ISRAEL AND CONTEMPORARY EXAMPLES
OF CHRISTIAN ANTI-JUDAISM IN THE UK

Introduction

In 1983 an Anglican clergyman and scholar named Colin Chapman published a book titled Whose Promised Land? in which he vigorously assailed biblical associations with the modern State of Israel. He also clearly asserted that pro-Judaic supporters, today in being pejoratively labeled as Christian Zionists, were unsympathetic to the injustice allegedly inflicted on the Palestinian cause by Israel. Though in constantly beating a drum in his cry for justice for the Palestinians, any similarly impassioned demand for justice with regard to centuries of inhumanity suffered by the Jews was merely referenced at a token level. The bias of the author was plain to read. For instance:

I do have problems with the original vision of many Zionists to establish a Jewish homeland or a state in Palestine which would be exclusively or near-exclusively Jewish. ...I feel bound to conclude that the promise of the land to Abraham and his descendants “as an everlasting possession” does not give the Jews a divine right to possess the land for all time. ...I don't believe that the State of Israel is “of God” in the sense that it is the fulfillment (or even a preliminary stage in the fulfillment) of all that God promised and predicted in the Old Testament about the future of the land and its people. ...I would go further and suggest that for Christians to interpret these events simply as the fulfillment of prophecy represents a kind of regression. ...Could it be that God is challenging the whole Jewish people to think again about their destiny as a people? What is the whole enterprise of settling Jews in the land and setting up a Jewish state doing to the soul of Judaism? Did God really intend that they should be “a peculiar people” for ever and ever? Is there no alternative to the choice between traditional orthodox Judaism, assimilation and Zionism? Is there no other way by which the Jews can live securely among the nations without ceasing to be Jews?¹

There is a chilling inference in the concluding three sentences here, in spite of the author's unconvincing protestation that he is not anti-Judaic. Moreover, the book remains essentially unchanged in its anti-Judaic style after four editions (the most recent in 2002). Incomprehensibly, the latest edition even incorporates in Appendix 3, without the slightest critical comment, “The Covenant of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement,” which includes the following:

Hamas is for Muslims who favor Jihad. ...Hamas aims for every inch of Palestine. ...No part of it should be given up. ...Hamas is opposed to initiatives, peaceful solutions and international conferences. Jihad is the only solution. ...Enemy (i.e. Jews) responsible for the French Revolution, the Communist Revolution, etc. Allies of enemy: Freemasons, Rotary, Capitalist West, Communist East. Enemy caused the First and Second World Wars, etc. ...Arab and Islamic countries should assist the anti-Zionist struggle.²

It seems unjust that Israel's Proclamation of Independence of May 14, 1948, was also not included:

The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and national identity was formed. Here they achieved independence and created a culture of national and universal significance. Here they wrote and gave the Bible to the world.

Exiled from the Land of Israel the Jewish people remained faithful to it in all the countries of their dispersion, never ceasing to pray and hope for their return and the restoration of their national freedom.

Impelled by this historic association, Jews strove throughout the centuries to go back to the land of their fathers and regain their statehood. In recent decades they returned in their masses. They reclaimed the wilderness, revived their language, built cities and villages, and established a vigorous and ever-growing community, with its own economic and cultural life. They sought peace, yet were prepared to defend themselves. They brought the blessings of progress to all inhabitants of the country and looked forward to sovereign independence.³

Chapman's tilt continues when he suggests that Israel may have fomented the formation of hard line terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the result being that “distrust and despair have driven them to violence.” Is there not here a degree of justification for the savagery of indiscriminate suicidal bombings that even employs children? The inference is that understanding of such terrorist groups is needed rather than a military response.⁴

In the whole of Chapman's most recent edition, particularly with regard to his sources, it is obvious that a doctrinal camaraderie has developed over the last twenty years among a number of Anglican scholars in England who reciprocate in their essential support of a supercessionist, if not theological, anti-Judaic agenda. Particularly prominent in Chapman's work are N. T. Wright (the most well-known, now Bishop of Durham and formerly Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey), Stephen Sizer, Steve Motyer, Peter Walker, and Kenneth Cragg. Here is a coterie of Anglican scholars who have in common an amillennial, essentially Augustinian eschatology that plays out in a repudiation of the contemporary divine validity of National Israel. Stephen Sizer, Vicar of Christ Church, Virginia Water, Surrey, recently published his Ph.D. thesis, Christian Zionism. Similar in thrust to Chapman's book, it vigorously opposes any association with the modern State of Israel based on a premillennial, restorationist eschatology. Sizer's emphasis is more concerned, however, with a historical analysis of Christian Zionism, especially its alleged dispensational roots. He expresses particular indebtedness to Chapman, as well as Motyer, Walker, and American Presbyterian O. Palmer Robertson.

Motyer was editorially and sympathetically involved in the latest edition of Whose Promised Land? He is the author of Israel in the Plan of God, and in 2003 he presented a paper to the Evangelical Alliance titled “Israel in God's Plan” in which he broadly defined himself as “replacementist,” arguing that it is Jesus who replaces Israel.⁵ The writings of Peter Walker, lecturer at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, have focused on Jerusalem and the land of Israel. Citing Wright, Chapman, and Motyer, he concludes that the land and related Zionist hopes have been absorbed into one people through Christ in fulfillment of God's universal purpose for the world.⁶ Finally, the Islamophilic bias of Bishop Kenneth Cragg (former Assistant Bishop of Jerusalem and specialist in Christian-Muslim relations) is pointed out by Bat Ye'or (a pseudonym of Gisèle Littman, a British historian of non-Muslims in the Middle East and author of eight books), who relates how Cragg “criticized the European Kings and the popes for not having cooperated with the invading Muslim armies, a surrender which would have amounted to collaboration with their own demise.”⁷ I will now consider a number of emphases upon which these authors offer general agreement. All of them tend toward supercessionist, anti-Judaic antipathies with regard to modern Israel and also pro-Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian sympathies. The doctrinal kinship here certainly confirms the religious dimensions that are detailed in the warnings of Bat Ye'or in her Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, and Melanie Phillips in her Londonistan.⁸

Law Precedes Grace

In varying degrees, these Christian authors would readily confess to doctrinal alignment with a broad Anglican, Protestant, and Reformed heritage. This would also mean belief in salvation by grace through faith alone in Jesus Christ, which is inevitably to result in the growth of manifest gracious and godly living. This being so, it is astonishing to behold these very same people regressing into a denial of this truth in so far as God's promised dealings with Israel in the OT are concerned. For instance, Sizer is critical of the fact that virtually all Christian Zionists insist that the Abrahamic covenant remains unconditional, whereas,

subsequent references to the land in Scripture stress that humility and meekness rather than “chosenness” became a precondition for inheriting or remaining in the land, whereas arrogance or oppression were legitimate grounds for exile. For example, the psalmist explains, “But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace” (Ps. 37:11). ...The ethical requirements for continued occupancy are clearly outlined in the Law.⁹

We may conclude that to Sizer it is obedience to Torah that establishes participation in the Abrahamic covenant for the Jews, in particular the land promises, while this is exactly antithetical to the very heart of the Christian gospel, especially as it is confessed according to Reformed teaching. Many of Reformed convictions resort to this inconsistent belief, as is further detailed in chapter 9 of this book. What about “chosenness” according to sovereign grace? What about the priority of election and subsequent saving response of sola fide in relation to consequent good works (Eph. 2:8–10)? If Sizer claims these for himself, how can he deny the sovereignty of grace inherent in the election of Israel through Abraham? Do we have a different gospel standard represented in the OT in contrast with that of the NT, at least with regard to the salvation of Israel? Perish the thought, though it is simply amazing to note further how Sizer then leads us to consider the ethical demands of the prophet Ezekiel in 33:25–29. This concerns Israel being guilty of bloodshed and abominable things that threaten desolation and exclusion from the land. So quite apart from any mention of future grace, he comments,

On the basis of sober warnings such as this, the question may legitimately be asked whether, due to its present expansionist policies, the State of Israel might not expect another exile rather than a restoration.¹⁰

Evidently Sizer's graceless intimation here, after the manner of the prophet Jonah's complaint (Jonah 4:1–4) as well as that of Habakkuk (Hab 1:2–4), seems to be that he prefers the judgment of modern Israel. Furthermore, his avoidance of the subsequent glorious truth of Ezekiel 34–37 appears dismissive of the ultimate triumph of God's saving power.¹¹ Yet it is this eventual consummate reign of sovereign grace that will bring about the national regeneration of Israel. So God declares,

I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel, and one king will rule over all of them. They will no longer be two nations and no longer will be divided into two kingdoms. They will not defile themselves any more with their idols, their detestable things, and all their transgressions. I will save them from all their apostasies by which they sinned, and I will cleanse them. Then they will be My people, and I will be their God (Ezek 37:22–23).

Here, and in many other instances, Sizer appears to long for the heavy hand of God to judge the nation of Israel, whereas God promises eventual national salvation—not on account of obedience but rather issuing in obedience. Sizer is eager for the law of God to thrash Israel,¹² in contradistinction to Habakkuk who nevertheless eventually cried out, “In wrath, remember mercy” (Hab 3:2). God declares that He will eventually restore His people according to sovereign grace. Sizer's problem here is exactly the same as that of Philip Mauro who was so soundly corrected by Samuel Wilkinson (see Appendix C).

Chapman calls Ezekiel 36–37 “a favorite hunting ground for students of prophecy.” Twisting and turning to avoid the literal meaning at any cost lest his whole eschatological edifice should come tumbling down, he explains,

the alternative is to try to interpret the language of the vision and translate it into a message which was relevant to the original hearers and is relevant to anyone who wants to listen today. ...It is hard to think that a prophet would be given a message to his people in the eighth century BC which related to events that would not take place until the twentieth or twenty-first centuries.¹³

What assumptions lurk beneath what this scholar finds “hard to think”? Yet it was Daniel who declared that “I heard but did not understand,” and he was then told that “the words [of prophetic revelation] are secret and sealed until the time of the end” (Dan 12:8–9). Daniel, along with his contemporary audience, was not expected to understand everything that had been immediately revealed. According to Chapman, what then was the meaning for Ezekiel's immediate audience that would reach through the centuries for us today? He quotes approvingly from John Goldingay, Professor of OT at Fuller Theological Seminary:

When Ezekiel declared that such and such a return to the land or such and such a battle was to take place, he was not announcing events scheduled for two and a half millennia after his day. He was addressing and bringing God's word to people in his own day, warning them of calamities and promising them blessings that could come about in their day. He was not revealing a timetable or fixture list of events that had to unfold over thousands of years; he was bringing a specific message to a particular context. A fulfillment in 1948 of a prophecy given to Ezekiel to people who lived in the 580s BC is thus nonsense: it is not a fulfillment of promises and warnings that were part of God's relationship with those people. Prophets did sometimes speak about the End of all things, but there are relatively few of these prophecies.¹⁴

So a literal understanding of Ezekiel 36–37 is “nonsense”? If this is the fruit of Chapman and Sizer's eschatology and their exegesis of Ezekiel 36–37, then we can only conclude that its taste is most unpalatable and its ingestion most unhealthy. Our God does indeed prophesy of revelatory, cataclysmic, and climactic events that may be either imminent or generations away, even as the Son of God plainly indicated in Matt 26:13.

Covenantalism

Stephen Sizer explains that the purpose of his book,

has been to make a case for a covenantalist approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by focusing on and critiquing its antithesis, namely dispensational Christian Zionism. A covenantalist recognizes, for example, that the Bible consistently teaches that God has only ever had one people throughout history—those who share the faith of Abraham, whether Jews or Gentiles—and one means of atonement, the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ in our place. Based on passages such as Romans 9–11, covenantalists recognize the Jewish people are loved by God, have fulfilled a unique role in history leading to the truth of Christianity and pray that one day all Jews will come to recognize Jesus as their Messiah. Covenantalism affirms that the church is Israel renewed and restored in Christ but now enlarged to embrace people of all nations. ...Unlike Christian Zionism, covenantalism finds it unnecessary to justify or sacralize the State of Israel through tenuous biblical and theological arguments. It also distances itself from those who seek to impose a predetermined and apocalyptic agenda on the people of the Middle East.¹⁵

Actually, there is nothing distinctively “covenantal” in this definition when compared with differing eschatological opinions. Premillennial or Judeo-centric eschatology is very much “covenantal.” It would be more accurate to speak here of an Augustinian approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Perhaps the most galling comment here is the patronizing expression that “covenantalists recognize the Jewish people are loved by God, have fulfilled a unique role in history leading to the truth of Christianity and pray that one day all Jews will come to recognize Jesus as their Messiah.” But Chrysostom, Ambrose, and Augustine would say the same thing while, like Sizer, denying the modern Jew of divine individuality, nationality, and territory. Most Jewish Christians who have read Sizer's writings will be put off by what appears to be a cover for an anti-Judaic agenda. What exactly does he mean here by “Jews”? At best there is the allowance of token, temporal individuality, apart from nationality and territory, that is, until the “Jews” have been absorbed into the one, homogenous people of God. What is meant by the ingratiating comment that “the Jewish people...have fulfilled a unique role in history leading to the truth of Christianity”? It sounds as though the Jews should say, “Thank you very much Mr. Sizer, for your recognition of a past national existence that has fulfilled its usefulness.” His prayer is that Jews become saved through their Messiah to the end that they might then forfeit their national Jewishness. Sizer claims, “They simply have to understand that they have really become spiritually fulfilled Jews,” as with any believer in Jesus. However, Mr. Sizer, who are you, a Gentile Christian, to tell a Jewish Christian he has been reconstituted, as if the church at Antioch in a similar manner lorded it over the church at Jerusalem? This is exactly what Paul warns about in Rom 11:18 when he exhorts the Gentile believers at Rome, “Do not brag that you are better than those branches. But if you [Gentile believers] do brag—you do not sustain the root, but the root sustains you.” To suggest that “the church is Israel renewed and restored in Christ but now enlarged to embrace people of all nations” is to fiddle with the language of the NT that in reality nowhere declares that the church is Israel renewed. This fictional extrapolation is in reality warmed over Augustinianism, and in light of such an indecent eschatological legacy that Sizer and his associates so obviously embody (more fully described in chapter 2 of this book), this is nothing to boast in.

Romans 11

The understanding of Rom 11:26, “and in this way all Israel will be saved,” has been fraught with controversy, especially over the three main interpretations of the identity of “all Israel.”¹⁶ I suggest that there usually runs here the current of a problem reaching much deeper than textual nuances might suggest. The doctrine of salvation also has been associated with controversy of historic proportions. But the evangelical Christian convinced that the redemption of a human soul is by means of the pure gospel of free grace personally embraced through faith alone in Christ (Rom 3:22–24) is not in the slightest shaken in his faith when controversy and a plethora of interpretations swirl all around him. Ask Hebrew Christians concerning their prima facie understanding of the Hebrew Christian Paul in Rom 11:26, and their response will usually be common agreement that the eschatological conversion of national Israel is envisaged. On the other hand, ask a Gentile Christian the same question, especially one who has assimilated the Augustinian/Catholic/Reformed doctrinal heritage of centuries in this regard, and he will probably reject that understanding. The reason is that having assimilated the traditional supercessionist teaching that transfers the blessings of Israel to the Christian Church, that body of truth is unconsciously imposed on the text of Romans in such a way that no national future for Israel is considered a possibility.

For instance, consider R. C. H. Lenski's approach to Romans 11. As a classic conservative Lutheran scholar, he clearly wished to avoid any suggestion that Paul had a future hope for national Israel. In his comment on Rom 11:10 he wrote:

To this day “Jew” is an opprobrious epithet even in our best countries. Read their long history. The sum of that history is not the fact that the Jews innocently suffered these centuries of woe; it is that they have ever brought these woes upon themselves anew. Ever they keep acting as an irritant among the nations. ...They crucified their own Christ; to this day their hatred of the crucified stamps them more than anything else as “Jews”; their segregation is of their own choosing. The more they retain the character of “Jews,” the more does this appear; and during the long centuries this their character made them the irritant they have been. ...“forever” (diapantos) does not sound like a future conversion of the Jews.¹⁷

The tone here is obviously anti-Judaic, reminiscent of Pieters and Boettner (see chapter 2) and definitely not Paul. It is not so surprising when Lenski interprets “all Israel” in v. 26 as the accumulating total of the elect remnant in conjunction with vv. 5,7. In this interpretation, which minimizes any national eschatological hope for the Jews, Lenski's anti-Judaic conviction finds solace.

An interpretation of Romans 11 focused through historic doctrinal tradition that is supercessionist inevitably leads to the search for an alternative understanding to the clear meaning of v. 26. The interpretation of “all Israel” that especially fits the bill here for those who are theologically anti-Judaic is that it refers to a cumulative Jewish Christian remnant. Both Chapman and Sizer in particular appear to follow a common cause, that is, an understanding which tends to repudiate an eschatological national future for Israel in Romans 11. Like Lenski's, their understanding of “all Israel” in Rom 11:26 by its very nature obviates the possibility of an eschatological hope for the nation of Israel. If one were to believe in this Jewish Christian remnant that accumulates over centuries of church history as the “all Israel” of Rom 11:26, then it would wholly exclude an eschatological hope for the salvation of national Israel. As a consequence, only a remnant would be saved and nothing more. That this is the predominant understanding with regard to the Anglican scholars and authors heretofore mentioned will now be indicated in more detail, particularly in terms of their interactive agreement.

As previously mentioned, Wright's exegesis appears to be particularly influential.¹⁸ It is not uncommon for those of Chapman's persuasion to first declare, echoing Wright, that

it is never appropriate for Christians to think that Christianity has “taken the place of Israel”. This idea, which is sometimes described as “superces-sionism” and sometimes as “Replacement Theology”, finds no support in the New Testament.¹⁹

But at this juncture the aide of Wright is mustered whereby it is asserted:

From the earliest evidence, Christians regarded themselves as a new family, directly descended from the family of Israel, but now transformed. ...Those who now belonged to Jesus' people were not identical with ethnic Israel, since Israel's history had reached its intended fulfillment; they claimed to be the continuation of Israel in a new situation, able to draw freely on Israel-images to express their self-identity, able to read Israel's scriptures (through the lens of Messiah and spirit) and apply them to their own life. They were thrust out by that claim, and that reading, to fulfill Israel's vocation on behalf of the world.²⁰

Chapman concludes with regard to a matter that seems to be of such pressing concern for him.

There is no suggestion that they [Jewish and Gentile Christians] believed it was important for Jews to express their distinctive identity through having a Jewish state in the land.²¹

Here I can only conclude that to avoid the stigma associated with replacement and supercessionist theology, that is, of Israel being robbed of its inheritance by means of a Gentile takeover, there is a more deft employment of language. Instead of “replacement” and “supercession” we have substituted here the concept of “fulfillment” whereby an attempt is made to carry over more subtly Israel's covenant privileges to the homogenous “people of Jesus.” Of course the end result is still the same, as Chapman is so intent on upholding, and that being Israel's national and territorial disqualification. So in a similar vein Wright elsewhere describes “transference” in Romans 11 whereby Paul

has systematically transferred the privileges and attributes of “Israel” to the Messiah and his people. It is therefore greatly preferable to take “all Israel” in v. 26 as a typically Pauline polemical redefinition, as in Galatians 6:16.²²

Paul's supposed “redefinition” of “Israel” in Gal 6:16 is today a minority interpretation (see chapter 10 of this book). The end result of Wright's interpretation of Romans 11 here, hence that of Chapman and Sizer, is that Jewish identity, nationality, and territory are all absorbed into the Christian church. Yet this is said not to be “replacement theology” or “supercessionism”? Without any doubt, what we have here is the outworking of classic Augustinianism in modern dress. So it is not surprising that as the centuries have witnessed resultant shameful anti-Judaism issuing from this doctrinal heritage, the revamping of this doctrine by Chapman and Sizer is likewise productive of a new strain of virulent anti-Judaism.

What then did Paul have in mind when in Rom 11:26 he asserts so enthusiastically that “all Israel will be saved”? While Wright admits that his alignment here is with a minority interpretation, he also finds a degree of refuge in Käsemann's belief that “the text [of Romans] has a central concern and a remarkable inner logic that may no longer be entirely comprehensible to us.”²³ But those of a Judeo-centric persuasion find such a retreat to agnosticism quite unnecessary. So Wright believes that “it remains God's will that the present ‘remnant’ of believing Jews might be enlarged by the process of ‘jealousy,’“²⁴ that is, by means of cumulative incorporation into the church as the people of God over the centuries of church history. In other words, as a remnant, a small number of Jews is progressively being saved alongside the mass of Gentiles also being saved; in this manner “all Israel will be saved.” Wright makes no mention of the temporal sequence that v. 25 indicates whereby Israel's hardening is to be “until” [achri] the full number of the Gentiles has come in.”²⁵ Also, his denial of a temporal significance for houts (“in this way”) in v. 26 ignores the temporal reference in context here, as the temporal reference to houts in 11:4–5 well indicates, or the implications of the future rather than the present tense of “will be saved.”²⁶ Of course with Wright there is no suggestion here that “all Israel” retains divinely recognized Jewish national and territorial identity since individual “Jews” have become absorbed into the one people of God in the new economy where former ethnic distinctions have no validity. But consider Matt Waymeyer's persuasive point that “they” in Rom 11:28 (“they are enemies...they are loved”), being unbelieving national Israel, is identical to the national “them” in v. 27 (“this will be My covenant with them when I take away their sins”), which is identical to “Jacob” and to national or “all Israel” in v. 26, and so is not a mere remnant.²⁷ The most unsatisfactory aspect of Wright's interpretation is that a “cumulative Jewish Christian remnant” is so obviously anticlimactic. It stands out toward the conclusion of Romans 11, especially vv. 25–36, that Paul anticipates such an enthralling climax concerning Israel's ultimate destiny. To suggest that “all Israel” is the aggregate of a relatively small number of converted Jews gleaned from the centuries of church history is to fly in the face of Paul's enthusiastic hope. Obviously, the apostle anticipates that more than a remnant will be saved. The remnant is certainly the guarantee of God's continued covenant faithfulness over the centuries, but Israel's conversion in terms of the “full number...acceptance...full number” (vv. 12,15,25–26) is what He ultimately longs for. It is easy to discern from Chapman and Sizer that at all costs they desire to eliminate any prospect for national Israel and thus suggest that Paul did not really mean what he appears to say. In this regard Romans 11 remains an enormous problem from which even N. T. Wright cannot satisfactorily deliver them.

Heaven Without Earth

While the question of spiritual materiality is dealt with in chapter 8 in greater detail, at this juncture it is appropriate to consider how both Chapman and Sizer raise the question of the carnality of Christian Zionism and its contrast with what they perceive to be the spirituality of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

Yes, there is cause for complaint here concerning those who portray eschatology in terms of sensationalist, materialistic pop-prophecy. Though it would be better, and probably more effectual, if such criticism were to come from those who evidence a genuine and heartfelt love for the Jewish people, who while remaining enemies of the gospel are at the same time beloved by God because of His fidelity to the Abrahamic covenant (Rom 11:28). But Chapman and Sizer retain an ardent repudiation of the present nation of Israel allegedly on account of its well-earned nullification by God. They claim that Christian justification for the renunciation of modern Israel's racist militancy is especially warranted because of unbelief, secularity, extreme military defense of its borders, and the unjust mistreatment and displacement of many Palestinians within its domain. So in place of an earthly eschatological hope for Jerusalem within the land of Israel, Chapman and Sizer propose a heavenly redefinition with material and spiritual dichotomies below and above. A particular cluster of references is then appealed to, especially Gal 4:25–26 and Heb 11:10,16; 12:22–23. At stake here is the vital matter of hermeneutics dealt with especially in chapter 7 of this book (see also chapters 8–11). We may only note at this point that for Sizer Jerusalem as the capital of Israel no longer has any historic, earthly role of divine, biblical significance.

The New Testament...knows nothing of a preoccupation with a nationalistic and materialistic earthly Jerusalem, let alone Zionism as it exists today. ...Jesus explained further, saying, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place” (John 18:36). ...Christians are told instead to inhabit Jerusalem by faith and look forward to the heavenly Jerusalem. ...Paul takes a promise originally referring to the earthly Jerusalem [Gal 4:26] and applies it to the Jerusalem above, which is the home of all who believe in Jesus Christ.²⁸

It is asserted that the Christian anticipates a nebulous, ethereal, non-material, Platonic higher level of existence in the economy of heaven above. But I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ did anticipate an earthly Jerusalem of spiritual materiality which would gloriously supplant the carnal materiality of Jerusalem that He wept over. He declared that the present Jerusalem was about to be left desolate in judgment. Yet the strong inference is that this humiliation would eventually yield to a glorious reversal of circumstances since Jesus continued, “For I tell you, you will never see Me again until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (Matt 23:38–39). So in this regard Alford described

that day, the subject of all prophecy, when your [Jerusalem's] repentant people shall turn with true and loyal Hosannas and blessings to greet “Him whom they have pierced:” (Deut. 4:30–31; Hos. 3:4–5; Zech. 12:10; 14:8–11). Stier well remarks, “He who reads not this in the prophets, reads not yet the prophets aright.”²⁹

When Paul wrote of “the Jerusalem above,” he was not indicating that the Jerusalem below had been forever discarded for some abstract, amorphous Jerusalem, but rather that eschatological transformation of Zion whereby the holiness of heaven will have come down to regenerate the earthly Jerusalem. The result is, as John Milton described, a time when,

Earth be chang'd to Heav'n, and Heav'n to Earth,
One Kingdom, Joy and Union without end.³⁰

Then will have come to pass “the Messianic Age [lit. “rebirth, regeneration,” palingenesia], when the Son of Man sits on His glorious throne” (Matt 19:28; cp. Acts 3:21), which I believe to be that place, that new Jerusalem, from where Jesus Christ will reign with heavenly glory upon earth (Jer 3:17; Ezek 43:7; Zech 6:12–13).

Unity Without Diversity

One of the most fundamental errors of Chapman and Sizer concerns an oft-repeated logical fallacy, namely, that God's design that the redeemed of all ages become one in Christ Jesus excludes the possibility of any diversity happily existing within this unity. While the matter concerning the land of Israel is dealt with in more detail in chapter 9 of this book, both Chapman and Sizer suggest that it is the paradise of Eden that leads to the promised land flowing with milk and honey and ultimately the whole world as inherited by Abraham (Rom 4:13). It seems that this concept is derived from O. Palmer Robertson who references Christopher Wright, although N. T. Wright made the same point and expresses indebtedness to W. D. Davies.³¹ Whatever the source of this concept, the argument runs that because redemption in Christ eventually encompasses the whole earth as the new promised land, so to speak, the OT boundaries of the land of Israel have become inconsequential. In other words, a new, transcendent unity has eliminated the possibility of diversity incorporating Israel and the Gentile nations.

He [Jesus] had not come to rehabilitate the symbol of the holy land, but to subsume it within a different fulfillment of the kingdom, which would embrace the whole creation. ...Jesus spent his whole ministry redefining what the kingdom meant. He refused to give up the symbolic language of the kingdom, but filled it with such new content that...he powerfully subverted Jewish expectations.³²

Sizer makes the same point, except that in caustically denouncing the literal hermeneutic of Christian Zionism which, it is alleged, “provides a theological endorsement for racial segregation, apartheid and war [within the contemporary State of Israel],” he invokes Robertson to describe a new covenant perspective.

In the process of redemptive history, a dramatic movement has been made from type to reality, from shadow to substance. The land which once was the specific locale of God's redemptive working served well within the old covenant as a picture of Paradise lost and promised. Now, however, in the era of new-covenant fulfillment, the land has been expanded to encompass the cosmos. ...In this age of fulfillment, therefore, a retrogression to the limited forms of the old covenant must be neither expected or promoted. Reality must not give way to shadow.³³

In response, the fundamental error of identifying the promised land with the bilateral Mosaic covenant rather than the unilateral Abrahamic covenant is once again most prominent (dealt with in more detail in chapter 9 of this book). Adding to the confusion here is the ignoring of the fact that the new covenant was directly made with “the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (Jer 31:31–34), and only indirectly with the church. Though of course, Romans 11 makes it clear that the Gentiles, as wild olive branches, are grafted into the Abrahamic natural olive tree so that they might become partakers of new covenant blessings. Furthermore, since Chapman, Wright, Sizer, and Robertson wrongly identify the land with the shadowy nature of the Mosaic covenant, they also ignore the fact that Jeremiah 31, where the new covenant supersedes the old, is further described in Jeremiah 32. Here it is “an everlasting covenant” (v. 40) including God's promise that He “will plant them [Israel] faithfully in this land with all My mind and heart” (v. 41) “because I will restore their fortunes” (v. 44). Plainly the land is part of the inheritance of the new covenant (see Ezek 36:24–28; 37:1–14).

To return to the original point of disagreement, let us happily assert the glorious truth that awaits all the people of God, namely, the universal, sole reign of His Son over this universe when, “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD's glory, as the waters cover the sea” (Hab 2:14; see Isa 11:9; Zech 14:9). Then how is it necessary that this heavenly economy on earth will be strictly and indistinguishably homogenous? Could angels then endure such a distinct existence? If there is economic and personal diversity within the triunity of the one true and living God, and His church manifests the diversity of giftedness within that one body, then how is it not to be expected, with the personal, distinguishable presence of Moses, Elijah, David, and Paul that there will also be an ethnic, national, and territorial diversity within the perfect ecumenicity of that kingdom? And how will it faintly be inconsistent with the gospel when the nation of redeemed Israel will distinctively reign with the redeemed Gentile nations while manifesting a diversity within the perfect unity of the kingdom of Christ?

Anti-Judaic Tone

What we have observed in the previous sections exhibits a tone of evident animosity and resentment toward the Jewish people, and especially the modern nation of Israel, whose very distinctive Jewish existence, they are told, has been forever forfeited. Steve Motyer has illustrated how a Christian understanding of the OT radically transcends that of orthodox Judaism: “It's more like a group of aliens meeting a Rolls Royce for the first time, when previously all they have seen is the Reader's Digest Guide to Car Maintenance.”³⁴ Such pseudo-Marcionism belittles and does away with the whole framework of Judaism, not simply the old covenant. Of course, there is sufferance, an artificial, grudging tokenism of the worst kind that tolerates a Jewish Christian being called “Jewish,” at least in a nominal social sense, even though his ultimate future will be the total loss of his Jewishness. Yet the Jewish Christian's divine nationality and territory are vehemently denied. Consequently, whereas racial anti-Judaism in the twentieth century culminated in a process of physical elimination, the extermination of Jews, theological anti-Judaism in the twenty-first century culminates in identity elimination, the extermination of Jewishness in the name of Jesus the Jew.

With this in mind we again consider both Chapman and Sizer, principally because they have themselves staked out prominent positions in their intentional campaigning against “Christian Zionism” as they broadly designate it. First, in sympathizing with the cause of Palestinian Christians, Palestinian Arabs, and Muslim Arabs overall, Chapman takes issue with Jewish Christians and their supporters, and especially as enthusiastically represented in America. I have already catalogued explicit, distasteful expressions of his aversion to modern Israel. The sour aura is simply unmistakable, and I seriously question whether it finds the remotest reflection in the apostolic mood concerning the Jews, especially that of Paul (see chapter 11).

Perhaps even more vociferous in this regard is Sizer, who has also identified with the cause of Palestinian Christians, Palestinian Arabs, and Muslim Arabs. His tilt is thus heavily against biblical restorationism, while like Chapman he is happy to embrace the extremely critical, leftist/liberal, anti-Judaic views of Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Grace Halsall, and others. Further, although he identifies with the evangelical wing of the Church of England, he happily associates as well with the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) and its opposition to the modern State of Israel. The official web site of MECC explains that:

The Middle East Council of Churches (M.E.C.C.) is a fellowship of churches relating itself to the main stream of the modern ecumenical movement, the same which gave birth to the World Council and other regional ecumenical councils throughout the world.³⁵

Consequently, Sizer also invokes the declaration of MECC that Christian Zionism represents “a heretical interpretation of Scripture,” a “deviant heresy,”³⁶ while further bolstering his tirade by claiming the agreement of John Stott that it is “biblically anathema.”³⁷ Hence we are told that Christian Zionism

provides a theological endorsement for racial segregation, apartheid and war [on the part of modern Israel]. This is diametrically opposed to the inclusive theology of justice, peace and reconciliation which lie at the heart of the new covenant. ...The present brutal, repressive and racist policies of the State of Israel would suggest exile on the horizon rather than a restoration. ...Israel is a materialistic society, an apartheid state practicing repressive and dehumanizing measures against the Palestinians in flagrant disregard of the United Nations and UN declaration of human rights.³⁸

The tone is revealing, and so is the language that resonates with the verbal mantras of liberation theology and baptized Marxism. However unbelieving Israel may presently be, surely there is something fundamentally wrong with an underlying eschatology that so demeans the Jewish people and their nation, in contrast to the oracles of God which are so thoroughly Jewish and uphold a Jewish Savior. In no way do we excuse aspects of Christian Zionism that may at times express prophetic carnality. Nor do we excuse the errors of national Israel after the flesh, for, enemies though they presently are in Christ, we do love them for the sake of the fathers, and thus the land that remains their inheritance. In this pro-Judaic scenario, there remains open and unashamed affection and respect for the Jews, after the manner that Paul encouraged in Rom 9:1–5. The reason for this is the fundamental underpinning of God's eschatological hope for ethnic, national, and territorial Israel as delineated in the Old and New Testaments. A supercessionist theology produces an anti-Judaic demeanor with regard to the Jews, and church history is the terrible, unavoidable proof that this is so. I grant that Chapman does attempt to deal with the matter of anti-Judaism, though to be frank it is quite inadequate in its selectivity and the shallowness of its assessment in nominal terms. Where he fails most is at the root of the matter, for while referencing the anti-Judaism of Chrysostom, Augustine, Aquinas, and Luther, he completely neglects to deal with the underlying doctrinal cause.³⁹ Had he done so, he would have been forced to see a reflection of the essence of his own supercessionist views.

Another aspect of tone to be considered, which again Chapman well represents, concerns his wrestling with the ancient conquest of the land of Canaan under Joshua. Here the tone is one of necessary accommodation, even with regard to the moral purposes of God. In this section one senses a relentless attempt to nullify modern Israel's “illicit” present possession of the land while attempting to confront ancient Israel's questionable militant capture of the land. The biblical account is skeptically addressed as follows:

Is it conceivable that a God of love could actually have ordered the Israelites to engage in what we today would call “ethnic cleansing”? ...One way of resolving the problem is to see these stories simply as a Jewish interpretation of their history. Since they believed that they were “the chosen people” who enjoyed a special relationship with God, they wrote their history in such a way as to justify their ideas about their special status and their superiority over other people. The Old Testament should therefore be seen as a very ethnocentric interpretation of Israelite history.⁴⁰

Chapman makes not the slightest attempt to repudiate this warped regard for the OT record in terms of its divinely inspired character. Describing these “stories” as “Jewish [i.e., very ethnocentric] interpretation” which “Israel believed” empties Scripture of its character as authoritative divine instruction. Instead, Chapman retreats to cultural, subjective accommodation. But sadly this assessment does not allow us to stop at a misuse of interpretive method. Rather, such method is wielded to accomplish the disqualification of the modern State of Israel. This appears to be Chapman's overriding concern, and Scripture is not allowed to get in the way. Thus he has written,

No doubt we would all want to say that by the standards of today many of the actions of Joshua and the Children of Israel in the conquest of the land were evil and should never be held up as an example for people to follow today. ...Anyone, therefore, who sees Christ as the fullest possible revelation of what God is like and of the kind of moral standards that God sets for human beings, will see many of the actions of Joshua as very wrong and abhorrent. But if, as the biblical account suggests, God was involved in the conquest of the land under Joshua, it was because he had to work within a particular cultural and religious context, revealing gradually as much new truth as people were able to grasp. Given the level of culture and religion at the time, God's revelation of a new way had to be gradual. He had to work within a culture that practiced ethnic cleansing as something that was acceptable, in order ultimately to change the culture from within by exposing this evil in its true light and showing the human race a better way.⁴¹

It is not difficult to sense a specific, controlling agenda at work, that is, the condemnation of the present Jewish occupation of Israel. To do this, somehow Joshua's campaigns of “ethnic cleansing” must be accommodated, as if God turns a blind cultural eye from this “shameful but vital stage, one that was not to be repeated, and need never be repeated.”⁴² The fallacy of this reasoning is exposed when we are then told,

So those who see Jesus as the climax of God's revelation to the human race can never imagine him acting in the way that Joshua did. It is inconceivable that Jesus would have taken up weapons to attack the Romans in the way that Joshua attacked the Canaanites.⁴³

Jesus made it plain that His first coming was to save and not judge (John 12:47). Even then His wrath occasionally erupted (Matt 21:12–13; 23:1–33). But this in no way alters the fact that at His Second Coming He will indeed “judge the world in righteousness” (Acts 17:31), that is, with “flaming fire dealing out retribution to those who do not know God” (2 Thess 1:7–8), at which time men and women will call for rocks to “fall on us and hide us from the face of the One seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb” (Rev 6:16). For this reason, progress of revelation does not involve divine advance from moral tolerance of immoral ethnic cleansing to its moral condemnation, otherwise God's holy consistency is compromised. Rather, progress of revelation leads us from the moral Tightness of Joshua's campaigns according to divine mandate in an earthly sphere to the moral Tightness of Jesus Christ's campaign against sin in the human soul by means of justification and judgment.

In conclusion, the anti-Judaic tone here, particularly in the writings of Chapman and Sizer, betrays a deep-seated drive to nullify, at all costs, any biblical validity claimed for the Jews and the modern State of Israel. Should this theological end be accomplished, then the cause of the Palestinians and Arabs could be pursued on a strictly secular, egalitarian basis due to the elimination of supposed biblical claims. I strenuously maintain that God, according to the good pleasure of His will, continues to regard Israel after the flesh with favor according to elective grace that streams through His distinctive covenantal regard for the Jews as beloved enemies (Rom 11:28). From a Christian perspective, election presupposes divine, particular, saving purpose directed toward sinful individuals (Rom 5:8). But I maintain that God's elective regard for Israel rests on the same essential gracious basis. One wonders how Chapman and Sizer cope with the priority that Paul continuously gave to the Jews throughout his Gentile ministry (Rom 1:16; 2:9–10), though no explanation is given. Was this divine racism? Such a perspective is in no way intended to justify every military initiative of the State of Israel any more than the indiscriminate terrorism of the Arab/Palestinian intifada. Nevertheless, I do believe that the loving Pauline tone of distinctive regard for the Jews, even in unbelief, finds its antithesis in the anti-Judaic tone of Chapman and Sizer which so obviously conflicts with the apostle's indefatigable interest.

Furthermore, Chapman and Sizer plainly regard with disfavor the considerable role that Britain and America have played in the formation, maintenance, and prosperity of the State of Israel. Seeming to have more the spirit of Sanballat and Tobiah, they are obviously displeased that anyone should “seek the well-being of the Israelites [lit. ‘sons of Israel’]” (Neh 2:10). The biased tone here is unmistakable. Chapman and Sizer appear to wish that modern Israel had never been established because it was a wholly carnal endeavor to begin with without any biblical justification. It is not surprising to find intimations of their desire that this development should be reversed. There is constant niggling against the present support that America supplies. Yet should this nullification prevail, who can tell what horror might then result in terms of Arab attempts at the fulfillment of their stated goal, namely, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Does Sizer have this in mind when he suggests the possibility of “another exile on the horizon rather than a restoration.”⁴⁴ Is this wishful thinking? The tone here certainly suggests preference for the severe condemnation of the law to fall on Israel, quite apart from any prospect of grace; on the other hand, grace should be showered on the Palestinians by means of substantial land reclamation.

Overall, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Chapman and Sizer have an intractable, theological aversion to modern Judaism and the State of Israel. Whether there is consideration of the land, Jerusalem, or even the OT, at best we have here a legacy of shadows that, while remaining memorable, is yet hardly of substantial importance. What counts is the absorption, indeed reformation, of these figures and patterns into the reality of Jesus Christ. There is a relentless effort to nullify Jewish identity, nationality, and territory, except where these terms are reinterpreted according to their NT and ecclesiological hermeneutic. However, notwithstanding a subtle appropriation of Jewish terminology, a token portrayal of interest in Jews as individuals, and the beguiling claim of being christocentric, I reemphasize the belief that this whole approach is nothing more than a revision of historic Augustinian eschatology. As such, I also believe it is not only biblically and theologically flawed but also ethically wanting as a consequence. In particular, the focus on being exclusively christocentric in fact necessitates a dual rather than a singular hermeneutic. That is, there is broad agreement that the NT should be interpreted by means of a literal, grammatical, historical, contextual hermeneutic whereby the person of Christ is expounded from the text. However, we are also told that this hermeneutic is not to be consistently applied to the OT as well. Rather, according to Augustinianism, a distinctive Christocentric method of interpretation is to be applied whereby the OT is understood strictly through a Christocentric and New Covenant lens. The result is, as Willem VanGemeren perceptively stated,

the “new” Reformed hermeneutic is no longer “the Old is in the New revealed and the New is in the Old concealed,” but rather “the Old is by the New restricted and the New is on the Old inflicted.”⁴⁵

Next we look at the issue of Zionism in greater detail, both historically and with regard to a Christian perspective. Then in chapters 6 and 7 we will concentrate on this vital matter of hermeneutics as it relates to the interpretation of the OT in the light of the NT, but especially with regard to Israel.

1. C. Chapman, Whose Promised Land? (Tring, Herts, England: Lion, 1983), 224, 226–28.

2. C. Chapman, Whose Promised Land? (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 307. Qur'an/Hadith references are included.

3. W. Laqueur and B. Rubin, The Israel-Arab Reader (New York: Penguin, 2001), 81.

4. Chapman, Whose Promised Land? (2002), 272–76.

5. S. Motyer, “Israel in God's Plan,” Evangelical Alliance Consultation, June, 2003, http://www. eauk.org/theology/headline_issues/holyland/upload/S_Motyer_‘Israel’_paper.pdf (cited 2007).

6. P. Walker, “The land in the apostles' writings,” and “The land and Jesus himself,” in The Land of Promise (ed. P. Johnston and P. Walker; Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity, 2000), 81–120.

7. B. Ye'or, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis (Madison, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005), 189.

8. M. Phillips, Londonistan (New York: Encounter Books, 2006).

9. S. Sizer, Christian Zionism (Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity, 2004), 163.

10. Ibid., 163–64.

11. Sizer only refers critically to the “futuristic” views of Christian Zionists concerning these chapters without any explanation whatsoever (Ibid., 40, 154–56). He probably follows Motyer and Robertson who merely abstract the concepts of regeneration and resurrection.

12. Sizer further writes, “the present brutal, repressive racist policies of the State of Israel would suggest another exile on the horizon rather than a restoration.” Whose Promised Land: Israel and Biblical Prophecy, http://www.christchurch-virginiawater.co.uk/articles/debate.html (cited May 2007).