The Hopeless State of National Israel

As Israeli troops remove inhab­i­tants from the Gaza Strip force­fully, we are once again reminded of the the­o­log­i­cal impli­ca­tions of how hope­less the cause of a polit­i­cal Israeli state truly is. It’s odd that our sup­port of Israel is out of a the­o­log­i­cal mis­un­der­stand­ing. Also, it amazes me how Amer­i­cans view the Pales­tini­ans in the Mid­dle East drama.

There has been noth­ing short of a dis­as­ter since Israel was set up as a polit­i­cally sov­er­eign nation in 1948. It’s no won­der why there have been so many strug­gles since then. Now granted, if the 1947 UN Par­ti­tion Plan would have come to some sort of fruition (that is the set­ting up of both a polit­i­cal Jew­ish and Arab state) then maybe some of the ten­sion would be alle­vi­ated but not all. So we see this strug­gle play out. The Pales­tini­ans are upset, because they were removed in favor of a Jew­ish set­tle­ment (and right­fully so). So, this whole “peace process” is a farce for two rea­sons: (1) the Pales­tini­ans see noth­ing less but the full return of the land nec­es­sary and will fight until such and event comes to fruition, and (2) if this indeed did hap­pen then there would be retal­i­a­tion by the Jew­ish peo­ple. It is also impor­tant to remem­ber why mil­i­tant Islamists come after us. It is our sup­port of the Jew­ish set­tle­ments that they iden­tify “us” with “them.”

The­o­log­i­cal Impli­ca­tions of the Polit­i­cal State of Israel

When Israel, as we know it know polit­i­cally was set up, there was resur­gence in the doc­trine of Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ism. There­fore, it seemed to an over­whelm­ingly Chris­t­ian nation that the eth­nic Jews were receiv­ing what was due them. It is in this that we find the most glar­ing error of this con­tro­versy and why I am a Pales­tin­ian sympathizer.

When under­stand­ing the Bible cor­rectly, there is no geo­graphic land com­ing back to the Jews. The mil­len­nial reign which Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ists attribute lit­er­ally to Christ sit­ting on the throne of David of geo­graphic Israel over the eth­nic Jews of old (Old Tes­ta­ment saints) is not to hap­pen. It is when we under­stand the Church as the ful­fill­ment of those promises that we see that the Mid­dle East peace process is fool­ish (Heb 8).

I should note that in “spoils of war” the Pales­tin­ian sup­port of the Axis pow­ers of WWII cer­tainly deemed them unwor­thy to make a claim on land when they fought so proudly against us. It’s just that we must under­stand why the Pales­tini­ans con­tinue as they do. We looked around after 9/11 and asked, “why would they do such a thing?” Please under­stand I am not jus­ti­fy­ing their actions on 9/11, but I’m speak­ing to our lack of under­stand­ing why they acted as they did (no mat­ter what the anger or sit­u­a­tion mur­der­ing thou­sands was wrong).

Con­fus­ing “Israel” and “Jew”

Paul attrib­utes a “Jew” to being one receiv­ing the “cir­cum­ci­sion of the heart” (Rom 2:25–29) and Israel is an ambigu­ous term refer­ring to the elect (peo­ple) of God. Those who prac­tice Judaism still live in the the­o­log­i­cal error that they still have divine right to the promises of the Abra­hamic Covenant (while they could repent and turn to Christ to receive the promises, but that is not their under­stand­ing of inher­i­tance). We, Gen­tiles (which they still call us this to this day), have been “grafted in,” and only on the sec­ond com­ing of Christ will “all of Israel be saved” (Rom 11:26) refer­ring to peo­ple of God (Paul uses the phrase “Israel of God” in Gal 6:16 describ­ing the same body of believers).

As long as our coun­try con­tin­ues on a foun­da­tion of mis­un­der­stand­ing this the­o­log­i­cal idea then we will jus­tify our actions wrongly. To say that our sup­port of Israel is not polit­i­cally charged is to be guilty of most high igno­rance. If peace were pos­si­ble then we should strive to accom­plish this, but it seems as some­thing that will never happen.