The Israeli state?

[Josh]

Well put. I think there are indications of a return to the land of Israel,

Who is doing this returning? As I’ve clarified earlier, most of the Jewish people became Christians. The rest died in 70 AD making a last stand at the temple.

Whatever modern day Judaism or Jewish identity is, it has no promises nor is really spoken about in biblical prophecy. It is a false religion, no different than Islam. Its ethnic identity is no more or less special than a “Muslim” or “Arab” identity.

and that a Jewish temple will be rebuilt prior to the glorious appearing of Christ (not under God's approval, and not the same as the one in Ez. 40). Their current presence in the land could be a buildup to something of more clear prophetic significance, or it might not be. I think it may be one of God's mercies, one of the ways He's holding out His hands to them. The current state of Israel could fall or be removed and it wouldn't or shouldn't change my interpretation of prophecy. But politically, I think political Zionism is correct and Israel has a right to exist. Muslim Arab culture is where actual advocacy of terrorism and genocide is mainstream.

Why does political Zionism have a right to set up an apartheid state?

[Robert]

Why does political Zionism have a right to set up an apartheid state?

FOr the same reason Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, Chinese, Ethiopians and many others have a right to set up a state. The victors of WW2 set up the new national boundaries, as always happens after a war. The victors decided that the Jews, who were greatly persecuted under the Nazis, should have their own state. What was given to them was a pretty barren undeveloped land. They gathered from the Diaspora and settled the land that their forefathers lived in for thousands of years.

Right or wrong, this is what was done just as lines were drawn in Europe, Iraq and many other places after the war. It is what it is.

If it is wrong for Israel to exist, then it is wrong for Iraq, Iran, many other Middle East states and about half of Europe to exist. It is wrong for the USA to exist. At some point, we have to accept what is and move forward.

People get used to the US way of conquering then giving the land back. This is very abnormal. The victor gets to own and dictate how the land and boundaries are set.

[Josh]

I suppose if one thinks "might makes right"; what I question is why many Christians assert that "Israel has a right to exist" but they don't also assert that Palestinians and their lands in Gaza and the West Bank have a right to exist. Or do they believe that might always makes right?

[mike]

Why does political Zionism have a right to set up an apartheid state?

FOr the same reason Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, Chinese, Ethiopians and many others have a right to set up a state. The victors of WW2 set up the new national boundaries, as always happens after a war. The victors decided that the Jews, who were greatly persecuted under the Nazis, should have their own state. What was given to them was a pretty barren undeveloped land. They gathered from the Diaspora and settled the land that their forefathers lived in for thousands of years.

Right or wrong, this is what was done just as lines were drawn in Europe, Iraq and many other places after the war. It is what it is.

If it is wrong for Israel to exist, then it is wrong for Iraq, Iran, many other Middle East states and about half of Europe to exist. It is wrong for the USA to exist. At some point, we have to accept what is and move forward.

People get used to the US way of conquering then giving the land back. This is very abnormal. The victor gets to own and dictate how the land and boundaries are set.

I agree with this. Right or wrong, it is what it is. Earthly nations function by the rules of power, control, and violence. For me the discussion about whether the promises to ancient Israel apply to the modern nation of Israel is a different question from that of whether the modern nation has a right to exist. It has the same "right" to exist that America, Ukraine, Chine, Zimbabwe, and Chile have.

It is perfectly understandable to me why the US and the west generally have an interest in Israel's right to exist, because it is essentially an outpost of the west.

Christians should not speak to the rights of nation-states. We are part of the heavenly kingdom, following Jesus as our king, and we are only here as strangers and pilgrims regardless of what earthly nation we happen to live in. However, we should have plenty to say about the kingdom of God, what it is and what it is not. It is the conflation of modern state of Israel as having anything to do with the kingdom of God that gives me the greatest concern.

The idea foisted upon us by many that Christians must support the modern nation of Israel because they are still the beneficiaries of God's promises to ancient Israel is really out of kilter not only with biblical interpretation but with the Anabaptist worldview that teaches a complete separation between church and state.

[MattY]

Well put. I think there are indications of a return to the land of Israel,

Who is doing this returning? As I’ve clarified earlier, most of the Jewish people became Christians. The rest died in 70 AD making a last stand at the temple.

No, most of the Jewish people did not become Christians. Not at all. That's why the early Christians had to scatter from Jerusalem. That's why Paul, after initially preaching in synagogues wherever he went, would take the gospel to the Gentiles after being rejected by most of the Jews. Furthermore, a large number of Jews - the Diaspora - were not in Jerusalem fighting at the temple, but were living elsewhere and continued doing so after the temple was destroyed, resulting in rabbinic Judaism. The rejection of Christianity by most Jews in the early centuries was an issue for the early church: if Christ was the Messiah, why were Jews still rejecting Him? That was a source of antagonism between Jews and Christians. I don't know who you're reading, but anybody claiming modern Jews are ethnically something else should be avoided, that opinion has a really poor antisemitic associations.

[MattY]

I think Israel has a right not to be invaded and swamped by hostile peoples wanting to take over and reduce Jews living there to dhimmi status like they were in the Middle Ages, or worse, murdered in a genocide. "From the river to the sea", the Arab slogan, is a call for genocide. We are less than 100 years removed from the Holocaust; surely Jews' desire to have their own state where they can be safe and govern themselves is understandable. I think the government has a duty to protect its citizens, and they have a right not to be attacked by terrorists. I think Gaza would have a right to exist as a state if they could control themselves and stop the terrorist attacks, and if they didn't put Hamas in charge of their government. There are over 50 Islamic states, and many more countries where professing Christians are the majority; but only one small majority Jewish state, a small fraction of the size of France. Or from an ethnic standpoint, there are many Arab states, there are Turkic states, and so on, but only one Israel.

I think Israel's actions are and should be open to criticism. I'm dismayed by the length of the war and the casualties and suffering (although the number of casualties often reported may be doubtful since I don't think Hamas's reports are reliable).

[Ken]

I think Israel has a right not to be invaded and swamped by hostile peoples wanting to take over and reduce Jews living there to dhimmi status like they were in the Middle Ages, or worse, murdered in a genocide. "From the river to the sea", the Arab slogan, is a call for genocide. We are less than 100 years removed from the Holocaust; surely Jews' desire to have their own state where they can be safe and govern themselves is understandable. I think the government has a duty to protect its citizens, and they have a right not to be attacked by terrorists. I think Gaza would have a right to exist as a state if they could control themselves and stop the terrorist attacks, and if they didn't put Hamas in charge of their government. There are over 50 Islamic states, and many more countries where professing Christians are the majority; but only one small majority Jewish state, a small fraction of the size of France. Or from an ethnic standpoint, there are many Arab states, there are Turkic states, and so on, but only one Israel.

I think Israel's actions are and should be open to criticism. I'm dismayed by the length of the war and the casualties and suffering (although the number of casualties often reported may be doubtful since I don't think Hamas's reports are reliable).

Several points here:

1. What do you define as the state of Israel? Are you including the West Bank and Gaza as part of "Israel"? Because Israel has its own expansionist ideology identical to Hamas. And Netanyahu's Likud Party even included the "From the River to the Sea" slogan in their 1970s campaigns. Is Likud being genocidal?

2. Over the years, extremists on BOTH sides have actively worked to undermine peace and co-existence. There is plenty of blame to go around for the current state of war. But but sides share it. The media likes to talk about how it was Arafat who torpedoed the Oslo accords. But that is only half the story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assass..._Yitzhak_Rabin

The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the fifth prime minister of Israel, took place on 4 November 1995 (12 Marcheshvan 5756 on the Hebrew calendar) at 21:30, at the end of a rally in support of the Oslo Accords at the Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv. The assailant was Yigal Amir, an Israeli law student and ultranationalist who radically opposed prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's peace initiative, particularly the signing of the Oslo Accords.

Before the rally, Rabin was disparaged personally by right-wing conservatives and Likud leaders who perceived the peace process as an attempt to forfeit the occupied territories and a capitulation to Israel's enemies.

National religious conservatives and Likud party leaders believed that withdrawing from any "Jewish" land was heresy. The Likud leader and future prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accused Rabin's government of being "removed from Jewish tradition [...] and Jewish values". Right-wing rabbis associated with the settlers' movement prohibited territorial concessions to the Palestinians and forbade soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces from evacuating Jewish settlers under the accords. Some rabbis proclaimed din rodef, based on a traditional Jewish law of self-defense, against Rabin personally, arguing that the Oslo Accords would endanger Jewish lives.

Rallies organized by Likud and other right-wing groups featured depictions of Rabin in a Nazi SS uniform, or in the crosshairs of a gun. Protesters compared the Labor party to the Nazis and Rabin to Adolf Hitler and chanted, "Rabin is a murderer" and "Rabin is a traitor". In July 1995, Netanyahu led a mock funeral procession featuring a coffin and hangman's noose at an anti-Rabin rally where protesters chanted, "Death to Rabin". The chief of internal security, Carmi Gillon, then alerted Netanyahu of a plot on Rabin's life and asked him to moderate the protests' rhetoric, which Netanyahu declined to do..

The perpetrator was Yigal Amir, a 25-year-old former Hesder student and far-right law student at Bar-Ilan University. Amir had strenuously opposed Rabin's peace initiative, particularly the signing of the Oslo Accords, because he felt that an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank would deny Jews their "biblical heritage which they had reclaimed by establishing settlements"

Hmmm. I guess the blame for the failure of Oslo wasn't just on the Palestinians after all.

[Nomad]

When I read Acts 15, I see it as James pointing to a inference made by Amos's prophecy that there will be Gentiles who will be called out by God as His people. This was a bit foreign to Jews in the Old Testament economy and was a central issue in the New Testament under the New Covenant. Ruth, for instance, left her people, culture, language, and religion behind and became Jewish in order to be a partaker in fellowship with God (she said as much in Ruth 1:16). Rahab the same. Exodus says that if a Gentile would wish to partake of the Passover they must be circumcised. In other words, if Gentiles wanted to partake in the fellowship, covenants and worship made by God to His people Israel...they must stop being Egyptian, Moabite, or whomever nation they were and essentially become Hebrew. This doesn't mean Gentiles couldn't be saved of course (see Nineveh in Jonah). It just meant Gods presence was not in their midst like it was in the Temple at Jerusalem during the OT era. James is saying that now under the New Covenant these Gentiles no longer have to become Israel and thus they are partakers of the Holy Spirit without changing their identity as a people or nationality, but rather changing who they are as a person. He quotes Amos 9 to show that a prophet stated this would happen by showing Gentiles would be accepted by God as Gentiles (Amos 9:12). This doesn't mean that Gentiles are now "True Israel" and that the promises for Israel change to promises for the Church.

Amos 9 begins by a reprimanded of (ethnic) Israel for their sin and then ends with a blessing to (ethnic) Israel by saying this:

13 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord,
    “when the plowman shall overtake the reaper
    and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed;
the mountains shall drip sweet wine,
    and all the hills shall flow with it.
14 I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,
    and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,
    and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.
15 I will plant them on their land,
    and they shall never again be uprooted
    out of the land that I have given them,”
says the Lord your God.

The fact that it speaks of restoring implies that there was enmity and transgression and then a restoring back from that transgression. To me this speaks of the nation Israel and as of today they still reject their Messiah. The world's restoration is linked to Israels repentance and restoration (Ro 11:12, 15). The reason "why Israel" is because its all according to Gods plan to restore His creation. Israel is a central part of His plan. I have a hard time believing that when Amos wrote this he was meaning "God would restore the fortunes of Israel...but not the national Israel, just the True Israel that includes the Gentiles..." it doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the narrative since he makes a differentiation between Israel and us Gentiles(Amos 9:12). If he meant they both morphed into "True Israel" he wouldn't have made this differentiation. I also dont view James quote as some sort of switch in the meaning where it previously was intended for Israel in the OT and changes to mean Church in the NT. We are in a time of the church, which started at Pentecost, to now where Jews and Gentiles are a "new man" and these promises for Israel will be fulfilled under the same New Covenant initiated by Christ at the cross when they (Israel) believe in Him.

The reason I dont think Zechariah is referring to an already fulfilled event back in the OT is because this statement:
Zechariah 12:10
"[10]And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn."
Jesus had not been "pierced" yet and Israel had not received the Spirit yet. They will, when they believe.

[MattY]

Paul describes Jews as "natural branches" (Rom. 11:24):

For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree?

He also said in vss. 11-12:

I ask then, they did not stumble into an irrevocable fall, did they? Absolutely not! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make Israel jealous. Now if their transgression means riches for the world and their defeat means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full restoration bring?

After vs. 24, he goes on:

For I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: A partial hardening has happened to Israel until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

“The Deliverer will come out of Zion;
he will remove ungodliness from Jacob.
And this is my covenant with them,
when I take away their sins.”

In regard to the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but in regard to election they are dearly loved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.

An individual's salvation is always based on his faith and repentance. (But even in the NT, there are corporate aspects as well as individual: for example, the election of NT believers is primarily corporate: the church as the body of Christ is elect, and individuals become elect by being in Christ). The election or calling of Israel does not guarantee anyone's salvation or their place in the kingdom; they must believe in the Redeemer just like the rest of us. God chose Israel as a nation for service: not superior to other nations, but to mediate blessings to the nations (the Redeemer and the Scriptures), and to be a model or microcosm of what God would do for all nations in the kingdom. And as Paul says, God is still holding out His hands to Israel, even though they are currently His enemies, and anticipates their eventual inclusion and more blessings to the world through that.

This agrees with Jeremiah, who said in chapter 31,

“Indeed, a time is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. It will not be like the old covenant that I made with their ancestors when I delivered them from Egypt. For they violated that covenant, even though I was like a faithful husband to them,” says the Lord. “But I will make a new covenant with the whole nation of Israel after I plant them back in the land,” says the Lord. “I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts and minds. I will be their God and they will be my people.
...
The Lord has made a promise to Israel. He promises it as the one who fixed the sun to give light by day and the moon and stars to give light by night. He promises it as the one who stirs up the sea so that its waves roll. His name is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. The Lord affirms, “The descendants of Israel will not cease forever to be a nation in my sight. That could only happen if the fixed ordering of the heavenly lights were to cease to operate before me.” The Lord says, “I will not reject all the descendants of Israel because of all that they have done. That could only happen if the heavens above could be measured or the foundations of the earth below could all be explored,” says the Lord.

As far as I'm aware, the sun and moon are still up there. Paul and Jeremiah, therefore, argue for the continued validity of the promises to Israel under the Abrahamic Covenant. The covenant with Abraham set the overarching framework by which salvation came. Both the Old Covenant (Mosaic Covenant), and the New Covenant were made in/under the framework provided by the Abrahamic Covenant. The promises made to Abraham and David are being fulfilled in the New Covenant, and all will be completely fulfilled (including some of the New Covenant conditions mentioned by Jeremiah) in the millennial kingdom.

We have new and expanded revelation that Gentiles no longer have to become Jews (proselytes) and keep the OT law to become saved, but God has provided a new body where the middle wall of partition has been broken down. But this is progressive revelation, and it expands or adds to previous revelation, rather than changing or contradicting it. The OT always taught the salvation of Gentiles along with Jews in the kingdom of God; the NT gives us more information about that.

The Mosaic Covenant (the Law) has been fulfilled in Christ. This is the covenant that has been made obsolete (Heb. 8:13) and replaced by something better, i.e. the New Covenant. Consequently, Christians are not under the Old Testament Law, and should teach and interpret it entirely only in light of its fulfillment. Christians are under the Law of Christ, i.e. New Testament teachings, and are to live by the power of the Spirit rather than the letter of the law (but if we fail to walk with the Spirit, we need law to correct us). Note that this emphasizes discontinuity between the OT and NT, contrary to Reformed thinking.

[Nomad]

While I see a future promise for the nation of ethnic Israel with Jesus as their King/ Messiah reigning in the Land of Israel from the city of Jerusalem as the OT prophets stated and the NT saints were expecting (Mary, Simeon, Zechariah, John the Baptist, etc...)...I do not consider myself a Zionist in the sense that I applaud current day Israel for every action they commit. I think if Israel treats people or innocent citizens badly, whether Jew, Gentile, or Arabic, then its our Christian duty to not make excuses for the oppression they commit, but rather condemn it.

Also, I am not for assuming everything Israel does today as part of Gods prophetic plan therefore we must step aside and let them do as they wish without condemning the evils they commit. There were plenty of examples in the Bible where people did evil according to Gods plan (see Assyria's destruction of the Northern Kingdom or Babylons destruction of the Temple) but God later condemns the actions committed by those He used to commit them due to the extent they went to (see Is 10:5-34). In other words, just because God has a plan to use Israel in the future, it still doesn't mean we cheer them on because of Bible prophecy everytime they drop a bomb on Arabs in retaliation. This probably won't be the popular view among some pro Israel Christians and it won't sell prophecy books but I still can't see how God would want us to stand back and help an unbelieving Israeli government dismantle their enemies by sending them money. I dont see that as an option when Christ came and taught. Nothing I believe about Israels restoration negates any of Christ teachings.