethnic group. Neither do I disregard the prophecies that God is the one behind their return to the land, nor how this all eventuates in the Second Coming. But if we don’t understand why He’s allowing this, we won’t be able to cooperate with Him in it.
As a Christian, I feel the obligation to advocate for what is just and right as it’s in front of me. I have no right to presume upon the future, nor to “help God out.” And I can’t condone where this is all heading—the complete eradication of the Palestinians as a people, or their expulsion from the land altogether.
Obviously, Jesus Christ would not restore Israel this way. Now that the two-state solution is more or less dead, it’s obvious what Israel has in mind regarding a “one state solution,” explaining why the world has erupted into a volcano of “anti-Semitism” this time. If Israel idolaters don’t understand, it’s because they don’t want to understand.
Almost All Problems Start With Doctrinal Confusion
Obviously, partisans in this last days “controversy of Zion” (Isa 34:8) get worked up to the point of death, destruction and passions, but I keep wondering, why do Christians feel so obligated to take one side or the other? I think the answer is that we’re operating under two false concepts of Zionism—Jewish Zionism and Christian Zionism. But there is a third way here, the Biblical concept of Zionism.
Now, there’s a lot of thick theology to get through here, not because it’s so esoteric, but because there’s something of a vague and minor concept involved. I have been racking my brains out trying to come up with a systematic way to untangle a lot of overlapping thoughts, to make this as simple as possible. I’m not sure how good a job I’ll do, but I’ll try.
It is also worth it, because it’s a part of a very important problem in our day, and that’s the Church clearly defining who we are. If we don’t know who we are, we are condemned to keep getting brow-beaten by the deluded premises behind Jewish Zionism or any other carnal agenda.
So, What Is Biblical Zionism?
Maybe we could start with a truly Biblical doctrine of Zionism. Understanding the genuine is often the best way to detect a counterfeit.
There really isn’t a doctrine of Zionism per se in the New Testament, or at least a prominent one from what I can see, but the word does originate in the Old Testament. Zion was literally a Jebusite fortress that David conquered when he took Jerusalem around 1000 BC (II Sam 5:7).
It came to have a figurative meaning to him though, in his songs. Zion reminded him of God Himself Who was his fortress and deliverer, his high tower and refuge (Psa 18:2; 144:2). It also became a euphemism for the mountain it was built upon (Psa 125:1), for Jerusalem (Psa 135:21), the land of Judah (Psa 69:35), the tribe of Judah (Psa 78:68), God’s people as a whole (Psa 74:2), etc. In other words, a pretty broad term.
In the New Testament it carries the idea of the redeemed of God (I Pet 2:6) and the heavenly Kingdom (Heb 12:22). In other words, we are the Zion of God on the earth, a heavenly people, a royal priesthood, a holy global “nation” without borders (I Pet 2:9). And like Abraham, we are strangers and pilgrims on the earth (Heb 11:13,16).
It’s the same kind of language Paul used in Galatians 4 when he said the Church, both Jews and Gentiles, pertain to the “Jerusalem which is above [and] is free, which is the mother of us all” (Gal 4:26). We are not of the Old Covenant, the “Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children,” which pertaineth to Mt. Sinai and Hagar. Hagar was Sarah’s Egyptian bondwoman through whom Sarai and Abram tried to fulfill the promise of a son (Gen 21:12). Her child was Ishmael, the progenitor of the Arabs no less (Gal 4:24,25)![i]
The Jews who didn’t believe, Paul likens to broken off branches (Rom 11:19), fit to be burned, a great warning to us all (Jn 15:6; Rom 11:20,21). They are just like so many other generations of Israelites who “fell in the wilderness” (Heb 3:17), or went astray (Jer 44:17). It’s not that God’s completely forsaken them as a people; they will be restored as a much-reduced nation at the Second Coming (Rom 11:23), when Jesus Christ returns at a critical point during the Battle of Jerusalem (Zech 12:8). At that point they will be forced to recognize Him, because they will see His nail-pierced hands and feet (vs. 10).
For now, most of their individual members abide in unbelief, but here’s an important point. What Paul means in Romans 11:26 when he says, “And so all Israel shall be saved,” is that when all the Gentile believers are grafted in as wild olive branches, they along with the believing Jews will be the completion of God’s Israel.
In other words. The Church hasn’t replaced Israel; the Church is Israel! The Church is faithful or spiritual Israel, as opposed to Israel in the flesh, an identity Paul put no confidence in, though he could have (Phil 3:3-7).
It’s important to see the Church as a Jewish institution therefore (even though it isn’t really an institution). The Jews (the Hebrew people actually), are the natural branches or “the lump” (the root—Rom 11:16). Just because there are a lot more Gentiles in the world than Jews doesn’t mean the Church is “a Gentile institution” (as the rabbis see it).
The real Church is likened to a heavenly body with many members (I Cor 12), known ultimately only to God (Gal 4:9). The earthly congregations of believers are an imperfect, secondary form of the Church (Rev 3:4 e.g.), among whom are nominal, “never-saved” (unsaved) members (Mt 13:24,25; Rev 3:1,4 e.g.), and those who were converted but eventually fell away (Jude 1:12, II Pet 2:21,22; II Thess 2:3, etc).
We are the true, the faithful and spiritual Israel of God at the moment. We are the ones who are “now the people of God” (I Pet 2:10), “living stones” (I Pet 2:5), building up the true “temple of the living God” that God now dwells in (II Cor 6:16). If you look upon Israel first and foremost in this spiritual way, you will be better positioned to define terms and pulldown strongholds of the mind (II Cor 10:4,5) when encountering endless Israeli demands for unconditional support.
The Meaning of Chosen
One last point. For the same reason, Israel “according to the flesh” is no longer “God’s Chosen people;” the Church is. The concept the rabbinic movement latched onto though, is that “chosen” has to do with connotations of entitlement and privilege, attitudes that come through in their double standard treatment of Palestinians.
But this is wrong. Chosen has to do with concepts like excellence and inspiration. God originally chose Israel that they might be a “light to the nations,” not entitled by birth or blood, a mission that many non-Zionist Jewish groups still (correctly) subscribe to.[ii]
“Chosen” is actually a pottery term in the Bible. When a potter made an exceptional work, he would say, “this is my choicest (best) vessel, my chosen vessel,” and display it outside his shop, much like a swank department store will have display windows out on the street. Today, the Church has inherited that mantle, but it’s impossible to be worthy of as long as she subscribes to the next doctrine.
What Is Christian Zionism?
Christian Zionism has a valid understanding of the prophecies God made about bringing the Jews back to the land, but its response is subservience to their idea of Zionism. Hence, what was said about knowing who we are.
It is part of a much broader problem in the Church world—ignorance of the sound doctrine that alone can “both save thyself, and them that hear thee” (I Tim 4:16). The undervaluing of sound doctrine is a foundational problem of the faith today (Psa 11:3), one that includes centuries-long controversies that have never been resolved, in my opinion. Christian Zionism is of course one that’s more recent, but very relevant to the present confusion we’re living in.
I would define Christian Zionism as the belief that the rebirth of the state of Israel in 1948 is the fulfillment of a number of Old Testament prophecies about a second re-gathering to the land, the first being the return of the Jews from the 70-year Babylonian Captivity around 539 BC. It is for all practical purposes, whole-hearted support by Christians for Israel’s claim that they are entitled to a homeland of their own, and to justify the completion of that project by any means necessary.
One of the most direct proof texts of this conviction is found in Isaiah 11:
“And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people…from the four corners of the earth” (Isa 11:11-12; Eze 37:22, 24; 38:8; Dan 11:45-12:1; Zeph 3:20; Zech 12:9-10; 14:2, etc).[iii]
The re-birth of the nation of Israel in 1948 partly explains why so many Christians are convinced we are at the “end of the age” and living close to the Second Coming of Christ, because they believe this is that second re-gathering. They thus have (an often-vague) understanding of an “apocalyptic interpretation” of the times we’re living in (even as they struggle with an open-ended Dominionism theory competing with it). Thus, they assume they must give their whole-hearted support to the Zionist project, no matter how bloody it gets.
I too have interpreted the Isaiah verse this way, and assumed that the Lord “being behind” this thing must have been in the sense of, “He’s allowing it to happen.” Nothing has changed about why they were cast out in the first place (Luke 19:42-44), and I assumed (and still do) that He is allowing this to happen in order to expose to the world the true nature of the fundamentalist Judaism mindset.
But I noticed something recently, that Isa 11:11-12 is right in the middle of a chapter completely devoted to describing conditions surrounding the Millennial Reign of the Messiah. So is this second re-gathering yet future, after the return of Christ, and has been misinterpreted both by Zionist Jews and Christian Zionists?
It does makes some sense, in that one of the perennial complaints of Israelis is that the vast majority of Jews don’t want to return to the land, that they “won’t walk the talk.” And why would they, given the chaos and controversy (Isa 34:8) the Zionists have introduced into the world? But in the days of the Messiah, when Israeli citizenship will be an honor among human beings, then there will be a much more willing return of the masses of the Jews to the land.
This would suggest this current Zionist project is a “jumping of the gun.” At the very least, it has proven to be a bloody disaster for everyone, and why there is so much confusion swirling around this phenomenon. This is why I call this a partial heresy. These prophecies and their fulfillment are real and valid. But what Christian Zionism is most known for is a support for Israel that approaches near-idolatry.
What is missing here are the purposes of God that so many churches, especially those steeped in Dispensationalism,[iv] don’t understand. Returning to the land is not a reward for centuries of suffering and persecution as so many Jews assume, but a way of exposing to the world the ways of the Pharisees, the nearest thing to a nemesis that Jesus had (Mt 23), and to purge them out of His ancient people (Eze 20:33-38).
I find it interesting that when you drill down into the details of these prophecies, you find that some of the Israelis will be spared and Christ will even rally a remnant to fight back against the Armageddon invaders (Zech 13:8,9; 14:2,3, etc). Although I am completely speculating here, I wouldn’t be surprised if the ones getting purged will be the most religious (Zech 13:3-5), while the secular Israelis (who traditionally have done most of the fighting anyhow), will be delivered.
Yet have Christian Zionists sent millions of dollars to the settlers, more by far than Jews around the world have! I guess they figure since they’re religious, they must be closer to Israel’s religious too, yet the latter are the hardest of the hard core Pharisees! This is Christian Zionism in action, not just a waste of time, but downright reckless and a convoluted false witness.
Likewise, the motives are just as bad. Since most are Dispensationalists, they think they’re going to be “Raptured out” before all the bad stuff starts. The Israelis know this, but they don’t share the same faith in the prophecies anyhow. But boy, do they ever appreciate all that political support! This “I use you/you use me” relationship is not a real friendship, any more than the Americans’ friendship with them. Real friends do intervention.
Jewish Zionism
Jewish Zionism arose in the late 19th Century, largely spearheaded by Theodore Herzl. Herzl became convinced anti-Semitism in Europe was getting so out of control that the Jewish people needed a state of their own in order to be safe. This was [v] The Jews’ collective experience with the Nazis greatly reinforced this, even though to some degree they were manipulated into it by their own leaders. Yet today, two thirds of all Jews choose to live outside the nation of Israel, and arguably are much safer where they are.
Most of the early Jewish immigrants were secular, even Marxist, with roots in the old Soviet Union. But religious Jews, Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox came too, and over time started to dominate the state demographically with large families. They are the most zealous of the settlers and abusive of the increasingly-surrounded and dispossessed Palestinians.
These religious Jews are direct spiritual descendants of the Pharisees, the group that despised Christ the most for His daring to take their exclusive covenant and share it with the Gentiles (Lu 4:26-28; Acts 22:21-23). Israel claims the land is theirs, simply based on the assertion that God gave it to them. It’s a dogmatic claim but very reflective of a famous axiom in Talmudic thought, “God gave the covenant to us, and not to them (the Gentiles).”
The Muslims of course make the same claim from Allah as they see it, so it’s not an acceptable apologetic to them. The claims that “Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jews” is dependent on Divine approval, which comes with the coming of the Messianic appearing.
Now, while the history of Israel from 1948 to 1967 can get lost in a “fog of war” and competing narratives of “who started this fight,” the story has been much clearer since then. Since the Six Day War of 1967, the Israeli government has planned and evolved a settlement program designed to surround, choke off and expropriate Palestinian-owned land in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.[vi]
This is why Israel is so often charged with apartheid, because her plan is almost identical to the system once had by South Africa. The difference is not that the apartheid charge is too harsh, it’s much worse than that. At least South Africa limited it to keeping the races separate. Israel’s doing it to steal the rest of the Palestinians’ land and property, and that through a campaign of humiliation, manipulation and demoralization no less.
This has thrown the “Holy Land” controversy into a moral dilemma on so many levels as to leave the head spinning. Most of the world would prefer to turn a blind eye to its complications, an effect the Israelis may very well have intended. Christians for the most part deal with it with a lazy, “Well, God said He’d bring them back to the land, so just let them take it.” Thus they end up parroting Israeli talking points and justifying what the rest of the world sees as clearly unjustifiable. This is Christian Zionism, in all its pathetic and ineffectual witness.
This prejudicial bias, this abdicating of our moral responsibility to the Palestinian people, 10% of whom are ethnic Christians themselves, is a betrayal of this hapless people. With each passing year, the treatment of the powerless Palestinians just keeps getting worse. Certainly, it is no way Jesus Christ would restore the country.
No Right To The Land
Israel is claiming lately that “Jerusalem is our eternal capital for 3000 years now,” which is not true. First of all, they didn’t have it for 2000 of those years, and two, God warned them in the Law of Moses that He would dispossess them too if they rebelled and kept not His covenant.
Which of course He made good on a number of times, something today’s Israelis love to ignore. In fact, it’s the most recent expulsion that gives the lie to their claim to the land.
Just before they killed Jesus, He prophesied that they were going to lose their land and the temple, precisely because they rejected Him as their Messiah. In fact again, He gave them an amazing prophecy, that not one stone of the Temple would be left upon another. This is exactly what happened forty years later in 70 AD, forty being a number of judgment in the Bible.[vii] The Romans burned the Temple so hot that all the gold inside melted and fell between the huge stones it was built on. To loot the gold, they had to dismantle it stone by stone.
And how did the rabbis and their Pharisee lay followers respond to such a prediction when it came to pass? Did they beat their breasts in lamentation, realizing He was the Messiah? No, in fact they told themselves and the people that this disaster befell them because the Jews did not obey them enough!
Thus did the Pharisees inherit the Jews who did not believe, led many of them back to Babylon, the land of bondage, to perfect their yeshiva system.[viii] One thing they carried with them is this belief that they lost everything because of the Romans, and the people’s failure to fully listen to them.
This is why they see their successful return to the land as something of a reward from God for centuries of suffering persecution, scattered among the nations. We Christians know though, or are supposed to know at least, the real reason—their rejection of Christ. And in fact, nothing has changed about that. If anything, their calumniation of Jesus Christ, especially in their religious writings, has only gotten worse.
None of This Without Evangelical Support
“They batter down the doors of the White House as soon as its support for Israel wavers: when Bush asked Ariel Sharon to pull his tanks out of Jenin in 2002, he received 100,000 angry emails from Christian fundamentalists, and never mentioned the matter again.”
-“The U.S. Government’s Agenda: Christ’s Second Coming?” by Wes Penre[ix]
Since it is doubtful any of this would be happening without US Evangelical enablement, we have a lot of blood on our hands too. To be sure, God is using all this bad judgment to squeeze out of Israel all He’s been complaining about for 2000 years to “purge the rebels” out from their midst.
Yet the power of the Israel Lobby sitting in our Congress, the opening up of Zionist propaganda through our media (Fox News, right-wing radio), the general shift to the right since the rise of the Likudniks in 1977 and so much more, has been made possible by a misguided carte blanche towards this misguided project in the Middle East. Hopefully a better-informed remnant (Rev 7:4) will give a better witness, attended by miracles from God (Jn 14:12), to bring in a great harvest (Rev 7:9) in the midst of all this end times confusion and carnage.
Notes:
[i] These two warring tribes, the Jews and the Arabs are not even cousins; they are half-brothers! They are literally “brothers by another mother” (Gen 16). No wonder there’s so much rivalry here.
[ii] I think it is really wrong for Israel and Zionists to keep positioning themselves as the sole representative of the Jewish people. All over the world lately there’s a big debate going on in their community over, “What is Jewishness?” It’s a legitimate question because the Jewish people are all over the political and religious spectrum. They deserve the right to decide for themselves who speaks for them, just like anyone else.
[iii] The inability to distinguish between prophecies regarding one return vs. the other have been the source of much confusion within Bible prophecy circles as well.
[iv] Dispensationalism is a theology that only arose after about 1830, and mostly as scaffolding to support a pre-Trib Rapture. It teaches that God rules humanity throughout history according to different “dispensations” or eras of salvation, and that He has two peoples—the Church and Israel. Thus, we are now in “the age of grace” until the Rapture, then the world will be on “Jewish time,” as treatment of Israel becomes the new standard the world will be measured by.
It’s a completely misguided concept. God has one redeemed people and one standard throughout all history for salvation, the Covenant of Grace, though revealed progressively over time (e.g., Acts 18:25-26). Since the First Advent, Jesus Christ has been the Door to the Kingdom. Jews who don’t believe are merely broken off branches, even though the nation as a whole has not been forsaken by God (Rom 11).
[v] Herzl himself as a journalist covering the “Dreyfus Affair” became convinced that Anti-Semitism was irredeemable, and that the Jews needed a homeland of their own for protection. Yet, Captain Dreyfus was exonerated of charges he was a German spy, guilty of “divided loyalty,” etc. You could argue then that Herzl was over-reacting and mis-reading the trends of the time, even though anti-Semitism was a real thing, largely due to the behavior of the notorious Rothschild family and other Jewish bankers, who were suspected of manipulating nations into wars and situations designed to enrich these circles. Hitler later blaming all the Jews for this played right into the Zionists’ argument.
[vi] When they aren’t busy doing that, they orchestrate molehills into mountains as an excuse to bomb the tar out of Gaza.
[vii] It is said that when the Romans burned their Temple, the flames were so great that it melted all the gold in the building, which fell between the huge stones it was made from. In order to loot all that gold, the Romans dismantled every one of them to get to it.
[viii] This is why the Babylonian Talmud is considered more authoritative than the Jerusalem one.
[ix] http://www.illuminati-news.com/christ%27s-second-coming.htm It should be noted why Bush got “100,000 angry emails.” It sure wasn’t some sort of spontaneous response, but the result of coordinated lobbying efforts by Zionist ministries, some of which are directly or de facto controlled by Israel itself.
