Christian Zionism

A so-called “Christian Zionist” is more than someone who sits in a church meeting and sings “We’re Marching To Zion.” 1 He/she strongly believes that all Christians are commanded to revere and pledge their allegiance to the nation Israel, and that doing so will bring them and their country untold  blessings, while failing to will result in cursing and national demise. The following statement typifies this belief:

Only one nation, Israel, stands between Soviet-sponsored terrorist aggression and the complete decline of the United States as a democratic world power… Surely demonic pressure will endeavour to encourage her to betray Israel. This must not happen. Israel is the key to America’s survival. For God has said of the nations who will oppose Israel, “Yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted… I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curseth thee…”(Isa.60:12; Gen. 12:3)… As we stand with Israel, I believe we shall see God perform a mighty work in our day. God is going to bless America and Israel as well.  It is not too late.  I believe this is the greatest hour to be alive, and the key is unity, standing tall, proclaiming with a voice of love our commitment to the House of Israel, and to the God of Israel.  (Mike Evans, Israel, America’s Key to Survival, Plainfield, New Jersey, Logos, 1980, p. 221) 

Unfortunately, non-dispensationalists, or amillenialists, tend to accuse all dispensationalists and millenarians of holding to the above belief.

I am here to say to them: not so fast, bro.  I am a dispensationalist, millenarian pre-trib rapturist, futurist, and in no way do I adhere to this belief about the modern nation Israel. I believe, as you do, that the government occupying that parcel of land on the Mediterranean Sea, which calls itself Israel, is not by any stretch of the imagination one and the same as the Israel prophesied of  in the old testament scriptures.   Therefore, no Gentile or Gentile nation is going to be prospered because they “bless” that nation, nor will they come under a curse and meet with destruction if they don’t.

Now, before all you “dispies” jump to the conclusion that I am a closet amillenialist, allow me to explain the difference between why I believe this as opposed to why the amillenialists believe it.

First, let’s identify the theology behind the amillenialist belief.  Amillenialists and  “reformed”  theologians teach, concerning prophetic Israel, what is referred to as “Supersessionism;” that is,  the church, first mentioned in Matthew 16:18 by the Lord Jesus in a statement made to his 12 disciples (according to them), replaced Israel as God’s chosen vessel, and is the “true” Israel of God. This is exemplified in the following quote from the early church father, Justin Martyr:

“For the true spiritual Israel … are we who have been led to God through this crucified Christ.” (Justin Martyr, Dialogue With Trypho 11, in Ante-Nicene Fathers)

Here’s an example of  the modern reformed Protestant position exemplifying the Christian church as “true Israel” :

“In the Reformed view, 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; rather, 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). (Venema, Cornelius; http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/the-church-and-israel-the-issue/)

Catholic theology also adheres to this belief, with the exception being that they claim the Catholic episcopate is “true” Israel, and look upon Protestants as “separated brethren”:

“Supersessionism is not the name of any official Roman Catholic doctrine and the word appears in no Church documents; however, the Catholic Church does officially teach that the Mosaic covenant was fulfilled and replaced by the New Covenant in Christ, and that the Catholic Church is the “New Israel” and the fulfillment of Old-Testament Judaism.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersessionism)

It must be said here that, while the supersessionist position replaces Israel with the church (i.e., the NT church is the Israel made reference to in the OT prophetic Scriptures) as God’s present chosen people, it is a replacement of national Israel, which still leaves a hope for individual Jews to be included in God’s family through the church.

I whole heartedly agree with the supersessionists 2 that anyone can be included in God’s family, including ethnic Jews, by believing and receiving the gospel of Christ (1 Cor. 15:1-4), and that there can be no national Israel presently in existence, re-gathered into the promised land,  that is recognized by God as most (but not all) dispensationalist theology teaches.  In other words, there is only the church program, not a “Jewish” program and a church program going on simultaneously, under two different sets of marching orders. 3

But this is where I diverge from the supersessionist model.

While I do agree that there is no Israel of God in existence presently, and therefore no individual or nation can be  blessed or cursed in accordance with the way they treat a government that refers to itself as Israel, I do believe that in a future dispensation called “the kingdom,” true Israel will be placed in promised land–but not NOW. This cannot take place until God’s present chosen vessel, “the body of Christ” (1 Cor. 12:13,27, et. al.), is removed from this earth in the event of 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, often referred to in the Evangelical community as “the rapture.”

I do not believe, as supercessionism claim,  the Christian Church is actually the Israel referred to in  OT prophecies, e.g. Jeremiah 31:31-34:

“Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:

33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Nor do I believe, as replacement theology teaches, that Jesus’ reference to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” in Matthew 15:24, was actually speaking of the body of Christ.

And finally, I do not believe that Peter is speaking of the church, the body of Christ, when he refers to those he is writing as: “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” (1 Peter 2:9)

To summarize, the reasons I do not believe the church replaced Israel are:

• The body of Christ is not revealed in the prophetic Scriptures. The body of Christ, which is comprised of people who have trusted Christ as their Savior, regardless of their ethnicity, is part of what the apostle Paul referred to as “the mystery,” which he said was “not made known unto the sons of men..hid from ages and from generations….” (Romans 16:25; Col 1:26) until he revealed it.  In other words, the body of Christ, chosen from “before the foundation of the world,” (Eph. 1:4) was something entirely apart from, and–other than possessing the same Savior–unattached to Israel and Israel’s promises, and thus could not have been revealed before Paul revealed it, meaning it couldn’t have been revealed by the Lord in the four gospels.
• The body of Christ is not, as Scripture says of Israel,  a royal priesthood, a nation,  a government, or a race; it is an invisible, spiritual organism. 

Having said this, I believe new covenant Israel–“true Israel”–has a future place in God’s  plan for the ages. Where I split the sheets with classic dispensationalists, most of whom would qualify as so-called “Christian Zionists,”  is in their contention that prophecy concerning Israel is presently being fufilled in what has been transpiring in the holy land and Palestine since 1948 with the re-repatriation of some of that original land grant (go here to view a map of this) by mostly European Jews, and the institution of a government called Israel.  In the first place, prophecy says when God puts them back there, “Jerusalem will be safely inhabited…and… The Gentile nations will be their servants (Ref. Zech. 14:11; Isaiah 60:3,10,11,12)  Moreover, It says that “in that day….nations…. shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Isa 2:4)

When have any of these conditions existed  in the holy land since 1948? In fact, just the opposite of this has been the case, as there has been almost constant turmoil, and one war after another between Israel and its Arab enemies.  No doubt, the Israelis have acquired the land that the Palestinian Arabs had existed on for 1400 years, and most of their possessions, but it was taken by brute force, not by their adversaries bringing it to them, and laying it at their feet as the prophecy says will happen.  Furthermore, what they now possess isn’t even close to what the Biblical land grant possession, which says: “…from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be.”  (Gen. 15:18; Deut 11:24)

The church the body of Christ is not the new covenant church, because the new covenant was never instituted.  It was offered to Israel, but Israel rejected it, so it could not have been instituted. What was instituted, by Paul, is “the dispensation of the grace of God” (Eph. 3:2), wherein God is offering salvation by grace to any and all who will believe and trust in the gospel of Christ.  (1 Cor. 15:1-4)

This is what has been going on for the last 2000 years.  The new covenant is about the Lord’s presence on earth, and rule/judgment over the earth; the dispensation of grace is about his absence from earth, and withholding of judgment of the earth. The new covenant belongs to Israel, but it cannot be instituted until the present dispensation ends, and the Lord returns to earth and re-gathers “true” Israel into the land of the Abrahamic promise, which is plainly spelled out in the following prophecy of Isaiah:

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, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.12 And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.  (Is. 11:11,12)

Conclusion

A final word about the “blessing and cursing” protocol of Genesis 12:

The Jewish publication, HAARETZ, says the U.S. government has given the modern nation Israel over the last six decades an estimated $234 billion and they continue to be our number one foreign aid recipient, garnering an annual stipend of  $4 billion.  Moreover, in all 14  (now 15, with the current Palestinian conflict) of the wars they’ve waged with their Arab enemies, we, i.e., our government, have never taken the Arab side. If that isn’t “blessing Israel,” then I don’t know what would be.  Had it not been for our financial/military aid that government would have vanished a long time ago.

So, is America receiving the abundance of blessings the writer of the opening quote in this article (written in 1980) claimed we’d receive as a result of us blessing them?

Hardly.

Since that time America has gone from being the greatest creditor nation in the world, and the most prosperous economically, to being the greatest debtor nation in the world that now ranks,  according to the Index of Economic Freedom,  25th in the world in economic freedom.  Furthermore, Over half the U.S. population is presently on some sort of government subsistence, and the middle class, the backbone of all free societies, has done nothing but lose economic ground over the past 40 years. Judging from these hard statistics, America has received the exact opposite of a blessing from the abundant “blessings” we’ve bestowed upon Israel.

For further reading on the topics raised in this article, see:

The Mystery; What Price Israel?;  Israel: Where does she stand in the Dispensation of Grace?; Is the Body of Christ one and the same as the New Covenant Church?; God Bless America;

Please feel free to distribute this article as you see fit.

All Scripture references are taken from the King James Bible

Post Script:

Are you saved? Jesus Christ—“who knew no sin”—and his sacrificial death on the Cross, has made the way for “everyone that believeth”…to be reconciled to God.  History has shown that whatever peace man has achieved in the world can only be temporary.  The Bible says that individual men and women can know, beyond a doubt, that they are saved and bound for heaven, and therefore have absolute and permanent peace, regardless of what is going on in the world, by trusting Jesus Christ and his death on the cross for their eternal salvation.  “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures….for our justification….believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” (1 Cor. 15:3,4; Rom. 4:25; Acts 16:31)   Have you done this? If not, why not now?

Notes:

1 The word “Zion” appears 152 time in the King James Bible. In every OT application it is referring to Israel’s holy city (Jerusalem), “the hill of Jerusalem” (Is 10:37), aka, “the city of David” (2 Samuel 5:7), “the city of God” (Is 60:14). In the NT, where it is rendered Sion, it is “the city of the Redeemed”(Heb 12:22; Rev. 14:1), which would be referring to the “new Jerusalem” that descends from heaven to earth in Revelation chapters 3 and 21.

The ADL defines modern Zionism as:

“The movement for the self-determination and statehood for the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel…..What is known as modern Zionism emerged in the mid-19th century in tandem with the rise of the nation-state and widespread national liberation movements across Europe. In the case of the Jews, it was also in response to a long history of intense anti-Jewish hatred, persecution, and discrimination in countries and societies across the world where Jews lived, including in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Its advocates believed that a modern Jewish state would provide Jews with a safe haven from the bigotry and endangerment they suffered perennially as a minority culture among non-Jewish majority cultures, and ensure that Jews have the same right to nationhood and self-determination as any other people, along with the same protections that are typically afforded to other nations.  Zionism was also a cultural and national renaissance movement which sought to enable the Jewish people to revive their language, Hebrew, and reestablish self-determination over their traditions, culture, religion and education.” (https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/zionism)

2 With the exception of the Calvinist doctrines of divine election and limited atonement.  For further discussion of this issue, read the article archived on this site: Does God choose us, or do we choose Him?

3 There is a Pentecostal preacher named John Hagee, who teaches a heretical doctrine that asserts a dual path to salvation: one path for Jews, through the law; the other for Gentiles, by the gospel. I have actually heard this man instruct his congregation not to testify the gospel to Jews because they can’t be saved into the body of Christ.  In his latest heresy, he makes the claim that Jesus Christ was not Israel’s Messiah. BTW: Hagee is probably the foremost Christian Zionist in America who, in 1999, founded  CUFI, (Christians United for Israel)