|
| |
The Future of Israel (part 2)
The upshot of our survey of Israel's history is this: The Hebrews ceased
to exist when they were transformed into Israelites. The Israelites ceased to
exist when they were transformed into Jews. And the Jews ceased to exist when
they were transformed into Christians. The continuing existence of people
calling themselves Jews and claiming to represent the old order does not change
these facts. "Jew" is an English contraction of "Judahite," which was the name
given to God's priestly nation after the Exile. Calling yourself a Jew does not
make you one, and in the Biblical sense of the term Jew, there were no longer
any Jews after A.D. 70, unless by "True Jews" we mean Christians.
What about the land? Well, consider this: Suppose in Moses' day the
blood-line Hebrews had gone to the circumcised descendants of Abraham's servants
and said this: "The land was promised to us, not to you. We have legal title to
it; you don't." Or suppose they said this to the converts among the mixed
multitude? It is clear that they would have been wrong to say this. All
Israelites were the same as far as their inheritance was concerned (save for the
Levites).
Similarly, Christian Jews have no special claim to the land of Palestine.
There is only one kind of Christian, and all Christians are in Christ, and all
Christians have exactly the same rights. The idea that there are two kinds of
Christians is a Satanic heresy, one that Paul anathematizes in the book of
Galatians. In my opinion, the notion that the Jews, after they convert, will
have a claim on the land of Palestine smacks of just this heresy.
Now, what I have written above is the logic of Biblical theology, and it
is basically what the New Testament teaches everywhere except possibly Romans
11. The futurist interpretation of Romans 11 will counter what I have written
above by saying, "True, when Israel came into being, the Hebrews ceased to
exist, and when the Jews came into being, Israel ceased to exist, as you have
put it. But Romans 11 reveals a mystery, which is that this time the old people
continue to exist as an apostate nation, which will someday convert to Christ.
Thus, you are wrong, Jim, when you say that the Modern Jews are no different
from any other people. They are indeed special."
I answer: Obviously, I need to expound Romans 11 and argue my case. But
before doing so, let me say that the mystery of Romans 11:25 needs to be
understood in the light of everything else the New Testament says about the
gospel mystery. Ephesians 3 makes it clear that the mystery is that in Christ
there is no longer any distinction, as there was in the Old Covenant, between
priestly Israelite and non-priestly God-fearing gentile. That is the whole point
of the mystery. Thus, the meaning of the mystery runs against any notion of a
continuing distinction between Jew and gentile. According to the mystery, the
only distinction any longer is between Christian and unbeliever. The futurist
interpretation of Romans 11 tends to contradict the meaning of the mystery.
There is another point that emerges from this historical survey. Paul's
whole argument in Romans 11 is that the entrance of gentiles into the Kingdom
will provoke the Jews to jealousy. This was possible in the first century, but
it is not possible now. The reason it is not possible now is that Christians do
not have what Modern Jews want. The minds of Modern Jews are set by their
traditions, not by the Old Testament. In order for them to be jealous, they
would have to perceive that Christians have the Kingdom they expect to inherit.
This was true of first century of Jews, but it is not true of Modern Jews.
Talmudic Jews are looking for a completely different kind of kingdom.
In short, Romans 11 makes sense if it applies to the first century; it
does not make much sense if we try to apply it to "Jews" since that time. The
valid application of Romans 11 today is to liberal Christians, a point I shall
return to later in this study.
The Problem of "Anti-Semitism"
Before turning to Romans 11 and its meaning in the context of New
Testament prophecy, I want to set down my thoughts on the problem of "anti-semitism."
First, very few Modern Jews are semites, and very few semites are Jews, so the
term "anti-semitism" is a very misleading term. In English, however, "anti-semite"
means "anti-Modern-Jew," and so I shall use it that way here.
I am indebted to the work of Rene Girard for the discussion that follows.
Girard is a liberal Christian who has done some marvelous studies on the
phenomenon of the scapegoat in religion and culture. I do not by any means agree
with him at every point, but his book The Scapegoat (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
Press, 1986) has provided me the insights that follow.
When times get tough in a society, people seek for someone to blame. They
might blame themselves and say "God is punishing us for our own sins," but since
people are wicked, they don't say that. Instead, they look for someone to blame,
saying, "Everything was fine until these people came along. They are different,
and therefore they are criminals, and therefore they are to blame for these
distresses and catastrophes."
In times of distress, people turn against outsiders and strangers. In
Romania today, Gypsies are being treated this way. Throughout history, both Jews
and Gypsies have often been made the scapegoats for society's problems. This is
because they are different. They have their own laws and customs. They don't
mingle with other people well. They seem obnoxious because their customs are
strange. People suspect them of bizarre practices, like incest, stealing babies,
poisoning wells, and the like.
People want to feel superior to other people. I grew up in the Old South,
and the attitude of white trash people was this: If we are not better than
niggers, we are not better than anybody. The reason for the Jim Crow laws was to
make white trash people feel better than blacks. Many educated Christian white
people were unsympathetic to these laws, but such good people were in the
minority. Democracy lets trash rule, because democracy allows demagogues to
appeal to the mob. This phenomenon also plays a part in the continuing
persecution of Gypsies and Jews.
But there is more. Girard shows that envy plays a large part in
scapegoating. Those who are rich are admired and imitated by society, but when
they fall, everyone rushes in to gloat. Job experienced this, and you need only
read the newspaper to see how "rich and famous" people are treated when the
fall. Historically, the Jews have been a disciplined and provident people, which
means they have often had wealth, which means that they have been the object of
envy, though usually not of admiration.
Now, let us bring in the catastrophe. The mob wants someone to blame. They
blame the strangers, the Jews. They blame those they want to feel superior to,
the Jews. They blame those they envy, the Jews. When times got tough in Germany
after World War One, the mob found it easy to go after Jews, Gypsies, Poles,
Catholics, and Godly evangelicals -- all the people who were "different."
Now, this is bad enough, but now enters another factor. Unlike Gypsies,
the Jews claim to be the continuing racial expression of God's chosen people.
This kind of claim is naturally offensive to other people. It only makes matters
worse when the Church adds her voice to this claim.
In short, I am arguing that by giving Modern Jews a privileged place in
history and prophecy, the Church has reinforced rather than undermined the
foundation of anti-semitism and persecution. If the Church had strongly
maintained that the claim of the Jews was mythical, and that Jews were no
different from any other exceptional group in society, the persecutions against
the Jews might have been milder. The Jews would have been treated like Gypsies.
They would still have been persecuted, but perhaps not as severely.
Of course, the only real and lasting solution to the problem of
persecution is for the Church to do her work of remaking people into kind and
charitable human beings. But until we have a Christian world, there will be
persecutions. I believe that the futurist view of Romans 11, whether espoused by
premillennialists or postmillennialists, distorts society's understanding of the
Jews, and sets them up for persecution when times get tough.
Background to Romans 9-11
We now come to a survey of Romans 9-11. Because of this newsletter format,
I simply want to set out how I see these chapters at present. I shall not try to
argue the case in depth all along the way, but rather my intention is to make a
credible case for a preterist view, a case that can be expanded and defended in
detail later.
To understand Romans 9-11, we have to bear in mind some background matters
that are often overlooked by expositors, concerning the origin and purpose of
Israel. God called Abraham to be a priest to the nations right after the
incident at the Tower of Babel. These two events are intimately related (compare
Gen. 11:4 with 12:2). After the call of Abraham, there were two distinct kinds
of believers in the world: Hebrew and Gentile (Noahic) -- but this was not God's
original purpose. The bifurcation of humanity had a special and limited purpose:
to manifest God's covenant until the coming of the Messiah and the restoration
of the world (Ex. 19:6; Dt. 4:6-8).
During the Old Covenant there were many Gentile believers who did not
become Israelites. There was no reason why a Gentile believer should become
circumcised, unless he felt some calling of God to join the priestly nation. As
an uncircumcised "God-fearer" he had access to the Tabernacle (Numbers 15) and
to all the feasts except Passover. (For a full discussion, see chapter 2 of my
book Sabbath Breaking and the Death Penalty; and chapter 3 of my book The
Sociology of the Church.)
In the Book of Romans, Paul is concerned about this bipolar world from
start to finish. The burden of Paul's "mystery" is that in the New Covenant,
this bipolarity no longer can exist. All believers are one in Christ. There can
no longer be any such thing as a Jew, and since Gentiles are defined in
relationship to the Jews, there can no longer by any such thing as a Gentile
either. There can only be Christians and non-Christians. Yet though this
bipolarity was judicially overcome in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it was
not actually overcome until later. Just as individual salvation has a beginning,
a development over time, and a culmination in glory, so the reconciliation of
Jew and Gentile as One New Man in Christ had a point of inception at Pentecost,
a development during the period of the Interim, and a culmination in A.D. 70.
The calling of Israel all along was to minister God's promises to the
Gentiles. That is what Abraham was called to do, and we see him doing it. Joseph
did it. Moses married an Ethiopian. Samson offered marriage to a Philistine.
David converted the Philistine city of Gath. Elijah went to a Gentile widow.
Elisha cured a Gentile soldier of "leprosy." Thus, it is no surprise that when
Jesus appears on the scene, as the True Israelite He ministers to the Gentiles,
warning Israel in Luke 4:18-30 that they may well lose the privilege of being
priests.
The ascended Christ, as True Israel, sends the gospel to the Gentiles. On
the day of Pentecost, the gospel was preached in every language except Hebrew, a
sign that True Israel was going about His priestly work. This was also a sign,
however, that the Babelic world was being overcome, and if there is no longer a
Babelic curse, there is no longer any need for a priestly nation of Israel.
Remember, the two go together. As Paul makes clear in 1 Corinthians 14:21-22,
speaking in tongues was a sign to Israel that her history was over because her
purpose had been accomplished by True Israel.
It was still necessary, however, for believing Jew and believing Gentile
to be united as one people in Christ. As I mentioned, this was effected
judicially in A.D. 30, but the outworking of the restoration of the world took
some time. The events leading down to A.D. 70 brought about the end of the
Babelic/Jewish world in the judgments of both Rome and Jerusalem. It brought
about the filling up of both Gentile and Israel, and ended in a harvest of
fulfilled Gentile and Jewish believers. The end result of this process was that
after A.D. 70, the bipolarity no longer exists.
The reason this bipolarity had to be overcome is that the rent body of the
human race is a form of death. God's scattering judgment on Babel was a
manifestation of death, and the continuing presence of both Jew and Gentile in
the world manifested the presence of death. Just as the individual's physical
body dies if ripped to pieces, so does the body politic. God's scattering of
Israel at the Exile, and His regathering of her at the Restoration, is pictured
as death and resurrection in Ezekiel 11:17; 22:15; 36:19; 37:1-28. God's
resurrective regathering of Israel overcame the judgment-division of the nation
into two halves (Ezk. 37:15-22), a type of the future union of Jew and Gentile.
A man rent his garments to symbolize rending himself, identifying himself
with death. Similarly, rent garments could symbolize the ripping apart of the
body politic (1 Sam. 15:27-28; 1 Ki. 11:30-31). Such images as these establish
the conceptual correlation between individual death and political death, both
through tearing, and lead to a correlation between individual resurrection and
political resurrection. Individual death happens when the life (soul,
personality) is torn from the body, and individual resurrection happens when the
body is revived. Political death happens when a society is torn apart,
scattered. Political resurrection happens when a society is reunited.
Two further points needs to be noted. First, Ezekiel 37 establishes for us
that it is only believers who experience resurrection in the positive sense. It
is believing Ephraim and believing Judah who are reunited in the resurrection of
Ezekiel 37. Similarly, it is believing Jew and believing Gentile who are
reunited in the New Covenant gospel.
Second, during the time between Rehoboam's reign and the Restoration from
the Exile, believing Ephraim and believing Judah were kept apart by God. It took
God's action to reunite them after the Exile. Similarly, after Babel, it was
God's will for believing Jew and believing Gentile to be in separate bodies
politic. It took God's action to reunite them after the Cross. Any divisions and
separations within the believing community today are not caused by any judicial
act of God, and are solely the fault of sinful Christians.
The purpose of the gospel is not simply individual salvation, but also
cosmic salvation. The rent body politic of humanity has to be restored. The
reuniting of believing Jew and believing Gentile in one body undoes the
death-judgment of Babel, and thus is a political resurrection. This resurrection
occurred in A.D. 70, as an outworking of the resurrection of Jesus Christ in
A.D. 30, and as a foretaste of the eventual physical resurrection of all
believers at the Last Judgment.
After A.D. 70 the gospel has no more message of reconciliation between
believing Jew and believing Gentile. That reconciliation has been accomplished
once and for all. Babel has been undone. Now what the Church must do is call all
men into herself, to be reconciled to God.
In other words, the work of reconciling all things to God has two states.
The first stage, during the Interim (A.D. 30-70), reconciles the Church to
herself. The Old Testament Church, which had two different companies, is
gradually united during the Interim. The second state, after A.D. 70, is the
reconciliation of all humanity to God. During both stages, those who refuse
reconciliation are allowed to develop and are eventually judged. Accordingly,
the judgment on Jerusalem in A.D. 70, because she refused to be reconciled, is a
type of the eventual judgment on impenitent humanity at the Last Judgment.
In A.D. 70 the Babelic/Jewish world was put to death, and resurrected in
Christ as the Unified Church. At the Last Judgment, the whole history of
humanity will be put to death, and resurrected in the Eternal Kingdom. The
former typifies the latter, and both are historical outworkings of the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ at the cosmic-political level.
Thus, throughout the New Testament there is a constant expectation that
Christ is coming soon to render a judgment on the Church and on the old Babelic/Jewish
order. He is "near," "at the door," "coming soon," because it is the "last
days," even the "last hour." Jerusalem will be destroyed, as will the Roman
Beast, and the Church will yield a first-fruits harvest. This event will usher
in the New Covenant in a fullness not previously seen, because now at last the
residue of the Old Covenant will be gone. The events surrounding A.D. 70 happen
"in Christ," as a sign of the completion of His work. "In Christ" both the
Interim Church and the Babelic/Jewish world die, and "in Christ" the Church is
resurrected. These events illustrate the nature of Christ's ensuing work
throughout future ages until His Final Return.
The failure to understand the Babelic context of Israel's history results
in a failure to understand the purpose of tongues in the New Testament, and a
failure to understand the historical transition that took place between A.D. 30
& 70. God judged Babel because if the people were united, nothing would be
withheld from them (Gen. 11). Jesus prays that His people would be united, so
that nothing will be withheld from us (John 17). It was necessary for Jewish and
Gentile believers to overcome the Old Covenant bipolarity and be united, before
the Gospel could really go forth in full power. After A.D. 70, with Jew and
Gentile united in one Church, nothing can be withheld from us, unless we choose
by our sin to be disunited. After A.D. 70, there is no longer any God-instituted
historical disunity in operation.
We need to push this discussion back one more step before we move to
Romans. The bi-polarity of Jew and Gentile came into being because of the sin at
the Tower of Babel, but what made it possible for God to do this was the design
of the world in the first place. The Garden of Eden, in the Land of Eden, was
the center of the world, with other lands downstream from it. Apart from sin,
the world should have been united by a geographically central sanctuary. Because
of sin, that world unity was slain, and the bi-polarity of Eden and Outlying
Lands became an expression of death. The destruction of Temple and Jerusalem in
A.D. 70 ended that whole first creation by removing the geographically central
sanctuary. Now the sanctuary is with Christ in heaven, and there is no center on
earth; or rather, there are as many centers as there are churches.
For this reason, Jesus said that the destruction of Jerusalem would pay
for all the murders since that of Abel (Mt. 23:35). All the prophets murdered by
God's people in His land, from the murder of Abel in Eden forward, would be put
in Jerusalem (Rev. 18:24, "earth" = "land"). By implication, all the murders
outside the land from Lamech forward (Gen. 4:23) could be put upon the Beast.
The entire bi-polar world of the first creation would be destroyed.
Biblical Horizons (ISSN 1050-0588) is published occasionally, funds
permitting, by Biblical Horizons, P.O. Box 1096, Niceville, Florida 32588-1096.
|
|
