| Saturday, April 11, 2009 12:47PM | | | | Whose Promised Land? | Posted By: Robert Flynn
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| Tags: Palestine, Israel, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, covenant | The deed to Palestine is more complicated than most Jews, Arabs and Christians wish to admit. God promised the Holy Land to the seed of Abraham. (Gen. 12:7, 13:14-15). That story and that promise is in the Jewish Bible, the Christian Bible and the Koran. Abraham was the father of Ishmael and Isaac, and others. (Gen. 25:1-6.)
Ishmael was Abraham’s first born son. Some claim that Ishmael doesn’t count because his mother was a sex slave but the birthright belonged to the father and not the mother. The firstborn son was the first sign of the father’s strength (Deut. 21:15-17). That son received a double portion of all the father had.
The Hebrews had a problem because according to the Jewish Bible the first born son had the birthright and the royal succession was through the first born son. However, the Jewish claim to God’s promise was through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but Isaac was Abraham’s second son, and Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, was Isaac’s second son. Jacob’s birthright did not go to his firstborn, Reuben, but to Judah. The two best known kings of Israel, David and Solomon were not firstborn sons and did not follow the succession.
In the covenant with Abraham, God promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations. The land of Canaan would belong to his descendants (Gen. 17:4-8), and they would inherit the earth (Ps. 37:11, Matt. 5:5). Whoever blessed him would be blessed and whoever cursed him would be cursed and through him all families of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12: 1-3). That covenant was repeated with Isaac (26:2-4), Jacob (28:13-15), and Moses (Ex. 3: 6-8).
However, in the Jewish Bible not all of Abraham’s children are included in that covenant, or all of Isaac’s children, or all of Jacob’s children. Rather than becoming many nations, the children of Abraham were contracting until there were the tribes of Judah and Israel. The Jewish Bible discouraged marriage outside the tribe (Ex. 34:15, Num. 36:6, Ezra 9:1-3,12, 10:16-44; Neh. 13:23-27).
In the Christian Bible Jesus was a direct descendent of David who was a descendent of Abraham (Matt. 1:1). Matthew’s genealogy mentions Rahab, Bathsheba, and Ruth who were gentiles. Luke’s genealogy traces Jesus’ ancestors back to Adam, making him a descendent of every tribe and nation.
John the Baptist told the Pharisees, who were morally upright and spiritually secure because they were children Abraham, that God could turn stones into children of Abraham (Matt. 3:9). When some Jews said they were children of Abraham, had never been slaves and needed no one to set them free, Jesus told them they were children of the devil (John 8: 39-45).
When God sent Moses to deliver his people from Egypt, Moses asked what name he should give to the Israelites. God gave him a to be verb similar to “is.” Who is. The active force in the universe. All life, all creative power is what God is. Jesus applied the name to himself (John 8: 58-59) and barely escaped stoning.
The Hebrew prophets tried to call Israel back to faithfulness to the covenant (Amos 3, Hosea 2, Jer. 7), and looked for a new covenant based not on Levitical laws but with the law written in the heart (Jer. 31:31-34, Ezek. 16:60-63, Isa. 61:9). Jesus read from the first two verses of Isa. 61 and said, that scripture was fulfilled in him (Luke 4:18-21.) At supper the night before his crucifixion Jesus took a cup of wine and said, “This is the cup of the new covenant (testament) in my blood (1 Cor. 11:5).
In Acts 3:24-26, Peter claimed that covenant for Jewish Christians. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul claimed that covenant for Abraham’s spiritual descendants (3:6-9). The writer of Hebrews argued that the new covenant was superior to the first covenant (Heb. 8:6-13).
When the resurrected Christ met with his disciples they asked, “Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6) They had already forgotten that Jesus had said his kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36). Jesus replied that it was not for them to know but that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. That would be the restoration of Israel.
The apostle Paul wrote that a Jew was one who was circumcised not of the body but of the heart (Rom. 2:29), echoing Deut. 30:6. In Rom. 4:13-17 Paul wrote that Abraham was father of all those of faith and therefore father of many nations. Luke wrote that the law of Moses could not justify but that in the new covenant, through faith, Jesus could (Acts 13: 38, 39). In heaven there would be a multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language (Rev. 7:9).
The New Testament or New Covenant writers regarded Jesus, descendent of Abraham, as the one through whom all nations would be blessed and the church as the new Israel (Gal. 6: 15,16). Whoever blessed the church would be blessed and whoever cursed the church would be cursed.
The Christian claim to the Promised Land is not to present day Palestine but to the new heaven and new earth where God will dwell with believers in the new Jerusalem that is above (Gal.4:26), whose architect and maker is God (Heb.11:10), with walls of jasper and city of gold. There will be no temple because God doesn’t live in a house made by men (Acts 7:48-50). Jesus identified himself with the temple (Matt.12:6; John 2:19-22). In the new Jerusalem God and the Lamb are the temple, and there will be no tears, no night and its gates will never be shut (Rev. 21).
There are Christians in Palestine and they suffer the same occupation as Muslim Palestinians. Christians in America are hardly aware of them and many believe they have no right to their homes, their property, their lives because of the false teaching of Christian Zionism. Although Jesus told his disciples it was not theirs to know the time of the restoration of Israel (Acts 1:7), Christian Zionists believe God can’t do it alone and seek an Israeli empire with a temple in Jerusalem that will cause the return of Christ to earth. Christians will inherit Israel and Jews can convert to Christianity or be killed. Christian Zionism is a profitable enterprise and most of its prophets show no sign of wishing an immediate return of Jesus as they lay up treasures on earth.
The Christian leaders of the Latin Patriarchate, Jerusalem; the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate, Jerusalem; the Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land wrote “The Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism,” stating among other things,
“Christian Zionism is a modern theological and political movement that embraces the most extreme ideological positions of Zionism, thereby becoming detrimental to a just peace within Palestine and Israel.
“The Christian Zionist program provides a worldview where the Gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism. In its extreme form, it places an emphasis on apocalyptic events leading to the end of history rather than living Christ's love and justice today.
“We reject the teachings of Christian Zionism that facilitate and support these policies as they advance racial exclusivity and perpetual war rather than the gospel of universal love, redemption and reconciliation taught by Jesus Christ.”
For complete statement go to (http://www.zenit.org/article-16848?l=english)
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