Featured Atheist Stephen Hawking and Church of Scotland both determined to demonize Israel

Well first we need to recognize that the current political state of Israel is not the same as OT Israel.

Secondly, there are some acts of attrocity which the current political state of Israel is visiting upon the occupied Palestinians in their midst. They should be called on the carpet and held accountable for them. Are we really saying that they are above accountability?

 

The palestinians are on their land. What atrocities do you speak of?

 

They're on the Palestinians land.

We must separate political Israel from spiritual Israel. The Israel of the OT no longer exists.

 

How can you say that with certainty? Regardless of the "politics" of the nation of Israel how do you know that God isn't returning the remnant back to the land He gave them? How do you know that both political and spiritual Israel doesn't/can't co-exist in the same geographic area?

Quote from the link.

Do you agree/disagree with this assessment?

 

Yet, the bombing of buses and many other acts of terrorism are ignored in the name of promoting the poor plight of the Philistines.

 

Not according to God.

 

The challenge here is that the OT Israel ceased to exist functionally after the Assyrian exile when the tribes ceased. Though some aspects of lineage remained the only two tribes which continued in efficacy were Judah and Benjamin (and we all know why) which ultimately unified and produced the Jews during the intertestamental period.

Because of dramatic intermarriage with pagan cultures (cf. 2 Kings 17) the Israelites took up pagan practices and lost their ethnic identity within several generations.

Most significantly notice this condemnation: "20 Therefore the Lord rejected all the people of Israel; he afflicted them and gave them into the hands of plunderers, until he thrust them from his presence...22The Israelites persisted in all the sins of Jeroboam and did not turn away from them 23 until the Lord removed them from his presence, as he had warned through all his servants the prophets. So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria, and they are still there." (2 Kings 17:20, 22f)

When the Jews returned to Jerusalem following the Babylonian captivity, it was only the Jews who returned and not the lost tribes of the northern kingdom. (Nehemiah 1; 7 for a genealogy list.)

Israel, by their own choosing, has been obliterated from the covenant of God. They can, as they desire, choose to accept Jesus as Messiah and follow Him in new life. There never has been ethnic salvation of a people, but it is always a personal choice of faithfulness to join a covenantal people.

The decision by the UN on April 2, 1947 was restitution of Jews to an ancient land their long ago ancestors had occupied. It was a conscious decision by a group of international leaders to take away land from generational claims of Palestinians and give it to another group of people. When couple this alongside a tragic misunderstanding of biblical history and over-realized eschatology the narrative of Israel has been so corrupted in our churches and theology that it doesn't actually resemble the biblical record.

When Jesus came, incarnated in flesh, and live among us it was not to raise up historical Israel but it was to inagurate the true Israel. The Church is the inheritors of the covenantal blessings of God through the establishment of the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31.)

I don't believe the Jews have a historical claim to the land anymore than the Palestinians have a generational claim.

 

I don't know if they're ignored. All violence is abhorrent. There are certainly abuses on both sides. The current leadership of both ethnic groups has much to answer for and carries much of the blame.

If the Jews are going to occupy Israel, that's fine. However, we must hold them accountable. When they take bulldozers and run them through occupied houses in the West Bank to clear new territory for settlers, there needs to be due process and people held accountable.

When Palestinian funded groups rain rockets down onto peaceful settlements, there needs to be due process and people held accountable.

Are we really saying that one group gets a blank check to terrorize and destroy just because we have a less than informed understanding of biblical history?

 

Boy howdy will they be surprised when they meet God face to face!

 

I agree but it seems that Israel is the one that gets the shaft by the rest of the world. It's a one sided attack!

 

Yes, I agree. Though I would add that the pro-Israel lobby only exists in the US. If we look at the concentration of Jews across the world the highest percentages are in Israel and the US with other countries a distant third and below.

As a strategic partner, I think there is much benefit to supporting a sovereign, political Israel in the region. However, we need to hold them accountable for their actions and when they violate human rights.

 

Thanks, JK, for a very interesting story!

The Church of Scotland makes this very confusing point:

"Promises about the land of Israel were never intended to be taken literally, or as applying to a defined geographical territory. They are a way of speaking about how to live under God so that justice and peace reign, the weak and poor are protected, the stranger is included, and all have a share in the community and a contribution to make to it. The ‘promised land’ in the Bible is not a place, so much as a metaphor of how things ought to be among the people of God. This ‘promised land’ can be found – or built – anywhere."

It is from their document "The Inheritance of Abraham? A Report on the 'Promised Land'", which I will link at the end. They blame Falwell, Hal Lindsey, Reagan, Clinton and others but leave out President Truman, who extended diplomatic recognition immediately to Israel in 1948. They call for an apology to the Arabs in Israel and an end to the boycott of the Gaza strip as well as the return of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The report criticizes Jews for sins of the ancient theocracy as well as shortcomings of the modern secular state. It does not seem to say that a Jew can be just a physical descendant of Abraham and Sarah, good, bad, or indifferent.

It is the traditional point of view of the religious left. Personally, it never occurred to me that when God said to Abraham that He would give him the land that it was just a metaphor. I wonder if the Church of Scotland supports Scotland's claim to be a separate country from the rest of Great Britain or if Scotland, too, can be found--or built--anywhere?

Here is the link to a pdf document from the Church of Scotland: www.sizers.org/inheritanceofabraham.pdf

 

Use this country for context.

This political nation, to all appearances, has turned away from God. A school teacher cannot begin her class day with a prayer. The cross has been removed from the public square. etc. & etc. Yet, within the geographic boundries of this country, there are people with a deep spiritual faith in our Saviour.

My question to preachinjesus was:

As time moves on, it seems that in this nation, fewer and fewer walk the narrow path with Christ. Yet, there are those that do walk that path. May soon be only a remnant (relatively speaking) of the "spiritual", yet, it exists along side the "political".

How can preachinjesus say, with certainty,

that there isn't a remnant of OT spiritual Israel remaining within that geographic area?

If I understand correctly, when Jesus died on the cross,
1) His was the final blood sacrifice, removing that ritual from His covenant with His chosen people.
2) Gentiles were given the opportunity to be adopted into His family.

IMO, the new covenant, doesn't negate all of what was given in the OT. There's still a role to be played (for lack of a better term) before the last verse in Revelation is complete. Thus, how to say "with certainty" that "spiritual" Israel doesn't exist?

Hope that makes sense, as I'm a little bleary eyed from lack of sleep, this morning.

 

Your reply:

My question was in reference to the article in the OP link:

Are you saying that because of your beliefs with regards to the land, that you're OK with anything said about the Jewish people?

 

'Born again from above' of the heavenly Zion [Ps 87; Gal 4:26], these are the 'real Jews', whose hearts have been circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands [Ro 2:28,29; Col 2:11].

 

This is not the first debate on the Baptist Board about Replacement Theology or Supersessionism so I will be brief.

1. The Church of Scotland says that the Promised Land was not a particular place but an idea of a good society. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, for example, would have disagreed.

2. Even though one is not a Christian, one can still be a Jewish physical descendant of Abraham and Sarah. I cannot cease to be a gentile even though I have been adopted, and Jews cannot become gentiles.

3. Walter Kaiser, of whom you have heard, defines Supersessionism in this manner:

According to Walter C. Kaiser, “Replacement theology . . . declared that the Church, Abraham’s spiritual seed, had replaced national Israel in that it had transcended and fulfilled the terms of the covenant given to Israel, which covenant Israel had lost because of disobedience

Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., “An Assessment of ‘Replacement Theology’: The Relationship Between the Israel of the Abrahamic–Davidic Covenant and the Christian Church,” Mishkan 21 (1994): 9.

This is quoted on the website Theological Studies.org under the subject heading of "Defining Supersessionism" written by Michael Vlach.

http://www.theologicalstudies.org/resource-library/supersessionism/324-defining-supersessionism

4. Who is Michael Vlach? Among many other things, his online biography says this about him: "He also has a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina." Broadman and Holman published his most recent book Has the Church Replaced Israel?

http://www.theologicalstudies.org/about/about-michael-vlach

5. Agree with Hawking and the Church of Scotland if you like, but explain to me why Jews are not entitled to an Israeli state in the Promised Land? Doesn't history teach that Jews cannot live inside gentile countries?