..the Israel of God, with no allegiance to, ahem, Israel.
There are times when I don’t know whether to keep my mouth shut for unity’s sake, or to speak up for what’s right.
This past week, a real-life Christian friend, Brian, wrote on Facebook a long note that angered me. Since Facebook is a walled garden, I can’t link to it here, you can’t see it; I’ll post the gist of it here.
His note dealt with at least 3 things:
- That Christians ought not to support the state of Israel.
- That the Church is the New Israel.
- Jews are no different than gentiles in the New Testament era.
Well, I spoke up. Especially about the 2nd one. Was I right to?
Here’s some snippets of what my Christian friend said,
Does the Christian church have a political obligation to support the present day nation of Israel? In yesterday's message our pastor highlighted this as a definite necessity among other vital Biblical issues worth standing up for. I find it difficult to find New Testament warrant for this & my first thought is that Christ and His disciples had little if any stake in the political intrigues of Israel under the Romans, with the notable exception of Simon the Zealot - who is given no endorsement as such, but simply seems to have this as a qualifier to his name.
It’s a fair question. We’ll deal with this shortly. My friend then quoted from a Reformation Bible study,
The church exists in and through Jesus Christ, and so is a distinctive New Testament reality. At the same time it is continuous with Israel, the seed of Abraham and God’s covenant people. The new covenant under which the church lives is a new form of the relationship in which God says to His chosen community, “I will be your God and you shall be my people” Under the new covenant, the Old Testament priests, sacrifices, and sanctuary have been superseded by the mediation of Jesus (Heb. 1-10). Believers in Christ are the seed of Abraham and the people of God. Second, the limitation of the old covenant to one nation (Deut. 7:6; Ps. 147:19,20) is replaced by the inclusion in Christ on equal terms of believers from every nation. Third, the Spirit is poured out on the church, so that fellowship with Christ (1 John 1:3), ministry from Christ (John 14:18; Eph. 2:17) and foretastes of heaven (2 Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:14) become realities in the experience of the church.
The unbelief of most Jews (Rom. 9-11) and the majority of Gentiles in the church is depicted by Paul as God’s breaking off the natural branches of His olive tree (the historical covenant community) and replacing them with wild olive shoots. The new covenant does not exclude Jews, and Paul taught that their general rejection of it will one day be reversed. The New Testament teaches that the church is the fulfillment of the Old Testament hopes and patterns, brought about by Jesus Christ. The church is the family and flock of God, His Israel (Gal. 6:16), the body and bride of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Oiy!
My Christian friend ended by saying,
So, here is my thesis: The Church, as the true Israel of God, owes no political allegiance to any nation, regardless of Biblical prophecy about a restoration of the Jewish state.
I cringed at “The Church, as the true Israel of God”. I nearly got up in my chair and started yelling at the computer screen when I read, “The Church is … God’s Israel”, knowing full well this kind of replacement theology has contributed to 2000 years of persecution of Jews at the hands of the Christian Church.
Various commenters chimed in:
“I agree, there is no evidence from the Bible that warrants a political obligation to Israel!”
“I just don't think that we need to involve ourselves in political support when we have a clear mandate from Scripture to offer them the gospel.”
It made me want to type a furious reply that would show these horribly misguided Christians just how foolish these ideas are. I wanted to grab these people, shake them by the shoulders and say, “Do you read your freakin’ Bible?! Wake up!”
Fortunately, I cooled down. I wrote a soft reply.
Be careful with this, Brian. It sounds awfully like replacement theology -- the belief that Christians have replaced Jews as God's people. This evil theology has caused Christians to persecute Jews over the last 2000 years.
We sparred back and forth between almost 70 comments until finally links to anti-Zionist, Holocaust-questioning Christian websites were pasted in, at which time, Godwin’s Law was invoked, and the debate ended.
I’m sad it ended that way.
However, I did my best to avoid personal attacks and name-calling. I was careful to use the Scriptures to rebuke replacement theology without attacking personally its espousers. In the end, I felt the other side was discouraged by all this, which was not my intention. At the same time, I believe Christians who read the thread will think twice before accepting Church doctrines like, “The Church is the New Israel”. So maybe some good came of this.
Dear blog readers, I am trying to keep blog posts shorter and more readable. Everybody loves bite-size minis, right? So I’m scheduling a new post for Thursday that addresses the 3 points of Brian’s posts.
Until then, what do you fine blog readers think? Is the Church the New Israel? And should Christians support the modern state of Israel?