Future Israel

1
FUTURE ISRAEL
Why Christian Anti-Judaism
Must be Challenged
Do not be arrogant toward the branches

Romans 11:18
by
Barry E. Horner
2
Copyright
Barry E. Horner
2006
3
FORWORD
To be perfectly blunt: I must say the Christians have robbed the Jews!
And perhaps what is worse is that this thievery has been encouraged by
theologians, pastors, and even Sunday School teachers, where small
children are taught to sing the song, "Every promise in the book is
mine, every chapter, every verse, every line. . . ."
Every promise in the Scripture in some way benefits Christians, but it's
not all promised to Christians. Sometimes the thievery has been
inadvertent and as unintentional. Its like thinking that the raincoat
hanging in the office closet is yours for wearing home because of
unexpected showers. Hopefully, you will discover the raincoat belongs
to a fellow worker and you will restore it. It is not as if Christians do
not have the greatest promise of God, which is I John 2:25, And this is
the promise that He hath promised us, even eternal life.
Barry Horner is a theologian who furnishes evidence of this identity
theft and the false claim that the Church inherited all the promises of
Israel. Not only that, he demonstrates how that by restoring the election
of God or chosen-ness to the Jewish people, the Church is even more
blessed.
He shows that the Jewish People are present historical evidence of the
Bibles complete trustworthiness. Every living Jewish person, no
matter what he believes, no matter what he observes, no matter
whether or not he cares, is evidence that the God of the Bible is, and
He keeps His Word.
Though Israel might be blinded in part, yet there is a glorious destiny
to be fulfilled, and that glorious destiny is a light and a blessing to the
Church of today and tomorrow.
Horner's scholarship is impeccable, his reasoning is profound, his
revelation of theological anti-Semitism is astounding. His proposal for
the solution is based on the integrity of the Scripture and the
sovereignty of God. I cant imagine a more useful book for those who
take theology seriously.
Moishe Rosen
4
The God of Abraham praise, Who reigns enthroned above;

Ancient of everlasting days, and God of Love;
Jehovah, great I AM! by earth and Heavn confessed;
I bow and bless the sacred Name forever blessed.
The God of Abraham praise, Whose all sufficient grace
Shall guide me all my happy days, in all my ways.
He calls a worm His friend, He calls Himself my God!
And He shall save me to the end, thro Jesus blood.
He by Himself has sworn; I on His oath depend,
I shall, on eagle wings upborne, to Heavn ascend.
I shall behold His face; I shall His power adore,
And sing the wonders of His grace forevermore.
The goodly land I see, with peace and plenty blessd;
A land of sacred liberty, and endless rest.
There milk and honey flow, and oil and wine abound,
And trees of life forever grow with mercy crowned.
There dwells the Lord our King, the Lord our righteousness,
Triumphant oer the world and sin, the Prince of peace;
On Sions sacred height His kingdom still maintains,
And glorious with His saints in light forever reigns.
The God Who reigns on high the great archangels sing,
And Holy, holy, holy! cry, Almighty King!
Who was, and is, the same, and evermore shall be:
JehovahFathergreat I AM, we worship Thee!
Before the Saviors face the ransomed nations bow;
Oerwhelmed at His almighty grace, forever new:
He shows His prints of lovethey kindle to a flame!
And sound thro all the worlds above the slaughtered Lamb.
The whole triumphant host give thanks to God on high;
Hail, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, they ever cry.
Hail, Abrahams God, and mine! (I join the heavnly lays,)
All might and majesty are Thine, and endless praise.
Thomas Olivers
Dedicated to:
Ann, Moishe, David, Ron, Carolyn, Kay, Eddie,

all encouragers after the spirit of Barnabas.
5
Table of Contents
Forword 3
Personal Introduction 9
1 Israel and Christian anti-Judaism in contrast 19
Aurelius Augustine 21
John Calvin 24
Horatius Bonar 27
Charles Haddon Spurgeon 31
2 Israel and centuries of Christian anti-Judaism 35
The Early Church to 135 AD 37
The Patristic Period 39
The Medieval Period 43
The 16th century Reformation Period 48
The 17th century Puritan Period 50
The 18th century Evangelical Period 52
The 19th century Gentile Missionary Period 53
The 20-21st century Jewish Missionary Period 56
3 Israel and Christian anti-Judaism in the US 59
Albertus Pieters 59
Loraine Boettner 62
Gary Burge 67
O. Palmer Robertson 79
An Open Letter to Evangelicals 91

6
4 Israel and Christian anti-Judaism in the UK 108
Law precedes Grace 111
Covenentalism 114
Romans 11 116
Heaven without Earth 121
Unity without Diversity 123
Anti-Judaic Tone 125
5 Israel and Christian encounter with Zionism 133
The foundation of Zionism 134
The exile of Zionism 136
The birth of Zionism 147
The British encouragement of Zionism 152
The British discouragement of Zionism 158
The Recovery of the State of Israel 162
Christian sympathy with Zionism 173
6 Israel and Christian anti-Judaism hermeneutics in history 178
Reformed connection with Roman Catholocism 178
Judeo-centric millennialism to the Reformation 182
Judeo-centric millennialism beyond the Reformation 183
Reformed development with Fairbairn, Bavinck and Vos 193
7 Israel and Christian anti-Judaism hermeneutics 215
The hermeneutic of George Eldon Ladd 216
The instructive example of Hebrews 220

7
A Christocentric hermeneutic against Hebrew scripture 222
A Christocentic hermeneutic that is misguided 229
A Christocentic hermeneutic for Hebrew scripture 233
8 Israel and the harmony of spiritual materiality 241
The fall of spirituality and materiality 242
The spirituality of materiality in the Old Testament 244
The spirituality of materiality in the New Testament 246
The influence of Greek Philosophy upon the church 249
The redemption of spirituality and materiality 252
The tension between spirituality, materiality, and

Augustinianism 254
The redemption of Israels fallen spiritual materiality 259
9 Israel as heir of the land through Abraham 263
The land in the Old Testament 266
The land in the New Testament 269
The land and Patrick Fairbairn 280
The land and W. D. Davies 284
The land and David E. Holwerda 285
The land and the Heavenly Jerusalem 290
10 Israel and a Romans 11 Synthesis 296
Romans 11:1-32 298
Galatians 6:16 307
Ephesians 2:11-22 314
Philippians 3:2-3 321

8
Hebrews 8:7-13 326
I Peter 2:9-10 333
11 Israel as Gods beloved enemy in Romans 11:28 339
Carnal Israel as Gods beloved enemy 340
Carnal Israel and the spiritual remnant 347
Carnal Israel as Israel after the flesh 355
Carnal Israel in the personal testimony of Paul 359
12 Israel in need of the prodigal Gentiles love 360
The admonition of Paul to the Gentiles in Romans 11 361
The anti-Judaic nominal regard for the Jew 363
The analogy of family interest in the Jew 367
The analogy of Ruth and Orpah 369
The encouragement of eschatological Jewishness 371
The exhortation of Horatius Bonar 374
Appendices
A The future of Israel and Jonathan Edwards 383
B The future of Israel and J. C. Ryle 389
C Gods dealings with Israel law or grace? 399
D Melanie Phillips on Replacement Theology 404
E Annotated bibliography on JewishChristian Relations 410
Bibliography
Index
PERSONAL INTRODUCTION
I N the pilgrimage of a Christian, significant junctures are encountered

that bring about a radical change of direction, particularly in the
realm of doctrinal course correction, that may be regarded as near-
revolutionary. Such was the case when this writer came to a knowledge
of a more Reformed doctrinal emphasis, that is biblical, or more
precisely, exegetical Calvinism. He will never forget the change of
perspective that came about with the reading of Martin Luthers
Bondage of the Will; a whole gospel world-view was turned around,
even though appreciation still remained for an earlier evangelical
heritage that did not agree with the German Reformers understanding
of human corruption and the sovereign grace of God. Furthermore,
having been raised in Methodism, this new doctrinal allegiance became
more sympathetic with the Calvinistic foundation of George Whitefield
rather than John Wesleys Arminianism, and as a result fellowship
tilted toward those of a more Reformed persuasion. There further came
appreciative acquaintance with John Owen and C. H. Spurgeon and
Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield and Loraine Boettner and J. I.
Packer and Martyn Lloyd-Jones etcetera, especially by means of The
Banner of Truth Trust as well as other similar publishers. Consequently
there also developed a more heartfelt understanding of the grace of
God in the light of mans thorough sinful pollution, which led to
expanding familiarity with Calvinism, more euphemistically referred to
as the doctrines of grace.
This whole new environment, although incorporating Anglican,
Presbyterian, Congregational, and Baptist legacies, has presented an
admirable unified front. With this aura there has been fervent
endorsement of the major historic strands of the Reformation with
regard to God, man, sin, and the gospel, and to a lesser degree with
regard to the doctrine of the church. However the area of eschatology
has revealed a yet lesser degree of unity except that it would be true to
say that Augustinian amillennialism has appeared to be the
predominant school of prophetic thought, with postmillennialism
ranking a respectable second, and premillennialism being relegated to a
tolerable third place, provided that it was purged of that much
maligned subset, dispensationalism. Certainly amillennialism has been
paraded, in the main, as the most historically viable scheme of
eschatology having been rooted in the esteemed, fourth century Bishop
10 Personal Introduction
of Hippo, as well as the subsequent revered Reformers, and to a lesser
and yet more variegated degree, their Puritan successors.
Following this awakening, the writer continued to maintain interest in
the prophetic schools of thought while retaining premillennial
convictions even though pressure was experienced, especially from
amillennialists, to advance to purer Reformed heights that abandoned a
carnal, Zionist system that clung to Jewish weak and bankrupt
elemental forces (Gal. 4:9). Yet while there was firm conviction that
biblical Calvinism rested on solid exegetical grounds, there was never
the same strength of belief that ones prophetic convictions needed
overturning as well. Certainly many challenging arguments were
offered to convince the writer that the premillennial perspective was
not in the mainstream of Reformation thought. After all, Augustine had
surely dealt chiliasm or millennialism, which he had earlier affirmed,
such a crippling blow. There was also the suggestion that as the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had certainly witnessed the
recovery of the Pauline gospel, so this awakening was to be heeded in
terms of a parallel and more reliable scheme of eschatology. In
addition there was the inference that since premillennialism was more
aligned with the popular tide of Arminianism, then this provided
further proof for Calvinists of its lack of validity.
Yet the gnawing conviction remained that the persuasive exegesis that
led to biblical, soteriological Calvinism did not necessarily lead to the
companion scheme of amillennialism. The reason for this was that such
a system was inclined to rely too heavily upon lauded historical
currents of belief, the result being that a questionable hermeneutical
framework was imposed upon the plain meaning of the biblical text. In
other words historic tradition, especially that allied with Wittenberg in
Germany, Geneva in Switzerland and Westminster in England, tended
to strongly influence exegesis. After all, Martin Luther, John Calvin or
John Owen could not possibly be wrong!
More recently a closer study of four books of the Bible has led this
writer to now more firmly assert that the basic premillennial model of
biblical prophecy, and especially as it relates to ethnic and national
Israel, is closest to the truth of Scripture. First there was a study of
Zechariah, which postexilic revelation is so permeated with the
ultimate triumph of Messiah, along with the nation of Israel, Who
ushers in the vindication of God upon this planet at which time Jesus
Christ will become king over all the earthYahweh alone, and His
name alone (Zech. 14:9).1 I shall never forget the study of David
Barons commentary on this book which seemed so much more
illuminating to the text than that of Calvin. Then a close study of
Romans over several years, and particularly chapters 9-11, resulted in
an indelible impression that for Paul, the converted Hebrew rabbi,
Israel has an ongoing national identity, its unbelief notwithstanding.
On the other hand it seemed as if Reformed exegesis, at least upon a
prima facie reading of the text, was attempting to avoid the obvious.
One particular comment has proved to greatly assist in grasping the
thrust of Paul at this juncture. It was that of John McRay, Professor of
Old Testament and Archaeology at Wheaton College Graduate School,
who, in the introduction to his significant volume, Paul: His Life and
Teaching, wrote:
I have tried to put on my first-century glasses, look at Paul in his Jewish
and Hellenistic world of the Mediterranean, and see him not as a fourth-
century church father, a sixteenth-century Protestant reformer, or a twenty-
first century evangelical missionary, but as what he was, a first-century
Jewish rabbi who accepted Jesus as his Messiah and became an ardent,
dedicated Messianic Jew. In this volume I have tried to emphasize that
Paul was not the founder of Christianity, that he never ceased to be a Jew,
and that Christianity is not a Gentile religion. There has never been a
greater advocate of the universal composition of the Christian faith than
Paul, who emphatically asserted that in Christ there is neither Jew nor
Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male not female; for
you are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28). This means that when people
place their trust in Jesus, neither Jews nor Gentiles have to abandon their
ancestry, neither males nor females have to abandon their gender, and
neither slaves nor free people have to abandon their sociological status.
Pauls central focus in his preaching was that Gentiles do not have to
become Jews any more than Jews have to become Gentiles, for as he went
on to say, If you are Christs, then you are Abrahams offspring, heirs
according to the promise (Gal. 3:29).2
This comment has struck a chord that is still resonating. At the same
time a study of Hosea for a series of Sunday evening messages,
1
Amillennialist Vern S. Poythress has made a significant comment when, in
having dialogue with dispensationalists under the auspices of The
Evangelical Theological Society, he commented: Zechariah 14, if read in a
straightforward manner, is particularly difficult for an amillennialist. In
fact, if I were to defend premillennialism in a debate, I would probably
choose Zechariah 14 as a main text. Grace Theological Journal, V. 10 #2,
Fall 1989, p. 159.
2
John McRay, Paul: His Life and Teaching, pp. 11-12.
especially the repeated emphases on the mercy of God triumphing over
a persistently adulterous Israel, only confirmed what the other three
books were declaring. At that time a man of amillennial convictions
recommended to me the commentary of Jeremiah Burroughs on Hosea
that I believe he had not studied too closely, and how delightful it was
to discover the clear premillennial convictions of this seventeenth
century Puritan, including his belief in a glorious future for national
Israel. Then more recently a study of Ezekiel, but especially chapters
36-39, has led to the conclusion that this is also such a pivotal passage
in terms of the validity of a divine national future for Israel. In
particular it is the inability of those of a supercessionist persuasion to
deal satisfactorily with the whole of the text here, notwithstanding the
supposed justification of broad abstraction on account of Old Covenant
and apocalyptic genre, that has further reinforced the concept of Judeo-
centric eschatology. To merely treat these chapters in general and
idealistic terms whereby regeneration and resurrection themes are
derived, according to Patrick Fairbairn and O. Palmer Robertson, is
quite unsatisfactory.
However more recently the work of Horatius Bonar titled Prophetic
Landmarks has become available which, as a solid and judicious
premillennial apology, needs wide distribution. In particular this choice
upholder of the doctrines of sovereign grace makes a point of emphasis
that this volume intends to take as the pivotal issue with regard to a
right perception of prophetic revelation. It concerns the primacy of the
nature and destiny of the Jewish people in the whole eschatological
scheme of things. He writes:
[T]he prophecies concerning Israel are the key to all the rest. True
principles of interpretation, in regard to them, will aid us in disentangling
and illustrating all prophecy together. False principles as to them will most
thoroughly perplex and overcloud the whole Word of God.3
3
Horatius Bonar, Prophetical Landmarks, p. 228. It is accessible on the
internet at: http://www.bunyanministries.org. Ernest Sandeen makes a
related point when in his The Roots Of Fundamentalism: British and
American Millenarianism, 1800-1930, p. 11, he states that, the restoration
of the Jews to Palestine the return of the promised people to the
promised land became firmly established as a plank in the millenarian
creed. Also refer to Willem A. VanGemeren, Israel as the Hermeneutical
Crux in the Interpretation of Prophecy, Westminster Theo-logical Journal,
45 (1983) pp. 132-44; 46 (1984) pp. 254-97. Similarly refer to Samuel
Waldegrave, New Testament Millennarianism, Bampton Lectures, 1854, p.
This then is a most significant point that will be recommended quite

frequently throughout this book. Indeed at this juncture we coin the
term Judeo-centric Eschatology since it offers such a cohesive basis
for the integration of various elements of biblical prophecy, and even
more so than the common premillennial recourse to Revelation 20.
Mind you, given a right understanding of Israel in relation to the
Christian church, an eschatology will nevertheless result that incorp-
orates an essentially premillennial understanding of Revelation 20.
Of course someone is bound to suggest, as if trumping any of the
historic prophetic approaches, that when all has been said and done
with regard to the three major schools of eschatology, the real,
overshadowing central issue concerns the person of Jesus Christ. It is
the New Covenant which He has established with His blood, and His
present reign at the right hand of the Father, that should dominate our
thinking and not some distinctive scheme of prophecy. So Reformed
amillennialist George Murray comments: It is Christ, rather than the
Hebrew people, Who is the subject of the Old Testament prophets.4
And of course all of the major schools of prophecy would heartily
agree at this point, so that nothing in fact would have been trumped at
all. The reason for this is simply that amillennialism, postmillen-
nialism, and premillennialism are all based upon their future
perspective of history as it will be climaxed with the second coming or
parousia of Jesus Christ that crowns the redemptive work of His first
coming. In this sense, Jesus Christ is dearly central to all three
perspectives, whatever their disagreements might involve. However,
this being said, it must be borne in mind that the Lord Jesus Christ
remains the quintessential Jew. We would even dare to say that He has
not in the slightest lost His essential Jewishness. However Murray
continues: To be sure, the nation was sovereignly chosen by God as
the channel through which His oracles might be given to the world; but
God no longer deals with them as a chosen nation.5 How incomplete
is the allusion here to Romans 3:2 that ignores Romans 9:4 concerning
those who are [present tense] Israelites, and to them belong the
adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple
service, and the promises. For a professing Calvinist, such as Murray,
to suggest that Israel has lost its election, is not only astonishing, but
547, an opponent of Bonar, where the author confesses that the topic of
literal Israel is the most prominent subject in his published discourse.
4
George L. Murray, Millennial Studies, p. 57.
5
Ibid.
also to fly in the face of Pauls further explanation that, [r]egarding
the gospel, they [unbelieving national Israel, not the remnant] are
enemies for your [the Gentiles] advantage, but regarding election [the
election, tn klogn, ten eklogen], they [unbelieving national Israel]
are loved because of their forefathers [Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob]
(Rom. 11:28). How then can Jesus Christ be exalted when He, the
King of the Jews (John 19:19), He who declared that salvation is
from the Jews (John 4:22), yet has His Jewish brethren permanently
and nationally defrocked?
Of course the great difficulty here in dealing with this subject is that of
maintaining a calm spirit that is respectful of opposing points of view
and yet unashamedly presses home the truth without apology. This
writer does not hesitate to confess his disturbance at that opinion,
especially amongst many Calvinists, though by no means all, which
declares that the Jew today, on account of stubborn unbelief, is
covenantally and eternally persona non grata in the sight of God.
Perhaps most disturbing of all in this regard has been an evident form
of theological anti-Judaism amongst a considerable number of those
holding to Reformed convictions, and this matter will be documented
and addressed with some detail. In conversation, quite a few have, by
their derogatory manner, inferred that they would be delighted if the
Arabs would push Israel into the Mediterranean Sea, repossess
Palestine, and thus vindicate their eschatology!6 Suffice to say at this
point that the author strongly believes that a true child of God will have
a distinctive, persistent love for the Jewish people. This will also be,
notwithstanding their unbelief, after the fervent manner of the Apostle
Paul, even though he may repeatedly suffer at the hands of their hard
heartedness and obstinacy, and at the same time feel great anguish of
6
For instance, Stephen Sizer has disparagingly stated that, the present
brutal, repressive racist policies of the State of Israel would suggest another
exile on the horizon rather than a restoration. Whose Promised Land:
Israel and Biblical Prophecy Debate between Neil Cornell (CMJ & ITAC)
and Stephen Sizer, Guildford Diocesan Evangelical Fellowship, St. Johns,
Woking. Surrey, 18th March, 1997. Also consider the haunting intimation of
Colin Chapman: I dont believe that the State of Israel is of God in the
sense that it is the fulfillment (or even the preliminary stage in the
fulfillment) of all that God promised and predicted in the Old Testament
about the future of the land and its people. I would go further and suggest
that for Christians to interpret these events simply as the fulfillment of
prophecy represents a kind of regression. Whose Promised Land? (Second
Edition), p. 227.
heart. It is significant that when Paul deals with his countrymen by

physical descent in Romans 9-11, this subject, involving such ultimate
national glory, stimulates his passions as do few others.
Many years ago this writer, in conversation with a representative of a
leading Reformed publisher, questioned why it had not published any
volume in sympathy with premillennialism, even though amillennial-
ism and posmillennialism had been well represented.7 The response
was that the reprint of a premillennial volume by J. C. Ryle was being
considered, and so some hope was raised though subsequent years saw
it diminish. Later, in correspondence with that same person, further
enquiry was made but no encouragement was received that a book
from a premillennial perspective might arise. Hence this volume is
dedicated to the elucidation of the premillennial perspective, especially
as it focuses on National Israel, that has been ignored, belittled and
distorted in Calvinistic, Reformed, and Sovereign Grace circles.
A most important matter that needs to be clarified at this juncture
concerns the crucial distinction that must be appreciated between the
overriding significance of Israel in the Word of God and relatively
lesser matters of eschatological concern, as with regard to the
antichrist, the great tribulation, the rapture, etc. The nature and role of
Israel in the Bible, in both Testaments, is transcendently more
important than the aforementioned details, though they may necessarily
call for serious consideration of lesser proportions. Furthermore, with
regard to Israel we are not dealing with a doctrinal emphasis that has
little relationship with significant Christian ethics. Quite to the
contrary, as our study will unquestionably prove, the wrong perception
of Israel and the Jew by Christians, biblically speaking, has produced
consequences of horrific proportions during the history of the Christian
church in all of its strands. Such a shameful legacy, perpetuated during
the illustrious Reformation and onwards, remains undiminished,
largely unconfessed, and still prevalent in substantial degrees up to the
present within a Calvinist, Reformed, and Sovereign Grace
environment. The reader who is disturbed by such a charge is simply
asked to hold back judgment until the following evidence is weighed.
Hence this unethical consequence will be pressed home in succeeding
chapters. While the process may be painful, nevertheless it is hoped
7
Refer to Patrick Fairbairn, The Interpretation of Prophecy; William Grier,
The Momentous Event; Iain Murray, The Puritan Hope, Cornelis P.
Venema, The Promise of the Future. All four authors offer their strongest
opposition to premillennialism.
that the end result will be the fruit of genuine repentance evidenced by
heartfelt love for Gods beloved enemies (Rom. 11:28), they being
every Christians kinsmen through faith in Abrahams God (Gal. 3:29).
If a Christians eschatology produces an indifference, detachment,
even antagonism towards things Jewish, though there continues to be
manifest unbelief and carnality within national Israel, there is most
likely something fundamentally wrong with that eschatological
expression. True doctrine, rightly comprehended, does not produce bad
attitudes, especially that which is so obviously un-Pauline. It ought to
be a shame for any professing Christian to lack that apostolic
compassion for the Jew which never diminished, even when Paul
eventually reached Rome (Acts 28:17-22). Hence where this unsavory
attitude prevails, even with a mere facade of token respect for the
Jewish people, there is need for a return with freshness to the only final
source that can resolve an issue having such profound moral
implications, that is to the objective, truthful, inscribed Word of God.
The major part of this book contends for the present and future hope of
national Israel according to theological synthesis based upon biblical
exegesis that receives particular focus in Chapter Ten: Israel - and a
Romans 11 Synthesis. Here exposition deals with Romans 11:1-32,
Galatians 6:16, Ephesians 2:11-22, Philippians 3:2-3, Hebrews 8:7-13,
and I Peter 2:9-10. Also Chapter Nine and Chapter Eleven deal with
Scripture in some detail. In addition a number of appendices are
included that underpin the overall theological argument.
Concerning terminology, a word of explanation is necessary. Instead of
the common emotive term of anti-Semitism being employed, which
is often qualified as either racial or theological, the more specific anti-
Judaism is mainly used. Nevertheless even anti-Judaism needs
explication. Here it is intended to refer to classic anti-Judaism, that is
opposition to the biblical legacy of Torah mediated through Abraham
and Moses rather than opposition to the Rabbinic and Talmudic
accretions that Jesus Christ so vigorously opposed, though doubtless
some overlap will nevertheless be involved. The use of anti-Zionism
will more narrowly focus on opposition to the recent establishment of
the nation of modern Israel. With regard to the Augustinian legacy of
Israels displacement by the Christian church as the new spiritual
Israel, the accepted terms of replacement theology and
supercessionism will be used interchangeably. Some authors
vigorously renounce association with these designations, and often
attempt to argue against their validity. Nevertheless, for all of such
verbal ducking and weaving by those who in reality are
supercessionists, they are unable to obscure obvious identification with

the same essential anti-Judaic spirit which substitute concepts such as
progression, transference, and fulfillment convey.
In a nutshell then, the issue here concerns whether Israel, incorporating
individuality, nationality and territory, has a future according to the
mind of Abrahams God. It is certain that great ethical consequences
are at stake here, and not mere eschatological speculation. Consider the
comment of Reformed theologian. Herman Ridderbos.
The church, then, as the people of the New Covenant has taken the
place of Israel, and national Israel is nothing other than the empty shell
from which the pearl has been removed and which has lost its function
in the history of redemption.8
We would suggest that the illustration here, in being representative
of much Reformed opinion, is quite inappropriate in that it alludes
to Judaism and national Israel as matter only worthy of being
discarded. So the issue of supercessionism is not something to be
taken lightly or merely academically. When a scholar and exegete of
the stature of C. E. B. Cranfield so movingly and publicly repents of
his former belief that the church has replaced Israel, then none ought to
exclude themselves from hearing the call to seriously review this
matter and the vital issues that are involved. He wrote in his
commentary concerning Romans 9-11:
And I confess with shame to having also myself used in print on more than
one occasion this language of the replacement of Israel by the Church.
It is only where the church persists in refusing to learn this message [of
Romans 9-11], where it secretlyperhaps unconsciouslybelieves that its
own existence is based on human achievement, and so fails to understand
Gods mercy to itself, that it is unable to believe in Gods mercy for still
unbelieving Israel, and so entertains the ugly and unscriptural notion that
God has cast off His people Israel and simply replaced it by the Christian
Church. These three chapters emphatically forbid us to speak of the Church
as having once and for all taken the place of the Jewish people.9
Yes, longstanding, historic error dies hard. However come now, let us
Scripturally, prayerfully and soberly reason together.
8
Herman Ridderbos, Paul An Outline of His Theology, p. 354345.
9
C. E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans, II, 448, n. 2; 448.
Israel and Christian anti-Judaism in contrast 19
Chapter One
ISRAEL and Christian anti-Judaism

in contrast
I T is frequently lost sight of today that Paul, the Apostle to the

Gentiles, was decidedly pro-Israel in his ministry. This should not
surprise us since the Lord declared to Ananias that he is My chosen
instrument to carry My name before the Gentiles kings, and the sons of
Israel (Acts 9:15). Furthermore it is clear from Romans 9-11 that the
present status and future destiny of unbelieving national Israel in
general, apart from a remnant of Jewish Christians, was a matter of
passionate, unrelenting, even primary concern for Paul. He especially
seems to have considered it necessary that Gentile Christians at Rome
should be addressed, not simply on account of their predominance, but
more particularly because of their tendency to be arrogant toward
Jewish believers (Rom. 11:18-20). Pauls concerns included the need
of clarification with regard to whether the promises of God to national
Israel have now been nullified. In other words, has national Israel so
sinned away the grace of God that it is, now and forever, persona non
grata in His sight? Hence, is there a future destiny for national Israel,
as perhaps a minority of Jewish believers at Rome might talk about
with persistence? Or is Jewishness now a matter of receding concern in
the present since it will certainly have no future validity? Do believing
Gentiles have any ongoing responsibilities toward unbelieving national
Israel that include acknowledgement of a distinct covenantal future?
To these questions the Apostle responds that the promises still
belong to Israel, 9:4, that the Word of God has not failed to the
promised seed of Abraham, 9:6-8, that God has not rejected His
people, 11:1-2, that Israel has not stumbled so as to be beyond divine
recovery, 11:11, that Gentile Christians are to humbly, respectfully
regard unbelieving Jews with fear, 11:20, so that, as a consequence,
eventually all Israel will be saved, 11:26.
It is unfortunately true that over 1900 years of Church history have not
witnessed the eventual resolution of these problems as proposed by
Paul, and especially at a practical level, however clarifying he may
have intended to be. In the same vein then, it might well be asked,
Has the Christian church learned anything in this regard, but
20 Israel and Christian anti-Judaism in contrast
especially in ethical terms concerning its treatment of unbelieving Jews

over many centuries according to Pauls injunction (Rom. 11:18-20)?
In spite of voluminous Christian study of these questions, the evidence
culled from past centuries would tend to indicate abysmal failure,
particularly in terms of the shameful record of Christianitys
consistently disgraceful treatment of the Jew. And further, this well
attested reputation cannot possibly be divorced from the horrific record
of anti-Judaism which erupted during the twentieth century.
However, even in this twenty-first century, the controversy still rages
on with seeming fresh awakening. The establishment of the State of
Israel in 1948, as well as the reclamation of Old Jerusalem by the Jews
in 1967, has only appeared to exacerbate the conflict whereby such
terms as Zionism and a Palestinian State have become highly
emotive epithets for fiercely opposing causes. Even within
conservative evangelical Christendom, while there has been substantial
support for the nation of Israel, according to biblical presuppositions
and identification as Christian Zionism, nevertheless a vociferous
segment has made known its case which opposes any acknowledgment
whereby God continues to have present covenantal interest in His
ancient people, especially in a national and territorial sense. Along with
this reaction there has usually been the expression of sympathy for the
beleaguered Palestinian people, particularly in terms of their being
deprived of land and respect by the rapacious Israelis. As a result, a
growing literary response from some Christians has challenged the
very legitimacy of Israels existence, but particularly at a biblical and
societal level. Much of this has suggested that the complex of issues
revolves around the need of justice for the Palestinians on account of
their suffering at the hands of Jewish injustice. Allied to this belief has
been the conviction that a compromise resolution must be brokered for
the parties in conflict, that is, the establishment of a Palestinian State
alongside of or within Israel, such as by means of a so-called Road
Map proposal, that would establish relative social rest and calm that
has so far eluded the Middle East over the centuries.
As a result, opposition to Christian Zionism in biblical and covenantal
terms has elicited the counter-charge of theological anti-Judaism
from those who support the cause of national Israel, even though the
Jews remain in general unbelief. Hence the polarizing result has been a
defensive loyalty expressed by Christian Zionists in the face of harsh
criticism of national Israel by Christian sympathizers with the
Palestinian and Arab cause. These anti-Zionist Christians usually
espouse an Augustinian, homogenous eschatology that would absorb

and supplant all former Jewish distinctions. Furthermore, this conflict
has particularly manifested itself within much of conservative
evangelical Christendom. Thus there are those Christians who maintain
that Israel has a national and territorial eschatological future according
to Gods covenantal purposes, and in particular a mass conversion at
the end of this age. However there are also those who hold to an anti-
Judaic belief whereby it is denied that modern Israel has any
eschatological future in national and territorial terms. And it is the
proposal of this book that the former of these two theses is the more
biblically and morally correct. Further, it is also this writers opinion
that such a difference is not merely a theological one that we can
calmly agree to disagree over, as if divorced from any behavioral
accountability. The reason is that the pro-Judaic perspective involves a
vital ethical element, demonstrated throughout Church history, which
is inextricably bound to the theological construct that we hope to
demonstrate both exegetically and historically. However, to begin with
we consider these two opposing eschatological perspectives from the
viewpoint of specific historic examples concerning biblical
interpretation.
TWO CASES CONCERNING NATIONAL ISRAEL,

WITHOUT A DISTINCTIVE ESCHATOLOGICAL HOPE, ARE NOW CONSIDERED
In both instances here it becomes evident that at best there is cool

toleration of the Jew and certainly an absence of that Pauline passion
which the Apostle maintained throughout his missionary endeavors.
Whatever the terminology that is used concerning this perspective,
whether replacement theology, supercessionism, transference theology,
or absorbtionism, they all amount to the same basic denigration of the
Jew and ultimately national Israel in the present Christian dispensation.
More evidence in this regard will follow in subsequent chapters.
Aurelius Augustine
The monumental contribution of this fourth century Church Father of

North Africa in the realm of eschatology cannot be exaggerated. It is
not simply a question of his prevailing dominance over chiliasm
whereby the church in his present world was esteemed as the true
earthly representation of the heavenly city of God in anticipation of
heavenly consummation; it is the fact that his teaching concerning the
future of the Jews, in relation to the church triumphant on earth, both
saved them from total decimation and preserved them for intentional
humiliation. This was a major feature of Augustines famous, yet
obviously mistaken, interpretation of Psalm 59:11, Do not kill them
[the Jews]; otherwise, my people will forget. By Your power, make
them homeless wanderers. So he concluded:
But it was not enough that he [God] should say, Slay them not, lest they
should at last forget Thy law, unless he had also added, Disperse them;
because if they had only been in their own land with that testimony of the
Scriptures, and not everywhere, certainly the Church which is everywhere
could not have had them as witnesses among all nations to the prophecies
which were sent before concerning Christ.1
However the result of his seeming tolerant exposition here was what
James Carroll describes as a double-edged sword:
On one side, against Chrysostom and even Ambrose, it requires an end to
all violent assaults against synagogues, Jewish property, and Jewish
persons. . . . On the other side, Augustines relatively benign attitude
toward Jews is rooted still in assumptions of supercessionism that would
prove to be deadly. The Witness prescription attributed to himLet them
survive but not thrive!would underlie the destructive ambivalence that
marked Catholic attitudes toward Jews from then on. Ultimately history
would show that such double-edged ambivalence is impossible to maintain
without disastrous consequences. For a thousand years, the compulsively
repeated pattern of that ambivalence would show in bishops and popes
protecting Jewsbut from expressly Christian mobs that wanted to kill
Jews because of what bishops and popes had taught about Jews. Such a
teaching which wants it both ways was bound to fail, as would become
evident at every point in history when Jews presumed, whether
economically or culturally or both, to even think of thriving. This is the
legacy that haunts the Catholic Church into the twenty-first century, a
perverse legacy from which, despite the twentieth-centurys jolts, the
Church is not yet free.2
Consequently the Augustinian legacy was the necessary keeping of the

Jews as dispersed, disgraced and depressed, except for the hope of their
individual conversion, or until their national conversion at the end of
1
Augustine, The City of God, XVIII, 46. It is tragic that such obvious
misinterpretation of this passage should have become so influential over the
centuries that followed. Plainly, in Psalm 59:11, David [the Jew] is
interceding for his enemies when he declares, Do not kill them; . . . By
Your power, make them homeless wanderers, and not the Jews as a nation.
2
James Carroll. Constantines Sword, pp. 218-219.
this age when they would then become absorbed into the one true,
holy, catholic, apostolic church. Hence, such a scattered preservation in
no way anticipated any distinctive eschatological hope for the Jew.
Rather for Augustine, in Romans 11,
some Jews have believed in Christ, and they are the remnant of the natural
olive and fulfillment of the divine promises to historical Israel. . . . The
Israel that will ultimately be saved are the predestined elect, drawn into a
unity out of Jews and Gentiles. . . . Judaism is simply relegated to the latter
[non-elect] category, and its status in salvation-history assigned to the pre-
Christian past.3
So the Christian can take to himself the name of Israelite since it has
been forfeited by the Jews who, having lost their birthright, are now to
be named Esau. Augustine comments on Psalm 114:3:
For if we hold with a firm heart the grace of God which hath been given us,
we are Israel, the seed of Abraham. . . . Let therefore no Christian consider
himself alien to the name of Israel. . . . The Christian people then is rather
Israel. . . . But that multitude of Jews, which was deservedly reprobated for
its perfidy, for the pleasures of the flesh sold their birthright, so that they
belonged not to Jacob, but rather to Esau.4
The effect then of this teaching upon subsequent centuries was

profound, as Carroll has pointed out. So Jeremy Cohen confirms:
Augustine of Hippo bequeathed so much to western civilization that one
need hardly wonder if this bequest included his ideas on Jews and Judaism.
Indeed, modern students of Jewish-Christian relations typically attribute the
theological foundations of the medieval churchs Jewish policy to
Augustine, referring as a matter of course to the legacies and principles of
Augustinian anti-Judaism.5
3
Peter Gorday, Principles Of Patristic Exegesis: Romans 9-11 in Origen,
John Chrysostom, and Augustine, pp. 171, 333.
4
Aurelius Augustine, St. Augustine on the Psalms, Post-Nicene Fathers,
http://www.sant-agostino.it/links/inglese/opere.htm.
5
Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law, p. 19. This is a significant study
of not only Augustines foundational contribution toward theological anti-
Judaism, but also the widespread embrace in varying degrees of this legacy,
through to the thirteenth century, by means of Gregory the Great, Isidore of
Seville, Agobard of Lyon, Anselm of Canterbury, Bernard of Clairvaux,
and Thomas Aquinas.
Hence the eschatology of Augustine, as it relates to Israel as having

played out over centuries of church history, is not something that any
Christian ought to boast in thoughtlessly. Rather it gives ground for
serious criticism of its underlying doctrinal premises. This legacy of
Augustine is certainly unbiblical in its ethical outworking and thus un-
Pauline. Consequently it rightly gives justification for repudiation of
that basic supercessionist theology which has flowed from these
historic beginnings. A better and more pro-Judaic eschatology is
needed, and this we believe to be rooted in the full canvas of Scripture
when rightly exegeted.
John Calvin
The contribution of this sixteenth century reformer of Geneva to the

emergence of sixteenth century western civilization in Europe, as well
as the Reformed movement within Christianity, was truly monumental.
And this being the case, it should not surprise us that his indebtedness
to Augustine, not unlike that of Luther, is substantial, witness the
profusion of almost adoring references in his Institutes Of The
Christian Religion. Thus according to the editor of the Battles edition
of this work:
Calvin may be said to stand at the culmination of the later Augustinianism.
He actually incorporates in his treatment of man and of salvation so many
typical passages from Augustine that his doctrine seems here entirely
continuous with that of his great African predecessor.6
With regard to the Jews and Israel, there is an attitude of tolerance,

similar to that of Augustine which is void of any distinctive,
covenantal, passionate eschatological acknowledgment. So Paul
Johnson explains that:
Jean Calvin . . . was more well disposed towards Jews [than Luther], partly
because he tended to agree with them on the question of lending at interest;
he reported Jewish arguments objectively in his writings and was even
accused by his Lutheran enemies, of being a Judaizer. None the less, Jews
were expelled from Calvinist cities and the Calvinist Palatinate.7
6
John Calvin, Institutes Of The Christian Religion, John T. McNeill, ed., I,
p. lviii.
7
Paul Johnson, A History Of The Jews, pp. 242-243. Also refer to Michael J.
Vlach, The Church as a Replacement of Israel: An Analysis of
Supercessionism, Ph.D. dis., May 2004, pp. 56-59.
Like Augustine, Calvin taught that the Christian church had become
the new spiritual Israel, the amalgam of Jew and Gentile, whereby past
ethnic identity had become null and void. So he comments on Romans
11:26, where Paul declares, And in this way all Israel will be saved:
Many understand this of the Jewish people, as though Paul had said, that
religion would again be restored among them as before: but I extend the
word Israel to all the people of God, according to this meaning, When the
Gentiles shall come in, the Jews also shall return [as an accumulating
remnant] from their defection to the obedience of faith; and thus shall be
completed the salvation of the whole Israel of God, which must be gathered
from both; and yet in such a way that the Jews shall obtain the first place [at
the commencement of the Church], being as it were the first-born in Gods
family. This interpretation seems to me the most suitable, because Paul
intended here to set forth the completion of the kingdom of Christ, which is
by no means to be confined to the Jews, but is to include the whole world.
The same manner of speaking we find in Galatians 6:16. The Israel of God
is what he calls the Church, gathered alike from Jews and Gentiles.8
By way of further illustration of Calvins understanding of the future of

national Israel, we turn to a significant Old Testament passage, Hosea
1:10-11, concerning the promised restoration of national Israel. Here
we read:
10
Yet the number of the Israelites will be like the sand of the sea, which
cannot be measured or counted. And in the place where they were told: You
are not My people, they will be called: Sons of the living God. 11And the
Judeans and the Israelites will be gathered together. They will appoint for
themselves one single ruler, and go up from the land. For the day of Jezreel
will be great.
Concerning this passage Calvin typically comments:

[F]or so long a time has passed away since their [the sons of Israels] exile,
and dejected and broken, they dwell at this day in mountains and in other
desert places; at least many of them are in the mountains of Armenia, some
are in Media and Chaldea; in short, throughout the whole of the East. And
since there has been no restoration of this people, it is certain that this
prophecy ought not to be restricted to seed according to the flesh. For there
was a prescribed time for the Jews, when the Lord purposed to restore them
to their country; and, at the end of seventy years, a free return was granted
them by Cyrus. Then Hosea speaks not here of the kingdom of Israel, but of
8
John Calvin, Romans. Christian Classics Ethereal Library, Internet sourced.
the Church, which was to be restored by a return, composed both of Jews

and of Gentiles.9
Further consider the promise of Jeremiah 32:37-41.

37
I [the LORD God] am about to gather them from all the lands where I have
banished them in My wrath, rage, and great fury; and I will return them to
this place and make them live in safety. 38They will be My people, and I
will be their God. 39 I will give them one heart and one way so that for their
good and for the good of their descendants after them, they will fear Me
always. 40I will make with them an everlasting covenant: I will never turn
away from doing good to them; and I will put fear of Me in their hearts so
they will never again turn away from Me. 41I will rejoice over them [My
people Israel] to do what is good to them, and I will plant them faithfully in
this land with all My mind and heart.
To this Calvin responds:

We now then understand what the Prophet means when he compares to a
plantation the restoration of the people after their return from exile. We
know, indeed, that the people from that time had not been banished, and
that the Temple had ever stood, though the faithful had been pressed down
with many troubles; but this was only a type of a plantation. We must
therefore necessarily pass on to Christ, in order to have a complete
fulfillment of this promise. . . . Let us then know that the Church was
planted in Judea, for it remained to the time of Christ. And as Christ has
pulled down the wall of partition, so that there is now no difference
between Jews and Gentiles, God plants us now in the holy land, when he
grafts us into the body of Christ.10
Here then is clearly displayed, in these instances, the fruit of a

subjective, impositional hermeneutic that appears to be more
presuppositionally than exegetically driven. It is as if a leap was taken
away from the plain meaning of the text right into Augustines
supercessionist lap. And our chief concern in this regard is that such a
course, in these instances, is historically shown to be fraught with
shameful results concerning the treatment of the Jews. And this being
the case, according to history and exegesis, we seriously question the
validity of the doctrine that undergirds this legacy.
9
John Calvin, Twelve Minor Prophets, Christian Classics Ethereal Library,
Internet sourced.
10
John Calvin, Jeremiah, Christian Classics Ethereal Library, Internet
sourced.
TWO CASES CONCERNING NATIONAL ISRAEL,
WITH A DISTINCTIVE ESCHATOLOGICAL HOPE, ARE NOW CONSIDERED
In both instances it becomes evident that here is passionate concern for

the Jew much more after the manner of that which the Apostle Paul
evidenced. Here is warm-hearted, Judeo-centric eschatology at its best
that so obviously commends itself. More evidence in this regard will
follow in subsequent chapters.
Horatius Bonar
While Horatius Bonar is better known today as a nineteenth century

hymn writer, yet his overall ministry in Scotland was of far greater
dimensions, both practical and scholarly, especially with regard to his
preaching and writing. He participated in a remarkable moving of the
Spirit of God in Scotland that involved Thomas Chalmers, William C.
Burns and Robert Murray MCheyne. He also joined a Mission of
Enquiry to the Jews in 1839 in which he, along with his brother
Andrew and MCheyne, toured the Holy Land for the purpose of
reporting their findings back to the Church of Scotland. Another
related concern of Bonar, which is also reflected in his prolific hymn
writing, was a considerable interest in prophetic events, particularly
from a premillennial perspective. He edited The Quarterly Journal of
Prophecy (1849-1873). In 1847 he published Prophetical Landmarks,
Containing Data for Helping to Determine the Question of Christs
Premillennial Advent, which went to at least five editions. Here then
are some pertinent comments from his Judeo-centric writings that
concern such a heartfelt love for the Jewish people.
To begin with Bonar declares:
Let us speak reverently of the Jew. Let us not misjudge him by present
appearances. He is not what he once was, nor what he yet shall be.
Let us speak reverently of the Jew. We have much cause to do so. What,
though all Christendom, both of the East and West, has for nearly eighteen
centuries treated him as the offscouring of the race? What though
Mohammed has taught his followers to revile and persecute the sons of
Abraham? What though one Roman emperor after another sought to
exterminate them as thorns and briars? What though Cicero speaks
sneeringly of Jewish gold (aurum Judaicum), and tells us that their
religious rites were at variance with the splendor of the Roman empire?
and Horace, of the credulity of the Jew Apella and of the circumcised Jews?
and Petronius, of their worship of a porcinum numena swine divinity,
and their bondage to Sabbath fasts? Pliny, of the Jews as a nation famous
for its contempt of the gods (gens contumelia numinum insignis)? Martial,
of the recuti-torum Judorumthe circumcised Jews? Juvenal, of them as
traffickers in dreams, worshippers of the clouds, contemners of the Roman
laws? Tacitus, of their stubborn superstition and unbridled lust? What
though our own great poet has caricatured the nation, and called the Jew a
villain with a smiling cheek,and made one of the ingredients of his
hellish caldron to be the liver of a blaspheming Jew? What though he has
been the scornful theme of the ballad-monger as the devourer of Christian
flesh? What though he is to this day a wanderer, a sufferer, an outcast?
What though he inhabit the narrow Juden-Strasse of Frankfurt, or the Old
Jewry of London, or the poor Zion-quarter of Jerusalem, or be pent up in
the Ghetto of Rome?
Nay, what though he may have a grasping hand, and a soul shut up against
the world,a world that has done nothing but wrong and revile him? What
though he may inherit the crookedness of his father Jacob, instead of the
nobility of Abraham, or the simple gentleness of Isaac?
Still let us speak reverently of the Jew,if not for what he is, at least for
what he was, and what he shall be, when the Redeemer shall come to Zion
and turn away ungodliness from Jacob [Isa. 59:20; cf. Rom. 11:26].
In him we see the development of Gods great purpose as to the womans
seed, the representative of a long line of kings and prophets, the kinsmen of
Him who is the Word made flesh. It was a Jew who sat on one of the most
exalted thrones of the earth; it is a Jew who now sits upon the throne of
heaven. It was a Jew who wrought such miracles once on our earth, who
spoke such gracious words. It was a Jew who said, Come unto me and I
will give you rest; and a Jew who said, Behold I come quickly, and my
reward is with me. It was Jewish blood that was shed on Calvary; it was a
Jew who bore our sins in His own body on the tree. It was a Jew who died,
and was buried, and rose again. It is a Jew who liveth to intercede for us,
who is to come in glory and majesty as earthly judge and monarch. It is a
Jew who is our Prophet, our Priest, our King.
Let us, then, speak reverently of the Jew, whatever his present degradation
may be. Just as we tread reverently the level platform of Moriah, where
once stood the holy house where Jehovah was worshipped; so let us tread
the ground where they dwell whose are the adoption, and the glory, and the
covenants, and of whom, concerning the flesh, Christ came. That temple
hill is not what it was. The beautiful house is gone, and not one stone is left
upon another. The seventeen sieges of Jerusalem, like so many storms
rolling the waves of every sea over it, have left few memorials of the old
magnificence. The Mosque of the Moslems covers the spot of the altar of
burnt-offering; the foot of the Moslem defiles the sacred courts; the
Muezzin, from the neighboring minaret, screams out the name of Allah,
instead of Jehovah; and the Koran is chanted instead of the Psalms of
David. But still the ground is felt to be sacred; the bare rock on which you
tread is not common rock; the massive stones built here and there into the
wall are witnesses of other days; and the whole scene gathers round it such
associations as, in spite of the rubbish, and desolation, and ruin, and
pollution, fill you irresistibly with awe. The Moslem fabulists tell you that
the stones of which the mosque is built still retain the odor of the musk in
which they were originally steeped; but there is a holier fragrance there,
transporting you back to yet older times, and recalling not only David and
Solomon, but Him who said, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will
raise it up again. The same Moslem fabulist will tell you, or show you, the
imprint of the prophets foot upon the sacred rock; but there are, to you,
visible everywhere, I may say, the imprints of a holier footstep, that of him
who, somewhere on that flat rock where you are now walking, stood and
cried in the last and great day of the feast, If any man thirst, let Him come
to Me and drink.
So it is with the Jew,I mean the whole Jewish nation. There are indelible
memories connected with them, which will ever, to anyone who believes in
the Bible, prevent them from being contemned; nay, will cast around them
a nobility and a dignity which no other nation has possessed or can attain
to. To Him in whose purposes they occupy so large a space, they are still
beloved for their fathers sake [Rom. 11:28]. Of them, as concerning the
flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. 11
Then Bonar boldly confesses:

I am one of those who believe in Israels restoration and conversion; who
receive it as a future certainty, that all Israel shall be gathered, and that all
Israel shall be saved. As I believe in Israels present degradation, so do I
believe in Israels coming glory and preeminence. I believe that Gods
purpose regarding our world can only be understood by understanding
Gods purpose as to Israel. I believe that all human calculations as to the
earths future, whether political or scientific, or philosophical or religious,
must be failures, if not taking for their data or basis Gods great purpose
regarding the latter-day standing of Israel. I believe that it is not possible to
enter Gods mind regarding the destiny of man, without taking as our key
or our guide His mind regarding the ancient nationthat nation whose
history, so far from being ended, or nearly ended, is only about to begin.
And if any one may superciliously ask, What can the Jews have to do with
the worlds history?may we not correctly philosophize on that coming
history, and take the bearing of the worlds course, leaving Israel out of the
consideration altogether? We say, nay; but O man, who art thou that
repliest against God? Art thou the framer of the earths strange annals,
11
Horatius Bonar, The Jew, The Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, July 1870,
pp. 209-211.
either past or future? Art thou the creator of those events which make up
these annals, or the producer of those latent springs or seeds of which these
arise?
He only to whom the future belongs can reveal it. He only can announce
the principles on which that future is to be developed. And if He set Israel
as the great nation of the future, and Jerusalem as the great metropolis of
earth, who are we, that, with our philosophy of science, we should set aside
the divine arrangements, and substitute for them a theory of man? Human
guesses of the future are the most uncertain of all uncertainties; and human
hopes, built upon these guesses, are sure to turn out the most disappointing,
if not the most disastrous, of all failures.
I believe that the sons of Abraham are to re-inherit Palestine, and that the
forfeited fertility will yet return to that land; that the wilderness and the
solitary places shall be glad for them, and the desert will rejoice and
blossom as the rose. I believe that, meanwhile, Israel shall not only be
wanderers, but that everywhere only a remnant, a small remnant, shall be
saved; and that it is for the gathering in of this remnant that our
missionaries go forth. I believe that these times of ours (as also all the times
of the four monarchies [Dan. 2]) are the times of the Gentiles; and that
Jerusalem and Israel shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, till the times of
the Gentiles be fulfilled. I believe that, with the filling up of these times of
the Gentile pre-eminence, and the completion of what the apostle calls the
fullness of the Gentiles, will be the signal for the judgments which are to
usher in the crisis of earths history, and the deliverance of Israel, and the
long-expected kingdom.
How the Jew, so long in abeyance, shall resume pre-eminence, I do not
know; but that he shall do so, seems written plainly enough in the prophetic
Word. How Jewish history shall once more emerge into its old place of
grandeur and miracle, and how it shall unwind from itself the bright future
of all nations, I know not. But so it is fore-written, What shall be the
reconciling of them be, but life from the dead? [Rom. 11:15] Israel shall
blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit [Isa. 27:6].12
How refreshingly different is the attitude here from that of Augustine

and Calvin. Undergirding this teaching is not the eschatological
blending of national Israel into mere shadowy insignificance and
obscurity, but rather the acknowledgment that while grace has blessed
the Gentiles in a grand manner, so too will that same grace of God,
according to the same sovereign purpose, ultimately bless the Jewish
people in a most climactic and triumphant sense. This is something to
12
Ibid., pp. 214-215.
rejoice about and not surprisingly Bonar has penned a hymn in this
vein.
Forgotten! No; that cannot be,
All other names may pass away;
But thine, My Israel, shall remain
In everlasting memory.
Forgotten! No; that cannot be,
The oath of Him who cannot lie
Is on thy city and thy land,
An oath to all eternity.
Forgotten of the Lord thy God!
No, Israel, no, that cannot be,
He chose thee in the days of old
And still His favor rests on thee.13
C. H. Spurgeon
As a contemporary of Bonar, and certainly one who held Augustine

and Calvin in high esteem, nevertheless this pastor of the Metropolitan
Tabernacle in London did not embrace their essentially Catholic
eschatology. Rather Spurgeon maintained a fervent interest in the
Jewish people and particularly their being reached with the gospel.
Preaching on Ezekiel 24:26 he plainly declares:
Not long shall it be ere they [the Jews] shall comeshall come from distant
lands, whereer they rest or roam; and she who has been the off-scouring of
all things, whose name has been a proverb and a bye-word, shall become
the glory of all lands. Dejected Zion shall raise her head, shaking herself
from dust, and darkness, and the dead. Then shall the Lord feed his people,
and make them and the places round about his hill a blessing. I think we do
not attach sufficient importance to the restoration of the Jews. We do not
think enough of it. But certainly, if there is anything promised in the Bible
it is this. I imagine that you cannot read the Bible without seeing clearly
that there is to be an actual restoration of the children of Israel. Thither
they shall go up; they shall come with weeping unto Zion, and with
supplications unto Jerusalem. May that happy day soon come! For when
the Jews are restored, then the fullness of the Gentiles shall be gathered in;
and as soon as they return, then Jesus will come upon Mount Zion to reign
with his ancients gloriously, and the halcyon days of the Millennium shall
13
Lamp & Light Hymns, p. 64.
then dawn; we shall then know every man to be a brother and a friend;
Christ shall rule with universal sway.14
Speaking on Ezekiel 37:1-10 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in aid of

funds for the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel amongst
the Jews, Spurgeon declared:
This vision has been used, from the time of Jerome onwards, as a
description of the resurrection, and certainly it may be so accommodated
with much effect. . . . But while this interpretation of the vision may be
very proper as an accommodation, it must be quite evident to any thinking
person that this is not the meaning of the passage. There is no allusion
made by Ezekiel to the resurrection, and such topic would have been quite
apart from the design of the prophets speech. I believe he was no more
thinking of the resurrection of the dead than of the building of St. Peters at
Rome, or the emigration of the Pilgrim Fathers. . . .
The meaning of our text, as opened up by the context, is most evidently, if
words mean anything, first, that there shall be a political restoration of the
Jews to their own land and to their own nationality; and then, secondly,
there is in the text, and in the context, a most plain declaration, that there
shall be a spiritual restoration, a conversion in fact, of the tribes of Israel. . .
. Israel is now blotted out from the map of nations; her sons are scattered
far and wide; her daughters mourn beside all the rivers of the earth. Her
sacred song is hushed; no king reigns in Jerusalem; she bringeth forth no
governors among her tribes. But she is to be restored; she is to be restored
as from the dead. When her own sons have given up all hope of her, then
is God to appear for her. She is to be re-organized; her scattered bones are
to be brought together. There will be a native government again; there will
again be the form of a body politic; a state shall be incorporated, and a king
shall reign. Israel has now become alienated from her own land. Her sons,
though they can never forget the sacred dust of Palestine, yet die at a
hopeless distance from her consecrated shores. But it shall not be so
forever, for her sons shall again rejoice in her: her land shall be called
Beulah, for as a young man marrieth a virgin so shall her sons marry her. I
will place you in your own land, is Gods promise to them. They shall
again walk upon her mountains, shall once more sit under her vines and
rejoice under her fig-trees. And they are also to be re-united. There shall
not be two, nor ten, nor twelve, but oneone Israel praising one God,
serving one king, and that one king the Son of David, the descended
Messiah. They are to have a national prosperity which shall make them
famous; nay, so glorious shall they be that Egypt, and Tyre, and Greece,
14
C. H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, I, No. 28, p. 382, Ages
Software.
and Rome, shall all forget their glory in the greater splendor of the throne
of David. . . .
If there be meaning in words this must be the meaning of this chapter. I
wish never to learn the art of tearing Gods meaning out of his own words.
If there be anything clear and plain, the literal sense and meaning of this
passagea meaning not to be spirited or spiritualized awaymust be evident
that both the two and the ten tribes of Israel are to be restored to their own
land, and that a king is to rule over them.15
Hence we plainly see that a very different meaning is derived from the
Old Testament with regard to national Israel than that of Augustine and
Calvin. Indeed, when we return to Jeremiah 32:41, it is obvious that
Spurgeons understanding of this passage is fundamentally different
from that of Calvin which we previously referenced.
We cannot help looking for the restoration of the scattered Israelites to the
land which God has given to them by a covenant of salt: we also look for
the time when they shall believe in the Messiah whom they have rejected,
and shall rejoice in Jesus of Nazareth, whom to-day they despise. There is
great encouragement in prophecy to those who work among the seed of
Israel; and it is greatly needed, for of all mission fields it has been
commonly represented to be one of the most barren, and upon the work the
utmost ridicule has been poured. God has, therefore, supplied our faith with
encouragements larger than we have in almost any other direction of
service. Let those who believe work on! Those who believe not may give it
up. They shall not have the honor of having helped to gather together the
ancient nation to which our Lord himself belonged; for be it never forgotten
that Jesus was a Jew.16
Here then we especially draw attention to the more literal interpretation

of Bonar and Spurgeon when compared with Augustine and Calvin.
But also, with the aid of centuries of hindsight along with the present
state of the Middle East at our finger tips, we frankly declare the
approach of Bonar and Spurgeon toward the sacred text to be much
closer to the truth, that is the intended meaning of Gods inspired
Word. Although Augustines renowned allegorical hermeneutic was
not entirely cast aside by Calvin, at least in this eschatological
scenario, nevertheless the Geneva reformer did far more consistently
and accurately exegete the sacred text as a whole than did his mentor.
15
Ibid., X, No. 582, pp. 533, 536-537.
16
C. H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, XXXIV, No. 2036, p.
545, Ages Software.
However, we reiterate the principle that the doctrines deduced by these

opposing schools of eschatology, the one being Judeo-centric, the other
Judeo-eccentric, are not without profound ethical consequences. On the
one hand, Judeo-centricity, as represented by Bonar and Spurgeon,
exalts in the national seed of Abraham and its promised, fulfilled,
territorial glory through sovereign covenant grace. Consequently it
esteems that seed, according to Pauls exhortation in Romans 11:18-20,
because it remains beloved for the sake of the fathers (Rom. 11:28).
On the other hand, Judeo-eccentricity, as represented by Augustine and
Calvin, dismisses the national seed of Abraham beyond the perimeter
of the Kingdom of God, except for the condescending inclusion of a
remnant according to Gods gracious choice (Rom. 11:5), that has no
ultimate, divine, national, territorial validity. Augustine and Calvin
were at best tolerant of the Jews; Bonar and Spurgeon were deeply
affectionate toward the Jews. Which of these parties approximates the
attitude of Paul toward his kinsmen according to the flesh (Rom.
9:3), and what is it about the doctrine they embrace that produces their
kindly disposition? The answers to these questions are abundantly clear
and are especially significant with regard to the prosperity of Jewish
evangelism in this present age.
Israel and centuries of Christian anti-Judaism 35
Chapter Two
ISRAEL and centuries of

Christian anti-Judaism
W HILE Augustine and Calvin are representative of a predominant

Catholic and Reformed heritage concerning Jewish/Christian
relations, which spans seventeen centuries of Church history, a more
detailed panorama of this era now needs to be surveyed. The necessity
here of studying this relationship is born out by the astonishing
ignorance that abides today concerning the legacy of Christian anti-
Judaism, and contributing to this void is the frequent absence of
reference to this dark legacy in works dealing with Church history.1
From the outset it should be understood that frankly, here we have the
record of a conflict fraught with uncomfortable truth, especially with
regard to the violation of Christian ethics on the part of Christians.
Those who are quick to react with skepticism at such a claim, are
simply asked to reserve their judgment at this point while at the same
time retaining openness to a concert of opinion in this field, coming
from both Christian and non-Christian sources. They are also invited to
refer to Appendix E An Annotated Bibliography on JewishChristian
Relations in Church History. Here a broad spectrum of writings will
provide a better understanding of how Christians have treated Jews
throughout Church history, and particularly with regard to the
underlying, driving eschatology. Here is a vital matter in this turbulent
twenty-first century that needs to be not only acknowledged but also
studied so that a genuine attitude of repentance might result.
This writer has encountered numerous Christians who simply do not
want to face this unsavory historic record. Certainly they have offered
token acknowledgment of the problem while at the same time retaining
a firm commitment to Augustinian eschatology in this regard. Further
1
A recent volume, Roger E. Olson, The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty
Centuries of Tradition & Reform. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 652
pp., has not so much as a mention of Israel, Judaism, or Jews in its
subject index. The same is true for older works such as Otto W. Heik, A
History of Christian Thought, 2 vols., and William Cunningham, Historical
Theology, 2 vols.
36 Israel and centuries of Christian anti-Judaism
they have frequently retreated to the claim that Scripture alone is the
basis of their eschatology, and as a consequence they have strenuously
asserted a willingness to contend strictly according to the biblical text.
Now this we have gladly assented to do, but only provided it is agreed
that our derived doctrine, being sound (II Tim. 4:3), that is spiritually
nourishing and fruitful, is also expected to be productive of a godly
Christian lifestyle. We insist that there is a necessary connection here
whereby sound doctrine or teaching ought to promote godliness (I
Tim. 6:3). And how then shall we discover the practical outworking of
Christian doctrine? By resorting to a comprehensive study of Church
history since here is the real expression of Christian truth, that is
resultant behavior, warts and all.
We may well delight to consider the fruit of the eighteenth century
evangelical awakening in England and America under Whitefield,
Wesley, and Edwards, and rightly so. For as Bready has concluded in
his doctoral research, here, in contrast with the bloody revolution in
France, was the true nursing mother of the spirit and character values
that have created and sustained Free Institutions throughout the
English-speaking world.2 Here authentic gospel doctrine was
productive of gospel righteousness in the lives of multitudes on a
national scale. However, this being so, we cannot then ignore the
historic corrupt fruit of supercessionist or replacement theology while
at the same time maintaining loyalty to the alleged biblical ground of
that teaching. Good doctrine produces good fruit, not bad fruit; bad
doctrine produces bad fruit, not good fruit (Matt. 7:17-20). Hence the
history of supercessionist or replacement theology cannot be swept
aside, as distasteful as confrontation with this reality would seem,
especially since the overwhelming testimony will inevitably lead one
to question the viability of the underlying eschatology. There is a real
sense in which history is the proving ground of revealed truth by which
it stamps either an ethical or unethical validation upon various
doctrinal foundations. Those who avoid such relationships, that is the
inevitability of truth being productive of ethical consequences, end up
conferring upon mankind error and its unethical consequences
2
J. Wesley Bready, England: Before and After Wesley, pp. 13, 205,
THE EARLY CHURCH TO 135 AD
When Jesus Christ declared to Peter, I will build My church

[assembly] (Matt. 16:18), this quintessential Jew appointed twelve
Jews as foundation blocks for His new spiritual edifice or church (Eph.
2:19-22). In the upper room, these same twelve Jews listened to Jesus
promise of the new covenant (Luke 22:20) which, the following day,
was cut by means of His crucifixion before a Jerusalem multitude that
also was essentially Jewish. At Pentecost, these same foundation stones
were supernaturally identified before a Jewish throng (Acts 1:26-2:4)
after which thousands of Jews were added to this new covenant
fellowship. As a result this Jerusalem assembly of Christian believers
became the mother congregation that increasingly gathered around her
a host of Jewish spiritual children. Immediate tension then developed
between the Jewish Synagogue and the expanding Jewish Church, the
result being severe persecution [that] broke out against the church in
Jerusalem [by the likes of Saul], and all except the apostles were
scattered throughout the land of Judea and Samaria (Acts 8:1).
Then with the inclusion of hybrid Jewish Christians from Samaria
(Acts 8:4-17) and Gentile Christians from Caesarea (Acts 10:1-48) into
Christs new fold, the seeds of dissension were sown even within His
own disciples, that is until Peter made explanation at Jerusalem of
Gods new revelation to him. What a joyous occasion resulted from the
decision of the Council of Jerusalem in C. 50 A.D. when it was
concluded, with the full agreement of Peter and Paul, that the Gentile
Christians of Antioch in the north did not have to submit to the
distinctive Judaism that the Jewish Christians conformed to in
Jerusalem (Acts 15:1-31). However, while this concord between
Jewish and Gentile Christians continued for approximately eighty-five
years, it did not last. Eusebius tells us that the fifteen succeeding
bishops of Jerusalem were all Jewish, that is up to 135 A.D.3 Up to this
point, the mother church was revered by her children; then the tide
began to turn bringing about devastating results. To begin with, the
essentially Jewish church at Jerusalem had suffered withering
persecution, dispersal and impoverishment at the hands of militant
Judaism. Nevertheless, the daughter fellowship at Antioch thrived
under Paul and Barnabas with the accomplishment of far reaching
missionary expansion in the Gentile world.
3
Eusebius, Church History, IV, 5.
On the other hand, in rebelling against Rome, Jerusalem Judaism

suffered considerable destruction, hence humiliation, under Titus in 69-
70 A.D. The temple being desecrated, burned, and leveled, many
hundreds of thousands of Jews, who had gathered for the Passover
season, were slaughtered while a remnant fled to Babylonia, Egypt,
North Africa, and relatives in the Diaspora. Surely Christs prophetic
declaration would have been called to mind by the Christians of that
time, namely that Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the
Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled (Luke 21:24).
Here this divine role reversal had now begun to play out in a manner
that ought not to be opposed. Now the mother Jewish church would be
trodden down for an indefinite period, and her latter Gentile children
would begin to assert themselves to the point of maternal neglect, even
denigration of their Jewish parentage. Then in 135 A.D., the messianic
claims of Bar Kokhba resulted in climactic humiliation whereby
Emperor Hadrian slaughtered a further 580,000 Jews, destroyed 985
towns, expelled the remainder from Jerusalem, prohibited circumcision
and Sabbath observance, erected a temple to Jupiter on the Temple
mound, renamed the city as Aelia Capitolina after himself and the land
as Syria Palestina, that is Palestine, or Philistia.4 As a result, now the
mother church became thoroughly scattered abroad and humiliated.
Now she was associated with national Israels desolation and judgment
while prominent centers of Gentile Christianity, such as at Alexandria,
Caesarea, Ephesus and Rome, inclusive of a Jewish remnant, were
thriving. The stage was now set for the arrogant self-assertion of the
reconciled Gentile prodigal children of the far country over the
weakened seed of the impoverished Jewish elder brethren! So,
for Christianity in its early stages, the real debate was never between
Christians and Jews but among Christians. Eventually the anti-Jewish side
won. Its ideology became normative, not just for subsequent Christianity
and Western culture but, through the formation of the New Testament, for
our perception of earlier Christianity as well. The voice of the losing side
fell silent.5
4
Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews, pp. 141-143.
5
John G. Gager, The Origins Of Anti-Semitism, p. 269. We reject the idea of
anti-Judaism as being inherent in the formation of the canon, although the
New Testament was certainly misused in the promotion of anti-Judaism.
THE PATRISTIC PERIOD
Because of Bar Kokhbas messianic claims, Christianity offered no

support for the Judaism inherent in this uprising. At the same time, the
expulsion of Jews from Jerusalem by Hadrian necessitated the
appointment of the first Gentile bishop over the mother church.
Consequently the scene was set for increase in Gentile dominance.
Hence subsequent to this demise of Judaism through Roman
oppression and its ascribed shame at having put to death its Messiah,
now Gentile Christianity increasingly asserted itself, especially in the
midst of a necessary apologetic environment. Whereas the Gentiles had
originally understood themselves as having been engrafted into the
blessings of Abrahamic Judaism, now they asserted transference of
formerly promised blessings to the church as the new, superceding,
spiritual Israel. James Parkes indicates:
Little by little the Church was read back into the whole of Old Testament
history, and Christian history was shown to be older than Jewish history in
that it dated from the creation, and not from Sinai, or even Abraham.6
Such a hermeneutical shift from the more literal Palestinian Judaic

tradition to dominant allegorical interpretation, as thought to be more
spiritual according to Origen of Alexandria and Justin Martyr,7
resulted in the repudiation of supposed carnal, Judaistic conclusions,
and thus any future national identity. Hence following years of
development, it was eventually believed that Israel had been replaced
or superceded; this emerging emphasis was formally recognized, as if a
capstone,8 by Justin at Ephesus in his Dialogue with Trypho, c. AD
160. Here, for the first time in extant literature, he plainly spoke of the
church as being the new spiritual Israel, as well as the new custodian of
Scripture.9
6
James Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue, p. 100. The
attitude described here is not unlike the contemporary supercessionist claim
that, according to the prototype of Eden, the land of Israel, as promised to
Abraham, is now transcended by the more encompassing land of the whole
earth. Refer to O. Palmer, The Israel of God, pp. 3-31; Stephen Sizer,
Christian Zionism, pp. 164, 260-261.
7
Lee Martin McDonald, Anti-Judaism in the Early Church Fathers, Anti-
Semitism and Early Christianity, eds. Evans and Hager, pp. 230-232.
8
Robert L. Saucy, The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism, p. 212.
9
Peter Richardson, Israel in the Apostolic Church, p. 1.
The pre-Constantinian era, to the End of the Third Century
While the status of Judaism was receding within Christianity, Judaising

groups, not unlike those which Paul had opposed (Acts 15:1-5; Gal.
5:2-4, 12), remained a serious irritant. There were radical and
conservative groups of Jewish Christians, such as the pro-Judaic
Elkasaites, Ebionites and Cerinthians,10 that aroused vigorous orthodox
apologetic responses which consequently took on a strong anti-Judaic
tone. For Irenaeus of Lyons, the Jews had been disinherited from the
grace of God.11 With Tertullian of Carthage, anti-Judaism permeated
every aspect of his thought; the Jews were the very anti-type of true
virtue and so embodied the principle of obsolescence.12 For Hippolytus
of Rome, the Jews will not be bound to four hundred and thirty years
servitude in Egypt, or seventy years in Babylonia, for their plight will
last forever.13 In continuity of thought, Cyprian of Carthage similarly
argued that the Jews had been replaced by the Christians;14
consequently he demanded that they all be expelled from his diocese at
the point of the sword.15 Hence Parkes points out that Justin, Tertullian,
Hippolytus, Cyprian, and Origen deserve special mention at this
juncture, that is prior to the infamous fourth century.
They thus represent not only geographically but also in their trainings an
astonishingly varied range of interests. Their different writings are of
capital importance for the development throughout the Church of the
absolute condemnation of the Jews which is characteristic of the patristic
literature as a whole.16
10
Terrance Callan, Forgetting the Root, pp. 44-47.
11
Parkes, Conflict of the Church and Synagogue, p. 106.
12
John G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism, pp. 163-164, referencing D.
Efroymsen, The Patristic Connection, in Davies, Foundations, pp. 98-
117.
13
Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Anti-Semitism: A History, p. 41.
14
Callan, Forgetting the Root, p. 95.
15
Paul E. Grosser and Edwin G. Halperin, The Causes and Effects of Anti-
Semitism, p. 48.
16
Parkes, Conflict of the Church and Synagogue, p. 72.
The Constantinian era, to the End of the Fourth Century
The development of anti-Judaism or the Adversus Judaeos genre, now

further intensifies. Parkes continues: The Jew as he is encountered in
the pages of fourth-century writers is not a human being at all. He is a
monster, a theological abstraction, of superhuman cunning and
malice, and more than superhuman blindness.17 So we enter this
century via Eusebius, the acknowledged Father of Church History,
follower in the steps of Origen, who in c. 315 became Bishop of
Caesarea. Not surprisingly he also believed that the Church was the
new Israel which replaced the Jews. Further, he so lionized the
Emperor Constantine upon the union of Empire and Church that his
biographical writing in this regard became more adulation and eulogy
than objective factual record.18 Most significant at this time was the
legislation that Constantine effected concerning the Jews. It was made
a crime to convert to Judaism. A Jew who circumcised his non-Jewish
slave was subject to the death penalty, as was also the case if he
married a Christian woman employed in the imperial factories.19 Thus
the Christian state, more militantly than ever, asserted itself against the
synagogue. However it is important at this juncture to appreciate how
the inheritance of anti-Judaism thus far became not only the established
teaching of the Christian Empire, but also the base upon which an even
more virulent strain was cultivated by means of four pillars of the
church whose legacy remains with us today, namely Ambrose, Jerome,
Chrysostom, and Augustine, all contemporaries.
Ambrose of Milan, eloquent preacher and opponent of Arianism, had
declared that the Jewish synagogue was a house of impiety, a
receptacle of folly, which God himself has condemned. Not
surprisingly, he praised the burning of a synagogue which he himself
had orchestrated. When the Emperor Theodosius commanded that the
bishop rebuild the synagogue, Ambrose defiantly remonstrated against
this judgment causing the civil ruler to back down.20 Jerome of
Bethlehems most notable achievement was his translation of the Latin
17
Ibid., p. 158.
18
James Carroll, Constantines Sword, pp. 173-174; Dan Gruber, The Church
and the Jews, pp. 14-16.
19
Parkes, Conflict of the Church and Synagogue, pp. 179-180.
20
Malcolm Hay, Thy Brothers Blood, pp. 25-26; Parkes, Conflict of the
Church and Synagogue, pp. 166-168.
Vulgate version of the Bible which dominated the church until modern
times. He was the only Church Father really conversant with Hebrew
and rabbinic thought, though this knowledge the better enabled him to
express both ridicule and disgust concerning the behavior of the Jews.
Jerome had as much contempt for Judeo-Christians as the Jews
themselves.21 Influenced by asceticism, he was convinced that there
was no place for Jews. He was now and for evermore the carnal,
lewd and materialistic Jew.22 Chrysostom of Antioch, the golden-
mouthed expositor, nevertheless became the most notorious and rabid
proponent of anti-Judaism in his generation. In a series of eight
Homilies Against the Jews, his tirade knows no limits. James Parkes
writes:
There is no sneer too mean, no gibe to bitter for him to fling at the Jewish
people. No text is too remote to be able to be twisted to their confusion, no
argument is too casuistical, no blasphemy too startling for him to employ. .
. . On the strength of Psalm 106:37, he states that they sacrificed their sons
and daughters to devils: they outraged nature; and overthrew from their
foundations the laws of relationship. They are become worse than the wild
beasts, and for no reason at all, with their own hands they murder their own
offspring, to worship the avenging devils who are the foes of our life. . . .
The synagogues of the Jews are the homes of idolatry and devils, even
though they have no images in them. They are worse even than heathen
circuses. . . . I hate the Jews for they have the law and they insult it.23
Thus Daniel Goldhagens definitive study of the Holocaust, especially

in terms of focus upon ordinary Germans, is painfully correct when
he concludes:
John Chrysostom, a pivotal Church Father whose theology and teachings
had lasting import, preached about Jews in terms that would become the
stock-in-trade of Christian anti-Jewish teachings and rhetoric, which would
condemn the Jews to live in a Christian Europe that despised and feared
them. . . . John, an influential theologian, is but an early example of the
Christian worlds essential relationship to Jews, which was to endure well
into modernity. . . . The very definition of what it meant to be a Christian
entailed a thoroughgoing and visceral hostility to Jews, just as it did to evil,
21
Parkes, Conflict of the Church and Synagogue, pp. 153-154.
22
Friedrich Heer, Gods First Love, p. 39.
23
Parkes, Conflict of the Church and Synagogue, pp. 163-164, 166.
and to the devil. It is no surprise that medieval Christians came to see Jews
as agents of both.24
Augustine of Hippo, although seemingly more temperate than his

mentor Ambrose, nevertheless, as we have already seen (pp. 19-22),
bequeathed a supremely dominant and enduring anti-Judaic legacy.
This was divine consignment of the Jew to universal abandonment
through the mediation of the church, the result being a wandering,
homeless, rejected and accursed race, incurably carnal, blind to
spiritual truth, perfidious, faithless and apostate. Their crime of deicide
was one of cosmic proportions which merited permanent exile and
subordination to Christianity. Israel, the older son, must be made to
serve the Church, the younger son (Gen. 25:23), which is the true heir
and rightful owner of the Divine Promises enunciated in the Old
Testament. Not only Cain, but also Hagar, Ishmael and Esau denote the
Jews who have been rejected, while their contrasting pairs, Abel,
Sarah, Isaac and Jacob, represent the election of the Church.25
Not surprisingly, the church councils of this period reflected the
consensus of the Church Fathers. In 306 AD the Council of Elvira in
Spain banned all community contact between Spanish Christians and
the evil Hebrews. Especially prohibited was marriage between
Christians and Jews, except where the Jew was willing to be converted.
The Council of Nicea in 325 AD, called by Constantine to settle the
controversy of Arianism, continued the efforts of the early Church to
dissociate Christianity from Judaism by deciding that Easter would no
longer be determined by or celebrated during Passover. For it is
unbecoming beyond measure that on this holiest of festivals we should
follow the customs of the Jews. Henceforth let us have nothing in
common with this odious people.26
THE MEDIAEVAL PERIOD
The subsequent thousand years was not without its times when the
Jews, notwithstanding their unbelief, were protected and tolerated, if
not respected, by civil and religious Christian leaders. Nevertheless, as
24
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitlers Willing Executioners, pp. 50-51.
25
Robert S. Wistrich, Antisemitism, The Longest Hatred, p. 19.
26
Grosser and Halperin, Causes and Effects of Anti-Semitism, pp. 58, 77.
the Reformation period drew near, the overall attitude of Christendom

increasingly hardened.
The Old Catholic Early Period, to Gregory the Great, 604 A.D.
Whereas the Old Catholic Church had been led by a plurality of

bishops, now the bishop of Rome achieved primacy and established an
imperial church, while the civil rulership of the empire had been
moved to Constantinople. Thus Pope Gregory the Great (540-604)
became the revered agent of consolidation who, following in the steps
of Augustine,27 established the theological foundation of the Middle
Ages until Thomas Aquinas bequeathed his Summa Theologica. While
expressly forbidding the forced conversion of Jews, yet Gregory also
sanctioned Augustines tolerance requiring subjection with misery. On
the one hand there were his flowery denunciations of the Jews
diabolical perversity and detestable characteristics; on the other hand
he could rebuke a bishop who had been physically carrying out these
denunciations, by calling for love, charity and justice in winning them
to Christianity. Thus, while Gregory attempted to forge a balanced
policy, nevertheless he harbored no love for the Jews.28
The Monastic Middle Period, to the Final Crusade, 1270 AD.
Occupied with barbarian assaults upon Europe, the pope of Rome

strengthened his influence through the conversion and devotion of
Clovis, the Germanic king (496), and his conquest of Gaul. In Spain,
the industrious Isidore, Archbishop of Seville (560-636), castigated the
Jews more harshly than did his mentor Augustine. Zealous for their
conversion, yet he believed they did not belong in a properly integrated
Christian kingdom. Such a belief became influential during the
centuries to come.29 The conquest of Spain and Portugal by the Arab
Moors (711) resulted in a relatively improved situation for the Jews in
that region where they received better treatment under non-Christian
governments. Muslim expulsion from Spain, following Charles
27
John B. Y. Hood asserts that concerning the Jews and Judaism, Augustines
ideas on these matters dominated the medieval debate. Aquinas and the
Jews, p. 10.
28
Carroll, Constantines Sword, p. 248; Jeremy Cohn, Living Letters of the
Law, p. 79; Parkes, Conflict of the Church and Synagogue, pp. 220-221.
29
Jeremy Cohn, Living Letters of the Law, pp. 96, 122.
Martels victory at Tours (732), paved the way for the reign of
Charlemagne (768-814), in which the status of Jews again improved in
their obtaining of Jewish rights.30 However, Agobard, Archbishop of
Lyon (779-840), subsequently attacked the Jews with vigor similar to
that of Chrysostom; thus he proposed that Christians should not
fraternize with the unclean and corrupt synagogue, as if seated with a
whore.31 In England, the scholastic Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury
(1033-1109), was a saint whose love for humanity did not exclude the
children of Israel, even though he appeared to regard them as pagan;
such genuine concern was rare in those times. However his moderation
here never renounced the Augustinian standard of the Jews as a biblical
witness of divinely imposed degradation.32 Then in 1095 A.D., Pope
Urban II initiated the first Crusade, and an era of eight campaigns that
concluded in 1270 AD. The Holy Land and sacred sites were to be
delivered from pagan infidels. En route via Europe, on this first tour
the barbarous crusaders, incited by priests such as Peter the Hermit,
offered Jews baptism or death. At Mainz several hundred Jews were
killed followed by a service of thanksgiving. The capture of Jerusalem
in 1099 A.D. resulted in the burning of a synagogue filled with Jews.33
Abelard of Paris (1079-1142), a father of dawning scholasticism and
follower of Jewish and Arabic learning, became a lone defender of the
Jews. He was the only leader in the Middle Ages who ventured to
attack openly the anti-Jewish tradition of Christendom.34 Bernard of
Clairvaux (1090-1153), encouraged a second Crusade; while being
critical of the killing of Jews during the first Crusade, he nevertheless
characterized them as bestial descendants of the Devil and murderers
from the beginning of time.35 Because of supposed unorthodoxy and
the minimizing of Jewish culpability, Abelard was ruined by the
30
Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Anti-Semitism: A History, p. 64.
31
Friedrich Heer, Gods First Love; p. 61-62; Clark M. Williamson, Has God
Rejected His People? p. 113.
32
Cohn, Living Letters of the Law, pp. 167-180; Hay, Thy Brothers Blood,
pp. 39-40.
33
Clark M. Williamson, Has God Rejected His People? p. 113-114.
34
Hay, Thy Brothers Blood, p. 67; Heer, Gods First Love, pp. 68, 76.
35
Grosser and Halperin, Causes and Effects of Anti-Semitism, p. 106.
persecutions of Bernard who also sought the assistance of Pope

Innocent II in this pursuit, though they were eventually reconciled.36
However at the entrance of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) on to the
religious stage of Europe, he but served as a major conduit of the
traditional Christian view of the Jews for some seven hundred years.37
Like Augustine he believed in a future salvation of the Jews, according
to Romans 11, that would lead to absorption into the Christian Church.
So we now survey a period when the Catholic Church and Christian
state reached the peak of their united power. Yet the Jewish people
were to be plunged into new depths of oppression and misery by the
scourge of anti-Semitic hysteria.38 It should be understood that at the
Fourth Lateran Council (1215), at which the dogma of transub-
stantiation was canonized, baptized Jews were forbidden to practice
Jewish customs; Jews were forbidden to appear in public at Easter time
and were barred from public office; they were to wear a distinguishing
badge. The Council of Canterbury in England (1222) affirmed these
same prohibitions.39 Thus in responding to an enquiry from a duchess
as to compliance with these church decrees, we are told of Aquinas:
In the matter of distinctive Jewish dress, however, Thomas deemed the
issue an easy one (plana est responsio); the recent decision of the Fourth
Lateran Council that the Jews wear an identifying sign must be observed,
especially because biblical law itself commands them to place distinctive
fringes on their cloaks. . . . [Thus] the provisions of De regimine Iudaeorum
[the enquiry of the Duchess] proceed directly from the two basic premises
of Augustinian doctrine and its applications in canon law: First, the sin of
the Jews has resulted in their consignment to perpetual servitude in
Christendom; second, no Christian ruler may deprive them of that which
they require to live as Jews under his rule.40
How tragic it is when history repeats itself since from 1941 onwards, a
standard feature of German Nazi occupation policy around Europe was
to force Jews to wear the degrading yellow stars and badges.41
36
Carroll, Constantines Sword, pp. 290-300; Cohn, Living Letters of the
Law, pp. 287-289.
37
Hood, Aquinas and the Jews, p. xii.
38
Wistrich, Anrisemitism, The Longest Hatred, p. 28.
39
40
Cohn, Living Letters of the Law, p. 366.
41
Goldhagen, Hitlers Willing Executioners, pp. 138-139.
The Renaissance Late Period, to the Fall of Monasticism, 1517 AD.
While the three hundred years that preceded the Reformation saw a
scholastic, artistic and literary revival as reflected in Colet, Moore,
Bacon, Chaucer and Caxton in Britain, along with Aquinas, Boccaccio,
Dante, Leonardo da Vinci, Machiavelli, Michaelangelo, Raphael,
Erasmus and Guttenberg in Europe, at the same time the Jewish
community became increasingly oppressed through several move-
ments. Monasticism, at the forefront of this trend, had always known
zealotry, however with the increasing influence of the more recently
formed mendicant Dominican and Franciscan orders, which focused on
preaching for conversion, they became the most implacable religious
adversaries of the Jews in the late Middle Ages. This ferocity became
inquisitorial and included book burnings, especially the Talmud.42
Then there developed, beyond suppression and humiliation of the Jew,
a greater emphasis upon mass expulsion, just one step away from
extermination. Britain initiated this move when Edward I, having first
confiscated the Jews assets, expelled them all in 1290 until over three
hundred and fifty years later when they were able to return under
Oliver Cromwell, though even then with qualified scrutiny.43 Not until
the middle of the nineteenth century would they obtain full citizenship
in Great Britain. Jews were also expelled from France in 1306 and
again in 1394. Having become prosperous in Spain, after subjection to
the Inquisition, they were then all expelled in 1492; in fleeing to
Portugal, these Jews met the same fate there. Justification for this racial
eviction was necessary consignment of the Jew to wandering on
account of deicide and obduracy in unbelief.44
Furthermore, new forms of vilification were injected. The blood libel
accusation, originating in Norwich, England, in 1144, charged the Jews
with infanticide for the purpose of the slain childs blood being used to
make matzos, the unleavened bread used in celebration of the Passover.
Perpetuation of this horrendous accusation, although repudiated by
42
Carroll, Constantines Sword, pp. 304-310; Jeremy Cohn, Living Letters of
the Law, pp. 317-389; Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews, pp. 215-216;
Wistrich, Anrisemitism, The Longest Hatred, pp. 34-36.
43
Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews, p. 213; Wistrich, Anrisemitism, The
Longest Hatred, p. 101; Grosser and Halperin, Causes and Effects of Anti-
Semitism, p. 183.
44
Clark M. Williamson, Has God Rejected His People? p. 117-118.
Emperor and Pope, led to many centuries of such slander that resulted
in numerous efforts at extermination. There was also the charge of
wafer desecration, which is abuse of Christ as present in the offering of
the Mass; this was claimed to be a recapitulation of the Jews abusive
treatment of Christ as recorded in Scripture. For this, many Jews were
hounded to death, undoubtedly with the encouragement of a zealous
priesthood.45
So that by the time we enter the sixteenth century, we can easily
identify a pervasive, smoldering anti-Judaic legacy throughout Britain
and Europe. Hence the great question concerns whether the religious
awakening about to erupt at that time, that is the laying of the very
foundation of western society, would be able to cleanse the emerging
modern world of this dark, insidious, shameful inheritance.
TH
THE 16 CENTURY REFORMATION PERIOD
The fact that Martin Luther was a devoted Augustinian monk should
help us appreciate the antecedents of his blatant anti-Judaic tirades that
climaxed his momentous life. His last sermon, preached several days
before his death, pleaded that all Jews should be expelled from
Germany.46 Notwithstanding Luthers earlier hopes that the Jews
would believe in Jesus as the Christ and become incorporated within
the church, his later vitriolic denunciations, on account of their
obstinate unbelief even up to the time of his death, are such that
Lutheran scholar Jaroslav Pelikan has frankly declared,
that the time has come for those who study Luther and admire him to
acknowledge, more unequivocally and less pugnaciously than they have,
that on this issue Luthers [anti-Judaic] thought and language are simply
beyond defense.47
Yes, as difficult as it is to digest, spiritual giants, to whom we become

eternally indebted, can nevertheless act in a pigmy manner! On the
other hand John Calvin, as we have seen more moderate than Luther,
nevertheless was rooted in the same essential Augustinian legacy.
45
Ibid., pp. 114-117.
46
Edward H. Flannery, The Anguish of the Jews, p. 152; also Salo W. Baron,
John Calvin and the Jews, Essential Papers on Judaism and Christianity
in Conflict, ed. Jeremy Cohen, pp. 380-400.
47
Cited by Franklin H. Littell, The Crucifixion of the Jews, p. 105.
While not going out of his way to harass Jews, he was content to keep
them out of Geneva and repeat traditional anti-Judaic statements.48
Even so, Reformation Europe certainly experienced gospel and
ecclesiastical emancipation at this time, which was undoubtedly
stimulated by the surging printed page of the Bible; yet the synagogue
continued to experience vigorous anti-Judaism. Furthermore, Spanish
Marranos or pigs, the fruit of the Inquisition, those Jews having
converted to Christianity under duress while remaining Jewish at heart,
continued to be hounded. This was especially the case in Spain, so that
for many refuge was sought in Portugal, Salonica, and Turkey. Poland
also offered a degree of protection in Eastern Europe in attracting
emigrants streaming away from oppression in the west, yet with the
result that anti-Judaism also began to erupt there as well.49 In 1562 the
Polish Diet (Legislative Assembly) confirmed previous anti-Jewish
legislation. Jews were to dress differently from Christians; they were
prohibited from owning Christian serfs or domestics and from holding
public office.50 However it is well to remember that this development
was more a matter of resurgence within awakened Europe, of recapit-
ulation with a modern flair rather than the origination of a movement.
For as Heiko Oberman has pointed out in his definitive analysis:
Hatred of the Jews was not an invention of the sixteenth century. It was an
inherited assumption. Far from acquitting the age of Renaissance and
Reformation, we should recognize that this same age which so consciously
scrutinized the medieval traditions simultaneously passed on, with new
strength, whatever withstood the test of inspection.51
However with the ideological thrust of the Counter-Reformation

waning, the expanding mercantile and financial character of Europe at
this time provided opportunity for initiative to thrive. Thus the Jews
were thrust into the very center of the European economy in which
capitalism began to displace feudalism, and cash became the accepted
currency rather than produce. In this new atmosphere, sophisticated
Jews were welcomed on their merits, at least for some time until anti-
Judaic reaction fomented yet again, especially in Eastern Europe.52
48
Williamson, Has God Rejected His People? pp. 102-103.
49
Heer, Gods First Love, pp. 134-138.
50
51
Heiko A. Oberman, The Roots of Anti-Semitism, p. xi.
52
Johnson, History of the Jews, pp. 249-52
TH
THE 17 CENTURY PURITAN PERIOD
The growing influence of Protestantism now appeared to bode well for

the European Jew in terms of much greater esteem being offered than
Augustinian tolerance normally allowed. Furthermore the Puritanism
of England in particular, at the advent of freedom for popular
publishing that the interregnum government of Cromwell allowed,
suddenly deluged the country with eschatological speculation.53 This
inevitably raised the specter of the salvation of the Jews and their
future national destiny. At the same time a series of events originating
from Eastern Europe gave further impetus to the arousal of Judaism in
Britain. In 1648, savage slaughter of Ukranian Jews was instigated by
Russian Cossacks upon their refusal to convert to the Orthodox faith.
Killing was accompanied by barbarous tortures; the victims were flayed
alive, split asunder, clubbed to death, roasted on coals, or scalded with
boiling water. Even infants at the breast were not spared. The most terrible
cruelty was shown toward the Jews. . . . Scrolls of the Law were taken out
of the synagogues by the Cossacks who danced on them while drinking
whiskey. After this Jews were laid upon them and butchered without
mercy.54
The result was the flight of refugees seeking safety in the west, so that
this surge troubled a Jewish scholar in Amsterdam, Manasseh ben
Israel, who feared Dutch reprisals at such an influx. Consequently,
taking advantage of the more sympathetic parliament of Cromwell that
had displaced the English royalists, in 1655 he personally visited
London and petitioned the Lord Protector for a repeal of long standing
laws forbidding Jewish entry into England. Following characteristic
English delay and subtlety, citizenship for Jews was in time allowed,
eventually resulting in Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. A further
consequence was the enabling of immigration as well to America by
means of which American Jewry was born.55 However the
ramifications of this more open policy was an England, with
increasingly awakened eschatological interest, that would eventually
take the lead amongst the nations of the world in the establishment of
the modern State of Israel.
53
Crawford Gribben, The Puritan Millenium, pp. 39-40, 47, 108, 194-195.
54
55
Cohn-Sherbok, Anti-Semitism: A History, pp. 87-88; Johnson, History of
the Jews, pp. 275-280.
However as the seventeenth century closed, emerging modernity did

not bring about a reduction in overall Judaphobia. Certainly some of
Reformed convictions, such as Philipp Melanchthon, Justas Jonas,
Andreas Osiander, and Theodore Beza, toned down Luthers shrill
emphasis. Further, the Lutheran Pietistic movement originating with
Jacob Spenner (1635-1705), in reacting to sterile dogmatic orthodoxy,
resulted in a mild millenarian eschatology which in turn aligned with a
more kindly attitude toward the Jews. From this there developed a pro-
Semitic premillennial Lutheran strain that continued through Bengel,
Zahn, Delitzsch, Godet, Auberlen, and on to America through Seiss,
Schmucker, and Peters. However, these convictions were not widely
shared, especially in mainstream Lutheranism; throughout Europe Jews
were viewed with contempt and hostility.56 To be sure many with a
Reformed heritage, along with numerous Puritans, expressed a heartfelt
interest in the conversion of the Jews, even a climactic ingathering in a
more national sense. Yet this hope usually envisaged incorporation into
the church with the loss of individual, national, and territorial identity.
Hence, as Cohn-Sherbok puts the matter quite plainly:
The early modern period thus witnessed the continuation of the long
tradition of Christian anti-Semitism alongside a growing awareness of the
need to improve the position of Jewry. Voices were ranging on different
sides of this debate by leading figures of the Reformation. Yet even those
Reformers who encouraged their coreligionists to adopt a more positive
attitude towards the Jewish community shared many of the prejudices of
previous ages. Basing themselves on Scripture, they prayed for the Jews
eventual conversion to the true faith. In this way, they hoped for the
eventual elimination of the Jewish race, an aspiration shared centuries later
by the Nazis, who sought to accomplish the same end but through very
different means.57
This approach was not unlike that which Napoleon later proposed,
namely that the remedy concerning these objectionable people lay in
the abolition of Jewry by dissolving it into Christianity.58
56
Cohn-Sherbok, Anti-Semitism: A History, pp. 158-159, 161.
57
Ibid., p. 162.
58
Ibid., p. 182.
TH
THE 18 CENTURY EVANGELICAL PERIOD
While Britain experienced the Evangelical Awakening under

Whitefield and Wesley, America experienced the Great Awakening
under Whitefield and Edwards. Also Germany experienced the Pietistic
and Moravian revival under Spenner, Francke, and Zinzendorf, while
France endured bloody revolution along with rational enlightenment!
A scientific awakening was also under way, launched by Newtonian
physics, which had paved the way for the coming industrial revolution.
On the other hand Jewish intelligentsia had been made to seem
backward and obscurantist. Thus Jews appeared to educated Christians,
or even uneducated ones, as figures of contempt and derision, dressed
in funny clothes, imprisoned in ancient and ludicrous superstitions, as
remote and isolated from modern society as one of the lost tribes. The
Gentiles knew nothing, and cared less about Jewish scholarship. Even
the apologetic of Moses Mendelssohn for the existence of God was
alleged to have been demolished by Immanuel Kant,59 who denigrated
Jewish religion and derided the Jews as a nation of usurers.60
In 1740 the Russians wanted to either convert the Jews or expel them.
The threat of expulsion was thought of as an incentive for the Jews to
embrace the Greek Orthodox faith. In 1747 Pope Benedict XIV issued
a papal bull which asserted that Jewish children over the age of seven
could be baptized against the will of their parents.61 Then at the
commencement of the reign of anti-Semitic pope Pius VI (1775-1799),
there was published his Edict on the Jews that led directly to forced
baptisms as well as abductions from Jewish parents. Further, Jews were
obliged by law to listen to contemptuous and insulting sermons. In
1787 an Austrian law compelled Jews to adopt German-sounding first
and family names, many of which translated into insults.62
However, a significant step in Jewish emancipation was taken when in
1791, over one hundred years after the emancipation established in
England, the French National Assembly abrogated all anti-Jewish laws,
the result being that Louis XVI also proclaimed full equality for the
Jews. The preceding debate had suggested that, not unlike the rationale
59
Johnson, History of the Jews, pp. 294, 299, 302.
60
Cohn-Sherbok, Anti-Semitism: A History, pp. 171-172.
61
62
Johnson, History of the Jews, p. 304-305.
of much twentieth century anti-Judaic eschatology: The Jews should

be denied everything as a nation but granted everything as
individuals,63 that is they should be allowed individuality without
nationality or territory.
Even so, this legislative ideal did not become permanently established
in societal expression within France, and indeed Europe as a whole.
Once Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo in 1815, there was to be a
vehement reaction against Jewish emancipation. In Italy Jews would be
forced to live in ghettos and deprived of their rights. German Jewry
would be treated similarly. In Frankfurt Jews would also be forced to
live in the ghetto, and in Lbeck a total expulsion did take place.
Hence, paradoxically, the French quest to emancipate the Jews
eventually led to regression toward previous attitudes concerning both
Jewry and the Jewish faith.64
TH
THE 19 CENTURY GENTILE MISSIONARY PERIOD
If the dismal clouds of Jewish oppression during the early eighteenth

century had then briefly parted for a period to let in the light of
emancipation through legislative enlightenment and democratic ideals,
the nineteenth century eventually saw a pall of darkness roll in once
again, initially in ideological terms. This gathering gloom over Europe
foreshadowed a horrendous storm upon the eye of which the Jews
would find themselves impaled, with their oppressors first being called
the proponents of anti-Semitism by Wilhelm Marr in Hamburg in
1879. The ideological mix of this period, which tended to avow both
humanistic and eschatological optimism, included emerging social
Darwinism, socialism, fascism, free market capitalism, liberal
Christianity, along with the inherited legacies of deism and rationalism.
Even evangelical Christianity, especially within Anglicanism, with its
great missionary thrust emanating through the vast resources of the
British Empire, expressed considerable eschatological hope, except
that popular, optimistic postmillennialism began to be eclipsed by
apocalyptic premillennialism, from which there emerged new and
63
Ibid., p. 306.
64
enthusiastic support for Jewish projects and belief in the restoration of

the Jews to their own land.65
However, in the world of literature, politics, philosophy, theology, and
music, opposition to Jewry became identified with much of high
European culture. For Voltaire, Jews are our masters and our enemies
. . . whom we detest [and are] the most abominable people in the
world. Fichte (a disciple of Kant) believed that the expulsion of the
Jews was the only means of protecting the German nation. Goethe
poetically caricatured the Jews shabby commercial dealings.
Feuerbach considered the Jew to be crassly materialistic. Nietzsche
believed that the extinction of many types of people is just as
desirable as any form of reproduction. Wagner warned the King of
Bavaria: I regard the Jewish race as the born enemy of pure humanity
and everything that is noble in it.66 Thus the intellectual tone of
Europe gave anti-Judaism a new respectability. As religion lost ground
to science, anti-Judaism became in part scientific. No longer based
solely on religious belief, which inherited trait had in no way
diminished, this new version of anti-Judaism became respectable and
acceptable to the center of the western world. Even a story from
Grimms German Fairy Tales titled The Jew in the Bush had as its
main character a cheating, thieving Jew who winds up on the gallows.
In 1823 Pope Leo XII reestablished the ghetto in Rome, which had
been opened by the Napoleonic armies during the occupation of Italy,
and ordered the revival of forced conversion sermons on the Sabbath.
In 1870, despite the opposition of Pope Pius IX, this same Roman
ghetto was formally and finally abolished so that Jews were granted
equal rights in Italy.
In 1844 Karl Marx published his On the Jewish Question, in which he
wrote: Out of its entrails bourgeois society continually creates Jews. .
. . Emancipation from huckstering and from money, and consequently
from practical, real Judaism, would be the self-emancipation of our
era. In 1880 a new anti-Judaic campaign was launched in Berlin
which gathered 250,000 signatures on a petition that was submitted to
Chancellor Bismark.67 Now a complex anti-Judaic movement
65
Nigel Scotland, Evangelical Anglicans in a Revolutionary Age, pp. 172-
178.
66
Cohn-Sherbok, Anti-Semitism: A History, pp. 149, 168, 172, 206, 208, 212.
67
Grosser and Halperin, Causes and Effects of Anti-Semitism, pp. 208-209,
212, 215, 218, 222.
developed in Germany, indeed in Europe, involving an intensely rabid

ideology that gathered support from pseudo intellectual commitment to
eugenics. Based on the arrogant belief that all high cultures were
created by Aryans, it was deemed desirable that the state should uphold
purity in this regard. Thus the impurity of Judaism must necessarily be
removed. Here the philosophic foundation of the Holocaust became
entrenched a generation before its actual outworking in German
history.68 However the religious community did not exclude itself from
participation in this burgeoning movement. In the 1780s, Adolf
Stoecker, chaplain to the imperial court in Berlin, founded the
Christian Socialist Workers Party, which adopted anti-Judaism as a
central feature of its platform.69 As an influential church historian and
theologian at this time, Adolf Harnacks rejection of the Old
Testament, being a variant form of Marcionism, was a primary instance
of classical anti-Jewish theology. Then later Gerhard Kittel, first editor
of the highly regarded Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, in
attempting to deal with the Jewish question, not only rejected
assimilation and mixed marriage, but also chose the alternative of the
ghetto for separated, non participatory national guests.70
Of course this heightening of anti-Judaism was not confined to
Germany, even if it seemed primarily to incubate there. In 1890 the
National Anti-Semitic League of France was formed in Paris under the
presidency of Edouard Drumont, a Catholic socialist. In stridently
taking to the streets, Nazi style, this movement sought the support of
the masses. In November 1891 a bill ordering the expulsion of the Jews
from France received thirty-two votes in the Chamber of Deputies.
Then in 1892 the Dreyfus Affair erupted as an international incident in
which a Jewish Captain Dreyfus was charged with treason due to his
alleged betrayal of a secret French memo to a German Colonel. Found
guilty and exiled to Devils Island, Dreyfus was eventually pardoned,
then exonerated, though not before much exacerbation of the whole
anti-Judaic conflict. Hence, with the further uprising of anti-Judaism in
Russia and Poland, it was not so surprising that Theodor Herzl was
moved to publish his monumental Der Judenstaat, The Jewish State, in
1896. He had personally witnessed the outcry of a mob shouting
Death to the Jews, when Dreyfus was stripped of his rank. Having
68
69
Ibid., p. 215.
70
Williamson, Has God Rejected His People? pp. 128-131.
become distressed at the European cauldron of anti-Judaism that

continued to boil, he came to the conclusion that the only solution for
the wandering Jew would be the establishment of a Jewish homeland.71
ST
THE 20-21 CENTURY JEWISH MISSIONARY PERIOD
It may seem paradoxical that the period which saw anti-Judaism reach
an unprecedented climax, that is from the late nineteenth to the mid-
twentieth century, was the same period that also witnessed the most
energetic effort since Pentecost for the proclamation of the Christian
gospel to the Jewish people through numerous missionary agencies.
However, our concern at this juncture remains the attitude of
Christianity in central Europe toward this rising tide of Jewish hatred
that reached immense proportions by 1933 and subsequently engulfed
the western world in unspeakable and degrading horror. For it was on
January 30, 1933 when Hitler assumed the office of German
Chancellor. By this means he was enabled, through the agency of the
Nazis, to employ national aversion to Jewry as a catalyst in his
campaign for racial cleansing. From then on, no public institutionalized
support existed in Germany for any view of Jews other than the one
long dominant in Germany, now given extreme expression in a
relentless and obsessive Nazi campaign for Jewish elimination.72
However, even more horrifying was the manifest, extensive moral
bankruptcy of the German churches, Protestant and Catholic alike, at
that time. During the Weimar Republic from 1919 onwards, 70 to 80
percent of Protestant pastors had allied themselves with the anti-Judaic
German National Peoples Party, and their hostile anti-Judaism had
permeated the Protestant press, with its millions of readers, even before
the Nazis were voted into power. These religious weeklies, which were
devoted to the edification of their readers and to the cultivation of
Christian piety, preached that the Jews were the natural enemies of the
Christian-national tradition. Of course this religious thrust could only
arise through the authorization of the Churchs religious leadership.
One such Lutheran pastor, Bishop Otto Dibelius, writes in a letter in
1933 that he has been always an anti-Semite. One cannot fail to
appreciate that in all of the corrosive manifestations of modern
civilization Jewry plays a leading role. A German Evangelical pastor
71
72
Goldhagen, Hitlers Willing Executioners, pp. 87, 106.
and historian observed that Bishop Dibelius anti-Semitic sentiments

were well nigh representative of German Christendom in the
beginning of 1933. Although at the highest levels of the German
Catholic Church there was private dissent from aspects of Nazi
doctrine, the Catholic Church as an institution remained thoroughly
and publicly anti-Semitic. While some Church leaders in German-
occupied Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and France, openly
condemned the Jewish persecution and slaughter, the German religious
leadership left the Jews to their fates, or even contributed to the
eliminationist persecution. By way of contrast, protestant theologian
and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, had written to a friend just before
Hitler came to power that, concerning the treatment of the Jews, the
most sensible people have lost their heads and their entire Bible.73
If Germany was the crucible centered on the tableau of western and
eastern Europe when the most vile racial atrocity in human history was
perpetrated upon the Jewish people, then other nations, especially
France, Poland and Russia, intimately nestled close to this decadent
Teutonic ideology and consequently fomented the same evil agenda.
However, as we have already pointed out, the thread of this problem is
traceable back over numerous centuries, through the main corridors of
Christian history, both Catholic and Protestant, to the second century
when Justin Marytyr, thence Ambrose, Chrysostom, Augustine,
Jerome, and on through Gregory the Great, established dominant
supercessionist theology. This is no extreme claim, but simply the stark
unsavory reality of Church history. Clark Williamson puts it this way:
All the literature one reads on the final solution leaves the clear impression
that the pervasiveness of classical Christian anti-Jewish theology was a
significant factor in the success of Hitlers program. Where it did not
directly contribute to support for Hitlers policiesand it often didit
created an apathy toward Jews that was equally decisive in permitting the
Holocaust. The great majority of the German people did not actively
support or actively oppose Hitler; they were merely indifferent.74
Perhaps no better contemporary proof of this disastrous theological

heritage being still with us could be found than in the astonishing
awakening that dawned upon Melanie Phillips, a Jewish columnist with
the London Daily Mail, in 2002. She reports of attending a discussion
73
Ibid., pp. 107-109, 111.
74
Clark M. Williamson, Has God Rejected His People? p. 134.
group between Jews and Christians concerning the Churches

increasing hostility toward Israel. However, the surprise came when it
was openly confessed by Christians present that,
the Churches hostility had nothing to do with Israels behavior towards
the Palestinians. This was merely an excuse. The real reason for the
growing antipathy, according to the Christians at that meeting, was the
ancient hatred of Jews rooted deep in Christian theology and now on
widespread display once again. A doctrine going back to the early Church
fathers, suppressed after the Holocaust, had been revived under the
influence of the Middle East conflict. This doctrine is called replacement
theology. In essence, it says that the Jews have been replaced by the
Christians in Gods favor, and so all Gods promises to the Jews, including
the land of Israel, have been inherited by Christianity.75
The full text of this article can be read in Appendix D - Melanie

Phillips on Replacement Theology. However, if the preceding
panoramic thrust of history has not been sufficiently grasped, and there
is hesitation in embracing Melanie Phillips report, then the reader is
now simply invited to consider the evidence of Chapter Three and
Chapter Four that follow. Here we will see in full bloom the
supercessionism of much modern Christianity within both the United
States of America and the United Kingdom, and especially that form
which has a Reformed garb.
75
Melanie Phillips, Christians Who Hate Jews, The Spectator, 16 February,
2002.
Israel and Christian anti-Judaism in the US 59
Chapter Three
ISRAEL and contemporary examples

of Christian anti-Judaism in the US
INTRODUCTION
F IVE examples of contemporary anti-Judaism at a scholarly level

within conservative Christianity in the United States that reflect a
Reformed heritage are as follows. They are Albertus Pieters, Loraine
Boettner, Gary Burge, O Palmer Robertson, and An Open Letter to
Evangelicals signed by a number of scholars, pastors, and Christian
leaders. While these anti-Judaic voices are in the main Presbyterian, in
Chapter Four the emphasis will chiefly focus upon scholarly Anglican
anti-Judaic voices in the United Kingdom.
ALBERTUS PIETERS
Albertus Pieters (1897-1987), former Professor of Bible and Missions

at Western Theological Seminary, Holland, Michigan, associated with
the Reformed Church in America, is undoubtedly an esteemed and
widely quoted representative of classic Reformed theology, especially
its European formulation. He is often quoted by Calvinists who
espouse an Augustinian eschatology, and especially his volume, The
Seed of Abraham. The following quotations are mostly drawn from this
work and plainly indicate an unapologetic, anti-Judaic spirit.
So it was in the matter of the Jews. God willed that after the institution of
the New Covenant there should no longer be any Jewish people in the
worldyet here they are! That is a facta very sad fact, brought about by
their wicked rebellion against God; but is it not monstrous to hold that by
reason of this wickedness the said undesired and undesirable group are now
heirs to the many exceedingly precious promises of God? Shall we be
accused of anti-Semitism, because we speak thus of the Jews? We have not
spoken so harshly as the apostle Paul, who knew them intimately and loved
them passionately. He said of them:
For ye, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in
Judea in Christ Jesus, for ye also suffered the same things of your own
countrymen even as they did of the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus
and the prophets, and drove out us, and please not God, and are contrary to
60 Israel and Christian anti-Judaism in the US
all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, to
fill up their sins always: but the wrath of God is come upon them to the
uttermost (I Thess. 2:14-16).
How is it possible to believe that there are still prophecies of divine grace to
be fulfilled in a group upon which the wrath of God has come to the
uttermost?1 Some years ago, in a conference, I heard a brother minister
say: God is through with the Jews. At the time, this statement startled me,
and I thought it extreme, but the more I study the Scriptures the more it
seems to me he certainly was right. And, after all, was he saying anything
more than the Lord Jesus Christ said, addressing the unbelieving Jewish
people through the symbolism of the barren fig tree: Let there be no fruit
from thee henceforward forever? (Matthew 21:19).2 If, as some think, the
Jews will some day again be a great evangelizing agency, will there not be
much fruit from them? But Christ said there would be none, and St. Paul
said that the wrath of God is come upon them to the uttermost.
1
The assumption here that such condemnation by Paul was irrevocably
applicable to ethnic Israel as a whole, and thus this people was beyond
being termed beloved enemies (Rom. 11:28), is erroneous. The context,
and especially I Thessalonians 2:14, indicate that what the Apostle had in
mind concerned that distinctive Jewish opposition which he had
encountered in Judea, but particularly Jerusalem, and now was reportedly in
Thessalonica. Recall that when Paul found it necessary to leave
Thessalonica due to violent Jewish opposition, after his first visit there, on
moving south to Berea he immediately commenced to witness, as was his
pattern, at the local synagogue (Acts 17:1-12), hardly evidencing ethnic
Jewish abandonment. The same generalization with regard to Israel as a
synagogue of Satan (Rev. 2:9; 3:9) also fails to acknowledge that these
charges concerned the localities of Smyrna and Philadelphia rather than a
comprehensive ethnic application. Refer to Donald A. Hagner, Pauls
Quarrel with Judaism, Anti-Semitism and Early Christianity, eds. Evans
and Hagner, pp. 130-136.
2
The cursing of the fig tree that had only leaves and no fruit, representative
of prospective judgment upon Israel (Jer. 5:15-17; Joel 1:5-7, 12), took
place on the Monday morning of Passion Week, that is following the
triumphal entry on Palm Sunday. The curse was not symbolic of the nation
itself as a total ethnic entity, but the present and subsequent corrupt
generations, as Matthew 21:42-43 confirms. However, in Matthew 23:37-
39 weeping Jesus indicates that an eventual change of heart will come to
Jerusalem, hence national Israel. The same point is made in Deuteronomy
31:14-22 and Joshua 23:16 concerning Israels future disobedience and
dispersal in judgment. Yet Deuteronomy 30:1-10 gives assurance that after
this dispersal, the Lord will bring about Israels return to the land and
regeneration!
In saying that God is through with the Jews, we mean of course, that this
group, maintained in existence as a separate community by the rejection of
Christ and by insisting upon the ordinances that He has abolished, has no
part, and can have no part in the great redemptive enterprise which God
began in the call of Abraham, made known by the prophets, and is now
carrying out through the New Covenant Israel. Individuals are always
welcome to take refuge in Christ by faith, and for every soul that does it
there will not only be joy in heaven in the presence of the angels of God,
but also in every Christian heart on earth. For such conversions we should
zealously and lovingly labor; but for the group as such there is no place in
the kingdom of God, nor can there be any unfulfilled prophecy of divine
blessing which they may inherit. God is through with the Jews. A Jew must
first cease to be a Jew and become a Christian before God can use him.
There are at present people in the world who are called, and who call
themselves, The Jews. They claim that they are the continuation of
ancient Israel, and are the Seed of Abraham to whom the divine promises
were made, and to whom they are to be fulfilled. The claim is conceded by
many earnest Christian people who believe that they find in the Bible very
important prophecies that must some day be fulfilled in this company who
are called The Jews, who worship in the synagogue and adhere to the
Talmud.
How could the Jews be held together and continue to be a peculiar people
[without a temple, a country, a government]? Only by preserving in all
possible rigidity the ordinances handed down from the fathers, with regard
to eating and drinking, trimming or shaving the beard, observing fasts and
feasts, circumcision, Sabbath keeping on the seventh day of the week, syna-
gogue worship, prohibition of intermarriage, etc., etc. These things must
henceforth be their life; for if these were lost all was lost, and they must
expect speedily to be absorbed in the mass of the population around them.
This was therefore their programthe exact opposite to that of Christand
in this unholy endeavor they were only too successful, with the result that
untold calamities were brought down upon themselves and upon the whole
world. Ignorant that their separateness from the rest of the world was in the
divine purpose temporary, they strove to render it permanent. Thus that
which had been in itself good and holy became through their error a source
of poison in the life of the world; and The Jew became the great
persistent international problem.
The visible Christian Church being now the New Covenant Israel, those
whom we call The Jews are outsiders, cut off branches, having no more
connection with either promises or prophecies than any Gentile group.3
3
Albertus Pieters, The Seed of Abraham pp. 123-125, 132, 134, 137-38.
[T]hose now called Jews, . . . have . . . no prophetic destiny, except a
continuance of their present sad and bitter state, so long as they continue
disobedient and unbelieving. They will not always so continue. St. Paul
assures us that in time to come they will again be grafted into the olive tree.
That, however, will give them no prophetic future as a separate group. They
will then also lose their distinct existence by absorption into the Christian
Church. The closed book of Israels history will not be reopened.4
How utterly un-Pauline is this theologically anti-Judaic diatribe. It

savors of being bitter, not just tart. The whole tone here is so unworthy
of any Christian who glories in being saved by a Jew (John 4:22). So
much needs to be said in response, though we forbear at this point.
Except that it will be noticed how Pieters expresses a desire for the
salvation of the Jews, though with the result that all taint of Jewishness
will be lost. This is not unlike Augustine, Vos, John Murray, and a host
of Reformed commentators, all of whom, while deftly describing a
mass conversion of the Jews at the climax of the church age, are
careful to avoid associating this with the perpetuation of national and
territorial Judaism.5 Here Pieters is simply more open and honest about
his eschatology. He tolerates a token, nominal individuality while
vehemently repudiating ethnic individuality, nationality and territory in
covenantal terms. Can such an obviously so unsavory emphasis be the
fruit of a sound eschatology?
LORAINE BOETTNER
Loraine Boettner (1901-1990), a graduate of Princeton Theological

Seminary and also a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church,
was a twentieth century scholar of classic Reformed convictions. His
volume The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination has had considerable
influence, and rightly so, for it is an excellent presentation of the
doctrines of sovereign grace. However it is in this same authors book
4
Ibid., The Ten Tribes in History and Prophecy, p. 109.
5
It is significant that in John Murrays commentary on Romans 11:11-32,
while he writes of ethnic Israel and the restoration of Israel and the
conversion of Israel and the fullness of Israel and the recovery of
Israel and the blessing of Israel and the salvation of Israel in relation
to the mass of Israel, there is never any reference to the nation of Israel
or the likes of Ezekiel 36-37 since these would then implicate the land as
being integral to such terminology. Romans, II, pp. 75-103.
The Millennium6 that we find, not only the most emphatic and
categorical expressions of supercessionism, but also declarations with
regard to the destiny of the Jews that are so obviously slanted as to
reflect explicit theological anti-Judaism. Let the reader judge for
himself with regard to the following quotations.
[W]hile the Jews no longer occupy a place of special favor in the divine
plan, this does not mean that God has cast them off. Nothing has been taken
from the Jews as individuals. Only the external forms have been abolished.
The blessings and privileges of salvation which they enjoyed during the
Old Testament dispensation have been magnified and heightened and
extended to all nations and races alike. After the Jews had forfeited their
rights as a chosen nation, or, to put it more accurately, after God had
completed His purpose with the Jews as a separate people, they continued
to have the privileges of full and free salvation individually.
The Old Testament era was the times of the Jews. The New Testament era
is the times of the Gentiles. Judaism is a thing of the past. It is a glorious
memory, despite its limitations and its failings. But it can never be revived.
The assumption there is to be a national conversion of the Jews at the
Second coming of Christ, after the close of the times of the Gentiles, and
that they are to evangelize the world in a seven year period, is entirely
unwarranted. . . . [There is] no room for a revival of Judaism, nor for a
Jewish era of any kind. But it does leave room for the conversion of Jews as
individuals along with individuals from all other national groups.
With the establishment of the Christian Church Judaism should have made
a smooth and willing transition into Christianity, and should thereby have
disappeared as the flower falls away before the developing fruit. Its
continued existence as a bitter rival and enemy of the Christian Church
after the time of Christ, and particularly its revival after the judgment of
God had fallen on it so heavily in the destruction of Jerusalem and the
dispersal of the people in 70 A.D., was sinful.
Furthermore, this revived Judaism built again the middle wall of partition
[cf. Eph. 2:14] and so made it possible to perpetuate through the centuries
the distinction between Jews and Gentiles. The continuance of this bitterly
anti-Christian racial Group has brought no good to themselves, and there
has been strife and antagonism in practically every nation where they have
gone. They have not been a happy people. One only need think of the
pogroms in Russia, the ghettos of eastern Europe, the many restrictions and
persecutions that they have suffered in Italy, Spain, Poland, and other
countries, and in our own day the campaign of extermination waged against
6
Loraine Boettner, The Millennium. The author openly upholds his
postmillennial views in 103 pp. He critiques amillennialism in 28 pp and
premillennialism in 237 pp. The tilt of Boettners criticism is quite obvious.
them in Germany by Hitler. At the present time we see this problem in a
particularly aggravated form in the Near East, where the recently
established nation of Israel has ruthlessly displaced an Arab population and
seeks to expand further into surrounding regions, some 900,000 Arabs in
refugee camps around the borders of Israel being one of the chief
continuing causes of bitterness. . . . Israel is not a self-sustaining nation, and
her existence to date has been heavily subsidized by American money and
equipmentmuch of it undoubtedly having been given for the purpose of
influencing the Jewish vote in this country. . . . The mere fact that these
people are Jews does not in itself give them any more moral or legal right
to Palestine than to the United States or any other part of the world. . . . It
may seem harsh to say that, God is through with the Jews. But the fact of
the matter is that He is through with them as a unified national group.
This does not mean, of course, that the Jews will never go back to
Palestineas indeed some of them have already established the nation of
Israel, a little less than 2 million out of an estimated world Jewish
population of 12 million now being in that country. But it does mean that as
any of them go back they do so entirely on their own, apart from any
covenanted purpose to that end and entirely outside of Scripture prophecy.
No Scripture blessing is promised for a project of that kind.7
Surely there is an overall tenor here, so antithetical to that of Paul,

which in itself indicates there is something fundamentally wrong with
the doctrine that produces such a response. Particularly objectionable is
the segment, utterly void of compassion, that suggests that the Jews
were responsible for the misery they have endured over the centuries.
For a professing Christian, surely the attitude here is plainly
objectionable and odious. There is not the slightest mention of
widespread anti-Judaism throughout the centuries of the Christian
Church and western society that calls for shameful confession. The
problem is chiefly that of the Jew; he has become a blot on society.
There is even the intimation that Christians in particular were, to a
considerable extent, justified in their campaigns of ostracism
concerning the perfidious, Christ-killing Jew. Arnold Fruchtenbaum, a
Jewish Christian, rightly expresses his distress here as follows:
According to Boettner, the Jews are totally to blame for their history of
persecution. The problem is not with the Gentiles attitude toward the Jews,
but with the Jews failure to disappear. The solution is that the Jews should
cease to be Jews, and by so doing will make a great contribution to the
world. It is the Jewish failure to assimilate that has produced tragic results,
7
Ibid., pp. 312, 313, 314, 319, 321.
both for the Jews and for the world at large. This is theological anti-
Semitism with a vengeance!8
It is interesting to note that, in support of his overall contention here

concerning Israel, Boettner approvingly quotes at length from The Seed
of Abraham by Albertus Pieters, previously referenced in this chapter.
Pieters further writes that, following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70
AD, the subsequent Jewish lineage was comprised of illegitimate
usurpers. Thus,
their program [turned out to be] the exact opposite of Christ, and in this
unholy endeavor they were only too successful, with the result that untold
calamities were brought down upon themselves and upon the whole world.
Ignorant that their separateness from the rest of the world was in the divine
purpose temporary, they strove to render it permanent. Thus that which had
been in itself good and holy became through their error a source of poison
in the life of the world; and The Jew became the great persistent
international problem.9
Here then is a reflection of the same derogatory attitude as that of

Boettner, in which Judaism is esteemed as a source of poison in the
life of the world, a great persistent international problem. For a
professing Christian, such an attitude is quite outrageous. It is full of
Gentile arrogance, namely that the problems of the suffering Jew are
essentially those of his own making. Again, one is forced to conclude
that if this deplorable attitude is the fruit of a certain doctrinal system,
then there must be something fundamentally wrong with the
originating body of teaching.
Furthermore, in Franklin Littells The Crucifixion of the Jews, in also
expressing dismay concerning this same portion of Boettners mean
expression of supercessionist theology, he perceptively comments:
At first blush, this looks like a simple dehydrated statement of the
displacement myth. The revealing phrase is, however, this: Nothing has
been taken from the Jews as individuals. This formula does not derive
from ancient teachers and synods of the church; it is precisely the dogma of
the Enlightenment. Everything to the Jew as an individual; nothing to the
Jews as a people.10
8
Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Israelology, p. 49. The reference here is to Boettner,
Millennium, p. 315.
9
Albertus Pieters, The Seed of Abraham, pp. 132-134.
10
Franklin H. Littell, The Crucifixion of the Jews, p. 33.
Littell is absolutely correct. Refer to the debate in the French National
Assembly of 1791, referenced on page 52. Though perhaps we might
add to his assertion a modification. Everything to the Jew as an
individual under persecution; nothing to the Jew as a people in
blessing. Here then is the unveiling of a common form of duplicity
amongst a number of Reformed Christian scholars, and indeed
Evangelicals more broadly speaking. On the one hand they will declare
that there presently abides in this Christian dispensation, a remnant
according to Gods gracious choice (Rom. 11:5), that is Christians
who are to be designated as Jewish, sans national and territorial claims.
They will also confess that there are individual non-Christians today
who are to be nominated as Jews in some worldly social sense. On
the other hand, as with Pieters, Boettner, and as we shall also see with
Gary Burge, O. Palmer Robertson and the signatories of An Open
Letter to Evangelicals, subsequently in this chapter, there is yet for
these Jews no nation, no land, no covenant relationship in any sense
that abides according to the original promise made to Abraham. That,
they claim, has been permanently done away with. In other words, for
authors such as Boettner, the use of the term Jew is really a hoax. He
is quite frank in this regard, even though he continues to speak of
Jews in the parlance of modern society.
We should point out further that those who today popularly are called
Jews are in reality not Jews at all. Legitimate Judaism as it existed in the
Old Testament era was of divine origin and had a very definite content of
religious and civil laws, priesthood, ritual, sacrifices, temple, Sabbath, etc.
But with the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the people in
A.D. 70, that system was effectively destroyed. It has since not been
practiced anywhere in the world.11
There is an honesty here that is breathtaking, even chilling, and

unfortunately lacking in the writings of others who obviously hold the
same doctrinal convictions that are inherent in replacement theology.
In other words, some, like Boettner, confess their belief at this point
quite candidly, while many others, in holding an identical point of
view, yet declare it with a more subtle touch. Even so, they are
11
Boettner, Millennium, p. 381. Of course Paul continues to maintain his
Jewishness (Acts 21:39; 22:3; Rom. 11:1), though Boettner would respond
that these affirmations were also before A. D. 70. How convenient and yet
utterly void of support! There is not the slightest indication, as in Luke
21:24, that such a disqualification took place; in fact Romans 11:25-28
declares quite the opposite on account of the Israelites forefathers!
essentially all saying the same thing. We might even ask them if this
alleged ethnic deception adds any degree of justification for the
mistreatment of the Jews? So we strenuously maintain that this shame-
ful attitude, so blatantly confessed, clearly betrays a most un-Pauline
disposition. It also causes us to see this as history tragically repeating
itself after centuries of Jewish disqualification by arrogant Gentiles.
Hence our resultant practical concern here is with regard to the
contemporary Jew who is alleged to have no status in the sight of God
of any kind, that is, according to Pieters and Boettner, apart from the
more subtle terminology in the same vein on the part of many others.
Consequently, will such a conviction with regard to the Jew be
productive of a certain biblical ethical behavior toward him, especially
if this Jew nevertheless claims a national identity that includes an
historic claim to Palestine? The answer is obvious, particularly as
centuries of Church history up to the present have plainly illustrated.
The preceding quotations very much parallel that doctrine which
resulted in the shameful behavior of the past. The conclusion here is
inescapable. Therefore, do devotees of replacement theology, as repre-
sentatively set forth thus far, enthusiastically involve themselves in
distinctive missionary outreach toward the Jews, according to the
Pauline model? In witnessing to the Jew, would they present to them
the declarations of Boettner and Pieters? Further, would they
encourage the establishment in Israel of Christian churches that pro-
claim this teaching concerning the poisonous influence of Judaism?
GARY BURGE
As professor of New Testament at Wheaton College Graduate School,

Gary Burge has aligned himself with the pro-Palestinian and anti-
Judaic movement that vociferously opposes the modern State of Israel,
otherwise derided as unjust, carnal Zionism. Along with Don Wagner
and Stephen Sizer, he spoke at the 2004 Friends of Sabeel-North
America, Voice of the Palestinian Christians conference,
www.fosna.org, having the theme, Challenging Christian Zionism.
Here liberation theology was dominant along with the welcome
presence of terrorist Yasar Arafat. Burge is also on the board of
Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding, www.emeu.net, which,
notwithstanding it name, tilts toward non-evangelical ecumenism,
especially that which is eastern, supercessionist, and anti-Judaic. On
the web site of Challenging Christian Zionism, Christians committed to
Biblical Justice, www.christianzionism.org, along with articles by Don
Wagner and Stephen Sizer, Burge writes on Christian Zionism,
Evangelicals and Israel. In particular we note his comment:
But the most important critique - and here I think we discover the Achilles
heel - is that Christian Zionism is committed to what I term a territorial
religion. It assumes that Gods interests are focused on a land, a locale, a
place. From a NT perspective, the land is holy by reference to what
transpired there in history. But it no longer has an intrinsic part to play in
Gods program for the world. This is what Stephen pointed to in his speech
in Acts 7. The land and the temple are now secondary. God wishes to reveal
himself to the entire world. And this insight cost Stephen his life.12
However, it is difficult to avoid the penchant here for a more Gnostic

form of spirituality which so abhors the inclusion of materiality and the
alleged inferiority of carnal territory. Be this as it may, biblical
Christianity and consummate redemption is founded upon spiritual
materiality in space, time, and history upon planet earth (Zech. 14:9-
11; John 1:14; Acts 3:20-21; I John 1:1-3), in which divine
condescension the Christian rejoices. Stephens concern was not the
need to de-materialize, spiritualize and universalize the promise
to Abraham concerning the land, but rather focus on the coming of
Messiah whose presence would certainly transcend the interim holy
place and the law; . . . this place [the Temple] and . . . the customs that
Moses handed down (Acts 6:13-14). The land and the temple are
not abrogated in parallel as Burge suggests. It is the Old covenant that
Stephen challenged, not the land promise intrinsic to the Abrahamic
Covenant. Refer to Chapter Nine: Israel - and the Inheritance of the
Land through Abraham
Further pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel indications concerning Burge
are his being on the Advisory Board of The Holy Land Christian
Ecumentical Foundation, www.hcef.org, as well as his favorable
review of Sizers Christian Zionism: Road Map to Armageddon? on
Friends of Al-Aqsa, www.aqsa.org.uk.
The most significant writing of Burge concerning the issue at hand is
his Whose Land? Whose Promise? What Christians Are Not Being
Told about Israel and the Palestinians, 286 pp. While the style is
temperate, the overall thrust is uncompromisingly supercessionist, anti-
Judaic and pro-Palestinian. From a graphic point of view, the front
cover photograph says it all. Here is a young Palestinian boy, David-
12
Gary Burge, Christian Zionism, Evangelicals and Israel,
www.christianzionism.org.
like, about to throw a stone at a gargantuan, Goliath-like Israeli tank
that is armed to the teeth. In ignoring centuries of the wandering,
down-trodden, despised Jew, here the pitiable Palestinians are
portrayed as the unjustly treated underdogs in the face of such a
rapacious, heartless and devouring foe. However, from a textual point
of view, the author succinctly opines in his preface as follows.
I will argue that even if Christian theologians reject the position that
modern Israel inherits the land promised to Abraham (thanks to a new
covenant that abrogates the old), this should not diminish the churchs
respect for Judaism nor the rights of the Jewish people to live in the land of
Israel.13
Let us look at four aspects of this statement which the subsequent text
considers in detail.
The Abrogation of the Abrahamic Land Promise by Christian

Theologians
Obviously Burge is one of those theologians who believes that while
the land was promised to Abraham in such clear, repeated, unilateral
and covenantal terms, yet since the advent of the Christian era, this
truth no longer has any validity. For this reason the weight of this
emphatically revealed truth needs to be emphasized by means of
quoting the initial biblical reference and then listing the subsequent,
related references that all incorporate confidence in the inviolate
character of the land promise made to Abraham. 1The LORD said to
Abram: Go out from your land, your relatives, and your fathers house
to the land that I will show you. . . . 5He took his wife Sarai, his
nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated, and the people
he had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan.
When they came to the land of Canaan, 6Abram passed through the
land to the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the
Canaanites were in the land. 7But the LORD appeared to Abram and
said, I will give this land to your offspring. So he built an altar there
to the LORD who had appeared to him. (Gen. 12:1, 5-7; cf. 13:14-15,
17; 15:7, 18; 17:8; 24:7; 26:3; 28:4, 13-15; 35:12; 48:3-4, 21; 50:24;
Exod. 3:15-17; 6:3-4, 8; 13:5, 11; 32:13; 33:1; Lev. 26:42; Num.
11:12; 14:23; 32:11; Deut. 1:8, 21, 35; 4:1; 6:3, 10, 18, 23; 9:5, 27-28;
10:11; 11:9, 21; 12:1; 19:8; 26:3, 15; 27:3; 28:11; 30:5, 20; 31:7, 20;
34:4; Josh. 1:6; 18:3; 21:43-44; Judg. 2:1; I Kgs. 8:34, 40, 48; 14:15; I
13
Gary Burge, Whose Land? Whose Promise? p. xviii.
Chron. 16:15-18; II Chron. 20:7; Neh. 9:7-8; Ps. 105:8-11, 42-44;
Ezek. 33:24).
In the light of such weighty evidence in the forgoing, it is astonishing
to find Burges comment as follows concerning Genesis 12:1-3, as if
grasping at straws: Strikingly, this promise fails to mention the land.
Virtually every scholar who studies the passage notes that this
omission is peculiar.14 Nevertheless he admits to the clear promise of
the land in 13:14-17, then suggests again that the promise is omitted in
15:1-6, and finally affirms that the land is formally covenanted in
15:18-21. Significantly the emphatic unilateral character of this last
reference, in which God alone passes between the cut animal pieces
while Abraham is put to sleep, is totally ignored. However, according
to Burge, the fundamental reason for the abrogation of the land
covenant with Abraham is its alleged conditionality. There is nothing
new here since this is the most common reason given for such land
nullification by supercessionists. However it is especially surprising
when found in the Calvinist argumentation of Boettner, Fairbairn,
Hendriksen, Mauro, Pieters, and Riddlebarger, etc. Consequently the
inevitable question that must then be asked is this. If the land promise
in the Abrahamic Covenant was conditional, that is based upon an
unspecified degree of obedience, then does the same principle of
conditionality equally apply to the fulfillment of other aspects of the
Abrahamic covenant, and particularly the resultant New Covenant? If
it is claimed in response that the Abrahamic Covenant has distinctive
conditional and unconditional elements, we would reply that such an
attempted covenantal bifurcation is exegetically untenable and indi-
cates a fundamental doctrinal weakness perhaps, born of desperation.
Nevertheless Burge claims that in the New Testament record, the land
is to be newly focused through the advent of Jesus, the result being
redefinition and reinterpretation.
14
Ibid., p. 69. von Rad is referenced as one example. The fine point being
made is that in 12:1, the land is to be shown to Abraham, but is not here
promised! The Jewish Study Bible does not describe this point as if a
curiosity. Rather it comments concerning 12:1-3, The twin themes of land
and progeny inform the rest of the Torah; concerning 15:1-6, 7-20, This
falls into two sections, the first (vv. 1-6) focused on Gods promise to
provide Abram with an heir who will be his own son, and the second (vv.
7-20) on Gods covenanted pledge to redeem Abrams descendants from
enslavement abroad and to give them a land, pp. 30, 35.
Christ is the reality behind all earthbound promises. . . . land is rejected as
the aim of faith; . . . land is spiritualized as meaning something else; . . . the
promise is historicized in Jesus, a man who lives in the land. . . . Whatever
the land meant in the Old Testament, whatever the promise contained,
this now belongs to Christians. . . . The land was a metaphor, a symbol of a
greater place beyond the soil of Canaan.15
Primary support for this subjective extrapolation is acknowledged to be

W. D. Davies, considered in more detail in Chapter Nine: Israel - and
the Inheritance of the Land through Abraham. However repetition of
the following acknowledgment of this author is sufficient to indicate
the uncertain ground, especially argument based upon alleged silence,
which such a speculative edifice rests upon. So Davies writes:
Because the logic of Pauls understanding of Abraham and his
personalization of the fulfillment of the promise in Christ demanded the
deterritorializing of the promise, salvation was not now bound to the Jewish
people centered in the land and living according to the Law: it was
located not in a place, but in persons in whom grace and faith had their
writ. By personalizing the promise in Christ Paul universalized it. For
Paul, Christ had gathered up the promise into the singularity of his own
person, In this way, the territory promised was transformed into and
fulfilled by the life in Christ. All this is not made explicit, because Paul
did not directly apply himself to the question of the land, but it is implied
[emphasis added]. In the Christological logic of Paul, the land, like the
Law, particular and provisional, had become irrelevant.16
Here is Gentile exegesis come to full bloom that at the same time
excludes any Jewish Christian perspective such as is surely inherent in
the writings of converted Rabbi Paul (Rom. 8:18-21; 11:26). Surely
this same Jewish Christian perspective was in Peters mind when he
preached eschatologically of the return of Jesus Christ to inaugurate
the times of the restoration of all things, which God spoke about by
the mouth of His holy prophets from the beginning (Acts 3: 21).
However for Davies and Burge, belief that the land of Abrahamic
Judaism should find recognition in Christianity is demeaned in terms of
being territorial irrelevance. Thus by means of a Gentile, spiritual-
izing hermeneutic, anti-Judaism is inevitably cultivated in principle,
and history has repeatedly, shamefully demonstrated the outworking of
this process by means of the disenfranchisement of the Jew. However
we suggest that for the Apostles, especially in consultation at the
15
Ibid., pp. 176-177, 179.
16
W. D. Davies, The Gospel And The Land, p. 179.
Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15), such deterritorialization was
unthinkable. The reason it was not foremost in their writings was
preoccupation with a divinely appointed evangelistic mandate, within
the window of the times of the Gentiles (Luke 21:24).
The Abrogation of the Abrahamic Land Promise by the Supplanting

New Covenant
Here Burge makes an assertion with regard to the new covenant that
we believe to be fundamentally in error. While with many theologians
he rejects the belief that modern Israel inherits the land promised to
Abraham, at the same time he affirms his proof for this to be the fact
of a new covenant that abrogates the old. Now in terms of the
original promise of that new covenant, it obviously abrogates the old
Mosaic covenant, not the Abrahamic covenant (Jer. 31:31-34; Heb.
8:7-13). Certainly the Mosaic covenant, as an interim administration,
was imposed upon the ongoing Abrahamic administration that had
already been established for 430 years. Just prior to the institution of
the Mosaic covenant, Moses was instructed, I will bring you to the
land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give
it to you as a possession. I am the LORD (Exod. 6:8). Then up to the
time of the actual establishment of the Mosaic covenant, including its
renewal because of Israels disobedience, possession of the promised
land remained as a certain hope (Exod. 12:23-25; 13:11; 20:12; 33:1).
With this in mind, Paul affirmed, as a fundamental gospel principle,
that the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not
invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the
promise (Gal. 3:17).
An especially egregious example of how this principle of nullification
of the Abrahamic covenant plays out in Burges supercessionism
concerns his questioning of Father George Makhlouf, a parish priest of
St. Georges Greek Orthodox Church in Ramallah, Israel.
I asked . . . , How can you argue with the Israeli claim to own this land
since God gave it to the Jews in the Old Testament? Israeli Jews have
inherited the promises to Abraham, have they not? . . . The church, he
began, has inherited the promises of Israel. The church is actually the new
Israel. What Abraham was promised, Christians now possess because they
are Abrahams true spiritual children just as the New Testament teaches.17
17
Burge, Whose Land? Whose Promise? p. 167.
Burge then makes a most revealing comment that appears to be utterly
void of a sense of church history, warts and all.
The Greek Orthodox tradition of Father George has been consistent in
defending this view throughout the centuries. From the earliest years, the
Middle Eastern churches have claimed the promises of the Old Testament
for their own. This concept shows up in Orthodox icons. Churches display
beautyful pictures (or icons) of Old Testament stories whose truths have
now been swept up by the Christian tradition and baptized with new
meaning.18
What fails to be acknowledged here, in all of its shameful ugliness, is

the fact that this sweeping process involved an Augustinian anti-
Judaic heritage that later enveloped both the eastern church and the
western church. If there is an appeal to church tradition here, that is
the earliest years, as if this might provide added weight of argument,
then going back even further to Jerome, Chrysostom, Ambrose and
Augustine, only heightens the degree of disgrace that this
supercessionist tradition provides which then flowed on through
subsequent centuries.
In this regard, it is further significant, though not altogether surprising,
that one chapter of Burges book is devoted to twelve biographical
vignettes of Palestinian or Arab Christians under the title of Living
Stones in the Land. However a number of these individuals align with
Eastern Orthodoxy and there is every indication that all are committed
to supercessionist, anti-Judaic theology.
One more instance of how this anti-Judaic spirit, in evacuating the
Abrahamic covenant of its Jewish essence, works out as a theology of
Jewish disenfranchisement, is as follows. Burge writes:
Jesus emphasis on the kingdom of God gave him every opportunity to talk
about land and inheritance, but he refused. The kingdom of Israel did not
capture his interest [Burges own emphasis!]. He preferred to talk about
the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. . . . [His disciples]
minds were on political restoration, but for Jesus, Gods kingdom was
fundamentally Gods reign over the lives of men and womennot an
empire, not a political kingdom with borders and armies. The kingdom was
fundamentally a spiritual idea, a spiritual experience that transcended any
particular place or time or land. People who took pride in their possession
18
Ibid., p. 168.
of land or city as the trophy of their spirituality would find themselves in
opposition to Jesus message.19
While agreeing in principle with the final comment that yet ignores the
biblical concept of spiritual materiality, the simple answer to this
overall voiding of Jewish national significance in Jesus ministry is a
consideration of His most clearly expressed Jewishness (Matt. 10:5-7;
15:24; John 4:22). All the exegetical juggling in the world cannot
evade the Judeo-centric eschatological significance of Jesus words of
encouragement to His disciples: I assure you: In the Messianic age
[cf. Acts 3:20-21], you who have followed Me will also sit on 12
thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel (Matt 19:28). The New
Jerusalem also upholds this perpetuated Jewishness (Rev. 21:10-14).
However, to also imply that the terms the kingdom of God and the
kingdom of heaven are somehow purposely employed in the New
Testament so as to circumvent consideration of Jewish nationalism, is
strange indeed, especially if these terms are traced to their Old
Testament, Hebrew roots. It is undoubtedly true that Jesus repudiated
much of the perverse Jewish nationalism of His time. However we
reject the suggestion that He also renounced the Jewish eschatological
vision of the Old Testament by means of neo-Platonic dualism,
reinterpretation and supercession. Refer to Chapter Eight: Israel - and
the Harmony of Spiritual Materiality. On the one hand we agree that
the salvation and sanctification of the human soul is more important
than the salvation and sanctification of the Land of Israel. However, on
the other hand we strenuously repudiate the idea that the salvation and
sanctification of the soul in the New Testament nullifies the importance
of the salvation and sanctification of the human body. This concept the
New Testament emphatically repudiates as heresy. Hence we reject
here the implied Gnostic spirit whereby the Land is regarded as
eschatologically insignificant.
The Necessity of Christian Respect for Judaism
In rejecting the land promise of the Abrahamic covenant, somehow

Burge wants to eat his supercessionist cake and yet conceal this
consumption by means of subtle linguistic accommodation.
Consequently he maintains that, this [nullification of the land promise
given to Abraham] should not diminish the churchs respect for
19
Ibid., pp. 172-173.
Judaism. But what of Judaisms respect for Christianity, and that with
evangelistic outreach to the Jews in mind? In other words, while Burge
believes that the land in which Israel presently dwells has no biblical,
covenantal significance, this should not diminish the churchs respect
for contemporary Judaism, and even its national and territorial
manifestation. It is as if a victim of larceny should nevertheless respect
the fawning manner of his assailant. Of course, the key question here
that Burge needs to answer concerns his definition of Judaism. And
it seems quite clear that for him, being a Jew today is not a genuine,
divine, covenantal relationship even in the flesh, but more the
employment of accepted social nomenclature that fits within the
worldly national parameters of our time. It is granted that this author
acknowledges, according to Romans 11:28-29, that,
[i]f Judaism remainseven in its brokennessa people with a unique
future, a people still to be redeemed, then it follows that they currently have
a place of honor even in their unbelief. . . . Judaism has rejected the new
covenant. Nevertheless, even in this disobedience, these broken branches
still possess an incomparable place in history. . . . For the sake of their
history, for the sake of the promises made to their ancestors [Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob], God will retain a place for Jews in history. In their
present condition of unbelief, they deserve honor. And when they accept
Christ, be it now or in the future, their brokenness will be restored.20
Now on the surface, this may appear to be a commendable explanation.

However, we suggest it is in fact the deft use of language whereby
Burges real belief is, for a moment concealed. Even Augustine could
align himself with this plasticity of expression. Notice that Burge
writes this way while plainly believing that the land promise,
repeatedly confirmed to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has been nullified.
However, the devious intent here surfaces when Burge sums up his
actual meaning.
Some Christians think that unbelieving Israel still lives today as heirs to
Abrahams promises, that Christs new covenant did not bring about an
epoch-changing shift among Gods people. But as we have seen, this view
neglects much of Pauls teaching in Galatians and Romans about Christians
as Abrahams heirs. . . . Father George of Ramallah would tell us
[according to his supercessionism plainly referenced on p. 48] that the
question Who owns the land? is not so simple. The answer is not just a
matter of pointing to the promises of Abraham, identifying modern Israel as
heirs to those promises, and then theologically justifying the Israeli land
20
Ibid., p. 187.
claim. On the contrary, Christian theology demands that the true recipients
of these promises will be found in the Christian church. Perhaps the church
alone receives these promises!21
Here is the reason why it is hardly to be expected that the Jew of today
would respond at this juncture, Thank you very much, Mr. Burge!
The reason is that he would quickly appreciate the shallow patronage
on one hand that is being employed to obfuscate on the other hand
supercessionist anti-Judaism. Here is simply that Augustinian tolerance
of the Jew which in reality is a foil for temporal sufferance.
The Rights of the Jewish People to Live in the Land of Israel
In the same vein we are told that the Christian church should also
uphold the rights of the Jewish people to live in the land of Israel
[Palestine]. Hence another vital question arises here that Burge should
seriously consider. It concerns discovery of the exact nature of these
stated rights that he appears to uphold by means of which Israel
could be said to live justly and peaceably in the land of Israel. In the
light of the authors confessed belief in the invalidation of the
Abrahamic covenant insofar as the land promise is concerned, it can
only be concluded that some more secular judicial standard is intended,
and not divine decree. He appears to be simply making a concession to
the status quo. Should he have written a century ago, there would have
been no encouragement whatsoever concerning the Zionist hope of that
time concerning a return to the Land of Israel. Most likely the United
Nations mandate of 1948 is in Burges mind, and of course the borders
stipulated at that time, or perhaps some similar definitions. But there is
absolutely no reason for believing that an inviolate biblical covenant is
understood to be the basis of such a territorial hope. So the inhabitation
of Israel in the Land today would simply be at the mercy of worldly
pragmatism, the tempestuous forum of the nations, a most ungodly
assembly if ever there was one, and not the Word of God. But further,
Burge seems to suggest, this agenda ought also to be swayed by the
counsel of the mainline Christian churches, hardly a proven ally of the
Jew in centuries past!
It is fascinating here that, on the one hand, Burge condescendingly
admits, and ever so briefly, [b]y comparison with other states in the
Middle East, that Israel is an exemplar of moderation, civility, and
21
Ibid., p. 188.
freedom. He admits that in comparison with a specific instance of
savage Syrian brutality which drew little dissent, Israel has not
participated in this sort of wholesale massacre.22 Nevertheless, there
then follows an extensive litany of accusations against Israel
concerning apartheid, discrimination, land and water seizure, village
and home destruction, abuse of human rights, and religious
compromise. Doubtless some of these charges may be accurate, and
some may find new light shed on them through explanation by the
Israelis. However there is not the slightest mention here of complicity
in the Palestinian cause by the Arab states, so stridently anti-Judaic,
nor the vehement Palestinian opposition to Israels very existence, and
even the concerted supersessionism of the mainstream Palestinian
Christians. We agree with Burge when he writes:
I am convinced that if the prophets of the Old Testament were to visit Tel
Aviv or Jerusalem today, their words would be harsh and unremitting.
Strangely enough, just as in the Bible, their authority would likely go
unrecognized, and like Jeremiah, they would be imprisoned by the Israeli
Defense Forces as a security risk.23
Yes, Christian missionary agencies that focus on the Hebrew people

are also well aware of frequent, aggressive opposition by the Jews,
even as Paul experienced. However, they also continue to wondrously
see the hand of God hovering over this disobedient people and thus
agree with the apostle that, notwithstanding centuries of rebellion and
related suffering, they remain loved because of their forefathers
(Rom. 11:28). That is, Gods present covenantal interest is rooted in
the original promise given to Abraham that included the Land (Gen.
12:1-3, 7; 13:14-17; 15:18-21). But, in the light of Israels incessant
unbelief, how could this forbearance of God be possible? The answer is
simply in terms of the glorious truth of sovereign covenant grace that
the likes of Burge, as well as Chapman and Sizer, would doubtless
claim for themselves after the manner of Ephesians 2:8-9, and yet deny
for Israel since, as Burge erroneously proposes, possession of the land
is tied to obedience to the covenant.24 In other words, Israel loses its
inheritance because of disobedience while the Christian inherits this
inheritance, spiritually speaking, strictly by grace through faith alone in
Jesus Christ!
22
Ibid., p. 132.
23
Ibid., p. 136.
24
Ibid., p. 163.
This conditional perspective, common among Christian superces-
sionists, calls for possession of the land based upon obedience and
dispossession based upon disobedience, obviously recalling the Mosaic
promise of either blessing or cursing for Israel based upon obedience
or disobedience to the law (Deut. 11:26-28). So Burge references a
number of Old Testament passages that certainly detail the promise of
severe discipline for Israel, in relation to the land, on account of
various forms of ungodliness. He strongly suggests that for these
repeated transgressions, Israel has been disinherited from its blessings
while the Christian church has inherited these same essential blessings
by way of supercession or transference. However, the only problem
here is that so many other passages of promise in the Old Testament
speak of Gods ultimate triumph, through grace, over Israels sin, even
as is the case in the saving of any sinner. So Burge either ignores or
minimizes or relegates to past fulfillment these Bible passages.
Consider the following Scriptural references that are said to condemn
the nation of Israels present ungodliness, causing it permanently to
have become person non grata in Gods sight.
Deuteronomy 4:25-27,25 yet reference to vs. 28-31 is omitted.
Deuteronomy 8:17-19,26 also consider similar warning in 28:15-68, yet
reference to 30:1-14 (esp. v. 6) is omitted.
Isaiah 1:16-17; 5:1-7,27 yet references to 2:2-4; 11:1-16; 27:2-13;
35:1-10; 41:8-16; 43:1-7; 49:14-26; 62:1-5 are omitted.
Jeremiah 3:19-20; 7:5-7,28 also consider similar warning in 12:7-13,
yet references to 30:1-31:40; 33:1-26; also Ezekiel 36-37, are omitted.
Hosea 9:2-3,29 yet references to 3:4-5; 11:8-11; 14:1-17 are omitted.
Amos 4:1-2,30 yet reference to 9:11-15 is omitted.
Micah 2:1-3,31 yet references to 4:1-8; 7:7-20 are omitted.
25
Ibid., p. 74.
26
Ibid.
27
Ibid., pp. 101-102.
28
Ibid., p. 101.
29
Ibid., p. 100.
30
Ibid.
The reader is strongly encouraged to read the additional references
included here that Burge does not draw attention to in the main. Time
and time again they indicate the triumph of sovereign grace over the
sin of Israel, even as Paul describes with regard to the Christian in
Romans 5:20. Yes, the sins of Israel bring severe punishment, but not
covenantal abandonment. Of course Burge is all too aware of these
references, some of which he merely footnotes.32 However, unlike the
prophets who often portray these passages so climactically and
triumphantly, he treats them as almost some bothersome and now
outmoded appendage. Notwithstanding the eschatological glory that
stands out here, Burge also reveals his hand at this juncture when he
explains that: Of course, these predictions did come true.33 In other
words, it is the period of the post-exilic return of Israel and on to the
first coming of Christ, that swallows up and nullifies the eschatological
glory that appears to be so plain here (cf. Ezek. 36-37; Zech. 14).
To sum up then, and with reference to Ezekiel 47:22-23 where the
eschatological temple is concerned, and Burge rightly references the
necessity here for Israel to provide an inheritance for an alien
remnant.34 However it also needs to be pointed out that it is clearly and
contextually the responsibility of that same alien remnant to
acknowledge that the Land of Israel does covenentally belong to Israel.
If today the Palestinians were to acknowledge this and the Israelis were
to hear it and be convinced that it is true, there is every possibility that,
upon sitting down in conference, a peaceable resolution to present
problems might emerge. Yet even if the Palestinians were genuinely so
inclined, is it conceivable that the surrounding Arab/Moslem states
would readily invest their cooperation?
O. PALMER ROBERTSON
O. Palmer Robertson is Principal of African Bible College, Uganda,

Professor of Theology at African Bible College, Malawi, and Visiting
Professor at Knox Theological Seminary,Florida. He is best known for
his significant volume The Christ of the Covenants, which is a
contemporary presentation of Reformed covenant theology from a
31
Ibid., pp. 99-100.
32
Ibid., p. 103, n.12.
33
Ibid., p. 104.
34
Ibid.
conservative perspective. More recently he has authored The Israel of
God: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, published in 2000, which also
provides a contemporary Reformed perspective that is essentially
updated Augustinianism. While Robertsons tone is to some degree
more moderate than that of Pieters and Boettner, nevertheless his
overall regard for national Israel could hardly be called friendly, that is
in a Pauline manner. Even the tokenism offered is sparse indeed when
compared with his more frequent harsh regard for the Jews and the
modern State of Israel. For instance we read: Clearly the plight of the
Jews after the horrors of the Holocaust must be fully appreciated. Yet
the tragic circumstances of the residents of the land displaced during
the twentieth century must also be appreciated.35 Then is attached a
near half page footnote that focuses on an instance of alleged Jewish
brutality toward Palestinians in 1948 according to Naim Ateek in his A
Palestinian Theology of Liberation.36 On the other hand there is no
mention of the savage assault by the surrounding Arab states upon
Israel the day following the establishment of the State of Israel
according to the United Nations charter, also in 1948. The tilt of
sympathy, here and elsewhere, cannot be avoided. Further antipathy by
this author toward the modern Jewish state and sympathy for the
Palestinians, is found in a series of depreciative references to Golda
Meir, Theodor Herzl, David Ben-Gurion, and Joseph Weitz, all drawn
from Colin Chapmans anti-Judaic Whose Promised Land?37 The bias
here is unmistakably clear.
It is highly significant that the title which Robertson employs, The
Israel of God: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, is followed by
chapter titles that are all prefaced with The Israel of God. Hence,
like an edifice built upon an inverted pyramid, the author indicates that
his case is based upon one major text, namely Galatians 6:16, for this is
the only reference where the expression Israel of God is found in the
New Testament. Therefore it is not surprising that Robertsons
substantial study of this verse occupies considerably more space than
most other Scripture passages referenced in his book.38 Of course the
reason is obvious since this unique reference is made to be the essential
35
O. Palmer Robertson, The Israel of God, pp. 27-28.
36
Ibid., p. 28.
37
Ibid., pp. 47-48. For further consideration of Chapman in this regard, refer
to Chapter 4.
38
Ibid., pp. 39-45.
proof of Robertsons case, namely that the Christian Church, that is the
New Testament people of God, are described here as the spiritual
Israel of God. Therefore if his interpretation here is shown to be in
error, as we believe it to be, then so much of his book is seriously
brought into question. Nevertheless, in spite of the contrary opinions of
F. F. Bruce, G. C. Berkouwer, Hans Dieter Betz, James Dunn, Ernest
De Witt Burton, and A. T. Hanson, etc., he bravely writes:
The only explanation of Pauls phrase the Israel of God that satisfies the
context as well as the grammar of the passage [is that it describes] . . . the
new community within humanity brought into existence by the cross of
Christ in its uniting of Jews and Gentiles into one new people of God.39
In response, simply let the reader consider more detailed evidence of

the tenuousness of Robertsons opinion referenced in Chapter Ten:
Israel and a Romans 11 Synthesis.
However, we now focus on how this author first speaks out of one side
of his mouth in asserting the Christian Church to be the new spiritual
Israel whereby former national and territorial identity, according to
covenantal determination, has been eliminated. Then we hear him
speaking from the other side of his mouth in disclaiming belief in
replacement theology, that is when defined as bare substitution that
has little connectedness.
[Jesus] is not, as some suppose, replacing Israel with the church. But he is
reconstituting Israel in a way that makes it suitable for the new covenant.
From this point on, it is not that the church takes the place of Israel, but that
a renewed Israel of God is being formed by the shaping of the church. This
kingdom will reach beyond the limits of the Israel of the old covenant.40
How shall this come about? Concerning national Israel, as a result of

its rejection of the Messiah,
[t]he solemn consequences of this rejection find expression in the words of
Jesus: The kingdom shall be taken away from you and given to a people
bearing the fruit of it (Matt. 21:43). Israel as a nation would no more be
able to claim that they possessed the kingdom of God in a way that was
distinct from other nations. Yet the people of the new covenant would still
be designated as Israel, the Israel of God. This new covenant people
39
Ibid., p. 43.
40
Palmer Robertson, Israel of God, p. 118.
would be formed around the core of twelve Israelites who were chosen to
constitute the ongoing Israel of God.41
How discouraging this is for the enquiring Jew! The Christian Church
takes the name of Israel and leaves everything else behind as worthless
Jewish fables and shadows! This is not reconstitution; it is the prodigal
son attempting to disinherit the elder brother and claim his title. To
suggest that old Israel, having Jewish individuality, nationality and
territory is reconstituted so that the original distinctive Jewishness is
reformed, but not replaced, is to play with words while at the same
time retaining an eliminationist agenda. It is to subtly deal with the
Jewish problem, even as Napoleon suggested, through the abolition
of Jewry by dissolving it into Christianity (see page 49). The reality is
that such absorption into a homogenous body in fact results in the
elimination of distinctive Jewish individuality, nationality and territory.
That this is so is proved by the attitude of Robertson when he gets
down to the reality concerning the Jew, the nation and the Land of
Israel today. Here a dismissive attitude is clearly evident. For instance
we further read,
Only two references to Jews and three references to Israel are found in
the book of Revelation. Though few in number, these references shed some
light on the role of Israel in the coming of the kingdom. . . . This absence of
a distinctive role for Israel in the coming of the consummate kingdom of
Messiah characterizes the whole book of Revelation. Nowhere in this book
are the Jewish people described as having a distinctive part in this kingdom.
. . . The land of the Bible . . . is not to be regarded as having continuing
significance in the realm of redemption other than its function as a teaching
model. . . . The future manifestations of the messianic kingdom of Christ
cannot include a distinctively Jewish aspect that would distinguish the
peoples and practices of Jewish believers from their Gentile counterparts. . .
. The future messianic kingdom will embrace equally the whole of the
newly created cosmos, and will not experience a special manifestation of
any sort in the region of the promised land. . . . [A] day should not be
anticipated in which Christs kingdom will manifest Jewish distinctives
either by its location in the land, or by its constituency, or by its
distinctively Jewish practices.42
Here is where Robertsons repudiation of replacement theology is not

believable, while a simmering anti-Judaism is quite apparent. With due
41
Ibid., p. 121. Here is yet another instance of the misuse of Matthew 21:43
that ignores Christs subsequent lament turning to hope (Matt. 23:37-39).
42
Ibid., pp. 153, 165, 194, 195.
regard concerning the absurdity of the above comment concerning
Revelation, how strange it is that the New Jerusalem descending from
heaven gives prominent recognition to twenty four descendants of
Abraham, the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel and the twelve
apostles of the Lamb (Rev. 21:2, 12, 14)!
Nevertheless, an area in which we would agree with Robertson
concerns his writing that, [t]his new covenant people would be
formed around the core of twelve Israelites who were chosen to
constitute the ongoing Israel of God. However we would also
maintain that those twelve apostles, in retaining their historic
Jewishness, constituted a [Jewish] remnant according to Gods
gracious choice (Rom. 11:5) that passionately anticipated the
restoration and regeneration of national Israel. For Peter, one of these
apostles, declared before the Jewish Sanhedrin and high priest that
concerning Jesus Christ: God exalted this man to His right hand as
ruler and Savior, to grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins
(Acts 5:31). Now the meaning of Israel here does not need to be
reinterpreted, even as C. H. Spurgeon makes plain at this juncture.
Israel as a nation will yet acknowledge her blessed Prince and Savior.
During many centuries, the chosen people, who were of old so highly
favored above all other nations on the face of the earth, have been scattered
and peeled, oppressed and persecuted, until sometimes it seemed as if they
must be utterly destroyed; yet they shall be restored to their own land,
which again shall be a land flowing with milk and honey. Then, when their
hearts are turned to Messiah the Prince, and they look upon him whom they
have pierced, and mourn over their sin in so long rejecting him, the fullness
of the Gentiles shall also come, and Jew and Gentile alike shall rejoice in
Christ their Savior. In taking such a text as this, I think it is right always to
give first the actual meaning of the passage before using it in any other
way.43
How then does Robertson understand national Israels permanent

disqualification from the land? There is his reference to Christs words,
the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a
nation producing its fruit (Matt. 21:43), even though there is no
mention here of permanent divine abandonment, as is subsequently
proved (Matt. 23:37-39). However, frequently Robertson identifies the
land with the temporary, conditional old Mosaic covenant and
43
C. H. Spurgeon, The Royal Savior, Acts 5:31, Metropolitan Tabernacle
Pulpit, 56:3229, pp. 790-791, Ages Software.
consequently their mutual abrogation at the advent of the new
covenant. Thus he writes that,
The possession of the land under the old covenant was not an end in itself,
but fit instead among the shadows, types, and prophecies that were
characteristic of the old covenant in its presentation of redemptive truth.
Just as the tabernacle was never intended to be a settled item in the plan of
redemption but was to point to Christs tabernacling among his people (cf.
John 1:14, and just as the sacrificial system could never atone for sins but
could only foreshadow the offering of the Son of God (Heb. 9:23-26), so in
a similar manner Abraham received the promise of the land but never
experienced the blessing of its full possession. In this way, the patriarch
learned to kook forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and
builder is God (Heb. 1110).44
Here we believe that another fundamental error of this author comes to

the fore. It is his incorporation of the Land promise into the
conditional, temporal Mosaic covenant. There is great confusion here.45
Certainly the whole tabernacle order was merely a temporal shadow of
the substance yet to be embodied in Christ. However the promise of the
Land was according to the unconditional, everlasting terms of the
Abrahamic covenant (Gen. 15:1-21) that were revealed 430 years
before the giving of the law, and thus cannot be annulled. (Gal. 3:17).
The Land of Israel was not a mere shadow as Robertson would like to
have us believe. When Abraham first entered Canaan from Haran, the
Land was thoroughly pagan. For this reason, his hope was in the
cleansing and regeneration of the Land that would eventually result
when the holiness of heaven would descend upon it, including
Messiah, subsequent to its possession by the twelve tribes of Israel. For
further evidence of the abiding nature of the land, refer to Chapter
Nine: Israel and the Inheritance of the Land through Abraham.
In a concluding summary of Robertsons theology of Israel, twelve
propositions are set forth that attempt to repudiate, with considerable
emphasis, the common premillennial belief in a distinctive new
covenant, eschatological future for ethnic and national Israel.46 It will
44
Ibid., p. 13.
45
Robertson makes the same mistake when he writes that circumcision was
also an old covenant institution, and incorrectly invokes Galatians 5:2, in
fact addressed to Gentile Christians concerning Judaisers, to suggest that,
what was in reality an Abrahamic Covenant rite is now invalid, even for the
Jewish Christian. Ibid., p. 31.
46
Ibid., pp. 193-196.
be noted that the wording of these propositions needs careful
consideration since often there is a lack of clarification, a subtle turn of
expression, as well as the avoidance of some pertinent issues. We
select the most significant of these for more detailed analysis.
Proposition #2: The modern Jewish state is not a part of the messianic
kingdom of Jesus Christ. Even though it may be affirmed that this
particular civil government came into being under the sovereignty of
the God of the Bible, it would be a denial of Jesus affirmation that his
kingdom is not of this world order (John 18:36) to assert that this
government is a part of his messianic kingdom. To be honest, this
writer knows of few premillennialists who would declare that the
modern state of Israel is presently part of the messianic kingdom of
Jesus Christ other than in a potential sense. Though they would
certainly believe that such a blessed economy will emerge at the
second coming of the Son of God. However, there are two related
questions that must be faced here. First, is the land of Palestine today
still a valid part of Gods promise to the national seed of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, irrespective of present unbelief or whether a number
of Jews, large or small, inhabits it? One fundamental reason, among
many, why this covenant promise abides is Pauls declaration,
obviously in the present tense, that the promises still belong to the
Israelites (Rom. 9:4). To suggest that this expression excludes the
land, would be quite unthinkable according to the Apostles use of
accepted Hebrew parlance. Second, does God have any present
covenantal regard for unbelieving, carnal, national, ethnic Israel in the
present? While a more complete positive answer is given in Chapter
Eleven: Israel - as God's Beloved Enemy, it is sufficient here to refer to
Romans 11:28 where it is plain that God continues to have a
covenantal interest in unbelieving Israel in the present. Robertson, in
being aware of the problem here, attempts to identify those loved
because of their forefathers as elect Jews, not unbelieving Israel in a
national sense.47 However, while amillennialist Lenski is of a similar
interpretation, the overwhelming opinion of most commentators is that,
as Barrett concludes, [t]hey [Israel] are the race [emphasis added]
whom God elected to be his peculiar people, and their election rests in
no way upon their merits or achievements.48 Thus, the positive answer
47
Ibid., pp. 189-190.
48
C. K. Barrett, Romans, p. 225. Likewise, Cranfield, Hodge, Moo, Morris,
Murray, Shedd, Schreiner.
to both of the questions raised leads to the conclusion that while there
cannot be absolute certainty with regard to eschatological fulfillment in
the present, yet the contemporary state of Israel, and especially its
possession of Jerusalem, suggests a high degree of probability that
eschatological fulfillment is in process before our very eyes.
Moreover, although Robertson concedes, as a Calvinist, that there is
the operation of Gods sovereignty in the establishment of the state of
Israel, this is obviously an inclusive understanding with regard to His
general dominion over all of creation; hence this would nevertheless
exclude any divine, particular, sovereign, covenantal, national interest.
Furthermore, he sees no distinctive involvement by God in the seeming
secular process by which the European Zionist movement resulted in
the rebirth of the state of Israel since such involvement would violate
the principle of John 18:36. Nevertheless, in this regard reference
should be made to David Larsens Jews, Gentiles, & The Church, in
which he documents the historic development of Zionism that was
substantially secular, nevertheless often directed and permeated by
Christian sympathy, investment and biblical presuppositions. Consider
that,
[w]hile doubtless there were complex motives of self-interest on the part of
Great Britain, [Chaim] Weizmann stoutly maintained in his memoirs that
the sincere Christian beliefs of Balfour, Lloyd-George, and Jan Christian
Smuts were more responsible than anything else for the new opening for
the Jews in Palestine.49
Also refer to the catalog of providential circumstances mentioned in

pages 152-157. Concerning the broad principle of John 18:36, where
Jesus declared, My kingdom does not have its origin here, certainly
no premillennialist would assert that the present day nation of Israel is
in fact a manifestation of the kingdom of God.50 Having said this, it
ought not to be implied then that, because of the present secularity and
unbelief of Israel, therefore God has no vested, particular, covenantal,
loving interest in His people, as if a father had given up on his prodigal
son. Quite to the contrary, in the biblical parable surely the father
lovingly follows the course of his son even when he is defiling himself
49
David L. Larsen, Jews, Gentiles & The Church, p. 182; cf. pp. 131-221.
50
In John 18:36 where Jesus addresses Pontius Pilate, He is contrasting the
holiness of His potential kingdom administration with the pervasive
unholiness of the world order in which the Roman legate rules. There is no
thought here of the non-material spirituality of Jesus kingdom.
in the far country. Hence surely in this present age there is abundant
evidence of Gods dealing with godless mankind according to His
prevenient grace whereby He woos and draws with cords of love the
particular objects of His elective grace (John 6:44-45; II Thess. 2:13I
Pet. 1:1-2). They may appear as thoroughly secular and vehement
despisers of Christ, nevertheless the divine pursuit of such renegades is
unrelenting until such a time as sovereign grace claims them as with
Jacob (Gen. 28:10-22; 32:24-32) and Paul (Acts 7:54-8:3; 9:1-9; Gal.
1:15-16). Any Gentile similarly wooed by that same grace will
appreciate this point. If this be so, then is it not equally evident that
God has also pursued the nation of Israel through the centuries in its
unbelief? But further, how is it possible then to so strenuously deny
that God is now, in this twenty-first century, distinctively, covenantally
dealing with the nation of Israel, especially since 1948? Indeed it is
Romans 11 that so plainly describes this wooing through the centuries,
even with the employed strategy of temporary withdrawal.
Proposition #3: It cannot be established from Scripture that the birth of
the modern state of Israel is a prophetic precursor to the mass
conversion of Jewish people. Doubtless in absolute terms this is correct
even as it cannot be certainly proved that Robertsons denial of such an
apocalyptic return and conversion of the Diaspora is correct. With the
Word of God concerning eschatological events, at best we are dealing
with cautious probability, so let each Christian be persuaded as he
carefully studies Scripture. Theoretically, present day Israel might be
so assailed by the Arabs that it finds itself pushed into the
Mediterranean Sea. This would in no way invalidate the premillennial
hope, such as is portrayed in Ezekiel 36-37, though some anti-Judaic
amillennialists might conceal an inward smile at such a tragic event. In
such a situation they would also probably confess Gods hand at work
in judgment upon Israel while denying His hand would ever bring
consummate blessing! Nevertheless, C. H. Spurgeon, Bishop J. C.
Ryle, and Horatius Bonar did have such a premillennial hope
concerning national Israel well before there was any aroused prospect
in Europe of a possible Jewish state in Israel. However, by way of
contrast, consider the rather imprudent prognostication of Philip Mauro
who wrote that should Jerusalem come into Jewish hands again
during the times of the Gentiles, then the prophecies would have
been falsified and the entire New Testament discredited.51 The pity is
51
Philip Mauro, The Gospel of the Kingdom, Chapter Twelve, Internet
sourced. In Chapter Fourteen, commenting on Zionism up to 1927, Mauro
that he is not now able to provide an explanation of present
circumstances, though the temper of his writings suggests that like
some, he would simply deny any activity or national purpose of God,
whatsoever, in the present state of Israel.
Proposition #4: The land of the Bible served in a typological role as a
model of the consummate realization of the purposes of God for his
redeemed people that encompasses the whole of the cosmos. Because
of the inherently limited scope of the land of the Bible, it is not to be
regarded as having continuing significance in the realm of redemption
other than its function as a teaching model. This matter is dealt with
more fully in Chapter Nine: Israel and the Inheritance of the Land
through Abraham. However at this juncture, consider C. H. Spurgeons
understanding of Ezekiel 37:1-10. By way of summary, the famous
preacher is well aware that
this vision has been used, from the time of Jerome onwards, as a description
of the resurrection. . . . [However] there is no allusion made by Ezekiel to
the resurrection, and such topic would have been quite apart from the design
of the prophets speech. I believe he was no more thinking of the
resurrection of the dead than of the building of St. Peters at Rome, or the
emigration of the Pilgrim Fathers. That topic is altogether foreign to the
subject in hand, and could not by any possibility have crept into the
prophets mind. He was talking about the people of Israel, and prophesying
concerning them. . . . The meaning of our text, as opened up by the context,
is most evidently, if words mean anything, first, that there shall be a
political restoration of the Jews to their own land and to their own
nationality; and then, secondly, there is in the text, and in the context, a
most plain declaration, that there shall be a spiritual restoration, a
conversion in fact, of the tribes of Israel.52
Now by way of contrast, consider Robertsons explanation of this same
passage in which we begin to see that there is nothing really new. His
eschatological understanding of Ezekiel, quite apart from any
immediate return of Israel after the Babylonian exile, is essentially a
revamped interpretation that employs the resurrection motif while
suggests that despite the Balfour Declaration, Zionism is a shabby

movement in decline. But how times have changed, and will continue to
change.
52
C. H. Spurgeon, The Restoration and Conversion of the Jews, Ezekiel
37:1-10, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, 10:582, pp. 533, 536. Ages
Software.
categorically excluding national Israels resurrection to life through
regeneration.
This perspective [moving from shadow to reality] provides insight into the
return to the land as described by Ezekiel and the other prophets. In the
nature of things, these writers could only employ images with which they
and their hearers were familiar. So they spoke of a return to the
geographical land of Israel. Indeed there was a return to this land, though
hardly on the scale prophesied by Ezekiel. But in the context of the realities
of the new covenant, this land must be understood in terms of the newly
created cosmos about which the apostle Paul speaks in Romans. The whole
universe (which is the land from a new covenant perspective) groans in
travail, waiting for the redemption that will come with the resurrection of
the bodies of the redeemed (Rom. 8:22-23). The return to paradise in the
framework of the new covenant does not involve merely a return to the
shadowy forms of the old covenant. It means the rejuvenation of the entire
earth. By this renewal of the entire creation, the old covenants promise of
land finds its new covenant realization.53
We would agree here with the prophetic vision that Romans 8:22-33
presents and at the same time anticipates the future glorious Messianic
kingdom which will manifest Christs reign from Jerusalem over Jew
and Gentile. However we would vigorously disagree with that
mystical, indeed contorted incorporation of the land into the new
cosmos in such a way that all territorial identity of Israel is lost. Thus
we return to two basic problems here. First there is a seeming
unwillingness to accept that in the future blessed state there could
possibly be a unity with diversity, that is regenerate Jews and Gentiles
in blissful subjection to the reign of Christ. Second, there is the basic
fallacy that the land, as a mere shadow, is rooted in the old or temporal
Mosaic covenant. Yet again we have been told that the land represents
a return to the shadowy forms of the old covenant. However we
would strongly reassert that the land is rooted in the Abrahamic
covenant (Gen. 12:1, 5-7; 13:14-15, 17; 15:7-21), and as such is not
limited by the temporal character of the Mosaic economy. Gods
fundamental dealing with Israel after redemption from Egypt continued
to be based upon the Abrahamic covenant that continued to anticipate
its inherent promise of the land (Exod. 3:6-8, 15-17; 6:1-9; 12:25;
13:5; 32:13-14; 33:1-3; Lev. 20:24; 33:1-3; Num. 13:27).
Proposition #5: Rather than understanding predictions about the
return of Israel to the land in terms of a geopolitical re-
53
Palmer Robertson, The Israel Of God, p. 26.
establishment of the state of Israel, these prophecies are more properly
interpreted as finding consummate fulfillment at the restoration of all
things that will accompany the resurrection of believers at the return
of Christ (Acts 3:21: Rom. 8:22-23). No premillennialist perceives the
present geopolitical re-establishment of the state of Israel in a
consummate sense. It is a precursor of that regeneration,
palingenesia (Acts 3:21) and redemption of the created order (Romans
8:22-23) in which saved national Israel will gloriously participate.
However, this does not mean that we walk blindly through this world
as if historic events have little significance. Surely not only the
continued increasing material and military strength of national Israel,
obtained in the face of seeming insuperable opposition, but particularly
its possession of Old Jerusalem after a hiatus of over 2,100 years, has
troubled those of Reformed Augustinian convictions. There are
published instances of their wrestling with these events since they tend
to conflict with standard supercessionist explanations.
Proposition #7: No worship practices that place Jewish believers in a
category different from Gentile believers can be a legitimate worship-
form among the redeemed people of God. Is this to suggest that the
worship of the Gentile church at Antioch had an identical form when
compared with that of the mother Jewish church at Jerusalem? If a
church that is predominantly Jewish should desire to remember the
Lord Jesus by means of a Seder while a predominantly Gentile church
should simply employ the Lords Table, who is to say that one order is
more biblical than the other? If a church that is predominantly Jewish
desires to initiate its children of Jewish parents and Jewish converts
into Messianic Judaism by means of circumcision, where is the clear
teaching in the New Testament that indicates that such a signification
has been voided? How is it possible for the council of Jerusalems
decision (Acts 15:1-35) to be construed as teaching the abolition of
circumcision for the Jewish Christian?
Proposition #9: The future manifestation of the messianic kingdom of
Christ cannot include a distinctively Jewish aspect that would
distinguish the peoples and practices of Jewish believers from their
Gentile counterparts. This is a purely arbitrary statement which betrays
a Gentile mindset. In effect Robertson is saying that while the Gentile
can worship in a pure Gentile manner, and the inference is that this will
be the future messianic standard, on the other hand the Jew cannot
incorporate distinctive Jewish aspects that are not appropriate for the
Gentile. After all, this would be unfair for the Gentile. But how is it
fair for the Jew to have to conform to Gentile worship?
AN OPEN LETTER TO EVANGELICALS
Theological anti-Judaism, as distinguished from racial anti-Judaism,

may be defined as the biblically derived conclusion that contemporary
Judaism, especially its national and territorial representations, has no
present and future covenantal legitimacy in the mind of God. Whatever
present ethnic claims are made concerning Jewishness, such a
perspective asserts the disenfranchisement of Gods ancient people by
means of the superceding new covenant of Hebrews 8:7-13. Many of
Reformed convictions, upon hearing confessions of pro-Judaism,
especially sympathy for the modern state of Israel and related
eschatological matters, usually respond with disparaging epithets that
at the same time are intended to commend a more enlightened, spiritual
historic eschatology. At worst, such theological anti-Judaism extends
to abusive and contemptuous regard for carnal dispensationalism and
worldly premillennialism. It is further protested that present day
Judaism, in terms of its political alignment with Zionism, has unjustly
oppressed and displaced the Palestinians who have been domiciled in
the land from time immemorial.54 While theological anti-Judaism is
based upon biblical and religious convictions about the Jew, and racial
anti-Judaism is based upon antipathy toward social, cultural and ethnic
characteristics inherent in the Jew, it cannot be denied that rabid
interest in the former is capable of giving birth to the ethos of the latter.
In this regard the legacy of Gods servant, Martin Luther, is sufficient
proof of this point.55
We readily allow that those committed to the preceding scenario
evidence differing degrees of disapproval concerning national Israel,
though the doctrinal underpinning of these expressions is essentially
Augustinian. One more recent, definitive expression of the repudiation
of distinctive covenantal Jewish identity in the sight of God has been
published on the web site of Knox Theological Seminary, Fort
Lauderdale, Florida. There, on the page headed The Wittenberg
54
This expression is derived from the acclaimed, controversial study by Joan
Peters, From Time Immemorial, The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict
Over Palestine, p. 4. This is essential reading reviewed in Appendix E.
55
Paul Lawrence Rose, German Question/Jewish Question: Revolutionary
Antisemitism from Kant to Wagner, 397 pp.
Door, is featured, An Open Letter to Evangelicals and Other
Interested Parties: The People of God, the Land of Israel, and the
Impartiality of the Gospel.56 Here is a contemporary, anti-Judaic
portrayal of the status, in fact non-status of Israel and the Jew today. Its
denial of individual, national, and territorial Judaism in the sight of
God calls for vigorous repudiation on account of explicit theological
supercessionism. Hence there now follows a critique that is
interspersed between the italicized text of this Open Letter. One
wonders if the symbolic panoply employed at this web site, concerning
Martin Luthers historic forum of protest being the door of the Castle
Church at Wittenberg in 1517, is also intended to represent alignment
with the German reformers eschatology, and especially the sordid,
shameful anti-Judaism that so stained the conclusion of such an
eventful and momentous life. No disassociation in this regard appears
to be mentioned.
It should also be appreciated that notable signatories to this Open
Letter include Drs. Richard B. Gaffin, Michael S. Horton, Joseph A.
Pipa, Jr., Robert L. Reymond, O. Palmer Robertson, R. C. Sproul,
Cornelius P. Venema, and Bruce K. Waltke, all of whom are not only
prolific in terms of scholarly books published that espouse
conservative Reformed theology, but also convictions deeply rooted in
Augustinian and historic Presbyterian covenantalism.
An Open Letter to Evangelicals and Other Interested Parties:

The People of God, the Land of Israel, and the Impartiality of the
Gospel
Recently a number of leaders in the Protestant community of the

United States have urged the endorsement of far-reaching and
unilateral political commitments to the people and land of Israel in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, citing Holy Scripture as the basis for those
commitments. To strengthen their endorsement, several of these
leaders have also insisted that they speak on behalf of the seventy
million people who constitute the American evangelical community.
Since the exact circumstances concerning the claim made by these
Protestant leaders is not referenced, it is not possible or really
necessary to make further comment. However it is asserted that indeed
56
http://www.knoxseminary.org/Prospective/Faculty/WittenbergDoor/ (as at
1/3/2005).
a large proportion of the American evangelical community would
generally agree with the endorsement of far-reaching and unilateral
political commitments to the people and land of Israel in the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict, notwithstanding pervasive unbelief. By way of
contrast, this Open Letter tends to oppose the people and land of Israel.
It is good and necessary for evangelical leaders to speak out on the
great moral issues of our day in obedience to Christs call for his
disciples to be salt and light in the world (Matt. 5:13-16). It is quite
another thing, however, when leaders call for commitments that are
based upon a serious misreading of Holy Scripture. In such instances,
it is good and necessary for other evangelical leaders to speak out as
well. We do so here in the hope that we may contribute to the cause of
the Lord Christ, apart from whom there can never be true and lasting
peace in the world (John 14:27).
Quite to the contrary, we believe that the historic, Reformational
eschatological repudiation of Israel is based upon a Gentilic,
Augustinian and Roman Catholic tradition more than clear exegesis,
and as such wrongly filters Scripture through this doctrinal grid. To the
contrary, it could hardly be said that the ethical fruit of this eschatology
has contributed toward true and lasting peace in the world. The
record of history shamefully indicates quite the opposite result.
At the heart of the political commitments in question are two fatally
flawed propositions. First, some are teaching that Gods alleged favor
toward Israel today is based upon ethnic descent rather than upon the
grace of Christ alone, as proclaimed in the Gospel. Second, others are
teaching that the Bibles promises concerning the land are fulfilled in a
special political region or Holy Land, perpetually set apart by God
for one ethnic group alone. As a result of these false claims, large
segments of the evangelical community, our fellow citizens, and our
government are being misled with regard to the Bibles teachings
regarding the people of God, the land of Israel, and the impartiality of
the Gospel.
While it is heartily agreed that Gods saving favor is not based upon
ethnic descent, any more than gender or learning, but rather grace
through faith alone, it is assuredly alleged that, as in the past, so in the
future God does have a distinctive, ongoing, covenantal regard for
Israel after the flesh as beloved enemies (Rom. 11:28). Reformation-
al exegesis is particularly vulnerable with regard to the present
relevance of this climactic verse. Refer to Chapter Eleven: Israel - as
God's Beloved Enemy. If God can retain such gracious for the nation of
Israel, and Paul certainly did to the end of his ministry, then so ought
the Gentile, engrafted wild olive branches.
However, the view espoused here in the Open Letter is far more
representative of arrogant wild olive branches that are the subject of
Pauls rebuke (Rom. 11:17-20). Of course, as Ezekiel 36-37 plainly
indicates, according to the sovereignty of Gods covenant grace,
national Israel after the flesh will become Israel after the Spirit. And
indeed is not this the same essential experience of any Christian in
terms of biblical conversion? Yes, as with the persuasion of Jonathan
Edwards, Horatius Bonar, J. C. Ryle, and C. H. Spurgeon, etc., we do
believe that in grace God covenantally endowed the nation of Israel
with the land in perpetuity so that ultimately it will be populated by
those Hebrews who have authentically believed in Jesus as their
Messiah. As with the aforementioned representatives, we do not
believe that such a prospect in any way compromises the purity of the
gospel. With both respect and loving regard for our fellow brothers and
sisters in Christ, we believe that the Reformed eschatology of this
Open Letter is misled with regard to the Bibles teaching, and that its
ethical legacy in this matter concerning the Jew, according to Church
history, is practical proof that this is so. Both Christian and unbelieving
Jews will readily confirm this painfully sad truth. Hence, to what
extent are the signatories of this letter involved in evangelism and
church planting in Israel while at the same time making plain or open
the doctrinal convictions of this Open Letter?
In what follows, we make our convictions public. We do so
acknowledging the genuine evangelical faith of many who will not
agree with us. Knowing that we may incur their disfavor, we are
nevertheless constrained by Scripture and by conscience to publish the
following propositions for the cause of Christ and truth.
It is good and commendable for conscience to be invoked here. Let
every believer be guided by this principle, no matter what the cost. But
conscience is very much enlivened by knowledge of the truth. So we
ask that the history of the doctrine here espoused be studied in depth,
especially its ethical outworking, since it is strenuously maintained that
the record of Augustinian eschatology over the centuries with regard to
Israel is shameful and unworthy of further loyalty. Even the Roman
Catholic Church has more recently responded with some expressions
of repentance. Refer to Appendix E: An Annotated Bibliography on
Jewish-Christian Relations. Nevertheless historic tradition, however
tainted, dies hard, although a return to the priority of fresh exegesis can
emancipate. At the Reformation, this principle was certainly proved
soteriologically, and to a lesser degree ecclesiologically, but not
eschatologically.
1. The Gospel offers eternal life in heaven to Jews and Gentiles alike
as a free gift in Jesus Christ (Rom. 6:23). Eternal life in heaven is not
earned or deserved, nor is it based upon ethnic descent or natural birth
(Luke 3:8; Eph. 2:8-9).
To this declaration we give happy yet qualified assent. Eternal life is
solely according to Gods free grace which comes to earth from heaven
for all who truly believe. Of course there is eternal life for the
inhabitants of heaven, though it will also come to this earth in a
consummate eschatological sense, even as Hoekema, Strimple,
Venema, and Waldron maintain. Refer to Chapter Eight: Israel - and
the Harmony of Spiritual Materiality.
2. All human beings, Jews and Gentiles alike, are sinners (Rom. 3:22-
23), and, as such, they are under Gods judgment of death (Rom. 6:23).
Because Gods standard is perfect obedience and all are sinners, it is
impossible for anyone to gain temporal peace or eternal life by his own
efforts. Moreover, apart from Christ, there is no special divine favor
upon any member of any ethnic group; nor, apart from Christ, is there
any divine promise of an earthly land or a heavenly inheritance to
anyone, whether Jew or Gentile (Rom. 3:9-10). To teach or imply
otherwise is nothing less than to compromise the Gospel itself.
Yes, to the Jews Jesus declared that, if you do not believe that I am
He [the divine Son of God], you will die in your sins (John 8:24).
Yes, savingly apart from Christ, there is no special divine favor upon
any member of any ethnic group. However, this in no way invalidates
Gods present regard for Israel after the flesh that will ultimately result
in Israel after the Spirit (Rom. 11:12, 15, 24-28). Paul maintains an
evangelistic thrust first to the Jew, and also to the Greek (Rom.
1:16), while also warning of affliction and distress for every human
being who does evil, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek (Rom.
2:9). Here is the incorporation of both priority for the Jew and at the
same time impartiality for Jew and Gentile. Similarly with regard to the
covenantally promised land, its consummate eschatological realization
with regenerate Israel as its holy inhabitant, it will be grounded upon
the redemption that the Holy Seed (Jesus Christ) of Abraham has
accomplished. In this regard, this Messianic Savior will reign from
Jerusalem over Israel in the Land and the surrounding nations (Ezek.
37:21-28; Zech. 14:4, 9-11). Again, in no way is this to suggest that
this working of Gods saving grace is compromised.
3. God, the Creator of all mankind, is merciful and takes no pleasure in
punishing sinners (Ezek. 18:23, 32). Yet God is also holy and just and
must punish sin (Exod. 34:7). Therefore, to satisfy both his justice and
his mercy, God has appointed one way of salvation for all, whether
Jew or Gentile, in Jesus Christ alone (Acts 4:12; John 14:6).
Without qualification, we join in upholding the glory of Gods one
gospel that saves both Jew and Gentile according to His elective grace
through faith alone. However, just as the saved male and female retain
their gender identity following conversion, so the Jew and Gentile
retain their ethnic identity. Absolute homogeneity is not a logical
necessity, as distinctive giftedness in the church indicates. The oneness
of God incorporates distinctive triunity. Even heaven is populated by
the redeemed as well as holy angels having various ranks!
4. Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man (John 1:1, 14), came
into the world to save sinners (I Tim. 1:15). In his death upon the
cross, Jesus was the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world, of
Jew and of Gentile alike. The death of Jesus forever fulfilled and
eternally ended the sacrifices of the Jewish temple (Heb. 9:11-12;
10:11-12). All who would worship God, whether Jew or Gentile, must
now come to him in spirit and truth through Jesus Christ alone. The
worship of God is no longer identified with any specific earthly
sanctuary. He receives worship only through Jesus Christ, the eternal
and heavenly Temple (John 4:21, 23; 2:19-21).
The terms of the gospel are well stated here and with them we are in
full agreement. Further, this new covenant established through Jesus
Christs atoning death, in abrogating the Mosaic and Aaronic aspects
of worship, specifically the sacrifices such as by the blood of bulls and
goats, has primarily been made with Israel, into which stock the
Gentiles are engrafted (Jer. 31:27-34; Rom. 11:17). While the worship
of God is no longer identified with any specific earthly sanctuary
(John 4:21-24) in the present, this in no way negates the eschatological
prospect of Jesus Christ being personally worshipped from Jerusalem,
even in association with the temple portrayed in Ezekiel 40-48. He
being personally and gloriously present in that future kingdom, there is
a sense in which such worship will have a local focus, while at the
same time being universally spiritual. At that time, worship will not be
confined to the heavenly realm; rather true spiritual worship will have
come to earth.
5. To as many as receive and rest upon Christ alone through faith
alone, to Jews and Gentiles alike, God gives eternal life in his heavenly
inheritance (Rom. 1:16; John 1:12-13).
Again we give ready assent to this gospel declaration. Of course both
the Jew and Gentile retain their divinely appointed ethnic distinction
even as they individually receive differing spiritual gifts, which
diversity is incorporated within the unity of the one people of God.
However, their heavenly inheritance is not some amorphous, ethereal
existence, but rather the visitation of the holy city, [the] new
Jerusalem coming down out of heaven [to earth] from God (Rev.
5:10; 21: 2) in which Jew and Gentile are destined to participate.
6. The inheritance promises that God gave to Abraham were made
effective through Christ, Abrahams True Seed (Gal. 3:16). These
promises were not and cannot be made effective through sinful mans
keeping of Gods law (Rom. 4:13). Rather, the promise of an
inheritance is made to those only who have faith in Jesus, the True
Heir of Abraham. All spiritual benefits are derived from Jesus, and
apart from him there is no participation in the promises (Gal. 3:7, 26-
29). Since Jesus Christ is the Mediator of the Abrahamic Covenant, all
who bless him and his people will be blessed of God, and all who curse
him and his people will be cursed of God (Gen. 12:3; Gal. 3:7-8).
These promises do not apply to any particular ethnic group (Gal. 3:22;
Matt. 21:43), but to the church of Jesus Christ, the true Israel (Rom.
2:28-29; Phil. 3:3). The people of God, whether the church of Israel in
the wilderness in the Old Testament (Acts 7:38) or the Israel of God
among the Gentile Galatians in the New Testament (Gal. 6:16), are
one body who through Jesus will receive the promise of the heavenly
city, the everlasting Zion (Heb. 13:14; Phil. 3:20; II Pet. 3:13; Rev.
21:9-14; Heb. 11:39-40). This heavenly inheritance has been the ex-
pectation of the people of God in all ages (Heb. 11:13-16; 12:22-24).
Here we part company in a number of areas, but particularly with some
ingenious exposition that seems more doctrinally than textually driven.
To begin with consider: Since Jesus Christ is the Mediator of the
Abrahamic Covenant, all who bless him and his people will be blessed
of God, and all who curse him and his people will be cursed of God.
These promises do not apply to any particular ethnic group, but to the
church of Jesus Christ, the true Israel. While Jesus Christ is never
declared to be the mediator of the Abrahamic covenant, let us grant the
nuance of the assumption here. Nevertheless, the promise of Genesis
12:3 is not made to Christ as the mediator, but to Abraham, and this
Scripture overwhelmingly affirms. Further, the seed of Abraham
having application to Christ according to Galatians 3:16, this in no way
invalidates the seed of Genesis 12:1-3 being the nation of Israel
anymore than does seed in Genesis 13:15; 17:7. The exegetical
reason is that God says to Abraham, your descendants [seed] shall be
as the innumerable stars of heaven (Gen. 15:5). These references
clearly refer to the nation of Israel, and not exclusively Christ as an
individual. Pauls employment of Midrash, distinctive Jewish,
applicatory interpretation, incorporates Christ as the root of promised
blessing without at all denying the obvious promise of national
blessing, the plurality of Abrahams descendants [seed], heirs
according to the promise (Gal. 3:29).57 Plainly the terms of the
curse/blessing in Genesis 12:2-3 principally refer to the national seed
here, notwithstanding the attempted textual manipulation which betrays
a difficulty that the obvious sense presents. To be sure, Christ is the
ground of covenant blessing, but this does not nullify national blessing
as is plainly indicated. Further evidence of this fallacious methodology
is the desperate attempt here, according to standard Augustinian and
Catholic practice, to conclude that the church of Jesus Christ, [is] the
true Israel, because Jesus said that the kingdom of God will be taken
away from you and given to a people producing the fruit of it (Matt.
21:43). But here it is the chief priests and the elders of the people
(Matt. 21:23) who are addressed, though not with any indication that
permanent disenfranchisement was intended in a national sense, as
Matthew 23:37-39 and Romans 11 make abundantly clear. Indeed, the
twelve pillars of this new people producing fruit were all Jews, even
as the new First Church of Jerusalem was Jewish. Also refer to
Chapter Ten: Israel - and a Romans 11 Synthesis concerning Galatians
6:18.
7. Jesus taught that his resurrection was the raising of the True Temple
of Israel (John 2:19-21). He has replaced the priesthood, sacrifices,
and sanctuary of Israel by fulfilling them in his own glorious priestly
ministry and by offering, once and for all, his sacrifice for the world,
57
David Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary, p. 549. Difficult as this
passage is, few commentators take such a narrow line here whereby
unconditional blessing to Israel as a nation is eliminated from the original
promise given to Abraham.
that is, for both Jew and Gentile (Heb. 8:1-6; cf. 4:15-5:10; 6:13-
10:18). Believers from all nations are now being built up through him
into this Third Temple (Eph. 2:19-22; I Pet. 2:4-6), the church that
Jesus promised to build (Matt. 16:18; Heb. 3:5-6).
That the priesthood of Jesus has gloriously superceded the Aaronic
priesthood incorporated within the Mosaic covenant, is unquestionably
true. However this in no way has eliminated the essential character of
distinctive Jewishness since, as Jeremiah 31:27-34 indicates, the new
covenant, while abrogating the old covenant that was added following
Israels redemption out of Egypt, is made with the house of Israel and
the house of Judah, not the church. Further Jesus as the superceding,
incarnate spiritual Temple in no way negates the spiritual materiality
of the eschatological temple from which Jesus Christ will reign (Zech.
Isa. 2:2-4; 56:6-7; Ezek. 40-43; Mic. 4:1-5; Zech. 6:12-15), unless one
understands this prospect in purely abstract, ethereal terms which a
number of more recent amillennialists have rejected. Thus Ezekiel was
told concerning a future Temple into which the glory of the Lord
entered, . . . Son of man, this [Temple] is the place of My throne and
the place for the soles of My feet, where I will dwell among the
Israelites forever (Ezek. 43:4, 7). We believe this future temple,
situated in Jerusalem, will accommodate the enthroned Temple Jesus.58
8. Simon Peter spoke of the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus in
conjunction with the final judgment and the punishment of sinners (II
Pet. 3:10-13). Instructively, this same Simon Peter, the Apostle to the
Circumcision (Gal. 2:7), says nothing about the restoration of the
kingdom to Israel in the land of Palestine (cf. Acts 1:6-7). Instead, as
his readers contemplate the promise of Jesus Second Coming, he fixes
their hope upon the new heavens and the new earth, in which
righteousness dwells (II Pet. 3:13).
Undoubtedly it is right to presume that Peter was at the forefront of the
question raised by the eleven disciples, Lord, at this time are You
restoring the kingdom to Israel? (Acts 1:6). The restoration of Israel
as declared by the prophets, which concept here surely incorporates the
land, is a given which Jesus does not contradict; His concern is chiefly
a matter of timing. As to Peters understanding of II Peter 3:13, this
58
This raises the question of the interpretation of Ezekiel 40-48. While not
denying difficulties here which any interpreter of this passage faces,
detailed exegesis does not suit those who merely abstract general principles
from the text.
being a quotation of Isaiah 65:17; 66:22, we believe the language here
parallels the restoration of all things, which God spoke about by the
mouth of His holy prophets from the beginning (Acts 3:21). When
this kingdom of Messiah is consummated, then all your people
[Israel] will be righteous; they will possess the land forever (Isa.
60:21). Not for a moment would the mother church in Jerusalem have
understood this promise in some esoteric sense.
9. The entitlement of any one ethnic or religious group to territory in
the Middle East called the Holy Land cannot be supported by
Scripture. In fact, the land promises specific to Israel in the Old
Testament were fulfilled under Joshua (Josh. 21:43-45). The New
Testament speaks clearly and prophetically about the destruction of the
second temple in A.D. 70 (Matt. 24:1-2; cf. Mark 13:1-2; Luke 21:20-
24). No New Testament writer foresees a regathering of ethnic Israel in
the land, as did the prophets of the Old Testament after the destruction
of the first temple in 586 B.C. (Luke 21:24). Moreover, the land
promises of the Old Covenant are consistently and deliberately
expanded in the New Testament to show the universal dominion of
Jesus (Exod. 20:12; Eph. 6:2-3; Gen. 12:1, cf. Rom. 4:13; Ps. 37:11;
Matt. 5:5; Ps. 2:7-8), who reigns from heaven upon the throne of
David, inviting all the nations through the Gospel of Grace to partake
of his universal and everlasting dominion (Acts 2:29-32).
While presumably the signatories would believe in Israels past
entitlement to the Holy Land according to the terms of the Abrahamic
Covenant as indicated in the Old Testament, we assume they are here
referring to the modern day territorial possession of the State of Israel.
However we believe that the preceding reference to Isaiah 60:21,
among numerous other instances, is a promise that has in no way been
abrogated, any more than the preceding glorious pledges of Isaiah
60:15-20. Concerning Joshua 21:43-45, to begin with this passage does
not in any way speak of temporal possession. However, if, as seems to
be claimed here, possession of the land relates to the time of Joshua,
then why do we find so many of the prophets describing a future
possession of the land in most concrete terms? Concerning Exodus
20:12 and Ephesians 6:2-3, typical Gentilic, exclusionary, either/or
exegesis, wrongly assumes that Pauls applicatory, more general
reference to the fifth commandment nullifies the specific land
reference (Exod. 20:12; Deut. 5:16). We have elsewhere dealt with the
Hebrew Christians free use of the Old Testament, such as in Hebrews,
that in no way invalidates the literal meaning of the text. The same
point applies to the quotation of Psalm 37:11, where the literal promise
concerning the land still stands, yet in Matthew 5:5 this truth is quoted
in a more applicatory sense.59 Refer to Chapter Seven: Israel - and
Christian anti-Judaic Hermeneutics. Concerning Genesis 12:1, cf.
Romans 4:13, it is incorrect to suggest that the land promises of the
Old Covenant are consistently and deliberately expanded in the New
Testament to show the universal dominion of Jesus. That Abraham
would be the heir of the world was not expansion, but fulfillment of
that which was originally promised, namely that all the peoples of the
earth will be blessed through you (Gen. 12:3). Yet again, this unity
with the Lord Jesus reigning over all does not exclude the diversity of
Israel and the nations being under His dominion, as the original
promise plainly distinguishes. In the same vein concerning Psalm 2:7-
8, the fact that the Father declares to the Lord Jesus that to Him will be
given the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for
your possession, in no way invalidates the diversity that this future
holy ecumenicity will incorporate.
10. Bad Christian theology regarding the Holy Land contributed to
the tragic cruelty of the Crusades in the Middle Ages. Lamentably, bad
Christian theology is today attributing to secular Israel a divine
mandate to conquer and hold Palestine, with the consequence that the
Palestinian people are marginalized and regarded as virtual
Canaanites (Deut. 20:16-18; cf. Lev. 27:28-29). This doctrine is
both contrary to the teaching of the New Testament and a violation of
the Gospel mandate (Matt. 28:19). In addition, this theology puts those
Christians who are urging the violent seizure and occupation of
Palestinian land in moral jeopardy of their own bloodguiltiness. Are
we as Christians not called to pray for and work for peace, warning
both parties to this conflict that those who live by the sword will die by
the sword? (Matt. 26:52). Only the Gospel of Jesus Christ can bring
both temporal reconciliation and the hope of an eternal and heavenly
inheritance to the Israeli and the Palestinian. Only through Jesus
Christ can anyone know peace on earth.
When one considers what the Crusades in the Middle Ages were about,
it becomes quite astonishing that such an argument as this is offered.
To begin with, it was the bad Christian theology of establishment
Gentile Christianity that moved the armies of Western Europe to
59
Refer to David Sterns enlightening exegesis here from a Hebrew Christian
perspective, Jewish New Testament Commentary, pp. 23-24.
militarily attempt a recovery from Islam of the Land of Israel, more
familiarly regarded as the Christian Holy Land. We can be sure that
there was no intent here to enable the dispersed Jews to return to their
land; such a concept was unthinkable. Moreover, how disgraceful was
the resultant persecution of the Jews by crusader bands traveling
through Europe en route to the Holy Land so as to recapture Christian
holy sites. The leader of the First Crusade, Godfrey Bouillon, who had
sworn to avenge the blood of Christ on Israel and leave no single
member of the Jewish race alive, burnt the synagogue of Jerusalem to
the ground, with all the Jews inside.60 Here was the outworking of
supercessionist theology that is rightly to be associated more with
essential Augustinian, Medieval, and Reformed eschatology. There is
simply no connection between the fundamental idea of the Crusades
and the subsequent belief, especially resurrected during the seventeenth
century, concerning the Jews present and future covenantal claims to
the promised Land involving ultimate inhabitation by regenerated
national Israel under Christ. This latter mentioned hope is the
consummation of the gospel mandate, not its violation.
Contrary to what the Open Letter suggests, in 1948 the state of Israel
was reestablished through international assignment, not conquest.
However, particularly objectionable at this juncture is the obvious
further bias that excoriates Israels treatment of the pitiful, down-
trodden, deprived Palestinians, the violent seizure and occupation of
Palestinian land, as if it were, in Old Testament terms, heartlessly
attempting to eliminate the Canaanites. The bias here is unabashed,
though none the less offensive. Here is abhorrent theological anti-
Judaism that is void of sympathy for the Jew, who presently occupies
less than one percent of the middle-eastern Arab world, which at the
same time is so obviously un-Pauline. Further in this regard consult
Appendix E: An Annotated bibliography on Jewish-Christian Relations
where From Time Immemorial, The Origins of the Arab-Jewish
Conflict Over Palestine by Joan Peters is referenced.61 Here then this
Open Letter plainly reveals the accusatory attitude, born of an
Augustinian heritage which was similarly associated with the
60
Robert S. Wistrich, Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred, pp. 23-24.
61
Consider: [T]here have been as many Jewish refugees who fled or were
expelled from the Arab countries as there are Arab refugees from Israel,
and that the Jews left of necessity and in flight from danger. . . . The Jews
who fled Arab countries left assets behind in the Arab world greater than
those the Arabs left in Israel. From Time Immemorial, p. 25.
aforementioned anti-Juadaic Crusades, that at the same time is
presently represented in Reformed supercessionism. Yes, beyond
question, Only through Jesus Christ can anyone know peace on
earth. But when an eschatology is centered, according to historic
confession, in this same Christ and yet is productive of centuries of
scandalous behavior and demeaning attitudes toward the Jew, even as
is here reflected in the Open Letter, then there needs to be further
Reformation amongst many who so fervently proclaim their
indebtedness to Reformed eschatology.
The promised Messianic kingdom of Jesus Christ has been
inaugurated. Its advent marks the focal point of human history. This
kingdom of the Messiah is continuing to realize its fullness as believing
Jews and Gentiles are added to the community of the redeemed in
every generation. The same kingdom will be manifested in its final and
eternal form with the return of Christ the King in all his glory.
We do not disagree with the essential thrust of what is here stated,
though Scripture is much more specific concerning these matters.
However it is debatable if the inauguration of Jesus Christs Messianic
kingdom should take primacy over its consummation (I Cor. 15:23-28).
Both natural and wild olive branches are being engrafted into the
natural, Abrahamic olive tree so as to become partakers of the promise
made with the forefathers (Rom. 11:5, 17-18, 28), except that until
the conclusion of the times of the Gentiles, Jewish Christians constitute
a remnant. However such participation does not eliminate present and
future individuality. Then will come for ethnic Israel their full
number, that is life from the dead for Israel, when all Israel [as a
nation] will be saved (Rom. 11:12, 15, 26) at the personal return of
the Lord Jesus Christ with great glory. This is basic to the climactic
optimism of Romans 11, and not so difficult to comprehend, as most
Hebrew Christians will testify, except that one attempt to filter this
truth through the presupposition of a Gentilic or an Augustinian grid.
Of all the nations, the Jewish people played the primary role in the
coming of the Messianic kingdom. New Testament Scripture declares
that to them were given the oracles of God (Rom. 3:2), the adoption,
the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and
the promises (Rom. 9:3-4). Theirs are the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, and from them, according to the flesh, came Christ (Rom. 9:5).
Salvation is, indeed, of the Jews (John 4:22). While affirming the
Scriptural teaching that there is no salvation outside of Christ,
Christians should acknowledge with heartfelt sorrow and grief the
frequent oppression of the Jews in history, sometimes tragically done
in the name of the cross.
This token acknowledgment of the significant role of the Jews up to the
time of the first coming of Jesus Christ will not suffice. The reason is
that while at this juncture there is a perfunctory giving with one hand,
yet there is overall a more vigorous taking away with the other, namely
the denial in perpetuity of Jewish individuality, nationality, and
territory. The suggestion here of widespread oppression of the Jews in
general that included some modest participation by Christianity is in
fact both evasion and distortion of a most unpalatable truth. It is that
since the ascendancy of Gentile dominion within Christianity, this
sway has resulted in a major anti-Judaic thrust, born of replacement
theology, which has not yet abated. Refer to Appendix E: An Annotated
Bibliography on Jewish-Christian Relations. As a result, much of
Christianity has endeavored to justify this Gentilic reign by means of
supercessionism, even as is further indicated here by a subtle misuse of
Scripture. We quote: Of all the nations, the Jewish people played the
primary role in the coming of the Messianic kingdom. New Testament
Scripture declares that to them were given the oracles of God (Romans
3:2), the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the
service of God, and the promises (Rom. 9:3-4). Now in Romans 3:2, it
is true that the oracles of God were given (aorist) to the Jews. However
Romans 9:3-4 does not translate according to the same aoristic sense.
Rather this passage clearly declares that Paul regarded his brethren in
the flesh as presently Israelites, who are Israelites, hoitines eisin
Israelitai, and that presently to them, even in their unbelief, there
belongs the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law,
the temple service, and the promises. Thomas Schreiner confirms this
point: The present tense verb (eisin, they are) indicates that the Jews
still are Israelites and that all the blessings named still belong to
them.62 In other words, Paul here confirms that, in the mystery of
Gods dealings with national Israel in the flesh in unbelief,
nevertheless He maintains a present covenant interest in them, even as
beloved enemies (Rom. 11:28). This being so, it is only right to
understand this recognition in individual, national, and territorial terms.
62
Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, p. 485. Similarly Moo, Romans, p. 560;
Ksemann, Romans, p. 258; though Murray misses the point when he
indicates that they were Israelites Romans, II, p. 4.
But what are we to make of the unbelief of Israel? Has their unbelief
made the faithfulness of God without effect for them? (Rom. 3:1-4). No,
God has not completely rejected the people of Israel (Rom. 11:1 cf.
Rom. 11:2-10), and we join the apostle Paul in his earnest prayer for
the salvation of his Jewish kinsmen according to the flesh (Rom. 9:1-
3). There always has been and always will be a remnant that is saved
(Rom. 11:5). While not all Israel will experience the blessing of
participation in the Messianic kingdom (Rom. 9:6), yet Jews who do
come to faith in Christ will share in his reign throughout the present
age and into eternity. In addition, it is not as though the rejection of
some in Israel for unbelief serves no purpose. On the contrary, because
they were broken off in unbelief, the Gospel has gone to the Gentiles,
who now, through faith, partake of the blessings to the fathers and join
with believing Jews to constitute the true Israel of God, the church of
Jesus Christ (Rom. 11:11-18).
The pejorative, utilitarian, anticlimacitc tone here, God has not
completely rejected the people of Israel, betrays a reluctance to come
to grips with Pauls exuberant, climactic expectation of Israels
national conversion in Romans 11, as is the obvious meaning with even
a prima facie reading of this passage. How patronizingly gratifying it is
to learn that, after all, the Jews have served a useful purpose! To sense
the mood of the theological anti-Judaism in the whole of this Open
Letter, and then read that, nevertheless, we join the apostle Paul in his
earnest prayer for the salvation of his Jewish kinsmen according to the
flesh, is not to be impressed since this same prayerful concern was
also expressed by Ambrose, Augustine, Chrysostom, and Luther, etc.
Tragically, and not surprisingly in view of their deplorable attitudes,
their petitions were not answered in a positive and comprehensive
sense. However, to join the apostle Paul authentically in this matter
is surely to imbibe his passionate interest in the Jew, which never
flagged. But then what is meant here by the term Jew, when it
appears to have been evacuated of its obvious biblical meaning, so that
only the shell of social convenience remains? Could any of the
signatories of this Open Letter happily involve themselves in church
planting in Israel today while at the same time, without compromise,
making plain the gospel and presenting it in the framework of Jewish
disqualification here presented? But there is further obfuscation in this
regard when it is stated that, Jews who do come to faith in Christ will
share in his reign throughout the present age and into eternity. Again,
what exactly is meant here by the term Jew? Is this really an honest
declaration, for the teaching of the Open Letter is in fact that upon
conversion the saved Jew loses his individual, national, and territorial
Jewishness; in reality, according to Reformed Augustinianism, Judaism
is finished. Some might attempt to avoid this problem by maintaining a
temporary, quasi individuality for the Jewish Christian, though the
aspects of nationality and territory would nevertheless be strenuously
denied. This being the case, then the language used here has the
character of ambiguity and generality about it that fails to honestly
reveal the real eschatological agenda.
The present secular state of Israel, however, is not an authentic or
prophetic realization of the Messianic kingdom of Jesus Christ.
Furthermore, a day should not be anticipated in which Christs
kingdom will manifest Jewish distinctives, whether by its location in
the land, by its constituency, or by its ceremonial institutions and
practices. Instead, this present age will come to a climactic conclusion
with the arrival of the final, eternal phase of the kingdom of the
Messiah. At that time, all eyes, even of those who pierced him, will see
the King in his glory (Rev. 1:7). Every knee will bow, and every tongue
will declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father
(Phil. 2:9-11). The kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of
our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever (Rev.
11:15).
Here is the harsh reality of theological anti-Judaism, the bottom line so
to speak. The obvious and unavoidable conclusion then is that the
present State of Israel is not of God; rather it is spiritually illegitimate
if not fraudulent. Biblical Judaism, covenantally speaking, is pass. But
nevertheless, We love the Jews, is the hollow cry of the signatories
of the Open Letter! How strange it is for those of a Reformed
persuasion who, while giving considerable place to the movements of
God in human history, yet prefer to ignore the remarkable series of
events, involving significant Christian participation, whereby the
modern State of Israel came into being. How difficult it must be for
these same people to brush aside the remarkable victories of the War of
Independence of 1948, the Six Day War of 1967, and especially the
reclamation of Old Jerusalem after 2,100 years of being trampled
under foot by the Gentiles (Luke 21:24). However, theological
systems, while showing signs of becoming increasingly fractured
because of historical enlightenment, nevertheless are not easily
surrendered. Granted that Israel remains in unbelief, even so this in no
way alters the fundamental issue of the ongoing legitimacy of the Land
in covenantal terms. Allowing for the worst of all scenarios, should
Israel yet again be expelled from the land according to Arab and
Gentile hegemony, even so this would in no way effect the abiding
legitimacy of the land promise. However one suspects that those who
affirm modern Israels present illegitimacy in the sight of God would,
at such a tragic occasion, more assertively declare this expulsion to be
the will of God!
In light of the grand prophetic expectation of the New Testament, we
urge our evangelical brothers and sisters to return to the proclamation
of the free offer of Christs grace in the Gospel to all the children of
Abraham, to pray for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and to
promise all humanitarian sympathy and practical support for those on
both sides who are suffering in this current vicious cycle of atrocity
and displacement. We also invite those Christian educators and
pastors who share our convictions on the people of God, the land of
Israel, and the impartiality of the Gospel to join their names with ours
as signatories to this open letter.
Advent In the Year of our Lord 2002
Soli Deo Gloria
The inference here that we who are of a pro-Judaic persuasion are
distracted from gospel proclamation has no more validity to it than the
inference that those who are of a theologically anti-Judaic persuasion
are more whole-heartedly committed to proclamation of the gospel. Let
us put aside such empty posturing. However, we do believe that
faithful evangelism with regard to the Jew, as well as the Palestinian,
will inevitably have associated with it an ethical quality which
commends the truth proclaimed. Further, we are convinced that the
manner of our gospel preaching to the Jew in particular will have a
loving Pauline tone about it, even a special place as was his custom. In
these two realms, we believe the evidence is conspicuous with regard
to the lack in general that many Christians of Reformed convictions
manifest. It may not sit well with those who staunchly identify
themselves as Protestants, nevertheless it remains true at the present
that, for all of its departure from the essential truth of the Bible, the
Roman Catholic Church has more recently evidenced certain changes
with regard to appreciation of the Jew and Judaism, however
imperfectly and of debatable motivation, than those who glory in a
Reformed heritage.
108 Israel and contemporary anti-Judaism in the UK
Chapter Four
ISRAEL and contemporary examples

of Christian anti-Judaism in the UK
INTRODUCTION
I N 1983, an Anglican clergyman and scholar named Colin Chapman

published a book titled Whose Promised Land? in which he
vigorously assailed biblical associations with the modern State of
Israel. He also clearly asserted that pro-Judaic supporters today, in
being pejoratively labeled as Christian Zionists, were unsympathetic to
the injustice allegedly inflicted upon the Palestinian cause by Israel.
Though in constantly beating a drum in his cry for justice for the
Palestinians, any similarly impassioned demand for justice with regard
to centuries of inhumanity suffered by the Jews was merely referenced
at a token level. The bias of the author was plain to read. For instance
he wrote:
I do have problems with the original vision of many Zionists to establish a
Jewish homeland or a state in Palestine which would be exclusively or
near-exclusively Jewish. . . . I feel bound to conclude that the promise of
the land to Abraham and his descendants as an everlasting possession
does not give the Jews a divine right to possess the land for all time. . . . I
dont believe that the State of Israel is of God in the sense that it is the
fulfillment (or even a preliminary stage in the fulfillment) of all that God
promised and predicted in the Old Testament about the future of the land
and its people. . . . I would go further and suggest that for Christians to
interpret these events simply as the fulfillment of prophecy represents a
kind of regression. . . . Could it be that God is challenging the whole Jewish
people to think again about their destiny as a people? What is the whole
enterprise of settling Jews in the land and setting up a Jewish state doing to
the soul of Judaism? Did God really intend that they should be a peculiar
people for ever and ever? Is there no alternative to the choice between
traditional orthodox Judaism, assimilation and Zionism? Is there no other
way by which the Jews can live securely among the nations without ceasing
to be Jews?1
1
Colin Chapman, Whose Promised Land? (1983 ed.), pp. 224, 226-227, 228.
Israel and contemporary anti-Judaism in the UK 109
There is a chilling inference in the concluding three sentences here, in
spite of the authors unconvincing protestation that he is not anti-
Judaic. Moreover, after four editions of this book, the most recent
being in 2002, it remains essentially unchanged in its anti-Judaic style.
Furthermore, surprisingly, indeed incomprehensibly, it now incorpor-
ates in Appendix 3, without the slightest critical comment, The
Covenant of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, which
includes the following:
Hamas is for Muslims who favor Jihad. . . . Hamas aims for every inch of
Palestine. . . . No part of it should be given up. . . . Hamas is opposed to
initiatives, peaceful solutions and international conferences. Jihad is the
only solution. . . . Enemy (i.e. Jews) responsible for the French Revolution,
the Communist Revolution, etc. Allies of enemy: Freemasons, Rotary,
Capitalist West, Communist East. Enemy caused the First and Second
World Wars, etc. . . . Arab and Islamic countries should assist the anti-
Zionist struggle.2
Whether this addition has Freudian intimations or not, it does seem

unjust that Israels Proclamation of Independence of May 14, 1948
was also not included, as with the following:
The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their
spiritual, religious and national identity was formed. Here they achieved
independence and created a culture of national and universal significance.
Here they wrote and gave the Bible to the world.
Exiled from the Land of Israel the Jewish people remained faithful to it in
all the countries of their dispersion, never ceasing to pray and hope for their
return and the restoration of their national freedom.
Impelled by this historic association, Jews strove throughout the centuries
to go back to the land of their fathers and regain their statehood. In recent
decades they returned in their masses. They reclaimed the wilderness,
revived their language, built cities and villages, and established a vigorous
and ever-growing community, with its own economic and cultural life.
They sought peace, yet were prepared to defend themselves. They brought
the blessings of progress to all inhabitants of the country and looked
forward to sovereign independence.3
However Chapmans tilt continues in his writing when he suggests that
Israel may have fomented the formation of hard line terrorist
organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the result being that
2
Colin Chapman, Whose Promised Land? (2002 ed.), p 307.
3
Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin, The Israel-Arab Reader, p. 81.
distrust and despair have driven them to violence! Unquestionably
there is a tolerant note here, a degree of justification for the savagery of
indiscriminate suicidal bombings that even employ children! The
inference is that understanding of such terrorist groups is needed rather
than a military response!4
In the whole of Chapmans most recent edition, particularly with
regard to his sources, it is obvious that a doctrinal camaraderie has
developed over the last twenty years amongst a number of Anglican
scholars in England who reciprocate in their essential support of a
supercessionist, if not theological, anti-Judaic agenda. Consider the
inclusion in various ways of the likes of N. T. Wright, being the most
prominent by reputation, also Stephen Sizer, Steve Motyer, Peter
Walker, and Kenneth Cragg. Here is a coterie of Anglican scholars
who have in common an amillennial, essentially Augustinian
eschatology that plays out in a repudiation of the contemporary divine
validity of National Israel. To begin with N. T. Wright, now Bishop of
Durham and formerly Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey, is
highly influential in Chapmans volume, as well as the writings of
Walker. Furthermore Chapman also makes considerable reference to
Sizer as well as Motyer and Wright. Moreover Stephen Sizer. as Vicar
of Christ Church, Virginia Water, Surrey, recently published his PhD
thesis under the title of Christian Zionism. It is basically similar in
thrust to that of Chapman in vigorously opposing any association with
the modern State of Israel based upon a premillennial, restorationist
eschatology. However his emphasis is more concerned with a historical
analysis of Christian Zionism, especially its alleged dispensational
roots. Nevertheless he writes expressing particular indebtedness to
Chapman, as well as Motyer, Walker, and also Presbyterian Palmer
Robertson, who himself references Chapman and Walker in his The
Israel of God! As the saying goes, even in this realm of Anglican and
Reformed theological kinship, What goes around comes around!
In addition, Motyer was editorially and sympathetically involved in the
latest edition of Whose Promised Land? He himself has published
Israel in the Plan of God, while in 2003 he presented a paper to the
Evangelical Alliance titled Israel in Gods Plan in which he broadly
defined himself as replacementist, except that he suggested that it is
Jesus who replaces Israel. Then there is Peter Walker, a lecturer at
Wycliffe Hall Oxford, whose writings have focused on Jerusalem and
4
Chapman, Whose Promised Land? (2002 ed.), pp 272-276.
the land of Israel. He also references Wright, Chapman, and Motyer,
and concludes, with his preceding associates, that the land and related
Zionist hopes have been absorbed into one people through Christ in
fulfillment of Gods universal purpose for the world.5 Finally Bishop
Kenneth Cragg, a former Assistant Bishop of Jerusalem and specialist
in Christian-Muslim relations, is warmly quoted by Chapman and
Sizer. Craggs Islamophilic bias is also referenced by Bat Yeor who
relates how he criticized the European Kings and the popes for not
having cooperated with the invading Muslim armies, a surrender which
would have amounted to collaboration with their own demise.6 The
in-grown relationships here go on and on. Hence to avoid repetition,
we will now consider a number of emphases upon which these authors
offer general agreement, whether dependently or independently.
Certainly it is true that all of them tend toward supercessionist, anti-
Judaic antipathies with regard to modern Israel and, at the same time,
pro-Arab, Moslem, and Palestinian sympathies. The doctrinal kinship
here certainly confirms the religious dimensions that are detailed in the
warnings of Bat Yeor in her Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, and
Melanie Phillips in her Londonistan.
LAW PRECEDES GRACE
In varying degrees the aforementioned Christian authors would readily

confess to doctrinal alignment with a broad Anglican, Protestant and
Reformed heritage. This would also mean belief in salvation by grace
through faith alone in Jesus Christ, which is inevitably to result in the
growth of manifest gracious and godly living. This being so, it is
astonishing to behold these very same people regressing into a denial
of this truth in so far as Gods promised dealings with Israel in the Old
Testament are concerned. For instance Sizer is critical of the fact that
virtually all Christian Zionists insist that the Abrahamic covenant
remains unconditional, whereas,
subsequent references to the land in Scripture stress that humility and
meekness rather than chosenness became a precondition for inheriting or
remaining in the land, whereas arrogance or oppression were legitimate
grounds for exile. For example, the psalmist explains, But the meek will
5
Peter Walker, The land in the apostles writings, and The land and Jesus
himself, The Land of Promise, eds. Johnston & Walker, pp. 81-120.
6
Bat Yeor, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, p. 189.
inherit the land and enjoy great peace (Ps. 37:11). . . . The ethical
requirements for continued occupancy are clearly outlined in the Law.7
So we conclude here from Sizer that it is obedience to Torah that

establishes participation in the Abrahamic Covenant for the Jew, in
particular the land promises, while this is exactly antithetical to the
very heart of the Christian gospel, especially as it is confessed
according to Reformed teaching. Many of Reformed convictions resort
to this inconsistent belief, as is further detailed in Chapter Nine: Israel
and the Inheritance of the Land through Abraham. Does Sizer know
anything about chosenness according to sovereign grace himself?
Does he accept the priority of his election and subsequent saving
response of sola fide in relation to consequent good works (Eph. 2:8-
10)? If so, then he nevertheless denies the sovereignty of grace,
inherent in the election of Israel through Abraham, while claiming it
for himself! But perhaps Sizer is indeed proposing that we do have a
different gospel standard represented in the Old Testament in contrast
with that of the New Testament, at least with regard to the salvation of
Israel. Perish the thought, though it is simply amazing to note further
how Sizer then leads us to consider the ethical demands of the prophet
Ezekiel in 33:25-29 concerning Israel being guilty of bloodshed and
abominable things that threaten with the prospect of desolation and
exclusion from the land. As a result he comments:
On the basis of sober warnings such as this, the question may legitimately
be asked whether, due to its present expansionist policies, the State of Israel
might not expect another exile rather than a restoration.8
Aside from the graceless intimation that Sizer here expresses, after the
manner of the prophet Habakkuk (Hab. 1:2-4), for the judgment of
modern Israel, his avoidance of the subsequent glorious truth of
Ezekiel 34-37 is so obviously dismissive of the ultimate triumph of
Gods saving power.9 The very essential truth of these chapters is that
the sovereign grace of God will ultimately bring about the regeneration
of Israel. Then, 22I will make them one nation in the land, on the
mountains of Israel, and one king will rule over all of them. They will
7
Stephen Sizer, Christian Zionism, p. 163.
8
Ibid., pp. 163-164.
9
Sizer only refers critically to the futuristic views of Christian Zionists
concerning these chapters without any explanation whatsoever. Ibid., pp.
40, 154-156. At a guess he probably follows Motyer and Robertson who
merely abstract the concepts of regeneration and resurrection.
no longer be two nations and no longer will be divided into two
kingdoms. 23They will not defile themselves any more with their idols,
their detestable things, and all their transgressions. I will save them
from all their apostasies by which they sinned, and I will cleanse them.
Then they will be My people, and I will be their God (Ezek. 37:22-
23). Here, and in many other instances, Sizer appears to long for the
heavy hand of God to judge the Nation of Israel, whereas God
promises eventual national salvation, not on account of obedience but
rather issuing in obedience. Sizer is eager for the law of God to thrash
Israel,10 in contradistinction to Habakkuk who nevertheless eventually
cried out, In wrath, remember mercy (Hab. 3:2). God declares that
He will eventually restore His people according to sovereign grace.
Sizers problem here is exactly the same as that of Philip Mauro who
was so soundly corrected by Samuel Wilkinson. Refer to Appendix C:
God's Dealing with Israel - Law or Grace?
At this juncture it is interesting to consider also Chapmans own brief
explanation concerning Ezekiel 36-37 which he designates as a
favorite hunting ground for students of prophecy. In terms of twisting
and turning to avoid the obvious meaning at any cost, lest his whole
eschatological edifice should come tumbling down, the following
explanation is simply astonishing. Instead of a literal interpretation,
[t]he alternative is to try to interpret the language of the vision and translate
it into a message which was relevant to the original hearers and is relevant
to anyone who wants to listen today. . . . It is hard to think that a prophet
would be given a message to his people in the eighth century BC which
related to events that would not take place until the twentieth or twenty-first
centuries.11
It is difficult to avoid the recognition of a skeptical spirit here,

especially that which lurks beneath what is hard to think of
according to Chapmans understanding. Yet it was Daniel who
declared that I heard but did not understand, at which he was then
told that the words [of prophetic revelation] are secret and sealed until
the time of the end (Dan. 12:8-9). Hence Daniel, along with his
contemporary audience was not expected to understand everything that
10
Sizer further writes, the present brutal, repressive racist policies of the
State of Israel would suggest another exile on the horizon rather than a
restoration. Whose Promised Land: Israel and Biblical Prophecy, p. 6,
http://www.christchurch-virginiawater.co.uk/articles/debate.html.
11
Chapman, Whose Promised Land? (2002 ed.), pp. 135, 288, 292.
had been immediately revealed. Consequently, according to Chapman,
what then was the meaning for Ezekiels immediate audience that
would reach through the centuries for us today? He quotes approvingly
from John Goldingay, Professor of Old Testament at Fuller
Theological Seminary, as follows:
[W]hen Ezekiel declared that such and such a return to the land or such and
such a battle was to take place, he was not announcing events scheduled for
two and a half millennia after his day. He was addressing and bringing
Gods word to people in his own day, warning them of calamities and
promising them blessings that could come about in their day. He was not
revealing a timetable or fixture list of events that had to unfold over
thousands of years; he was bringing a specific message to a particular
context. A fulfillment in 1948 of a prophecy given to Ezekiel to people who
lived in the 580s BC is thus nonsense: it is not a fulfillment of promises and
warnings that were part of Gods relationship with those people. Prophets
did sometimes speak about the End of all things, but there are relatively few
of these prophecies.12
So a literal understanding of Ezekiel 36-37 is nonsense? If this is

where Chapman and Sizers eschatology leads them; if this is the fruit
of their exegesis of Ezekiel 36-37, then we can only conclude that its
taste is most unpalatable and its ingestion most unhealthy. Our God
does indeed prophesy of revelatory, cataclysmic and climactic events
that may be either imminent or generations away, even as the Son of
God plainly indicated in Matthew 26:13. Are we talking of the same
God here?
COVENANTALISM
Stephen Sizer explains that the purpose of his book,

has been to make a case for a covenantalist approach to the Palestinian-
Israeli conflict by focusing on and critiquing its antithesis, namely
dispensational Christian Zionism. A covenantalist recognizes, for example,
that the Bible consistently teaches that God has only ever had one people
throughout historythose who share the faith of Abraham, whether Jews
or Gentilesand one means of atonement, the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ in our place. Based on passages such as Romans 9-11, covenantalists
recognize the Jewish people are loved by God, have fulfilled a unique role
in history leading to the truth of Christianity and pray that one day all Jews
12
Ibid., pp. 292-293; citing John Goldingay, The Jews, the Land, and the
Kingdom, Anvil, vol. 4, no. 1, 1987, p. 17.
will come to recognize Jesus as their Messiah. Covenantalism affirms that
the church is Israel renewed and restored in Christ but now enlarged to
embrace people of all nations. . . . Unlike Christian Zionism, covenantalism
finds it unnecessary to justify or sacralize the State of Israel through
tenuous biblical and theological arguments. It also distances itself from
those who seek to impose a predetermined and apocalyptic agenda on the
people of the Middle East.13
Actually, there is nothing distinctively covenantal in this definition

when compared with differing eschatological opinions. Premillennial
or Judeo-centric eschatology is very much covenantal. It would be
more accurate to speak here of an Augustinian approach to the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Perhaps the most galling comment here is
the patronizing expression that covenantalists recognize the Jewish
people are loved by God, have fulfilled a unique role in history leading
to the truth of Christianity and pray that one day all Jews will come to
recognize Jesus as their Messiah. But Chrysostom and Ambrose and
Augustine would say the same thing while, like Sizer, denying the
modern Jew of divine individuality, nationality and territory. Most
Jewish Christians who have read Sizers writings are certain to be put
off by the whole deceptive tenor here that really is a cover for an anti-
Judaic agenda. What exactly does he mean here by Jews? At best
there is the allowance of token, temporal individuality, sans nationality
and territory, that is until the Jews have been absorbed into the one,
homogenous people of God. What is meant by the ingratiating
comment that the Jewish people are loved by God, have fulfilled a
unique role in history leading to the truth of Christianity, and pray that
all Jews will come to recognize Jesus as their Messiah? It sounds as
though the Jews should say, Thank you very much Mr. Sizer, for your
recognition of a past national existence that has fulfilled its
usefulness. How touching is Mr. Sizers prayer that Jews become
saved through their Messiah to the end that they might then forfeit their
national Jewishness. But No, protests Mr. Sizer. They simply have
to understand that they have really become spiritually fulfilled Jews,
as with any believer in Jesus. However, Mr. Sizer, who are you, a
Gentile Christian, to tell a Jewish Christian he has been reconstituted,
as if the church at Antioch in a similar manner lorded it over the church
at Jerusalem? This is exactly what Paul warns about in Romans 11:18
when he exhorts the Gentile believers at Rome: Do not brag that you
are better than those branches. But if you [Gentile believers] do brag
13
Sizer, Christian Zionism, pp. 261, 263.
you do not sustain the root, but the root sustains you. To suggest that
the church is Israel renewed and restored in Christ but now enlarged to
embrace people of all nations is to fiddle with the language of the
New Testament that in reality nowhere declares that the church is
Israel renewed. This fictional extrapolation is in reality warmed over
Augustinianism, and in the light of such an indecent eschatological
legacy that Sizer and his associates so obviously embody, more fully
described in Chapter Two: Israel - and centuries of Christian anti-
Judaism, this is nothing to boast in!
ROMANS 11
The understanding of Romans 11:26, and in this way all Israel will be
saved, is often regarded as being fraught with controversy. This being
true it is not surprising that there is vigorous debate over the three main
conflicting interpretations concerning the identification of all
Israel.14 Though we would suggest more often than not there runs here
the current of a problem that reaches much deeper than textual nuances
might suggest. The doctrine of salvation also has been associated with
controversy of historic proportions. However for the evangelical
Christian who is convinced that the redemption of a human soul is by
means of the pure gospel of free grace personally embraced through
faith alone in Christ (Rom. 3:22-24), he is not in the slightest shaken in
his faith when controversy and a plethora of interpretations swirl all
around him. Ask Hebrew Christians concerning their prima facie
understanding of the Hebrew Christian Paul in Romans 11:26, and
their response will usually be common agreement that the
eschatological conversion of national Israel is envisaged. On the other
hand ask a Gentile Christian the same question, especially one who has
assimilated the Augustinian/Catholic/Reformed doctrinal heritage of
centuries in this regard, and he will probably reject that prima facie
understanding commonly embraced by Hebrew Christians. The reason
is that having assimilated the traditional supercessionist teaching that
transfers the blessings of Israel to the Christian Church, then that body
of truth is unconsciously imposed upon the text of Romans in such a
way that no national future for Israel is considered a possibility.
14
All Israel refers either to, 1. the people of God that comprises Jew and
Gentile, or 2. the remnant of Romans 11:5 that gradually accumulates over
the centuries and remains a remnant, or 3. the nation of Israel that will be
saved climactically, en masse, at the end of this age.
For instance, consider R. C. H. Lenskis approach to Romans 11. As a
classic conservative Lutheran scholar, he clearly wishes to avoid any
suggestion that Paul has a future hope for national Israel. In his
comment on Romans 11:10 he writes:
To this day Jew is an opprobrious epithet even in our best countries. Read
their long history. The sum of that history is not the fact that the Jews
innocently suffered these centuries of woe; it is that they have ever brought
these woes upon themselves anew. Ever they keep acting as an irritant
among the nations. . . . They crucified their own Christ; to this day their
hatred of the crucified stamps them more than anything else as Jews; their
segregation is of their own choosing. The more they retain the character of
Jews, the more does this appear; and during the long centuries this their
character made them the irritant they have been. . . . forever (dia pantos)
does not sound like a future conversion of the Jews.15
The tone here is obviously anti-Judaic and definitely not Pauline.

Hence it is not so surprising when Lenski interprets all Israel in v. 26
as the accumulating total of the elect remnant in conjunction with vs. 5,
7. In this interpretation, which minimizes any national eschatological
hope for the Jew, Lenskis anti-Judaic conviction finds solace.
Hence perception of Romans 11, focused through historic doctrinal
tradition that is supercessionist, inevitably leads to the search for an
alternative understanding to that of a prima facie understanding of v.
26. Thus according to this perception it must be that the meaning of
Romans 11 is somehow not what it first appears to declare. Hence it is
the interpretation of all Israel as an anticlimactic, cumulative Jewish
Christian remnant that especially fits the bill here for those who are
theologically anti-Judaic. And in this regard both Chapman and Sizer
in particular appear to follow a common cause, that is an understanding
which tends to repudiate an eschatological national future for Israel in
Romans 11. In other words, like Lenski, the understanding of all
Israel in Romans 11:26 as a cumulative Jewish Christian remnant, by
its very nature, obviates the possibility of an eschatological hope for
the nation of Israel. That is, if one were to believe in this Jewish
Christian remnant, that accumulates over centuries of church history,
as the all Israel of Romans 11:26, then it would wholly exclude an
eschatological hope for the salvation of national Israel. As a
consequence, only a remnant would be saved and nothing more. That
this is the predominant understanding with regard to the Anglican
15
R. C. H. Lenski, Romans, p. 691.
scholars and authors heretofore mentioned will now be indicated in
more detail, particularly in terms of their interactive agreement.
Now concerning Romans 11, we especially focus on Chapman and
Sizer, except that Chapman indicates considerable exegetical reliance
upon N. T. Wright while Sizer confesses indebtedness to Chapman,
also Holwerda, Motyer, Robertson, and Venema. Hence in terms of
this predominant, cumulative Jewish Christian remnant interpretation
of all Israel, we now zero in on the exegesis of Wright in this regard
since his writings appear to be have become particularly influential.16
It is not uncommon for those of Chapmans persuasion to first declare,
as he does, echoing Wright, that,
[i]t is never appropriate for Christians to think that Christianity has taken
the place of Israel. This idea, which is sometimes described as
supercessionism and sometimes as Replacement Theology, finds no
support in the New Testament.17
However at this juncture the aide of Wright is mustered whereby it is

asserted:
From the earliest evidence, Christians regarded themselves as a new family,
directly descended from the family of Israel, but now transformed. . . .
Those who now belonged to Jesus people were not identical with ethnic
Israel, since Israels history had reached its intended fulfillment [emphasis
added]; they claimed to be the continuation of Israel in a new situation, able
to draw freely on Israel-images [emphasis added] to express their self-
identity, able to read Israels scriptures (through the lens of Messiah and
spirit) and apply them to their own life. They were thrust out by that claim,
and that reading, to fulfill Israels vocation on behalf of the world.18
Then Chapman concludes with regard to a matter that seems to be of

such pressing concern for him.
16
This is not meant to ignore the differing minority view of Venema who
appears to believe, as with Hodge, Murray and Vos, that there will be an
eschatological conversion of national Israel resulting in absorption into the
church, and thus nullification of any ultimate national hope for Israel.
17
Chapman, Whose Promised Land? (2002 ed.), p. 224; N. T. Wright, The
Climax of the Covenant, p. 253.
18
Ibid., citing N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, pp.
457-458.
There is no suggestion that they [Jewish and Gentile Christians] believed it
was important for Jews to express their distinctive identity through having a
Jewish state in the land.19
Here we can only conclude that to avoid the stigma associated with
replacement and supercessionist theology, that is of Israel being robbed
of its inheritance by means of a Gentile takeover, there is a more deft
employment of language. Instead of replacement and supercession
we have substituted here the concept of fulfillment whereby an
attempt is made to carry over more subtly Israels covenant privileges
to the homogenous people of Jesus. Of course the end result is still
the same, as Chapman is so intent on upholding, and that being Israels
national and territorial disqualification. So in a similar vein Wright
elsewhere describes transference in Romans 11 whereby Paul
has systematically transferred [emphasis added] the privileges and
attributes of Israel to the Messiah and his people. It is therefore greatly
preferable to take all Israel in v. 26 as a typically Pauline polemical
redefinition [emphasis added], as in Galatians 6:16.20
Concerning Pauls supposed redefinition of Israel in Galatians

6:16, being recourse to what is today regarded as a minority
interpretation, refer to Chapter Ten: Israel - and a Romans 11
Synthesis. However by way of summary concerning Wrights
interpretation of Romans 11 here, hence that of Chapman and Sizer,
the end result is that Jewish identity, nationality and territory are all
absorbed into the Christian church. Yet this is said not to be replace-
ment theology or supercessionism? Ask any Jewish Christian and
see whether he is now placated. Without any doubt, what we do have
here is the outworking of classic Augustinianism in modern dress. This
being the case, it is not so surprising that as the centuries have
witnessed resultant shameful anti-Judaism issuing from this doctrinal
heritage, so the revamping of this doctrine by Chapman and Sizer is
likewise productive of a new strain of virulent anti-Judaism.
Hence, in the light of the foregoing, what could Paul possibly have had
in mind when in Romans 11:26 he appears so enthusiastically to assert
that all Israel will be saved? While Wright admits that his alignment
here is with a minority interpretation, he also finds a degree of refuge
in Ksemans belief that, the text [of Romans] has a central concern
19
Chapman, Whose Promised Land? (2002 ed.), p. 224.
20
N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant, p. 25.
and a remarkable inner logic that may no longer be entirely
comprehensible to us.21 However those of a Judeo-centric persuasion
find such a retreat to agnosticism as being quite unnecessary. So
Wright believes that it remains Gods will that the present remnant
of believing Jews might be enlarged by the process of jealousy,22
that is by means of cumulative incorporation into the church as the
people of God over the centuries of church history. In other words, as a
remnant, a small number of Jews is progressively being saved
alongside of the mass of Gentiles also being saved; in this manner all
Israel will be saved. In his exposition, Wright makes no mention of
the temporal sequence that v. 25 indicates whereby Israels hardening
is to be until [achri] the full number of the Gentiles has come in,23
or the fact that denial of a temporal meaning concerning houtos, v. 26,
ignores the temporal reference in context here, as the temporal
reference to houtos in 11:4-5 well indicates, or the implications of the
future rather than the present tense of will be saved.24 Of course with
Wright there is no suggestion here that all Israel retains divinely
recognized Jewish national and territorial identity since individual
Jews have become absorbed into the one people of God in which
new economy former ethnic distinctions have no validity. However
consider the vital point that Matt. Waymeyer points out, namely that
the they of Romans 11:28, being unbelieving national Israel, is
identical to the national them of v. 27, which is identical to Jacob
of v, 26, which is identical to national or all Israel of v. 26, which is
therefore not a mere remnant.25 Overall, the most unsatisfactory aspect
of this interpretation concerns the fact that a cumulative Jewish
21
Ibid., pp. 246-247.
22
Ibid., p. 250.
23
O. Palmer Robertson admits: Initially it might seem that the word until
(achris hou) implies that the hardening of Israel will stop after the full
number of the Gentiles has been realized. Israel of God, p. 177.
24
Refer to Chapter Ten: Israel and a Romans 11 Synthesis, as well as
Moos comprehensive study in which he concludes that houtos, while not
having a temporal meaning, has a temporal reference: for the manner in
which all Israel is saved involves a process that unfolds in definite stages,
Romans, p. 720. In this regard, also consider that with houtos commencing
Romans 11:5, it is with temporal reference to the past of v. 4 and the
present time of v. 5.
25
Matt. Waymeyer, The Dual Status of Israel in Romans 11:28, The
Masters Seminary Journal, (Spring 2005), pp. 57-71.
Christian remnant is so obviously anticlimactic. It stands out toward
the conclusion of Romans 11, especially vs. 25-36, that Paul
anticipates such an enthralling climax concerning Israels ultimate
destiny. To suggest that all Israel is the aggregate of a relatively
small number of converted Jews gleaned from the centuries of Church
history is to fly in the face of Pauls enthusiastic hope. Obviously the
Apostle anticipates that more than a remnant will be saved. The
remnant is certainly the guarantee of Gods continued covenant
faithfulness over the centuries, but Israels conversion in terms of the
full number/acceptance/full number, vs. 12, 15, 25-26, is what He
ultimately longs for. Whereas it is easy to discern from Chapman and
Sizer that at all costs they desire to eliminate any prospect for national
Israel and thus suggest that Paul does not really mean what he appears
to say. In this regard Romans 11 remains an enormous problem from
which even N. T. Wright cannot satisfactorily deliver them.
HEAVEN WITHOUT EARTH
While the question of spiritual materiality is dealt with in Chapter

Eight: Israel - and the Harmony of Spiritual Materiality in greater
detail, at this juncture it is appropriate to consider how both Chapman
and Sizer raise the question of the carnality of Christian Zionism and
its contrast with what they perceive to be the spirituality of the
kingdom of Jesus Christ.
Yes, there is cause for complaint here concerning those who portray
eschatology in terms of sensationalist, materialistic pop-prophecy.
Though it would be better, and probably more effectual, if such
criticism were to come from those who evidence a genuine and
heartfelt love for the Jewish people, who, while remaining enemies of
the gospel are at the same time beloved by God because of His fidelity
to the Abrahamic covenant (Rom. 11:28). However for Chapman and
Sizer there remains such an ardent repudiation of the present nation of
Israel on account of its alleged, well earned, divine New Testament
nullification. Furthermore, they would claim that Christian justification
for the renunciation of modern Israels racist militancy is especially
warranted because of unbelief, secularity, extreme military defense of
its borders, as well as the unjust mistreatment and displacement of
many Palestinians within its domain. So for Chapman and Sizer, in the
place of an earthly eschatological hope for Jerusalem within the Land
of Israel is a heavenly redefinition whereby below and above, material
and spiritual dichotomies are proposed. A particular cluster of
references is then appealed to, especially Galatians 4:25-26 and
Hebrews 11:10, 16; 12:22-23. At stake here is the vital matter of
hermeneutics, involving principles of Scripture interpretation, which
Chapter 7: Israel - and Christian anti-Judaic Hermeneutics deals with.
Also refer to Chapter 8: Israel: - and the Harmony of Spiritual
Materiality, Chapter 9 Israel: - and the Inheritance of the Land
through Abraham, and Chapter 10: Israel and a Romans 11
Synthesis. Nevertheless, it is sufficient at this juncture to understand
that for Sizer, Jerusalem, as the capital of Israel, no longer has any
historic, earthly role of divine, biblical significance. Rather,
[t]he New Testament . . . knows nothing of a preoccupation with a
nationalistic and materialistic earthly Jerusalem, let alone Zionism as it
exists today. . . . Jesus explained further, saying, My kingdom is not of this
world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews.
But now my kingdom is from another place. (John 18:36). . . . Christians
are told instead to inhabit Jerusalem by faith and look forward to the
heavenly Jerusalem. . . . Paul takes a promise originally referring to the
earthly Jerusalem [Gal. 4:26] and applies it to the Jerusalem above, which
is the home of all who believe in Jesus Christ.26
In other words, it is asserted that the Christian anticipates a nebulous,

ethereal, non-material, Platonic higher level of existence in the
economy of heaven above. However we believe that the Lord Jesus
Christ did anticipate an earthly Jerusalem of spiritual materiality which
would gloriously supplant the carnal materiality of Jerusalem that He
wept over. Furthermore He declared that the present Jerusalem was
about to be left desolate in judgment. Yet the strong inference is that
this humiliation would eventually yield to a glorious reversal of
circumstances since Jesus continued: For I tell you, you will never see
Me again until you say, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the
Lord! (Matt. 23:38-39). So in this regard Alford describes
[t]hat day, the subject of all prophecy, when your [Jerusalems] repentant
people shall turn with true and loyal Hosannas and blessings to greet Him
whom they have pierced: (Deut. 4:30-31; Hos. 3:4-5; Zech. 12:10; 14:8-
11). Stier well remarks, He who reads not this in the prophets, reads not
yet the prophets aright.27
Hence, when Paul writes of the Jerusalem above, he is not indicating

that the Jerusalem below has been forever discarded for some abstract,
26
Sizer, Christian Zionism, p. 169.
27
Henry Alford, The Greek Testament, I, p. 216.
amorphous Jerusalem, but rather that eschatological transformation of
Zion whereby the holiness of heaven will have come down to
regenerate the earthly Jerusalem, the result being, as John Milton
describes it, a time when,
Earth be changd to Heavn, and Heavn to Earth,
One Kingdom, Joy and Union without end.28
Then will have come to pass the regeneration [palingenesia] when the
Son of Man will sit in His glorious throne (Matt. 19:28; cf. Acts 3:21),
which we believe to be that place, that new Jerusalem, from where
Jesus Christ will reign with heavenly glory upon earth (Jer. 3:17; Ezek.
43:7; Zech. 6:12-13).
UNITY WITHOUT DIVERSITY
One of the most fundamental errors of Chapman and Sizer concerns an

oft-repeated logical fallacy, namely that because it is Gods design that
the redeemed of all ages become one in Christ Jesus, then this excludes
the possibility of any diversity happily existing within this unity. While
the matter concerning the land of Israel is dealt with in more detail in
Chapter Nine: Israel and the Inheritance of the Land through
Abraham, it is notable that both Chapman and Sizer suggest that it is
the paradise of Eden that leads to the promised land flowing with milk
and honey and ultimately the whole world as inherited by Abraham
(Rom. 4:13). It seems that this concept is derived from O. Palmer
Robertson who references Chris Wright, although N. T. Wright makes
the same point and expresses indebtedness to W. D. Davies.29
Whatever the source of this concept, the argument runs that because
redemption in Christ eventually encompasses the whole earth as the
new promised land, so to speak, the Old Testament boundaries of the
land of Israel have become inconsequential. In other words, a new,
transcendent unity has eliminated the possibility of diversity
incorporating Israel and the Gentile nations. So Chapman quotes
Wright as follows:
He [Jesus] had not come to rehabilitate the symbol of the holy land, but to
subsume it within a different fulfillment of the kingdom, which would
embrace the whole creation. . . . Jesus spent his whole ministry redefining
what the kingdom meant. He refused to give up the symbolic language of
28
John Milton, Paradise Lost, vii, 190-191.
29
Wright. Climax of the Covenant, p. 174.
the kingdom, but filled it with such new content that . . . he powerfully
subverted Jewish expectations.30
Sizer makes the same point, except that in caustically denouncing the
literal hermeneutic of Chrisian Zionism which, it is alleged, provides
a theological endorsement for racial segregation, apartheid and war
[within the contemporary State of Israel], at the same time he invokes
Palmer Robertson to describe a new covenant perspective.
In the process of redemptive history, a dramatic movement has been made
from type to reality, from shadow to substance. The land which once was
the specific locale of Gods redemptive working served well within the old
covenant as a picture of Paradise lost and promised. Now, however, in the
era of new-covenant fulfillment, the land has been expanded to encompass
the cosmos. . . . In this age of fulfillment, therefore, a retrogression to the
limited forms of the old covenant must be neither expected or promoted.
Reality must not give way to shadow.31
In response, the fundamental error of identifying the promised land

with the bilateral Mosaic covenant rather than the unilateral Abrahamic
covenant is once again most prominent, though dealt with in more
detail in Chapter Nine: Israel and the Inheritance of the Land
through Abraham. Adding to the confusion here is the ignoring of the
fact that the new covenant was directly made with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah (Jer. 31:31-34), and only indirectly with
the church. Though of course Romans 11 makes it clear that the
Gentiles, as wild olive branches, are grafted into the Abrahamic natural
olive tree so that they might become partakers of new covenant
blessings. Furthermore, in Chapman, Wright, Sizer and Robertson
wrongly identifying the land with the shadowy nature of the Mosaic
covenant, they also ignore the fact that Jeremiah 31, where the new
covenant supercedes the old, is further described in Jeremiah 32:40-41,
44. Here it is an everlasting covenant including Gods promise that
He will plant them [Israel] faithfully in this land with all My mind and
heart, . . . because I will restore their fortunes. Plainly the land is part
of the inheritance of the new covenant (cf. Ezek. 36:24-28; 37:1-14).
30
Chapman, Whose Promised Land? (2002 ed.), p. 151; N. T. Wright, Jesus
and the Victory of God, pp. 446, 471.
31
Sizer, Christian Zionism, p. 260; O. Palmer Robertson, A new-covenant
perspective on the land, The Land of Promise, Johnston and Walker, eds.,
p. 140.
However, to return to the original point of disagreement, let us happily
assert our agreement with the glorious truth that awaits all of the
people of God, namely the universal, sole reign of His Son over this
universe when, the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the
Lords glory, as the waters cover the sea (Hab. 2:14; cf. Isa. 11:9;
Zech. 14:9). This being so, then how is it necessary that this heavenly
economy upon earth will be strictly and indistinguishably
homogenous? Could angels then endure such a distinct existence? If
there is economic and personal diversity within the triunity of the one
true and living God, and His church manifests the diversity of
giftedness within that one body, then how is it not to be expected, with
the personal, distinguishable presence of Moses, Elijah, David, and
Paul etc., that there will also be an ethnic, national and territorial
diversity within the perfect ecumenicity of that kingdom? And this
being so, then how will it faintly be inconsistent with the gospel when
the nation of redeemed Israel will distinctively reign with the redeemed
gentile nations while manifesting a diversity within the perfect unity of
the kingdom of Christ?
ANTI-JUDAIC TONE
All of the foregoing considered, with regard to noticeable

eschatological interdependence amongst many Anglican authors, yet it
must also be seen to subsume under a distinctive tone that perhaps,
above all else, betrays a fundamental weakness, that is an opposing
attitude or anti-Judaic, even envious spirit. Call it tone, mood, or
literary manner, nevertheless it is as unmistakable as a pervasive sense
of sharp disagreement and tension that disrupts a family relationship.
And in this instance, rather than there being a tolerant and kindly
attitude toward the Jewish people, and especially the modern Nation of
Israel in particular, there is evident animosity and resentment which
these same Jewish people quickly sense. And why not, for at stake is
their very distinctive Jewish existence which, they are told, has been
forever forfeited! Consider Steve Motyers illustration of how he
perceives Christian understanding of the Old Testament radically
transcending that of orthodox Judaism. Its more like a group of aliens
meeting a Rolls Royce for the first time, when previously all they have
seen is the Readers Digest Guide to Car Maintenance.32 In other
32
Steve Motyer, Israel in Gods Plan, Evangelical Alliance Consultation,
June, 2003. Internet sourced: http://eauk.org/Content-Manager/ Content/
acute/holyland/stevemotyer.pdf.
words, we have here pseudo Marcionism whereby the whole
framework of Judaism is belittled and done away with, not simply the
Old Covenant. Of course on the one hand there is sufferance, that is an
artificial, grudging tokenism of the worst kind that tolerates a Jewish
Christian being called Jewish, at least in a nominal social sense, even
though his ultimate future will be the total loss of his Jewishness. On
the other hand the Jewish Christians divine nationality and territory
are vehemently denied. Consequently, whereas racial anti-Judaism in
the twentieth century culminated in a process of physical elimination,
the extermination of Jews, theological anti-Judaism in the twenty-first
century culminates in identity elimination, the extermination of
Jewishness in the name of Jesus the Jew!
With this in mind we again consider both Chapman and Sizer,
principally because they have themselves staked out prominent
positions in their intentional campaigning against Christian Zionism
as they broadly nominate it. To begin with it is obvious that in
sympathizing with the cause of Palestinian Christians, Palestinian
Arabs and Moslem Arabs overall, Chapman takes issue with Jewish
Christians and their supporters, and especially as enthusiastically
represented in America. Hence we have already catalogued on page
106 explicit, distasteful expressions of his aversion to modern Israel.
The sour aura is simply unmistakable, and we seriously question
whether it finds the remotest reflection in the apostolic mood
concerning the Jew, but especially that of Paul. Refer to Chapter
Eleven: Israel - as God's Beloved Enemy, and Chapter Twelve: Israel -
in Need of the Prodigal Gentiles' Love.
Perhaps even more vociferous in this regard is Sizer who has also
identified with the cause of Palestinian Christians, Palestinian Arabs
and Moslem Arabs overall. In so doing his tilt is heavily against
biblical restorationism while, like Chapman, he is happy to embrace
the extremely critical, leftist/liberal, anti-Judaic views of Noam
Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, and Grace Halsall, et al. Further,
although identifying with the evangelical wing of the Church of
England, nevertheless he happily associates as well with the Middle
East Council of Churches (MECC) and its opposition to the modern
State of Israel. The official web site of MECC explains that:
The Middle East Council of Churches (M.E.C.C.) is a fellowship of
churches relating itself to the main stream of the modern ecumenical
movement, the same which gave birth to the World Council and other
regional ecumenical councils throughout the world.33
Consequently Sizer also invokes the declaration of MECC that

Christian Zionism represents a heretical interpretation of Scripture,34
while further bolstering his tirade by claiming the agreement of John
Stott that it is biblically anathema.35 Hence we are told that the
Christian Zionist
provides a theological endorsement for racial segregation, apartheid and
war [on the part of modern Israel]. This is diametrically opposed to the
inclusive theology of justice, peace and reconciliation which lie at the heart
of the new covenant. . . . [T]he present brutal, repressive and racist policies
of the State of Israel would suggest exile on the horizon rather than a
restoration. . . . Israel is a materialistic society, an apartheid state practicing
repressive and dehumanizing measures against the Palestinians in flagrant
disregard of the United Nations and UN declaration of human rights.36
Here also, not only is tone revealing but also language that resonates
with the verbal mantras of liberation theology and baptized Marxism,
as with the charges here of [Israels brutal, repressive] racial
segregation, apartheid and war [that] . . . is diametrically opposed to
the inclusive theology of justice, peace and reconciliation. But
furthermore, when an approach to the oracles of God, that are so
thoroughly Jewish and uphold a Jewish Savior, yet so demeans the
Jewish people and their nation, however unbelieving Israel may
presently be, there has got to be something fundamentally wrong with
the underlying eschatology. In no way do we excuse aspects of
Christian Zionism that may at times express prophetic carnality. Nor
do we necessarily excuse the errors of National Israel after the flesh,
for, enemies though they presently be in Christ, we do love them for
the sake of the fathers, and thus the land that remains their inheritance.
Hence in this pro-Judaic scenario there remains, openly and
33
Internet sourced; http://www.mecchurches.org.
34
Sizer, Christian Zionism, pp. 22, 259.
35
Ibid., pp. 22, 261, referencing Donald Wagner. In this regard, we would
much prefer the eschatology of Bishop J. C. Ryle who, in being in firm
disagreement with Stott, yet expresses himself with far more grace.
36
Ibid., p. 260; Neil Cornell and Stephen Sizer Whose Promised Land: Israel
and Biblical Prophecy Debate, Guildford Diocesan Evangelical
Fellowship, March, 1997; internet sourced: http//www.christ-church-
virginiawater.co.uk.
unashamedly confessed, affectionate respect for the Jew , being absent
in the likes of Chapman and Sizer, after the manner that Paul
encourages in Romans 9:1-5. And the reason for this is the
fundamental underpinning of Gods eschatological hope for ethnic,
national and territorial Israel as delineated in the Old and New
Testaments. The reality is that a supercessionist theology is productive
of an offensive demeanor with regard to the Jews, that is anti-Judaism,
and church history is the terrible, unavoidable proof that this is so. We
grant that Chapman does attempt to deal with the matter of anti-
Judaism, though to be frank it is quite inadequate in its selectivity and
the shallowness of its assessment in nominal terms. However where he
fails most is at the root of the matter, for while referencing the anti-
Judaism of Chrysostom, Augustine, Aquinas and Luther, he completely
neglects to deal with the underlying doctrinal cause.37 Should he have
done so he would have been forced to see a reflection of the essence of
his own supercessionist views.
However there is also another area of tone that needs to be
considered that again Chapman well represents. It concerns his
wrestling with the ancient conquest of the land of Canaan under
Joshua. Here the tone is one of necessary accommodation, even with
regard to the moral purposes of God. Hence in all of this section one
senses a relentless attempt to nullify modern Israels illicit present
possession of the land while attempting to confront ancient Israels
questionable militant capture of the land. Hence the biblical account is
skeptically addressed as follows.
Is it conceivable that a God of love could actually have ordered the
Israelites to engage in what we today would call ethnic cleansing? . . .
One way of resolving the problem is to see these stories simply as a Jewish
interpretation of their history. Since they believed that they were the
chosen people who enjoyed a special relationship with God, they wrote
their history in such a way as to justify their ideas about their special status
and their superiority over other people. The Old Testament should therefore
be seen as a very ethnocentric interpretation of Israelite history.38
Chapman makes not the slightest attempt to repudiate this warped

regard for the Old Testament record in terms of its divinely inspired
character. These stories as Jewish [very ethnocentric]
interpretation which Israel believed is avoidance of the cleansing of
37
Chapman, Whose Promised Land? (2002 ed.), pp. 44-49.
38
Ibid., p. 120.
Canaan being plainly attributed to explicit divine mandate in Scripture.
Instead Chapman retreats to cultural, subjective accommodation, that is
the employment of a mistaken view, it would seem, of progressive
revelation, hermeneutics, indeed inspiration. However, sadly this
assessment does not allow us to stop at a misuse of interpretive
method, and go no further. Rather we also learn here of the
employment of the misuse of theological method by means of which
the disqualification of the modern State of Israel is accomplished. This
appears to be Chapmans overriding concern, and Scripture is not
allowed to get in the way. Thus we read:
No doubt we would all want to say that by the standards of today many of
the actions of Joshua and the Children of Israel in the conquest of the land
were evil and should never be held up as an example for people to follow
today. . . . Anyone, therefore, who sees Christ as the fullest possible
revelation of what God is like and of the kind of moral standards that God
sets for human beings, will see many of the actions of Joshua as very wrong
and abhorrent. But if, as the biblical account suggests, God was involved in
the conquest of the land under Joshua, it was because he had to work within
a particular cultural and religious context, revealing gradually as much new
truth as people were able to grasp. Given the level of culture and religion at
the time, Gods revelation of a new way had to be gradual. He had to work
within a culture that practiced ethnic cleansing as something that was
acceptable, in order ultimately to change the culture from within by
exposing this evil in its true light and showing the human race a better
way.39
It is not difficult to sense some fancy theological footwork going on

here which has a specific, controlling agenda in mind, that is
condemnation of the present Jewish occupation of Israel. To do this,
somehow Joshuas campaigns of ethnic cleansing must be
accommodated, as if God turns a blind cultural eye upon this
shameful but vital stage, one that was not to be repeated, and need
never be repeated.40 However, the fallacy of this reasoning is exposed
when we are then told:
So those who see Jesus as the climax of Gods revelation to the human race
can never imagine him acting in the way that Joshua did. It is inconceivable
39
Ibid., pp. 121, 124-125.
40
Ibid., p. 125.
that Jesus would have taken up weapons to attack the Romans in the way
that Joshua attacked the Canaanites.41
Oh really? Of course Jesus made it plain that His first coming was to
save and not judge (John 12:47). Even then His wrath occasionally
erupted (Matt. 21:12-13; 23:1-33). But this in no way alters the fact
that at His second coming He will indeed judge the world in
righteousness (Acts 17:31), that is with flaming fire dealing out
retribution to those who do not know God (II Thess. 1:7-8), at which
time men and women will call for the rocks to fall on them and hide
them from the wrath of the Lamb (Rev. 6:16). For this reason,
progress of revelation does not involve divine advance from moral
tolerance of immoral ethnic cleansing to its moral condemnation,
otherwise Gods holy consistency is compromised. Rather progress of
revelation does lead us from the moral rightness of Joshuas campaigns
according to divine mandate in an earthly sphere to the moral rightness
of Jesus Christs campaign against sin in the human soul by means of
justification and judgment.
In conclusion, the anti-Judaic tone here, particularly in the writings of
Chapman and Sizer, betrays a deep-seated drive to nullify, at all costs,
any biblical validity claimed for the Jew and the modern State of Israel.
Should this theological end be accomplished, then the cause of the
Palestinians and Arabs could be pursued on a strictly secular,
egalitarian basis due to the elimination of supposed biblical claims.
However we strenuously maintain that God, according to the good
pleasure of His will, continues to regard Israel after the flesh with favor
according to elective grace that streams through His distinctive
covenantal regard for the Jews as beloved enemies (Rom. 11:28).
From a Christian perspective, election presupposes divine, particular
saving purpose directed toward sinful individuals (Rom. 5:8). However
we maintain that Gods elective regard for Israel rests upon the same
essential gracious basis. Hence one wonders how Chapman and Sizer
cope with the priority that Paul continuously gave to the Jew
throughout his ministry to the Gentiles (Rom. 1:16; 2:9-10; cf. Chapter
10: Israel - and a Romans 11 Synthesis), though no explanation is
given. Was this divine racism? Of course such a perspective is in no
way intended to justify every military initiative of the State of Israel
any more than the indiscriminate terrorism of the Arab/Palestinian
intifada. Nevertheless, we do believe that the loving Pauline tone of
41
Ibid.
distinctive regard for the Jew, even in unbelief, finds its antithesis in
the anti-Judaic tone of Chapman and Sizer which so obviously
conflicts with the Apostles indefatigable interest.
Furthermore, Chapman and Sizer plainly regard with disfavor the
considerable role that Britain and America have played in the
formation, maintenance and prosperity of the State of Israel. Seeming
to have more the spirit of Sanballat and Tobiah, they are obviously
displeased that anyone should seek the welfare of the Sons of Israel
(Neh. 2:10). Again the biased tone here is unmistakable. Chapman and
Sizer appear to wish that modern Israel had never been established
because it was a wholly carnal endeavor to begin with without any
biblical justification. Hence it is not surprising to find intimations of
their desire that this development should be reversed. There is constant
niggling against the present support that America supplies. Yet should
this nullification scenario prevail, who can tell what horror might then
result in terms of Arab attempts at the fulfillment of their stated goal,
namely the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. That Sizer has such a hope
lurking at the back of his mind is evident when he suggests the
possibility of another exile on the horizon rather than a restoration.42
Is this wishful thinking? The tone here certainly suggests preference
for the severe condemnation of the law to fall upon Israel, quite apart
from any prospect of grace; on the other hand grace certainly ought to
be showered upon the Palestinians by means of substantial land
reclamation.
Overall, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Chapman and Sizer
have an intractable, theological aversion to modern Judaism and the
State of Israel. Whether there is consideration of the land, Jerusalem, or
even the Old Testament, at best we have here a legacy of shadows that,
while remaining memorable, is yet hardly of substantial importance.
What counts is the absorption, indeed reformation of these figures and
patterns into the reality of Jesus Christ. Hence there is a relentless
effort to nullify Jewish identity, nationality and territory, except where
these terms are reinterpreted according to a New Testament and
ecclesiological hermeneutic. However, notwithstanding a subtle
appropriation of Jewish terminology, a token portrayal of interest in
Jews as individuals, and the beguiling claim of being christocentric, we
reemphasize the belief that this whole approach is nothing more than a
42
Whose Promised Land: Israel and Biblical Prophecy, p. 6, http://www.
christchurch- virginiawater.co.uk/articles/-debate.html.
revision of historic Augustinian eschatology. As such, we also believe
it is not only biblically and theologically flawed but also ethically
wanting as a consequence. In particular, we believe that the focus on
being exclusively christocentric in fact necessitates a dual rather than a
singular hermeneutic. That is, first there is the need of interpreting the
Christ of the New Testament by means of a literal, grammatical,
historical, contextual hermeneutic; then this derived New Testament
interpretation becomes a second hermeneutic that is foisted upon the
Old Testament. The result is, as Willem VanGemeren perceptively
states,
the new Reformed hermeneutic is no longer the Old is in the New
revealed and the New is in the Old concealed, but rather the Old is by the
New restricted and the New is on the Old inflicted.43
Next we look at the issue of Zionism in greater detail, both historically

and with regard to a Christian perspective. Then in Chapter Six and
Chapter Seven we will concentrate on this vital matter of hermeneutics
as it relates to the interpretation of the Old Testament in the light of the
New Testament, but especially with regard to Israel.
43
Willem A. VanGemeren, Israel as the Hermeneutical Crux in the
Interpretation of Prophecy. Westminster Theological Journal, 46 (1984),
pp. 268.
Israel and Christian encounter with Zionism 133
Chapter Five
ISRAEL and Christian encounter

with Zionism
T HE preceding indications of Christian anti-Judaism, as a centuries

old Augustinian thrust that continues to manifest itself in
contemporary supercessionist theology, at the same time have resulted
in an almost axiomatic association. It is that denigration of modern
Judaism, but especially its national and territorial Zionist aspirations,
go hand in hand with sympathy for the cause of the Arab states, being
predominantly Moslem, and particularly a national Palestinian agenda.
One only has to read Naim Ateek, Colin Chapman, Kenneth Cragg,
Stephen Sizer, Gary Burge and Donald Wagner,1 and this result
becomes abundantly evident. It is not simply that their theology is
Augustinian whereby the Christian Church is the new spiritual Israel,
and it is decidedly that, but rather they plainly side with and regularly
conference with both Christian and Moslem Palestinians while at the
same time incessantly censuring modern Israel at every hand. All are
guilty of a nominal, minimalist regard for Israel, based more upon
pragmatic, status quo social standards rather than abiding biblical
principles. For instance there will be acceptance of the need for Israel
to have a national home somewhere, perhaps according to the 1948
borders established by the United Nations. However this is merely a
concession to the existing state of affairs that usually abides more
passionately with Arab and Moslem demands that ultimately have in
mind the total elimination of National Israel from Palestine.
A classic example of the forgoing is the 5th International Sabeel
Conference held in Jerusalem, 2004, directed by Naim Ateek, the
1
In this volume there has been minimal reference made to Donald E.
Wagner, professor of religion and Middle Eastern studies at North Park
University in Chicago, also director of the Center for Middle Eastern
Studies. However his supercessionist, anti-Judaic bent is plainly evident,
especially in his Anxious for Armageddon and Dying in the Land of
Promise: Palestine and Palestinian Christianity from Pentecost to 2000.
Not surprisingly, Stephen Sizer confesses his indebtedness to Wagner for
inspiration in Christian Zionism, p. 14,
134 Israel and Christian encounter with Zionism
theme being Challenging Christian Zionism: Theology, Politics, and
the Palestine-Israel Conflict. The featured speaker was Stephen Sizer
while other presenters included Donald Wagner and Gary Burge.
Terrorist Yasser Arafat also made an appearance! The whole aura here
was incessantly anti-Judaic and pro-palestinian, with the official Sabeel
Conference Statement declaring:
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 Christs love and justice today. We also
repudiate the more insidious form of Christian Zionism pervasive in the
mainline churches that remains silent in the face of the Israeli occupation of
Palestine. Therefore, we categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as a
false teaching that undermines the biblical message of love, mercy, and
justice.2
Not unrelated to his attitude, by way of Arab association, is the

comment of David Shipler:
For the Arabs, the word Zionism has an ugly connotation that stirs up
deep revulsion and dread, with overtones as heavy as those that
communism carries for many Americans. Zionist, in Arabic is like
Nazi, one Arab explained. Since I was a child I have heard that the word
Zionist is the worst. I didnt understand the meaning of it, I just thought
Zionist was like criminal, thief, killer.3
Nevertheless Zion remains a noble biblical term, especially since:

The LORD of hosts says this: I am extremely jealous for Zion; I am
jealous for her with great wrath. (Zech. 8:2). But further: The
Liberator will come from Zion; He will turn away godlessness from
Jacob (Rom. 11:26). So what is this Zionism as a historic
development that is especially derided in its Christian manifestation?
THE FOUNDATION OF ZIONISM
Upon David becoming king over all Israel, we are told that: The king
and his men marched to Jerusalem against the Jebusites [Caananites]
2
http://www.sabeel.org/documents/5thConfStatementfinal.htm.
3
David K. Shipler, Arab and Jew, p. 70.
who had inhabited the land. . . . Yet David did capture the stronghold
of Zion, the city of David (II Sam. 5:6-7). More specifically, it was a
citadel on the south-eastern hill within Jerusalem (Ps. 2:6), being most
suitable for fortified defense against enemies. Here Davids palace was
also built. Supremely it was the city of the LORD, Zion of the Holy
One of Israel (Isa. 60:14). Later the title Zion incorporated the
adjoining Temple region (Ps. 20:2), then Jerusalem overall (Isa. 10:12).
This Zion then became acknowledged as the capital of the Land of
Israel (Isa. 66:8; Joel 2:18, 21; Zech. 2:10-12). Even after the War of
Independence in 1948, for nineteen years Arab Jordan did not allow
Jews from Israel to have access to the Old City of Jerusalem. However,
prior to the Six-Day War of 1967 when Israel eventually captured the
Old City of Jerusalem, it had not been freely inhabited by the Jews
since the Maccabean/Hasmonean revolt against the Selucids. There
came about at that time, over 2,100 years ago, the cleansing and
rededication of the Temple in 164 B.C., after which Jerusalem was
captured by Pompey of Rome in 63 B.C. Subsequently the Land of
Israel continued to be heavily populated by Jews until the destructions
of Jerusalem in 70 AD. by Titus and in 135 A.D. by Emperor Hadrian.
Following the resultant biblically prophesied dispersal in judgment
(Lev. 26:32-33; Deut. 4:27-28; 28:64-68; Ezek. 22:15; 36:18-20; Zech.
7:14; Luke 21:24), the perennial prayer of the Jews throughout
subsequent centuries, and in whatever scattered and downtrodden
circumstances they found themselves in, was the prayer at the
conclusion of the Passover seder, Next year in Jerusalem. Hence this
heartfelt religious longing became embodied in the expression
Zionism, that is the collective Jewish passion for free
reestablishment in the Land of Israel as a Jewish nation. Not
surprisingly, when the Old City of Jerusalem was recaptured during the
Six-Day War in 1967, at the wailing wall Rabbi Goren blew his shofar
or rams horn trumpet in Zion (cf. Jer. 4:5; Joel 2:1, 15) and
proclaimed, I, General Shlomo Goren, chief rabbi of the Israel
Defense Forces, have come to this place never to leave it again.4
The Diaspora of Israel
While the scattering of the Jews commenced with their exile from the
northern and southern divisions of Israel during the 6th and 8th centuries
B.C., yet a remnant left behind in the Land was later joined with the
4
Michael B. Oren, Six Days of War, p. 246.
relatively small contingent of post-exilic returnees. Following the brief
Hasmonean recovery, further stimulus to flee came with the capture of
Jerusalem under Pompey, 63 B.C. Even so it was not till the harsh
destruction of Jerusalem under Titus, 70 A.D. and Hadrian, 135 A.D.
that greater dispersal resulted. Nevertheless here also a remnant
remained in the Land, especially in the north, that continued to ebb and
flow throughout subsequent centuries.
The Remnant of Israel
While wholly evacuated from Jerusalem, Jews retreated westward to

Jabneh, also northward to Galilee as well as many rural villages within
Israel, the surprising result being the heightening of literary
development and consolidation, including eventual compilation of the
Mishnah leading to completion of the Talmud, as well as the
strengthening of Synagogue life. In spite of such intense devastation,
even Jerusalem eventually saw the return of Jews to its fold, though
with recurring episodes of humiliation. However, love for Zion never
failed, at home or abroad. Hence in spite of great suffering, there were
always returnees who built up the periodically diminishing remnant.
THE EXILE OF ZIONISM
The scattering of Jews following 135 A.D.

Although Emporer Hadrian renamed Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina and
the Land of Israel as Syria Palestina, or Palestine, in 135 A.D., we will,
in most instances continue to use the more historic Land of Israel,
and related Hebrew titles. The reason here is more than a matter of
ancient semantics. It stems from the fact that, contrary to widespread
misunderstanding, as Bernard Lewis explains,
[f]rom the end of the Jewish state in antiquity to the beginning of British
rule, the area now designated by the name Palestine was not a country and
had no frontiers, only administrative boundaries; it was a group of
provincial subdivisions, by no means always the same, within a larger
entity.
With the British conquest in 1917-18 and the subsequent establishment of a
mandated territory in the conquered areas, Palestine became the official
name of a definite territory for the first time since the Middle Ages. To
begin with, this designation was acceptable neither to Jews nor to Arabs.
From the Jewish point of view . . . the very associations . . . were hateful. . .
. For Arabs, . . . there was no such thing as a country called Palestine. The
region which the British called Palestine was merely a separated part of a
larger whole. For a long time organized and articulate Arab political
opinion was virtually unanimous at this point.5
James Parkes makes the same point even more comprehensively:

During all this period of two thousand years, Palestine was not even a name
on the political map of the world. It was a portion of a larger province,
whether Roman, Byzantine, Arab or Turkish; and its people were never
conscious of themselves as a national unit, nor did they ever attempt, as
they had done in early and later Israelite days, to form an independent
kingdom. During the long period of Islamic rule, with its kaleidoscopic
changes of dynasty, no claimant to the throne of the caliphs, or even to a
separate identity, ever emerged from the Palestinian population. It was the
alternative prey of dynasties ruling from Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo or
Istanbul. Only in the twentieth century has it resumed a separate identity,
and that by the will of outsiders rather than of the majority of its own
population; and the result has been conflict, uncertainty and one of the most
delicate and difficult problems of modern international politics.6
Furthermore, granted that succesive possession of the Land of Israel

was by Roman, Byzantium, Islam, Crusader, Mamluk, Ottoman, and
British invasion, this in no way invalidated the covenanted bestowal of
this territory upon the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Nevertheless, the scattered people of Israel not only suffered this
judgment from God as promised, but also endured such discipline
throughout the four corners of the earth.
Jerusalem under Roman dominion, 135 A.D. 330 A.D.
The savage suppression of nationalism by Rome nevertheless brought a

measure of stability, even Herodian glory. Then Jewish born
Christianity expanded in parallel with increasing Christian anti-
5
Bernard Lewis, The Palestinians and the PLO, Commentary, January,
1975, p. 32-33. Stephen Sizer is either evasive or ignorant of the essential
truth here and, without a shred of evidence to the contrary, castigates Dave
Hunt who similarly, though more bluntly, states, There never was a
Palestinian people, nation, language, culture, or religion. The claim of
descent from a Palestinian people who lived for thousands of years in a
land called Palestine is a hoax. Christian Zionism, pp. 244-245.
6
James Parkes, A History of Palestine from 135 A.D. to Modern Times, p.
13. Indebtedness to this work concerning much that follows is readily
acknowledged.
Judaism and Gentile dominance; consequently, to begin with, it fled
Jerusalem because of militant Jewish opposition (Acts 8:1).
Nevertheless its flourishing influence did much to purge Palestine
gradually of imposed Roman paganism. However the growing rift with
Judaism became more established until a dominant Gentile church
existed in Jerusalem. Notwithstanding the diminished Jewish
population, two Roman emperors looked more favorably toward
Judaism and Christianity during the Severan Dynasty of 193-235 A.D.
Then Emperor Constantines embrace of Christianity in 312 A.D.
resulted in the construction of churches in Bethlehem, Jerusalem, the
region of Hebron, and on the Mount of Olives. At the same time Jews
continued to inhabit the Land of Israel, and periodically revolt for the
cause of Zion, against continuing iron-fisted imperialism. Nevertheless
there was an easing by Rome of some former strictures, such as
concerning formerly banned circumcision.7
Jerusalem under Byzantium dominion, 330 A.D. 640 A.D.
When Constantine is reputed to have seen a vision of a cross in the sky

outside the walls of Rome just prior to its conquest in 312 A.D., it
included the inscription, In this [cross], conquer! After his founding
of Constantinople in 330 A.D. as the New Rome, it constituted the
capital of the Byzantium Empire and therefore became the controlling
center of Christianity. Consequently the Eastern Roman Empire
administered Palestine until the Arab conquest. While Christian
prosperity enhanced Jerusalem, there were no Jewish residents there
until the Roman Empress Eudocia (394-460 A.D.) granted permission.
Then throughout the Roman Empire the patriarchal House of Hillel
was accepted as the supreme authority for the Jewish community.
While Jerome of Bethlehem writes of a few Christians and a
predominance of Jews, yet by the seventh century the Jewish
population of Palestine had dwindled to under 250,000. This decline
was paralleled by the intolerance of Judaism, including Samaritans, by
Christianity, as evidenced by the legal prohibition of the building of
synagogues. The brief Persian invasion of Palestine (611-614 A.D.)
involving the massacre of Christians, perhaps aided by Jews in the
north having the hope of greater autonomy, resulted however in a
short-lived reign. Desolation and ruin became widespread throughout
7
James Parkes, Whose Land? A History of the Peoples of Palestine, p. 42.
John G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism, pp. 55-66.
the Land. Rome, under Heraclius, then recaptured Palestine in 629
A.D., though now the Jews themselves experienced a bloody massacre.
Yet at this very same time, Muhammed conquered Mecca. Then in 640
A.D. he would also capture Caesarea and end Byzantine rule.8
Jerusalem under Islamic dominion, 640 A.D. 1099 A.D.
Following the conquest of Persia, Syria and Egypt, the Islamist

Arabian pall eventually covered all of the Middle East. In Palestine the
Christian majority and Jewish minority endured subjection as dhimis
whereby they paid heavy taxes, retained their churches and
synagogues, but were not allowed to erect new buildings. Their social
presence was required to appear subdued, and of course proselytizing
was forbidden. In 691 A.D. the Aksa Mosque was built on the Temple
area in Jerusalem, becoming the third most holy shrine in Islam.
Compared with earlier Eastern Orthodox and Roman oppression, the
Jews, though small in numbers, indicated preference for their Arab
overlords.
Nevertheless, we have evidence that Jews lived in all parts of the country
and on both sides of the Jordan, and that they dwelt in both the towns and
villages, practicing both agriculture and various handicrafts. During the
seventh and eighth centuries Tiberias continued to be their center; but some
Jews began to return to Jerusalm shortly after the Moslen conquest in spite
of the fact that in the original negotiations for the surrender of the city, the
[Eastern Orthodox] Christians had wished to insist that no Jews should be
admitted to it. At first Jews lived in the southern quarter near the Wailing
Wall. . . . At some period they purchased the slopes of the Mount of Olives
facing the Temple, and there used to be a considerable pilgrimage to this
spot at the chief festivals, especially at the Feast of Tabernacles.9
Surely at those times, before the vista of Zion and the Temple Mount,
there was a great lament: There we sat down and wept, when we
remembered Zion. . . . If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand
forget her skill. May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I do
not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy (Ps.
137:1, 5-6). Nevertheless, vigorous spiritual life was productive of the
completion of the Jerusalem Talmud as well as the Hebrew Massoretic
text of the Old Testament that remains the standard for today.
8
Parkes, Whose Land? pp. 42-61
9
Ibid., pp. 72-73.
Moslem Arab rule was then from Damascus, nevertheless sectarian
conflict, such as between the Shiites and Sunnis, resulted in civil war
and instability within Palestine.
It was now but a remote and unimportant province; and though strong
rulers might suppress insurrection, yet tribal disorders and Bedouin raids
might at any time make life insecure for Muslims as well as Jews and
Christians.10
Now earlier toleration for Moslem rule began to wane. Synagogues and
Christian churches were periodically destroyed. Nevertheless an annual
mercantile fair still survived in Jerusalem from Byzantine times. At the
end of the tenth century, the Fatmid dynasty became the new conqueror
of Palestine as well as Syria, it tracing its descent from the daughter of
Mohammad. A period of toleration was followed by further destruction
of synagogues and churches, even the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
which especially aroused animosity in Europe and thus triggered the
first crusade. Yet again peace followed, then unrest and the challenge
of Turkish invaders. Even Jewish sectarianism became more vigorous
with the Babylonian Talmud now supplanting the Jerusalem Talmud.
Even so the whole population was beginning to speak Arabic, and
certainly a majority residing in Palestine was now Muslim.
Jerusalem under Crusader dominion, 1099 A.D. 1187 A. D.
The call to crusade for the cause of the Holy Land was instigated by
the papacy in response to the Byzantine emperor facing the threat of
advancing Seljuk Turks; also there was a desire for more open access
by Christians to Palestine. The first crusade captured Jerusalem in 1099
A.D. at which most of the Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem were
slaughtered. As a result a medieval structure was imposed including
military orders of knights, impressive castles, and prosperous tourism.
But neither the Muslims nor the Jews, the representation of the later
having already been weakened, were allowed to reside in Jerusalem.
Nevertheless both entities thrived in the surrounding regions. However,
[w]hen a brilliant soldier of Kurdish origin, Salah ed-Din (Saladin), came to
rule over both Syria and Egypt, the end of the European interlude was
inevitable. . . . For the Jews a return or migration to Europe offered no
10
Ibid., p. 75.
attraction. They stayed, to share and suffer from the disorder which
followed the disappearance of the crusaders feudalism.11
Although the anti-Semitic King Richard I came on a third crusade to

rescue the situation, while being within sight of Jerusalem his
weakened position led to a truce with Saladin after which he then
retreated homeward to England.
Jerusalem under Mamluk dominion, 1187 A.D. -1453 A.D.
A Mamluk was a slave soldier, often a Turk, who converted to Islam

and served the the Sunni Ayyubid dynasty of Saladin.They eventually
sacked Jerusalem massacring most of the Christians and looting the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. There followed a line of Mamluk
sultans that captured the crusader sea ports and the knights castles. An
attempted Cypriot crusade further ravaged the coast of Syria and
Palestine. In revenge the Mamluks closed the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre for five years. European trade sanctions were ventured but
failed. Hence the Land presents a sad picture of decline. Jerusalem
became un-walled, though both the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aksa
Mosque were adorned and preserved. But Christian churches, along
with synagogues, fell into decay or were confiscated. Moslem
opposition became more fanatical, leading to imprisonment and torture.
Franciscan settlement in Palestine, involving suffering and heroism, led
to some gains including land on Mount Zion and the room where the
Last Supper of Jesus was reputed to havce been held. Their
accumulating wealth gained some security through bribery. The Jews
endeavored to buy the site of Davids tomb which led to loss for the
Franciscans. The Eastern churches also suffered, though heavy taxation
impoverished most Christians, as well as the Jews. Though the wealthy
amongst the Dispersion became more devoted to support of their
bethren in Zion. Some 300 Jewish immigrants settled in Acre on the
coast in 1211 A.D.. Then the aged scholar Nachmanides fled Spain and
settled in Jerusalem where he revived synagogue life. Many more Jews
came came from Spain following the persecution of 1391. A further
scholar even respected by the Muslims, Obadiah de Bertinoro, arrived
in 1488, established a significant rabbinical college in Jerusalem, and
testified to tolerable Arab treatment with regard to the Jews.
Nevertheless, northern and western areas suffered impoverishment;
11
Ibid., p. 99.
particularly galling was the Moslem imposition of their shrines upon
Jewish Old Testament sites. Hence,
[t]his penetration of Islam into what had previously been Jewish or
Christian sites had this justificationor at least explanation: that it is
during the Mamluk period that it first becomes possible to speak of The
Land as a primarily Muslim country. During the first century and a half of
the Arab period the Christian and Jewish communities certainly constituted
the majority of the population. . . . But during the Mamluk centuries both
Jewish and Christian communities suffered tremendous losses through
conditions which made life intolerable. . . . [T]here is nothing improbable in
the estimate that the two and a half centuries of their [Mamluk] power cost
the country two thirds of its population.12
Jerusalem under Turkish Ottoman Dominion, 1453 -1918
In 1453 Constantinople fell to the siege of King Mehmed, ruler of the

Ottoman sultans, who made this prize the capital of his huge Turkish
empire that soon included all of the Middle East, yet extended to
Greece, Persia and North Africa. The Mamluk Empire was now in full
decay. As a result Jerusalem, Gaza, Nablus, Sidon and Beirut now
came under the authority of Ottoman Damascus. At this time, in need
of a southern fortress, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566
A.D.) rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, even as they surround the old
city today. A resultant feudal system, that imposed harsh taxation and
even more harsh penalties, experienced initial glory, yet the inherent
seeds of corruption and tribal conflict led to progressive decline in a
self-fulfilling spiral. Within Palestine, a falling population led to
nomadic abuse and in turn greater wasteland, especially when
compared with former agricultural prosperity. One debauched and
cruel sultan ordered the massacre of all non-Muslim subjects, though
intervention by Muslim authorities prevailed. During the seventeenth
century several rulers governed more by terror over the regions of
Galilee, though in being challenged, the ensuing conflict brought more
misery to the Land. During the eighteenth century this tribal conflict
continued, which necessitated the extraction of ever larger sums from
peasants to finance such conflicts. In one instance, Ramleh, Gaza and
Jaffa revolted against this increased tax burden.
In 1770 the Mamluk ruler of Egypt took steps to invade Syria. With
some intrigue, he was eventually successful in capturing Damascus.
12
Ibid., pp. 113-114.
Yet on returning to Egypt he was expelled; returning yet again he was
seized and killed by a rival. Such was the ceaseless tension of those
times in the midst of a most unhappy empire, full of extortion, lacking
in security. The ruler of Sidon, the butcher, was renowned for his
avarice and cruelty. Nevertheless the Turkish reign provided more
opportunities for the Jewish than for the Christian population. Some
Marronos Christians expelled from Spain, that is converts of
coercion and convenience, were encouraged to immigrate, though
others from Europe also came. Then,
[t]he Jewish community under the Turks passed from a very rapid and
brilliant expansion, during which the Land became for a brief while again
the center of the whole Jewish world, to almost as rapid and catastrophic
decline.13
The cause was not only due to distinction between the Sephardic and
Ashkenazic Jewish communities in Palestine, but also the persecution
and suffering they endured because of the indifference of Turkish
rulers to incessant local conflict. This led to greater poverty and
desolation than was experienced under the Mamluks. Even travellers
accounts testified to the wilderness existence that had now come about.
Certainly eighteenth century Europe had not the slightest interest in
securing, let alone enhancing the monolithic Turkish empire. Further,
the expansion of Russia and then Great Britain presented a new
challenge to the Middle East. Yet a further rising contestant on the
horizon concerned the expansionist ambitions of Napoleon Bonaparte,
and especially his conquest of Egypt and Syria. Nevertheless he was
defeated by Nelson at the Battle of the Nile. Entering coastal Palestine,
Napoleon reached as far as Acre, and then was forced to retreat, having
never approached Jerusalem. Further retreat to Europe ended in his
defeat at Waterloo. Thus the Land sank back into obscurity, including
rivalry within the weakening Turkish dominion. A new and
independent minded sultan in Egypt, Mehmet Ali, favored the French,
drove out the British, and instituted a totalitarian regime. Then, along
with his son, Ibrahim, in ambitiously moving northward, he captured
Gaza, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Acre and Damascus; then threatening to take
Constaninople, Russia came to the rescue and forced an eventual
retreat back to Egypt. Nevertheless Egyptian rule had opened Palestine
to western visitors, also British and American missionary societies
resulting in biblical research. Ibrahim also received consuls in
13
Ibid., pp. 128-129.
Jerusalem, first from Great Britain, then France, Prussia, Sardinia and
America. Then a rabbi was recognized for Russian and Austrian Jews.
An English bishop was sent out jointly by England and Prussia, as well
as a patriarch from Rome, by means of which the interests of Jews and
Christians were better suited, even if they did continue to be at unrest
with each other. In 1852 the sultan decreed that competing claims to
Holy Places be established as the status quo, and at least in this area
some peace prevailed.
In 1870, reformer Midhat Pasha established a more representative form
of government for the empire, that is a Turkish parliament, but only for
some months until the reign commenced of an evil tyrant, Abdul
Hamid. Nevertheless his redistribution of Syria, hence the Land, led to
the independent territory of Jerusalem. Through his becoming friends
with the German Kaiser, Jerusalem sprouted several notable German
and Lutheran edifices. Nevertheless Hamids oppression led to his
overthrow by the idealistic, reforming Young Turks, offering
centralized government, even for the non-Muslim and non-Turkish
population, as well as equal participation in Turkish political life. But
the Arabs wanted no such change. Thus with the outbreak of the First
World War in 1914, Turkey aligned itself with Germany, this being a
decision of momentous importance. Indeed British Prime Minister,
Herbert Asquith, prophetically declared that [t]he Turkish empire has
committed suicide.14 However Jewish Zionist leaders in Europe were
well aware of the potential this turn of events presented. Nevertheless
Palestine then became in turmoil as many fled.
The majority of the Jewish immigrants of the previous thirty years had
either Russian or Romanian nationality, and thousands retired to Egypt,
though the bulk of the agricultural settlers stayed on their land. For this
reason it is quite inaccurate to base the Jewish percentage of the population
on the position when the Balfour Declaration was issued [in 1917]. In 1914
it was approximately thirteen percent.
However in Arab sections of the empire, there was by no means a

sense of loyalty toward the disintegrating Turkish empire, and
therefore toward Germany that hoped for participation in a jihad, a
holy war against Britain. For this reason the Germans failed to win
over the Arabs to their cause whereas the British did so by giving
assurances of their prospective independence in Syria, Arabia, and
14
Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews, p. 424.
Mesopotamia, that is except for western Syria.15 In 1916 the British
crossed the Suez Canal against strong Turkish resistance and reach al-
Arish. The revolt of desert Arabs, that found British assistance through
T. E. Lawrence, was confronted with a scorched earth,
ruthless policy of oppression [by the Turks], which resulted in the
deliberate destruction of houses, roads, fruit trees and crops, and the
execution or imprisonment of considerable numbers of the population. . . .
Nearly all the improvements of the previous fifty years were swept away.
When the British entered Judea and Jerusalem they found a land on the
brink of starvation, and for the first year of administration the feeding of the
population, countrymen as well as townsmen, proved their most urgent
task.16
Held back at Gaza, General Edmund Allenby took charge of the British
Expeditionary Force which led to the rout of the Turks at Beersheba.
Taking Jaffa, Allenby finally captured Jerusalem and on December 11,
1917, he marched bareheaded into the historic capital to address a
gathering of Moslem, Christian, and Jewish notables on the steps of the
Tower of David.
Jerusalem under British Dominion, 1918
By 1918, the end of Ottoman rule in Palestine at the same time raised
the question of settlement, for Britain and France, concerning their
recent Middle Eastern conquests. However, in anticipation of the
capture of Jerusalem, and the odd prospect of Berlin also making a pro-
Zionist declaration, the Balfour Declaration had been composed a
month before Allenbys formal entry into the Holy City, by means of
which the British Government gave the [European] Zionist enterprise
formal recognition.17 As the Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour,
of evangelical stock,
had been nurtured on the Old Testament, and his extensive study of Jewish
history had filled him with inner remorse about Christendoms treatment of
the Jews. They have been exiled, scattered and oppressed, he told
[journalist] Harold Nicholson in 1917. If we can find them an asylum, a
15
Howard M. Sachar, A History of Israel, pp. 92-93. Also Parkes, Whose
Land? pp. 253-254.
16
Parkes, Whose Land? pp. 190, 249.
17
Bernard Lewis, The Middle East, p. 348.
safe home, in their native land, then the full flowering of their genius will
burst forth and propagate.18
Guided by a draft statement that Balfour solicited from the Zionists, a

final compromise declaration was approved, namely:
His Majestys government views with favor the establishment in Palestine
of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors
to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that
nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of
existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political
status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.19
However, James Parkes makes some very telling comments concerning

this historic document that clarifiy common misunderstanding.
The Balfour Declaration for the first time established a unit called Palestine
on the political map. But there were two essential elements in political
realism which it could not create. In the first place the Jews, who had
through all he centuries clung to their right to settle in the Holy Land, had
been so reduced in numbers and importance that they were not a recognized
and accepted presence to the rest of the population as were the Christians in
Lebanon. In the second place, though the word Arab was rapidly coming
to be accepted as covering the indigenous inhabitants who spoke Arabic,
independently of their religious or ethnic affiliation, there was no such
thing historically as a Palestinian Arab, and there was no feeling of unity
among the Arabs of this newly defined area. Hence the unfortunate phrase
used to describe the majority of the population in the Declarationthe
non-Jewish communities.
The Balfour Declaration did not give Palestine to the Jews. It recognized
that here existed already a historic Jewish right, no to but in the country;
and it promised to assist the Jewish people in its development in such a way
that the other rights in the country were not endangered. It equally did not
give away what belonged not to it but to the Arab people; for it had
already refused to recognize, also on historical grounds, that the Arab claim
to be exclusive owners of the country was justified.
So to Britain had fallen a responsibility of momentous proportions. To

begin with it seemed to grasp its calling with sharp insight born of its
Christian heritage. Sad to say, the noble fulfillment of this vocation
seemed to gradually wither. But notwithstanding a degree of apostasy,
the guiding Providence would not be detracted from Its vision.
18
Sachar, History of Israel, p. 106.
19
Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin, The Israel-Arab Reader, p. 16.
THE BIRTH OF ZIONISM
The preceding historic turn of events also needs to be appreciated in

terms of the founding Zionist movement in Europe that opportunely
coalesced with the providential leadership in Britain of Lloyd George,
Balfour, Allenby, Jan Smuts, etc.
The Shame of European anti-Semitism
The heritage of Augustinian anti-Judaism has been detailed in Chapter

Two: Israel - and Centuries of Christian anti-Judaism. Nevertheless its
arousal of Zionism during the late nineteenth century is beyond
dispute. As already mentioned, Jewish hope of return to the Land had
remained undying. Nevertheless the dawning of modern Europe saw a
fresh awakening of the Jew for aliyah (the right of return to the Land)
in response to new forms of hatred clothed in supposed enlightenment
and social revolution. By way of material encouragement there was the
philanthropy from England of Sir Moses Montefiore and Edmund de
Rothschild in France. There was also Moses Hess in Germany who
sought for the establishment of Jewish colonies in Palestine. Then
Leon Pinsker in Russia first headed an illegal organization there named
Lovers of Zion which encouraged immigration. Most significant was
the vision of Lithuanian Eliezer Ben Yehuda who immigrated to
Palestine in 1881 with the passionate vision of the establishment there
of the Hebrew language in the midst a polyglot population.
The agency of Theodore Herzl
Theodore Herzl (1860-1904) is commonly acknowledged to be the

visionary founder of modern political Zionism that led to the
establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. A secular Jew educated in
the high culture of Vienna, Austria, having received a doctorate in law
in 1884, Herzls confrontation with European anti-Semitism led to the
eventual conclusion that the only solution was the establishment of a
distinct nation for this distinctive people. His journalistic coverage of
the Dreyfus trial in Paris, its blatant revelation of anti-Semitism,
especially prompted him in this direction.
At first Herzl would consider any location, though he eventually
concluded that only relocation in the land of Israel was a satisfactory
solution. His pamphlet, The Jewish State (De Judenstaat), published in
1896, was catalytic in leading to the first Zionist Congress in Basle,
Switzerland, in 1897. As a result, the World Zionist Organization was
established with Herzl as its first elected president. Having died in
1904 with his dream unfulfilled, in 1949 his remains were transferred
to a mountain in western Jerusalem which became Mount Herzl, and is
today a major military cemetery.
Much of Herzls remaining time was spent in courting world leaders,
both Jewish and non-Jewish, with the goal of enlisting financial and
political support for his dream of a Jewish state. Walter Laqueur has
written:
He wanted to appeal to the Pope: help us against anti-Semitism and I in turn
will lead a great movement amongst the Jews for voluntary and honorable
conversion to Christianity. . . . It was pointed out to Herzl that, all other
considerations apart, the Pope would never receive him.20
However in 1904 he became acquainted with a Papal Count, B. Lippay,

who assured Herzl that should he visit Rome, he could arrange an
audience with Pope Pius X. In a short while, such a meeting was
arranged, and the following account of this meeting is taken from The
Diaries of Theodor Herzl by Marvin Lowenthal. The relevance of the
conversation that took place between this secular Jew and a professed
world Christian leader, will become obvious.
In an early entry of Herzls diary there is an interesting confession in
which, at the age of 35, he reflects upon his earlier encounter with
Christianity.
At first the Jewish question [of European anti-Semitism] vexed me
bitterly. There was perhaps a time when I would have gladly slipped over
into some corner of the Christian fold. But, in any case, this was only a
faint vagary born of adolescent weakness. For I can say to myself with the
honesty demanded by this diarywhich would be utterly worthless if I
played the hypocrite with myselfthat I never thought seriously of
becoming baptized or changing my name.1
In the light of this, it would not seem unreasonable to speculate what

might have been the effect of Christianity upon Herzl had he grown up
in a Gentile Christian society that had seriously taken into account the
Apostle Pauls admonition to not be arrogant toward the [Jewish]
branches [under discipline]; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is
not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. . . . Do not be
20
Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, pp. 88-89.
conceited, but fear (Rom. 11:18, 20). But further, even as Herzl is
now close to his judicial encounter with Jehovah, how better it would
have been that a more merciful, Christ-like witness had been conveyed
by the supposed vicar of Jesus Christ. How profoundly sad it is that a
harsh and most un-Christ-like witness was communicated. So Herzl
records in his diary:
Rome. January 26, [1904].
Yesterday I was with the Pope [Pius X]. . . . I arrived ten minutes ahead of
time, and without having to wait I was conducted through a number of
small reception rooms to the Pope.
He received me standing and held out his hand, which I did not kiss. Lippay
had told me I had to do it, but I didnt. I believe this spoiled my chances
with him, for everyone who visits him kneels and at least kisses his hand.
This hand kiss had worried me a great deal and I was glad when it was out
of the way.
He seated himself in an armchair, a throne for minor affairs, and invited me
to sit by his side. He smiled in kindly anticipation. I began:
HERZL: I thank Your Holiness for the favor of granting me this audience. [I
begged him to excuse my miserable Italian, but he said:]
POPE: No, Signor Commander, you speak very well.
HERZL: [He is an honest, rough-hewn village priest, to whom Christianity
has remained a living thing even in the Vatican. I briefly laid my request
before him. But annoyed perhaps by my refusal to kiss his hand, he
answered in a stern categorical manner.]
POPE: We are unable to favor this movement [of Zionism]. We cannot
prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalembut we could never sanction it.
The ground of Jerusalem, if it were not always sacred, has been sanctified
by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church I cannot answer you
otherwise. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot
recognize the Jewish people.
HERZL: [The conflict between Rome and Jerusalem, represented by the one
and the other of us, was once again under way. At the outset I tried to be
conciliatory. I said my little piece. . . . It didnt greatly impress him.
Jerusalem was not to be placed in Jewish hands.] And its present status,
Holy Father?
POPE: I know, it is disagreeable to see the Turks in possession of our Holy
Places. We simply have to put up with it. But to sanction the Jewish wish to
occupy these sites, that we cannot do.
HERZL: [I said that we based our movement solely on the sufferings of the
Jews, and wished to put aside all religious issues].
POPE: Yes, but we, but I as the head of the Catholic Church, cannot do this.
One of two things will likely happen. Either the Jews will retain their
ancient faith and continue to await the Messiah whom we believe has
already appearedin which case they are denying the divinity of Jesus and
we cannot assist them. Or else they will go there with no religion whatever,
and then we can have nothing at all to do with them
The Jewish faith was the foundation of our own, but it has been superseded
by the teachings of Christ, and we cannot admit that it still enjoys any
validity.21 The Jews who should have been the first to acknowledge Jesus
Christ have not done so to this day.
HERZL: [It was on the tip of my tongue to remark, It happens in every
family: no one believes in his own relative. But, instead, I said:] Terror
and persecution were not precisely the best means for converting the Jews.
[His reply had an element of grandeur in its simplicity:]
POPE: Our Lord came without power. He came in peace. He persecuted no
one. He was abandoned even by his apostles. It was only later that he
attained stature. It took three centuries for the Church to evolve. The Jews
therefore had plenty of time in which to accept his divinity without duress
or pressure. But they chose not to do so, and they have not done it yet.22
HERZL: But, Holy Father, the Jews are in a terrible plight. I do not know if
Your Holiness is aware of the full extent of their tragedy. We need a land
for these harried people.
POPE: Must it be Jerusalem?
HERZL: We are not asking for Jerusalem, but for Palestinefor only the
secular land.
21
Here unrelenting supercessionist theology is plainly upheld as the norm of
the Roman Catholic Church. Further, this confession, along with the whole
tone of the Pope in his meeting with Herzl, indicates the perpetuation of a
doctrinal emphasis that has resulted in centuries of degrading behavior
toward the Jews.
22
However, this response has the grandeur of total avoidance of that which
Herzl had intimated, namely that the abusive reputation of Roman
Catholicism toward the Jews was unlikely to foster conversion. Further, if,
It took three centuries for the Church to evolve, it was that very same
period of time that it took for the Church to consolidate and launch its
thrust of anti-Semitism through the following centuries.
POPE: We cannot be in favor of it.
HERZL: Does Your Holiness know the situation of the Jews?
POPE: Yes, from my days in Mantua, where there are Jews. I have always
been in friendly relations with Jews. Only the other evening two Jews were
here to see me. There are other bonds than those of religion: social
intercourse, for example, and philanthropy. Such bonds we do not refuse to
maintain with the Jews. Indeed we also pray for them, that their spirit see
the light. This very day the Church is celebrating the feast of an unbeliever
who became converted in a miraculous manneron the road to Damascus.
And so if you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we will be
ready with churches and priests to baptize all of you.23
HERZL: [At this point Count Lippay had himself announced. The Pope bade
him be admitted. The Count kneeled, kissed his hand, and joined in the
conversation by telling of our miraculous meeting in the Bauer beer-hall
at Venice. The miracle was that he had originally intended to stay overnight
in Padua, and instead, it turned out that he was given to hear me express the
wish to kiss the Holy Fathers foot.
At this the Pope made no movement, for I hadnt even kissed his hand.
Lippay proceeded to tell how I had expiated on the noble qualities of Jesus
Christ. The Pope listened, and now and then took a pinch of snuff and
sneezed into a big red cotton handkerchief. It is these peasant touches
which I like about him best and which most of all compel my respect.
Lippay, it would appear, wanted to account for his introducing me, and
perhaps ward off a word of reproach. But the Pope said:]
POPE: On the contrary, I am glad you brought me the Signor
Commendatore.
HERZL: [As to the real business, he repeated what he had told me, until he
dismissed us:]
POPE: Not possible!
23
This would not have impressed Herzl, especially since he would have been
well aware of the notorious kidnapping of a six year old Jewish boy from
his home in Bologna, Italy, by the Roman Catholic authorities in 1858. The
reason was that since a Gentile nurse had secretly baptized Edgardo
Mortara as a baby, the Church determined that he had to be brought up
under a Roman Catholic environment. The prior Pope Pius IX was deeply
complicit in this whole sordid affair that attained to world-wide notoriety.
Refer to, David I. Kertzer, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara.
HERZL: [Lippay stayed on his knees for an unconscionable time and never
seemed to tire of kissing his hand. It was apparent that this was what the
Pope liked. But on taking leave, I contented myself with shaking his hand
warmly and bowing deeply. The audience lasted about twenty-five minutes.
While spending the last hour in the Raphael gallery, I saw a picture of an
Emperor kneeling before a seated Pope and receiving the crown from his
hands. Thats how Rome wants it.]24
When Chaim Weizman visited Rome in 1922, his several concerned

enquiries, up to the level of Cardinal Gaspari, with regard to Vatican
opposition to the Zionist movement remained unrelieved.25
THE BRITISH ENCOURAGEMENT OF ZIONISM
During the nineteenth century Great Britain witnessed not only

widespread evangelistic and missionary outreach through the agency of
Anglican and nonconformist Christianity, but also an intensity of
biblical ministry that led to focus on outreach to the Jews with parallel
eschatological concern. Consider the formation of the Church
Missionary Society (1799, Anglican), the London Society for
Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews (1809, Anglican), the Free
Church of Scotland Jewish Mission, (1840, Presbyterian), and the
British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel amongst the Jews
(1842, non-denominational).
Providence in British Millennial Fervor
During this same period, historic, pro-Judaic premillennialism and

post-millennialism were equally concerned with the future
consummation of the age in relation to the glorious personal, bodily
return of Jesus Christ. In the main, both perspectives anticipated a
climactic mass conversion of Jews along with their restoration as a
nation to the Land of Israel. Then there erupted a premillennial subset
called dispensationalism, under the leadership of John Nelson Darby
and Benjamin Wills Newton, which proposed a more specific
formulation of future events with regard to the return of Jesus Christ
and the relationship between Israel and the Church. Nevertheless, in all
of this there was a Judeo-centric focus that laid a significant foundation
24
Rosenthal, Diaries of Theodor Herzl, pp. 427-430.
25
Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error, pp. 284-286.
for integration of prophetic bible truth with political events, but
especially the secular European Zionist movement. In this regard, and
allied with the aforementioned missionary outreach, there was a
considerable number of prominent evangelical pastors and leaders who
in a variety of ways, and broadly speaking, expressed millennial
expectations with regard to the destiny of the Jew and the restoration of
national Israel. They included Charles Simeon, Lord Palmerston, the
Earl of Shaftsbury, Bishop Edward Bickersteth, British chaplain
William Hechler of Vienna, Bishop J. C. Ryle, barrister Lewis Way,
Horatius Bonar, C. H. Spurgeon, to name but a few. As the British
Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston had written to the British
Ambassador in Constantinople, as early as 1840, so that he might
encourage the Sultan to allow the migration of Jews to Palestine.
Providence in British Political Fervor and Beyond
The vastness of the British Empire and its pervasive Christian heritage
during the nineteenth century meant that a leavening effect was to be
expected at both social and political levels. A biblical mindset was
common in all aspects of English life. For this reason, a number of the
leaders of the British government, including the military, most
naturally approached the question of Palestine, as an appointed charge
of the Empire, from a biblical perspective. For instance the entry of
victorious General Allenby into Jerusalem was regarded as an
awesome event of deep significance. However, now replacement and
supercessionist theology tends to disparage this and subsequent events
that have resulted in an appointed Jewish homeland. For instance Colin
Chapman associates Zionism and its Christian devotees with implicit
violence, racial discrimination, American hegemony, and misguided
biblical fundamentalism.26 In a similar vein, Stephen Sizer brings the
accusations of colonialism, apartheid, Islamic demonization, and
dubious, selective biblical exegesis. Moreover,
the overall consequences of such uncritical support for the State of Israel,
especially among American evangelicals who identify with Christian
Zionism in larger numbers than in Britain, are inherently and pathologically
destructive. 27
26
Colin Chapman, Whose Promised Land? pp. 242-248, 262-266.
27
Stephen Sizer, Christian Zionism, pp. 202-253.
Gary Burge charges modern Israel with discrimination as an exclusivist
state, the stealing of land and water, the destruction of homes and
villages, human rights abuses, imprisonment and torture, street
violence and religious compromise,28
Not surprisingly, Chapman, Sizer and Burge (refer to Chapter Three
and Chapter Four) in varying degrees, attempt to dull the admirable
shine of the leadership roles of Lloyd George, Arthur Balfour, and
General Allenby, as well as Herzl and Weizmann, especially by means
of the attribution of naivet, secularism, cynicism and intrigue rather
than participation in authentic providential, covenantal oversight.
However we would point out that many events of that time and onward
have indicated surprising circumstances that strongly suggest divine
providence, in the midst of great conflict, that is difficult to discount.
The prompting of Herzl to seek for a national home for the Jews due to
the persecutory character of Europe, while being essentially secular,
yet involved both remarkable circumstances and Christian
encouragement. By way of providence, consider the following
sequence of events recorded by Martin Gilbert.
The Sixth [Zionist] Congress was held in Basle [August, 1903]. The idea of
Uganda instead of Palestine, even as a temporary place of refuge, led to
stormy arguments. . . . Herzl worked busily behind the scenes to win over
[Max] Nordau and to secure a majority. He succeeded: 295 for the Uganda
scheme, 175 against, and 99 abstentions. The Zionist movement was
certainly split. . . . Then in July, at the early age of forty-four, Herzl died.
He had been worn out by his frenetic, fevered, disputed labors and endless
travels. . . . The Uganda scheme was finished; Herzls death effectively
killed it, and even the British government had lost its enthusiasm.29
In the same vein, and possibly due to the savage conflict between the
British and the Jews toward the end of the Second World War, there
then came the death of President Roosevelt on April 12, 1945.
In his last weeks he had turned anti-Zionist, following a meeting with King
Ibn Saud after the Yalta Conference. The pro-Zionist presidential assistant,
David Niles, later asserted: There are serious doubts in my mind that Israel
would have come into being if Roosevelt had lived.30
28
Gary Burge, Whose Land? Whose Promises? pp. 135-164.
29
Martin Gilbert. Israel, p. 22.
30
Johnson, History of the Jews, p. 525.
We have already referenced the fateful alignment of Turkey with
Germany and the Axis powers at the commencement of World War I,
and the consequence of Britain conquering Ottoman Palestine. This
was through the notable instrumentality of General Allenby. But what
of providential espionage data he received from the NILI organization,
which title in Hebrew stands for, The Eternal One of Israel Will Not
Lie? under the bravery of Aaron and Sarah Aaronsohn?
It was very largely the daring work of the young [Aaronsohn] spies . . . ,
wrote Captain Raymond Savage, Allenbys deputy military secretary,
which enabled the brilliant Field-Marshall to accomplish his undertaking
so effectively.31
At the same time in England, consider the Christian encouragement

that came from the close acquaintance of Chaim Weizmann, a pivotal
successor of Herzl, with
the nations political leaders, including Lloyd George, Winston Churchill,
and Lord Robert Cecil. His relationship with these men was further
strengthened by a vital service he performed for the British Admiralty. In
March of 1916, Weizmann was summoned to London to help solve the
shortage of acetone, an ingredient in the naval explosive cordite. After two
years of laboratory research, he accomplished the task by devising a special
fermentation process.
The timing of the issuance of the Balfour Declaration was in itself

quite remarkable.
Even twelve months later it would not have been possible. As it was,
Weizmann pulled the Zionists through a brief window of opportunity, fated
never to open again.32
Then consider that shortly after this remarkable event:

In London, Lloyd George and Balfour thought they had taken advantage of
the most odious war in human history at least to produce some benefit: to
give the Jews a home. When Weizmann lunched with the Prime Minister
on Armistice Day he found him reading the Psalms, in tears.33
But further, not all of the Zionist leaders were wholly secular. At the
critical Paris Peace Conference of 1919, with the Jewish delegation
31
32
Johnson, History of the Jews, p. 430.
33
Ibid., p. 431.
headed by Weizmann, another of the four representatives, Menachem
Ussishkin passionately spoke in Hebrew of the God of Israel, on
behalf of over one million Jews in Russia, as follows:
Nowhere have we found rest for our weary spirit nor for our aching feet.
Persecution, expulsion, cruel riots, unbroken distresssuch have been our
lot during all these generations in all the countries of the world, and in these
very dayswhen the wielders of the worlds destiny have proclaimed the
liberation of the nations, the equality of the nations, and the self-
determination of every separate nationRussian Jewry, which I represent
here, is undergoing fresh torrents of murder and rioting the like of which
were never known even in the Middle Ages.
For us there is no way out save to receive, under your authority and subject
to your supervision, one secure place in the world where we shall be able to
renew our own lives and revive the national and cultural tradition which has
come down to us from ancient times, and where can that secure spot be
save in out historic country? Throughout all these generations we have not
ceased to yearn for it, but have prayed the God of Israel for our return
thither. Not for a moment have we forsaken our God, our tongue and our
culture.
We let ourselves be slain for these possessions of ours rather than betray
them. And on this very day I address you in our Hebrew tongue, the tongue
of our kings and prophets which we have never forgotten. This tongue is
bound up with all our national aspirations. At the beginning of the national
revival in the Land of Israel, when we had barely begun our upbuilding
work there, even before the war, we devoted our efforts to the revival of our
language and our culture.34
Then there was Sir Arthur Wauchope, British High Commissioner,

1931-1938, who was a Bible-reading Scott. In spite of later differences
that arose due to the more anti-Mandate policies emanating from
London, under his governance Weitzmann attributed to him the
greatest overall advance in Palestine.35
But further still, what shall we say of the remarkable preservation of
Israel during five major wars, all of which threatened either national
extermination or total expulsion from the Land of Israel by means of
the surrounding Arab nations? Consider just two of these victories.
34
Gilbert, Israel, pp. 41-42.
35
Sachar, History of Israel, p. 189; Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error, p.
335.
The War of Independence involved assaults and invasion from
surrounding Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and the Transjordan Arab
Legion, which formally commenced on May 15, 1948. This was the
day after David Ben-Gurion, who was to become the first Israeli Prime
Minister, declared the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine.
Early the next morning, that is on May 15, he broadcast to the United
states of America; as he spoke, the sound of Egyptian aircraft bombing
Tel Aviv could clearly be heard. Furthermore, from the very beginning
of this savage conflict, the leadership of the withdrawing British armed
forces expressed itself in unequivocably hostile terms about the
struggle of the Jewish population. Yet in spite of being disadvantaged
in terms of personnel and equipment, victory was obtained by means of
innovation and flexibility. Even so, it appeared that the fate of Israel
hung precariously in the balance. It was saved by the great and historic
leadership of Ben-Gurion leading a nation endowed with a desire to
live, and prepared to make every sacrifice to achieve this end.36
The Six Day War was prompted by Egypts closure to Israeli shipping,
of the Straits of Tiran leading to the Gulf of Aqaba, on May 22, 1967,
along with the aggressive posture of the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria
and Iraq. After a stunning pre-emptive attack by the Israeli Air Force
upon the Egyptian Air Force, and later in the day the Jordanian Air
force, 416 Arab aircraft had been destroyed, 393 of which were
destroyed on the ground; 26 Israeli aircraft had been lost in action. The
result was Israels complete superiority in the air and thus its freedom
to support advancing Israeli ground formations. Here was further
innovation and daring that surprised the world, let alone the Middle
East.37 During the same conflict, consider Major-General Israel Tals
division pushing through the Sinai wilderness. Egyptians mistook
Israeli tanks for their own and allowed Israeli paratroopers to slog
through the dunes unmolested.
Apparently someone in heaven was watching over us, remarked the
commander, Rafael (Raful) Eytan, after the war, Every unintended action
they took and every unintended action we took always turned out to our
advantage. But Israeli advances were more than a product of luck.
Egyptian intelligence had concluded that enemy movements in the sector
36
Chaim Herzog, The Arab-Israeli Wars, pp. 17-108; John Westwood, The
History of the Middle East Wars, 8-27.
37
Chaim Herzog, The Arab-Israeli Wars, pp. 145-153.
were merely diversions for the main axis of attack, opposite Rafah and
Khan Yunis.38
THE BRITISH DISCOURAGEMENT OF ZIONISM
There was great euphoria resulting from the Balfour declaration. In

1918, Lord Robert Cecil, a subsequent architect of the League of
Nations, declared that: Our wish is that Arabian countries shall be for
the Arabs, Armenia for the Armenians, and Judea for the Jews.
Winston Churchill spoke of a Jewish State by the banks of the Jordan
. . . which might comprise three or four million Jews. Jan Smuts
envisaged the rise of a great Jewish State. Balfour added that,
[t]he notion that Jewish immigration would have to be artificially restricted
in order to ensure that the Jews should be a permanent minority never
entered into the heads of anyone engaged in framing the policy. That would
have been regarded as unjust and as a fraud on the people to whom we were
appealing.39
Nevertheless the window of opportunity did begin to close. The British

Mandate of Palestine concerned territory in the Middle East, including
the modern regions of Israel, Jordan, the West Bank and the Gaza
Strip. These had formerly belonged to the Ottoman Empire, which the
League of Nations entrusted to the United Kingdom for administration
in the aftermath of World War I. However, Arab nationalist leaders
expresed growing misgivings about a scheme permitting Jews to share
even limited consultative authority with Arabs; as a result they
boycotted elections. After three failed attempts at arranging some form
of Arab and Jewish administrative cooperation, High Commisoner for
Palestine, Herbert Samuel, continued from 1923 onward as the first of
successive high commissioners who administered with almost total
authority, that is until the end of Britains tenure in 1948. In 1921,
through negotiation with Winston Churchill, that part of Palestine
named Transjordan, east of the Jordan, was separated and handed over
to the charge of Emir Abdullah from Arabia, who was thus disuaded
from interfering in Syria. In 1950 Transjordan annexed the West Bank,
declaring itself now as Jordan, and this with the recognition of the
United Kingdom. At this time, Abdullah significantly conferred
38
Michael B. Oren, Six Days of War, p. 179.
39
Jordanian citizenship on the population of the West Bank, including
the inhabitants of Arab Jerusalem.40
The Expansion of the Jewish National Home 1920-1935
The ensuing period of twenty-eight years, leading to nationhood, saw

great economic advance under British direction, indeed with a
disproportionate degree concerning Jewish productivity in that region,
along with land purchase, the reclamation of malarial swamps and
wilderness, and reforrestation. In particular the 1920s witnessed the
beginning of Jewish industry in Palestine with an attitude of near
unparalleled vigor. Along with this many Palestinian Arabs also
enjoyed unprecedented affluence, although there continued much
village poverty. One of the pioneers of this labor intensive, often
regimented program was the charismatic Joseph Trumpeldor, a Russian
dentist. The commitment he sought was from
people to serve at any cost at whatever task Palestine requires. . . . The
metal, whatever is needed to forge anything, whatever the national machine
will require Is there a wheel lacking? I am that wheel. Nails, screws, a
block? Take me. Must the land be dug? I will dig it. If there is shooting to
be done, are soldiers needed? I wil enlist. Policemen, doctors, lawyers,
teachers, water-carriers? If you please, I am ready to do it all. I am not a
person. I am the pure embodiment of service, prepared for everything. I
have no ties. I know only one command: Build.41
So that by 1930, 57 percent of Jewish land holdings had been either

swamp or land never before cultivated. Such industriousness and
resultant accomplishment even up to the present, to which the
Mamluke and Ottoman empires over the preceding eight hundred years
never remotely attained, is something that Christian anti-Judaism is
loath to acknowledge. Today, modern Israel has, by far, the highest per
capita gross domestic product in all of the countries of the Middle East,
and even those that are fabulously oil rich.
So in the 1930s a new wave of immigration brought additional Jewish
citizens and a resurgence of hope to the Land. In 1932 immigration
rose to 12,500, then 37,000 in 1933, 45,000 in 1934, and 66,000 in
1935. Between 1932 and 1935 the population of the Jewish settlement
in Palestine doubled from 185,000 to 375,000. Indeed the reputation of
40
Ibid., pp. 126-128, 434.
41
Ibid., pp. 147-148.
the kibbutz movement, as well as capitalist villages, throughout Europe
provided a kind of built-in, ongoing dynamism and encouragement for
further migration. By the end of the first decade, the Jewish share of
contributions to the public revenues totaled approximately 45 percent,
and it was the Arabs who benefited most impressively from
government expenditures. This expansionism, but preeminently the
international interest in encouraging increased migration, resulting in
the more rapid enlargement of the Jewish population, inevitably led to
growing conflict, indeed sporadic warfare between Jew and Arab.42 In
Britain as well, a cloud of diminished support had come to hover over
the Zionist cause. Within the Labor Government of Ramsay
McDonald, 1929-1935, Colonial Secretary Sidney Webb, later Lord
Passfield, one of the early founders of the Socialist Fabian Society,
bluntly told Weizmann that he opposed mass Jewish immigration to
Palestine. Not surprisingly, the subsequent Passfield White Paper of
1930 attempted revision of the Mandate, at which Winston Churchill
anathematized the document in a heated House of Commons debate.43
The Shame of British Appeasement 1935-1948
However Britain was also faced with a dilemma concerning successful

Jewish national growth and dominence on the one hand which, on the
other hand, aggravated the Arab population in the direction of rising
militancy. In 1935, upon the introduction of the Nuremberg racial laws,
Hitler received telegrams of congratulation and praise from all corners
of the Arab world. Hardly a German Arabic-language newspaper or
magazine appeared in the Middle East without a sharp thrust against
the Jews. In 1936 a major Arab revolt arose in Jerusalem, Galilee and
Samaria; there was a further revolt on 1937. These uprisings gave birth
to the formation of the Haganah defence agency, that received
professional training for three years from British Captain Orde
Wingate, a devout Christian, which in turn eventually gave rise to the
Israeli Defence Forces. At the same time there also resulted economic
Arab threatenings that would present a real problem for British
industry, especially in the realm of petroleum necessary for an
imminent Second World War. Further there was British concern that
burgeoning Germany might attract Arab loyalty which, nevertheless,
did result through the flight of the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-
42
Ibid., pp. 138-194.
43
Ibid., pp. 171-177.
Husseini, to Iraq, and Hitlers protection in Germany in 1941. He had
already provoked several Arab uprisings in Palestine during 1922-
1936. So the unchanging and ever more shrill demand of the Arabs was
for the termination of the League of Nations mandate so that
independence might be awarded to Palestine in the form of an Arab-
dominated state. To the great consternation of British Jewry, and
especially Weizmann, the White Paper of Unitarian Neville
Chamberlains government issued on May 17, 1939, indicated
appeasement was in the air. This mood was already evident in terms of
Britains willingness to yield to Germanys appetite for
Czechoslovakia and Poland, when Chamberlain returned from Munich
with the paper thin assurance of peace for our time, in September,
1938. 44 Clearly there was revisionism afoot when it was now to be
required, by means of a notorious British White Paper, that Jewish
immigration be restricted to 10,000 for each of the next five years, plus
an overall 25,000 refugees. After this no further Jewish immigration
would be permitted without Arab agreement. Further, the sale of land
to Jews was to be prohibited immediately. This declaration of British
policy was a foreclosure on any subsequent growth for the Jewish
National Home. Here was the Chamberlain governments stringent,
newly forged, anti-Zionist mandate.45
During the Second World War, humanity reached its lowest ebb when
orchestrated genocide focused on the annihilation of European Jewry.
The innauguration of the Holocaust inevitably led to the flight of Jews
who attempted various means of reaching Palestine, but especially by
ship. The shame of Britain must surely be its closure in general of
Palestine to these desperate hordes resulting in thousands perishing,
notwithstanding the thrust generated by massacres in Eastern Europe.
After some hesitancy in Britain, at the encouragement of Churchill, in
1944, a Jewish brigade was formed which served in Italy and
subsequently supplied Haganah. The end result was the service of
30,000 Jews during the war who often bore the shield of David, except
when it had to be removed upon entering the Land lest the Arabs might
be offended! The number of Arabs also serving the Allied cause was
about 12,000, though not all from Palestine. Actually Palestine
prospered at this time.
44
Martin Gilbert and Richard Gott, The Appeasers, 444 pp.
45
Parkes, Whose Land? pp. 282-301; Sachar, History of Israel, pp. 147-226.
During the three years immediately after the war, waning confidence in
British support saw a rise in Jewish terrorism through Haganah, under
Ben-Gurions direction, and the more radical Irgun, fathered by
Vladimir Jabotinsky, mentor of Menachem Begin. Both defence
agencies consorted in the blowing up of the King David Hotel in
Jerusalem, though Ben-Gurion attempted to withdraw. Weizmann
objected, but to no avail so that ninety-one were killed, including
twenty-eight British, on July 22, 1946. This was the result of 2,718
Jews being arrested in a dawn raid on Haganah, just three weeks
before. As a result, the British Government attempted a tripartite
division of the Land that was rejected by both Jews and Arabs.
Consequently, on February 14, 1947, Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin
announced that he was handing over the Palestinian problem to the
United Nations. Nevertheless bitter conflict between the British and the
Jews continued to the end of the relationship. The Jews were prepared
to establish their own state, but the Arabs refused to make any such
move since they had war plans afoot.46 Thus the only solution was
partition of Palestine according to United Nations investigation and
administration. This was agreed to by the General Assembly of the
United Nations, with Britain abstaining, on November 29, 1947. Also
Haifa was to be opened as a free port for Jewish immigration on
February 1, 1948. By March 1948, the whole country was in disorder.
Yet by a seeming miracle of providence, and in spite of virulent Arab
hatred, on May 14, 1948, in Jerusalem, the State of Israel was
inaugurated with Ben-Gurion as its first Prime Minister and Minister of
Defence. Even then, that same day, Egyptian aircraft bombed Tel
Aviv!47
THE RECOVERY OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
The Fledgling State of Israel 1948-1973
The War of Independence, 1948, immediately tested Jewish ingenuity,

flexibility, and tenacity, especially in view of outmoded equipment.
So in the first hectic weeks after the Declaration of the State, I worked
almost continuously round the clock at Sde Dov, fitting those little planes
with Venturi Tubes and basic night-flying instruments, so that they could
be used as bombers, with crude hand-made bombs chucked over the side.
46
Johnson, History of the Jews, pp. 522-524.
47
The role of these little planes, the Austers, Pipers, Fairchilds, in the first
crucial weeks before the Czechoslovakian airlift brought Messerschmitts, . .
. tends to be overlooked. But they were vital in checking the better
equipped enemys rapid advances, flying in mail and urgently needed
medical supplies to isolated areas. One of those little Austers stood
mounted on a plinth outside Sde Dov, in recognition of the role they
played. Sadly it was later removed. A great pity, as it put the inequality of
resources into perspective [as with Egyptian Spifires] and served as a
reminder of the grave danger the new little State was in, in May 1948.48
Nevertheless, after two uneasy truces and an armistice agreement

involving territory gains, in 1949 Israels control of the Negev was
now unquestioned while the State was more substantially established
having been forged in the heat of bloody war. Now a reserve army was
also created,49 and at the same time membership of Israel in the United
Nations was approved.50
The Suez and Sinai conflict of 1956, lasting but a week, was called by
one British war strategist as a work of art. Precipitated by the
incursion of murderous Arab fedayeen, closer ties between Egypt and
Syria, and ultimately Egyptian President Nassers seizure of the Suez
Canal, after six days Israel had overrun Sinai. It was found that
standard equipment for Egyptian officers was an Arabic edition of
Hitlers Mein Kampf. After fierce fighting, the capture of Sharm el-
Sheikh led to the reopening of the Straits of Tiran. Captured territory
was eventually returned subject to United Nations supervision.
Continuing economic growth was always under the shadow of
surrounding Arab neighbors. Adolph Eichman was captured, tried in
1961 and executed. A heightening of Israel-Syrian border conflict, and
Nassers Pan-Arabism, were forebodings of Israel being confronted
with enlarged threatenings.
The Six Day War of 1967 was a work of exquisite execution, in
which timing was everything. A coalition of Arab rumblings became
louder than ever, especially in view of deceptive confidence based
upon reception of large amounts of equipment and weaponry from the
Soviet Union. Apart from the summary description on pages 155-156,
concernng the spectacular opening thrust, it is well to remember the
great risk that was involved for only twelve fighter planes had been left
48
Ibid., pp. 189-190, quoting John Barrard, an oversees volunteer.
49
Herzog, Arab-Israeli Wars, pp. 105-108.
50
Sachar, History of Israel, pp. 315-353.
in Israeli air space: all the rest set out on the mission to destroy
Egyptian air power at its source. From another perspective, this was
but preliminary, even when added to the capture of the Golan Heights
and Sharm el-Sheikh by which access was regained to the Gulf of
Akaba. The ultimate, incomparable, yet bloody conquest was that of
the Old City of Jerusalem on June 7, 1967.51 Concerning this event,
Reformed theologian, R. C. Sproul, ambivalently makes an interesting
comment with regard to Romans 11:26, And in this way all Israel will
be saved.
I dont know whether this restoration is going to be sudden or gradual, or
even if it is going to follow the return of the Jews to their own land. There
is still quite a bit of debate about that. I remember sitting on my porch in
Boston in 1967, and watching on television the Jewish soldiers coming into
Jerusalem, dropping their weapons and rushing to the Wailing Wall, and
weeping and weeping. Immediately I telephoned one of my dear friends, a
professor of Old Testament theology, who does not believe that modern day
Israel has any significance whatsoever. I asked him, What do you think
now? From 70 AD until 1967, almost 1900 years, Jerusalem has been under
the domination and control of Gentiles, and now the Jews have recaptured
the city of Jerusalem. Jesus said that Jerusalem will be trodden under foot
by the Gentiles, until the fullness of the Gentiles be fulfilled. Whats the
significance of that? He replied, I am going to have to rethink this
situation. It was indeed startling.
Well, 1967 was many years ago, and we have not seen the restoration of the
Jewish nation, although we have seen the greatest concentration on
eschatology that the church has ever known. . . . Perhaps it will be another
thousand years before the Jews have complete control of Jerusalem. Maybe
present arrangements are just a temporary interlude. It is possible that the
Arabs will drive the Jews out of Jerusalem and the Jewish people will be
put in exile again, and this present attempt to recover the Promised Land
will be abortivewho knows? I dont know what the significance of it all
is. But I will tell you this: we should be watching very carefully.52
The War of Confrontation and Attrition of 1967-1970 was a work of

endurance, that is in following shortly after the spectacularly brief Six
Day War, it aimed at testing the staying power of the Israeli spirit. It
involved three borders, those of Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt. The north
Jordan valley area involved the thwarting of a Palesting Liberation
Organization and Syrian aided takeover of the Kingdom of Jordan at
the instigation of terrorist leader Yasser Arafat. Never was a man less
51
Gilbert, Israel, pp. 384-395; Herzog, Arab-Israeli Wars, pp. 143-223.
52
R. C. Sproul, The Gospel of God: Romans, pp. 191-192n.
qualified for peace recognition than he. The PLOs defeat and retreat to
Lebanon led to this countrys decimation and later occupation by
Syrian forces, and therefore increased northern threatenings to Israel.
The third and major front involved periodic conflict along the Suez
Canal. Having expelled the Russian military from Egypt, while yet
securing further military supplies. Nasser maintained strict observance
of the Suez Canal cease-fire, while exchanging spasmodic incursions
with Israel. Then there was the Egyptian sinking of the Israeli flagship,
the destroyer Eilat patrolling a distance from Port Said. In response
Israel severely attacked major Egyptian petroleum installations.
However, while rigorously training his army, Nasser craftily attempted
lulling Israel into a false sense of safety, that is until the surprise Yom
Kippur War erupted and caught the Israeli military unawares.
The Yom Kippur War of 1973, was a work of recovery, though
nevertheless a very costly one at that. There had been indications of
enemy build-up early in October of 1973 that were not well heeded.
Then at 2: p.m. on Saturday October 6, Yom Kippur, the Day of
Atonement, the holiest day of the year, when the nation was at relative
ease and religiously focused, Egypt and Syria simultaneously
unleashed a surprise attack upon the south and north of the Land. The
onslaught began with 250 warplanes that attacked unsuspecting Israeli
fortifications in the Sinai. Some 2,000 guns delivered an artillery
barrage involving 10,000 shells that fell on Israeli positions during the
first minute. In addition there was the employment of an inventory of
2,000 tanks. Egypt expected 10,000 dead Israelis at the end of the day,
though in reality it turned out to be only 208. Syria advanced with
1,400 tanks and recaptured the Golan heights along with the Israeli
base on Mount Hermon. Yet by October 8 they yielded again to the
Israelis when all lost territory was regained. On October 16, after
intense conflict on the east bank of the Suez and in the Sinai involving
fierce tank battles, Israeli troops eventually crossed the Suez Canal,
humiliated the Egyptian third army of 20,000 and surrounded it by
October 21. In spite of Russias heavy investment in the region with
weaponry, with Israels mastery of the air and both sides of the Canal a
weakened Egypt agreed to a cease-fire on October 24, brokered
between Nixon and Kissinger of the US and Brezhnev of the USSR. So
Israel recovered from a critical assault, though the cost was the loss of
2,522 lives, and a sobering investigation that followed.
Chaim Herzog significantly describes this bruising conflict of 1973 as
ushering in a new era of military conflict.53 This was certainly true,
especially on account of improved Egyptian planning. However at the
same time another new era was introduced in terms of President
Sadats subsequent visit to Jerusalem in 1977 at Prime Minister
Begins request. At that time there was also his appearance before the
Israeli parliament and then the signing of the Camp David Accords in
1978. Nevertheless his assassination by Islamic Jihadists in 1981
upheld the ongoing mood of much of the Arab world which indicated
that it was not enthused about rapprochement with the Jews. However
putting aside the successive military humiliations of Israels neighbors
since 1948, the two conflicts of 1967-1973 in particular ushered in a
radically new tactic that would call for the engagement of Europe with
the Arab cause, and that with considerable enticement. Martin Gilbert
makes a perceptive assessment concerning this very same period.
Beyond Egypt the oil-producing Arab states had found a new strength. An
oil embargo on those States that supported Israel was followed by the rise
of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), dominated
by Saudi Arabia, which used its ability to raise oil prices at will, and to
raise them to unprecedented heights, to cast the Western economies into
chaos. This spawned what came to be known as petro-dollar diplomacy,
which led to pressure being put on Israel by those States which felt
threatened (and were threatened) by a rise in oil prices if they did not act
against Israel in the diplomatic arena [emphasis added].54
The European Arab and Augustinian Resurgence
Following a succession of wars after independence that in the main

were initiated by the surrounding Arab countries and not simply the
Palestinian Arabs, the State of Israel found itself more firmly
established, both economically and militarily, than ever. This series of
conflicts also resulted in the expansion of Israels territorial
boundaries, though often followed by negotiated cut-backs. In general
it appears that the more the Arab nations raged against Israel, the more
they lost out to their increasingly industrious and prosperous neighbor.
Especially following the 1967 debacle as well as the loss of the Yom
Kipur war in 1973, the Arab nations, in licking their wounds, appear to
have conceived a new battle plan of a radically different nature. And
53
Herzog, Arab-Israeli Wars, p. 323.
54
the nature of this change of strategy has evidently had a profound
effect upon Europe in general, and as we shall note the United
Kingdom in particular, with regard to Israel and Zionism. So we now
consider post Second World War Europe from 1973 onwards and its
relation to modern Israel and its Arab neighbors, both politically and
theologically.
The witness of Eurabia by Bat Yeor.
Fundamental to an understanding of the aforementioned new Arab

strategy is a ground-breaking book by historian Bat Yeor, Eurabia,
which Sir Martin Gilbert highly commends for repeated reading.
This is a provocative and disturbing book. With all the drama of a master
writer, Bat Yeor presents a wide range of historical and contremporary
documents and facts to tell the story of how the European Union is being
subverted by Islamic hostility to the very ethics and values of Europe itself.
. . . It is also a warning to Europe not to allow the anti-American and anti-
Israel pressures to Islam to subvert Europes true values.55
By way of summary, Yeor reveals the transformation of Europe into

Eurabia as she defines it, a region of dhimmitude or non-Muslm
subjection to Islam, having become a cultural and political appendage
of the Arab/Muslim world. Eurabia is fundamentally anti-Christian,
anti-Western, anti-American, and anti-Semitic. The institution that has
been responsible for this transformation, and that continues to
propagate its ideological message, is the Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD),
developed by European and Arab politicians and intellectuals over the
past thirty years. Since 1967-1973 and the associated succession of
military defeats at the hands of Israel, a new strategy was brought into
effect by the Arab world that involved an integration of economic,
political, cultural and religious elements. In particular it involved the
transfer of culture from the Arab world to Europe, but not necessarily,
as we shall see, from Europe to the Arab world, and especially with
regard to religion. Consider two examples of this proposed Euro-Arab
Dialogue. In 1974 at the Sixth Arab Summit Conference in Algiers,
which was addressed to Western Europe, Nijmeddin Dajani, the
Jordanian minister of industry and justice
55
Bat Yeor, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, Outside back cover. Sir Martin
Gilbert is himself an acclaimed historian, his magnum opus being the
official and definitive biography of Sir Winston Churchill.
underlined the central issue as follows: as much as the Arab side attaches
utmost importance to the economic development of their countries and the
improvement of the standard of living of the Arab peoples, the Arabs were
not ready to let the Dialogue proceed at the expense of the national
interests, foremost of which was the Palestinian problem.56
Then in 1975, Dr. Ibrahim A. Obai, Saudi Arabias director of the

Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources,
aptly expressed the spirit of the Dialogue at a 1975 meeting of Euro-Arab
Cooperation experts in Amsterdam. Together as equals, the Europeans and
the Arabs can through a strategy of interdependence forge ahead to
remove the thorn in their sidesthe Israeli problemand attend to the
Herculean task ahead of them. In his statement, Political Preconditions
for Cooperation with Western Europe, Obaid stressed that for the sake of
peace, the European Community should stop all military and economic
assistance to Israel and work toward an Israeli withdrawal from occupied
Arab territories foremost of which is Jerusalem. He affirmed that it was in
the interest of Western Europe to attempt to assume a more active role in
the Middle East and this would be facilitated, if the PLO were recognized
by the European Community as the official representative of the
Palestinians. The Arab-Israeli conflict and the oil problem are not only
related but inseparable. Had it not been for the said conflict the oil weapon
would not have been unleashed, he declared.57
However, it is the religious aspect of Yeors work that especially

draws our attention. She makes it very clear that the Islamization of
Europe in the economic, political and cultural realms brings with it the
Arab Moslem desire for the Islamization of Christianity. At the same
time this has associated with it an inevitable anti-Judaism and philo-
Islamic world view concerning which an increasing number of
Christians have indicated considerable sympathy. Yeors evidence
here is voluminous, though we especially focus upon individuals she
references who have already been mentioned in Chapter Four. More
specifically the problem concerns the merging of Christianity with
Palestinianism in such a way that the Arab world gradually conquers
by stealth.
A full-blown Palestinian replacement theology was created and spread
throughout Europe, encouraged by EAD pro-PLO indoctrination. The new
56
Ibid., pp. 71-72.
57
Ibid., p. 71. This Arab/European collusion, especially with regard to
Arafats PLO, is further attested to in David Selbourne, The Losing Battle
with Islam, pp. 314, 321.
Arab Jesus unites in his Palestinianism both Muslims and Christians against
Israel. . . . Palestinianism, the new Eurabian cult, thus conferred a
theological value upon Palestinian sufferings. Palestinian victimologythe
Jewish victimization of innocent Palestinianswas drummed into the
European political conscience through the church institutions, the media,
and Eurabian networks. Arab Palestine came to symbolize the crucifixion
of Jesus by Jewish evilness. Such was the thesis preached by Kenneth
Cragg, the assistant Anglican bishop in Jerusalem from 1970 to 1973.58
Concerning politicians who suggested that Europe needed Islamic

spiritual values for its own moral regeneration, that past wars resulted
from Europes resistance to Islam in the past, the same Bishop Cragg
supported such views and also
criticized the European kings and the popes for not having cooperated with
the invading Muslim armies, a surrender which would have amounted to
collaboration in their own demise.59
It should be recalled that both Chapman and Sizer, also referenced in

Chapter Four, happily call upon Cragg in support of their own
Islamophile, pro-Palestinian, anti-Judaic bias.60
So Yeor continues and writes of some scholars who have revived
ancient Christian supercessionist writings that held that Jews had lost
all rights to their land because of the crucifixion. From the early 1970s
onward a trend developed whereby
Eastern Christian communities were blackmailed and threatened. Any
criticism of the pejorative characteristics attributed to Jews by the church
fathersespecially those of Augustine and St. Chrysostomwas
considered blasphemous by Muslims, since they are echoed in the Quran.61
Biblical history that had legitimized Israel became ever more contemptible
and discredited, unless purified of its Jewish interpretation by Palestinian
Liberation Theology. Its conceiver, canon Naim Ateek, is revered in
European Protestant Churches. Theologians aligned on Ateeks
interpretation called for a new Christian reading of the Bible, in line with
the Quran, that would expel Israel from its biblical identity as well as its
58
Ibid., p. 176.
59
Ibid., p. 189.
60
Chapman, Whose Promised Land? pp. 224-226; Sizer, Christian Zionism,
pp. 14, 259-260.
61
Bat Yeor, Eurabia, p. 186.
patrimony. These Christians believe that they would thereby obey Gods
will by helping to destroy Israel by whatever means.62
Here then is yet another anti-Judaic, anti-Zionist scholar who

Chapman, Sizer and Burge devoutly respect.63 Here also is a variation
of replacement theology that is not so far removed from the Moslem
variety whereby Christianity is both preceded by and superceded by
Islam. Consider the perspective of Ismail Raji al-Faruqi who taught at
the Universities of Chicago and Syracuse, and was a professor in the
Department of Religion at Temple University.
Islam precedes Judaism and Christianity and was present at humanitys
birth. Islam recognizes the Hebrew and Christian prophets, but only as
Muslim prophets. . . . For this reason, the Christian belief that Jesus, the
apostles, Jesus disciples and Christianity itself are related to Judaism is
according to al-Faruqia monumental error. Jesus rebelled against
Judaism precisely to restore Islam, his religion. Christianity is an outgrowth
of Islam; the Hebrew prophets, Jesus, his mother, his disciples, and apostles
were all Muslims who preached Islam. Hence, because Christians belong to
the Muslim creed, they cannot settle their relations with the Jews apart from
the Muslims.
However strange it may seem, these assertions have been constantly
affirmed and proclaimed by the dhimmi Arab Churches and supported in
Europe and America by the anti-Zionist trend in the Church and in
academia. . . . Above all, al-Faruqi warns that Christian voices allied to
Zionism must be silenced.64
Is it any wonder then that the proponents of the broad Arab agenda
delight in the supersessionist contributions of the likes of Chapman,
Sizer, Burge and Cragg to their cause.
The witness of Londonistan by Melanie Phillips.
Yet further proof of Yeors thesis is her referencing of the London

journalist Melanie Phillips, especially her analysis of the dire state of
Jewish-Christian relationships in the United Kingdom due to the
62
Ibid., p. 177.
63
Gary Burge, Whose Land? Whose Promise? pp. 104-105, 193, 214-215;
Chapman, Whose Promised Land? pp. 196, 210, 215-216, 234-235. Both of
these authors highly esteem and quote Ateeks Justice and only Justice: A
Palestinian Theology of Liberation.
64
Yeor, Eurabia, pp. 221-222.
burgeoning yet polarizing influence there of resurgent Islam. As an
example, writing under the heading of The Moral Bankruptcy of the
Church of England Phillips indicates that
Muslim records and texts testify to the usefulness of the Churches
collaboration in the anti-Israel policy. Now, terrified by Islam, the
Churches seek their security by advocating openly an anti-Israel policy.65
However even more to the point is the fact that this anti-Israel policy
is driven by replacement or supercessionist theology. Lest there be any
doubt in this regard, also refer to Appendix D: Melanie Phillips on
Replacement Theology. However, in a more recent volume by this
same author, Londonistan, Phillips makes the same essential point with
far greater emphasis. It is that the Islamization of Europe, and
especially London by way of example, has associated with it the
intentional Islamization of Christianity, particularly through the
encouragement of anti-Israel supercessionism.
One chapter in particular brings this point home. On Their Knees
before Terror deals with the cringing attitude of British clergy toward
the European thrust of Islam, as with regard to the perpetrators of the
London bombings of July 7, 2005.
The first instinct of many British clerics was to emphasize and agonize not
with the victims of the atrocity but with the community of faith in whose
names it had been committedand to deny that religion had had anything
to do with it at all.66
Concerning the origins of this capitulation, Phillips confirms the

argumentation of Neor.
The real motor behind the [Anglican] Churchs engine of Israeli
delegitimization is theologyor, to be more precise, the resurgence of a
particular theology that had long been consigned to ignominy. This is
replacement theology, sometimes known as supercessionism, a
doctrine going back to the early Church Fathers and stating that all Gods
promises to the Jewsincluding the land of Israelwere forfeit because
the Jews had denied the divinity of Christ.
65
Ibid., pp. 267, 346n. 5.
66
Melanie Phillips, Londonistan, pp. 138-139. It is interesting that although
this author had previously published in the United Kingdom, like David
Selbourne, p. 168n, difficulty concerning British acceptance for both
necessitated publication in the United States.
This doctrine lay behind centuries of Christian anti-Jewish hatred until the
Holocaust drove it underground. The Vatican officially buried it, affirming
the integrity of the Jewish people and recognizing the State of Israel. This
was because the Catholic Church faced up to the excruciating role it had
played over centuries in dehumanizing and demonizing the Jewish people,
a process which had paved the way for the Holocaust. But the Anglican
Church to conduct a similar process, leaving unaddressed and unresolved
the key issue of how in doctrinal terms it should regard the Jews. The
ancient calumny that the Jews were the murderers of God and had denied
His love thus still had resonance for Anglicans. So when Arab Christians
reinterpreted Scripture in order to delegitimize the Jews claim to the land
of Israel, this kick-started replacement theology, which roared back into the
imaginations, sermons and thinking of the Anglican Church.67
By way of example, there is an appropriate dissection of Naim Ateek,

previously referenced, along with his Sabeel Center in Jerusalem, a
source of systematic demonization of the Jewish State.68 His book
Justice and Only Justice inverts history, defames the Jews and sanitizes
Arab violence. Real anti-Semitism, says Ateek, is found within the
Jewish community in its treatment of the Palestinians. Zionism was a
retrogression into the Jews primitive past. While asserting belief in
Israels existence, it is not based upon divine revelation but on a
resolution of the United Nations.69
Next is an analysis of Colin Chapman, previously referenced. While he
may formally condemn anti-Semitism, Phillips writes that his book
Whose Promised Land? is a poisonous travesty that uses theology to
delegitimize Israel. Chapmans history grossly downplays the extent of
Arab violence against Jews in the decades of Jewish immigration to
Palestine before the state of Israel was created. It is absurd for him to
claim that no U.S. president could win without Jewish votes. Since
American Jews are overwhelmingly Democrats, the victory of Repub-
lican presidents must remain, on this theory, a complete mystery.70
Then there follows a critical review of Stephen Sizer, previously
referenced, a leading crusader against Christian Zionism. His
supercessionism is similar to that of Ateek and Chapman, though he
67
Ibid., p. 152. We would modify some elements of this statement. However
the essential thrust is true.
68
Ibid. p. 152.
69
Ibid., pp. 152-153.
70
Ibid., pp. 154-155.
vociferously asserts that Israel is fundamentally an apartheid state
because it is based on race; indeed it is even worse than South Africa.
The reason the Israelites were expelled from the land was their
breaking of the conditional Mosaic covenant with God. Being more
interested in money and power they treated the poor and aliens with
contempt. Todays Jews, it appeared, were no better!
CHRISTIAN SYMPATHY WITH ZIONISM
The Christian Zionist feels himself torn in two directions, even as did
Paul when he described the unbelieving nation of Israel in his day as
Gods beloved enemy (Rom. 11:28). There is a dual attitude
involved here whereby, on the one hand the modern State of Israel, that
is its predominant unbelieving Jewish constituency, is an enemy of
God because it continues to declare, We dont want this man [Jesus
Christ] to rule over us! (Luke 19:14). On the other hand we are told
that, at the same time, this identical modern State of Israel along with
the diaspora, is loved because of their forefathers. This tension is
further reflected in Pauls expressed frustration with the fierce
opposition of the Jews that he personally experienced (I Thess. 2:14-
16), and yet his tireless loving devotion poured out toward them, come
what may (Rom. 9:1-5).
Yet another aspect of this tension also applies with regard to the
Christian Zionists sympathy for the modern State of Israel, that is this
thriving, secular, dynamic nation in the midst of opposing, raging
nations. Nevertheless, while identifying with this ongoing travail
rooted in spiritual blindness, commiseration is also born of anticipation
of the glory, through sovereign, saving, covenantal grace, that shall
eventually overtake this same nation as the prophets have repeatedly
promised. So there will be a future consummate renovation and mani-
festation of the Jewish people by means of heaven coming down to
earth. Of course the believer in supercessionism plainly offers no such
sympathetic affection, only merciless condemnation and ultimate
extinction; he does not envisage any eschatological hope for the nation
of Israel, especially in view of his pliable use of the Old Testament.
To be sure, there is no place here for dual covenant theology since the
evangelistic mandate continues to both encourage faith in Christ and
warn the Jewish people, even as from the lips of Jesus when He
declared that, if you do not believe that I am He [the Son of God come
from the Father] you will die in your sins (John 8:18-19, 24).
The Contemporary State of Israel
We have plainly indicated that, notwithstanding Israels ongoing

rebellion and ungodliness even to date, God retains a deep covenantal
interest in His people of the flesh in the same manner that He indicated
this loyal love toward Israel as an adulterous people by means of the
Prophet Hosea (Hos. 2:14-23; 14:1-9; cf. Mal. 3:6 ). For this reason we
love the modern State of Israel, we weep over it, we desire to proclaim
to it, the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ (Tit. 2:13),
and yet we also anticipate that time when the Lord Jesus will be
welcomed by the joyous exclamation of Israel, Blessed is He who
comes in the name of the Lord (Matt. 23:37-39).
However the present status of Israel, its providential existence, its
current earthly achievements, its immersion in conflict and consequent
ceaseless groanings, have to be carefully and sensitively assessed. We
do this making comments, many of which are by no means regarded as
absolutes. So in considering current events in the Middle East, and
viewing them through the lens of the Word of God, we do this with the
perspective of cautious probability. However there are two matters we
do believe to be firm and non-negotiable. First, the present,
unbelieving, Jewish people and their national manifestation are the
object of Gods ongoing, distinct covenantal interest. Second, it is the
inviolate promise of God that the Land originally promised to Abraham
is a perpetual inheritance of the Jewish people, whether they remain in
it or are expelled from it yet again. This is a most fundamental issue
that controls any discussion concerning the claims of the Palestinian
Arabs and a just settlement of the present problems in that region.
The Israeli/Palestinian Dispute
It needs to be appreciated that the initial and continuing opposition to

the nation of Israel subsequent to its founding in 1948 was principally
that engineered by the surrounding Arab nations, not the Palestinian
Arabs. Yet this animosity was also the result of centuries of hatred
having already been poured out upon the Jew. The major Middle
Eastern wars against Israel of 1948-1949, 1956, 1967, and 1973 were
all primarily instigated by the nations of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria,
Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, and not the Palestinian Arabs. It is the Arab
world of the Middle East, holding 97.7% of that sector which, with
such virulent hatred, would wholly exclude Israel from the minuscule
territory that it occupies, it presently representing .3% of that region.
During the Sinai Campaign of 1956, Israeli Mustang P-51 pilot,
Jonathen Etkes crash landed and was captured by the Egyptians.
Interrogated and tortured, following release he returned to the wreck of
his aircraft after 1967 and commented:
[T]hey [his captors] were so full of hate. . . . The heart of the problem is
the lack of acceptance of Jews here by Arabs, he declared. This is the
heart of the problem, not the Palestinians.71
So Bat Yeor comes to a similar conclusion when she describes a major

element of EU policy toward Israel. It concerns the
Arab demand to which the EU has submitted: the internationalization of
what was essentially a regional conflict. The Israeli/Palestinian dispute
could have been settled decades ago by an adjustment of frontiers and the
integration of Arab and Jewish refugees by each side in an exchange of
populationsin the same way that many other conflicts were resolved
throughout the twentieth century [e.g. India and Pakistan]. But the Arab-
Israeli conflict has been kept alive by the imposition of unacceptable
conditions on Israel and European support for the most radical Arab leaders
[such as Yasser Arafat].72
Plainly, it was not until after the 1967 and 1973 wars that there was a
call for a separate Palestinian nation adjacent to Israel. The reason is
that from 1948 to 1967 the hope of the Arab nations was the defeat and
total expulsion of Israel from the Land. But when this hope faded, the
alternative strategy was a separate Palestinian territory that was
contemplated as a launching pad for further gains, yet never sufficient
in itself. This being the case, the proposal of a separate Palestinian state
incorporating the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is a hopeless prospect.
It is interesting to recall the early character of Transjordan, it originally
being allocated in its larger configuration for inhabitation by the
Palestinian Arabs. In 1950 Transjordan annexed the West Bank and
then declared itself to be Jordan, and this with the recognition of the
United Kingdom. It is significant that, at this time, King Abdullah
conferred Jordanian citizenship on the population of the West Bank,
including the inhabitants of Arab Old Jerusalem. However in 1967
Jordan was drawn into the Six Day War and as a result lost the West
Bank and Old Jerusalem to Israel. Consequently in 1988 Jordan
renounced all claims to the West Bank. Nevertheless it should be
71
David K. Shipler, Arab and Jew, p. 27.
72
Bat Yeor, Eurabia, p. 113.
remembered that West Bank Palestinians were formerly Jordanians.
This could have presented a window of opportunity except for the fact
that Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization mudied
the waters in 1970 when his Black September uprising against King
Hussein in Jordan was ruthlessly put down. As a result Arafat fled to
southern Lebanon which he soon took over. Also consider that after the
War of Independence armistice of 1949, the Gaza Strip remained under
Egyptian control until the 1967 Six Day War. Yet neither Jordan or
Egypt have subsequently showed any interest in absorbtion of their
Arab Palestinian relatives; rather they have fostered only aggravation
for the Jewish people. In the circumstances, Israel must remain strong
and vigilant until such time as Arab leadership should turn from its
fiercely anti-Judaic ways.
Christian Zionist Involvement in the Cause of Israel
Christian Zionists are often challenged concerning any degree of

political and material support they might offer to the cause of the
Nation of Israel. This criticism frequently suggests that such practical
aid leads to a neglect of evangelism. Indeed, Augustinian-like, there is
also the intimation that the Jews should be kept in a state of constant
humiliation; prosperity and independence would only reinforce their
unbelieving ways! How this attitude of the Gentiles would make the
Jews jealous, as is Pauls hope in Romans 11:14, defies understanding,
especially when the Apostle rather encourages merciful interest (Rom.
11:18-20), even as is the divine intent (Rom. 11:31-32). However when
brought down to a more personal level, such an objection borders on
pharisaism that would make even the Good Samaritan blush. Yet on
the other hand we are told that practical support for the political and
material improvement of the downtrodden Palestinians, often in
socialist and neo-Marxist terms, is to be considered ethically noble!
To highlight the problem here, as Christians our desire for the
conversion of a dearly loved relative calls for patience and sensitivity
to earthly needs that ought to be boundless. Yet would we nevertheless
shy away from offering such care, when this dear one is in deep need,
since it might distract us from the priority of witnessing to them about
the gospel? Yes, the gospel is for the spiritually poor and captive and
blind and oppressed (Luke 4:18), and certainly modern Israel qualifies
in this regard. But for the Christian to suggest that political and
material support should be restricted, is quite outrageous, and is
thoroughly condemned in James 2:15-17. This is not to suggest that all
Israeli policy should be blindly supported, as some would suggest
though rarely prove. Nevertheless, in spite of the tireless efforts of
supercessionists to evacuate Genesis 12:3 of its plain teaching, I will
bless those who bless you, I will curse those who treat you with
contempt (cf. Gen. 27:29; Zech. 2:8), and the Pauline priority of going
first to the Jew (Rom. 1:16), so we adamantly maintain that the Jew
in the flesh is to be treated with a special kindness. And experience
undoubtedly proves that this approach is far more likely to gain a
respectful hearing.
The Consummate State of Israel
Ultimately Christian Zionism represents a most glorious hope that even

Israel after the flesh does not faintly grasp today. Nor can
supercessionism, with its hermeneutics of divestment, finally subtract
from the eschatological luster that is to come. The reason is that Zion
will be the dwelling place of the Lord Jesus Christ, through which
entrance gates only the objects of saving grace will enter and behold
His glory and praise His name (Ps. 9:11, 14; 102:12-13, 16, 21; Isa.
46:12-13). At that time Israel will weep over its tragic past (Zech.
12:10-14), yet the children of Zion will also rejoice in their King (Ps.
149:2) This city is to be the joy of the whole earth, the city of the great
King (Ps. 48:1-2). There will be a reversal of former dispersal and
desolation. The wilderness will become like Eden, the desert will
become like the garden of the Lord, discomfort will yield to gladness
and singing. The scattered will return to Zion with joy while sorrow
and sighing will vanish (Isa. 51:3, 11). Then the inhabitants will be told
by the Lord, You are My people (Isa. 51:3, 11, 16). So evangelists
will proclaim to the future heirs of Zion, Your God reigns! Isa. 52:7-
8). Then the Lord will roar from Zion in declaration of His being a
refuge for His people while they will be reassured of their security
under His dominion (Joel 3:16-17, 21). So Zion will become a place of
worship, of instruction, and outreach to the nations (Mic. 4:2-3). For
this reason Zion will also be called the City of Truth, the mountain of
the Lord of hosts, the Holy Mountain (Zech. 8:2-3).
Let Zions time of favor come;
Oh, bring the tribes of Israel home;
And let our wandering eyes behold
Gentiles and Jews in Jesus fold.
William Shrubsole, 1759-1829
178 Israel and anti-Judaic Hermeneutics in History
Chapter Six
ISRAEL and Christian anti-Judaic

Hermeneutics in history
I N Chapter Three, but particularly Chapter Four, it was alleged by a

number of scholars that the disqualification of national Israel,
according to the broken terms of the Old Covenant, led to transference,
via imagery, of its promised blessings to the New Testament people of
God. As a result, a new, distinctive, even apostolic principle of
interpretation arose. In simple terms it was the necessity of focusing on
the Old Testament text through the clarifying lens of Jesus Christs
New Testament revelation. The argument runs that because New
Testament writers appear to have freely interpreted many passages in
the Old Testament revelation christologically and eccelsiologically,
then we must employ this same hermeneutical method in interpreting
the Old Testament as a whole, and its eschatology as well. In other
words, by a process of reinterpretive imposition, the revelation of
Jesus Christ has nullified a normative literal understanding of the Old
Testament. However, before we take a closer look at this interpretive
methodology, really an upgraded Origenistic and Augustinian
hermeneutic, some further historical background concerning its origin
will prove helpful.
REFORMED CONNECTION WITH ROMAN CATHOLICISM
Numerous Reformed writers have been inclined to boast in the fact

that their amillennial eschatology has a long-standing heritage going
back to Augustine. They claim, and rightly so, that following the
fourth century, subsequent centuries witnessed the overwhelming
dominance of their essential prophetic perspective. Thus the
illustrious, indeed God-blessed Reformation perpetuated this inherited
eschatology, notwithstanding the fact that not only the gospel, but also
the doctrine of the church, were subject to considerable, indeed radical
change and apostolic recovery at that time. For example, contemporary
conservative Reformed writer Kim Riddlebarger make this point most
emphatically when He writes of amillennialism as the historic
Israel and anti-Judaic Hermeneutics in History 179
Protestant understanding of the millennial age.1 And he does it in
such a way that one is led to believe that to be Reformed in the fullest
sense of that term is to be amillennial. Thus Augustinian eschatology,
channeled through Luther, ought to be regarded as the traditional
scheme of prophetic revelation, and implicit is Riddlebargers belief
that the vagaries of premillennialism, repudiated as carnal chiliasm,
along with its dispensational subset, should yield to the more historic
stream. Thus:
The Protestant orthodox also used the more polemical term chiliasmus
crassissimus, the grossest millennialism, regarding those who stressed
the earthly and Jewish elements of the millennial age, much like
contemporary dispensationalists. Most Protestants regard chiliasm as
incompatible with Reformation orthodoxy. This may come as a surprise to
many American evangelicals, who assume that Bible-believing Christians
throughout the centuries have held to premillennialism.2
For the believer of Reformed convictions, there is a strong allegiance

to historical roots and continuity, especially insofar as connection with
the historic Reformation is concerned, distinctively emanating from
Wittenberg, Geneva and Westminster. So we further read:
First given systematic expression by Augustine in his famous City of God,
amillennialism developed a distinctive Reformed emphasis. . . . Because
amillennialism has its roots deep in historic Christianity, when it comes to
comparing amillennialism with dispensationalism, clearly the burden of
proof lies with dispensationalists to prove their case. Evangelicals often
assume the opposite. It should also be noted that all major thinkers in
Christian history have held something akin to the amillennial position (e.g.
Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin). This does not mean that
amillennialism is true simply because it has historical support within
Catholic Christianity and historic Protestantism. Nevertheless this is an
impressive point, which is often not considered.3
However, such claims call for a response that clearly exposes, not
grounds for boasting, but rather the shameful legacy of historic
amillennialism which is in reality the eschatology of Roman
Catholicism. We read today from writers such as Chapman, Burge,
Palmer Robertson and Sizer, already reviewed, that the Christian
Church has, through inheritance, become the New Israel of God.
1
Kim Riddlebarger, A Case for Amillennialism, p. 11.
2
Ibid., p. 20.
3
Ibid., p. 32.
Nevertheless such language is nothing new according to Roman
Catholicism. Consider the following:
1. In fact, from the beginning of his ministry, the Lord Jesus instituted
the Twelve as the seeds of the new Israel and the beginning of the
sacred hierarchy.4
2. As Israel according to the flesh which wandered in the desert was
already called the Church of God (2 Esd. 13:1; cf. Num. 20:4; Deut.
23:1 ff.), so too, the new Israel, which advances in this present era in
search of a future and permanent city (cf. Heb. 13:14), is called also the
Church of Christ (cf. Mt. 16:18).5
3. Modern Israel is not the true heir of the biblical Israel, but a secular
state. . . . Therefore, the Holy Land and its sacred sites belong to
Christianity, the true Israel.6
4. His [Jesus Christs] intention in employing the term [qahal], hitherto
used of the Hebrew people viewed as a church, to denote the society He
Himself was establishing cannot be mistaken [Matt. 16:18]. It implied
the claim that this society now constituted the true people of God, that
the Old Covenant was passing away, and that He, the promised
Messias, was inaugurating a New Covenant with a New Israel.
Hebrew prophecy relates in almost equal proportions to the person and
to the work of the Messias. This work was conceived as consisting of
the establishment of a kingdom, in which he was to reign over a
regenerated Israel. The prophetic writings describe for us with precision
many of the characteristics which were to distinguish that kingdom.
Christ during His ministry affirmed not only that the prophecies
relating to the Messias were fulfilled in His own person, but also that
the expected Messianic kingdom was none other than His Church.
In the Apostolic teaching the term Church, from the very first, takes
the place of the expression Kingdom of God (Acts, 5:11). Where others
than the Jews were concerned, the greater suitability of the former
name is evident; for Kingdom of God had special reference to Jewish
beliefs. But the change of title only emphasizes the social unity of the
members. They are the new congregation of Israel -- the theocratic
4
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Para. 877. (Second Vatican Council,
1992).
5
Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, Chapter II, The People of
God, 1964.
6
LOsservatore Romano, May, 1948. Cited in David Selbourne, The Losing
Battle With Islam, p. 424.
polity: they are the people (laos) of God (Acts, 15:14; Rom., 9:25; II
Cor. 6:16; I Peter 2:9; Heb. 8:10; Rev. 18:4; 21:33).7
However, since the time of Augustine, the amillennial doctrine of the

supercession of national Israel by the Christian church has resulted in
the vilification of the Jewish people, over the centuries, that has not
excluded participation by Reformed individuals and congregations,
notwithstanding some notable exceptions. It is interesting to consider
that more recently, while within the Roman Catholic Church there has
been some sorrowful confession of this tragic heritage (refer to Callan,
Carroll, Flannery, Hay, Mussner and Remaud in Appendix E), those of
conservative Reformed convictions have appeared to be reluctant to
confront the ethical shame of their eschatological roots. Of course the
Roman Catholic Church, notwithstanding Nostra Aetate of Vatican II,
in which anti-Semitism was denounced,8 nevertheless continues to
maintain that it is the new Israel. Thus the root of the Church of
Romes problem here has not been excised.
Indeed it is interesting to learn of other Christian denominations that
have more recently repudiated anti-Judaism in a confessional sense. As
examples, Michael Vlack refers to the Central Board of the Swiss
Protestant Church Federation, the Mennonite European Regional
Conference, the Synod of the Evangelical Church of the Rhineland, the
Texas Conference of Churches, the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), though associated with disinvestment
concerning Israel, that have issued a variety of high-sounding
statements repudiating replacement theology in one form or another.
Nevertheless none of these specifically declare agreement with Israels
7
The Catholic Encyclopaedia, 1908, (Internet sourced).
8
True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for
the death of Christ (John 19:6): still, what happened in His passion cannot
be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against
the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews
should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed
from the Holy Scriptures. . . . [T]he Church, mindful of the patrimony she
shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel's
spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism,
directed against Jews at any time and by anyone. October 28, 1965.
Documents of Vatican II Council (Internet sourced).
divine covenantal rights in terms of ethnicity, nationality, and
territory.9
However those of a Reformed persuasion are faced with the
embarrassment of alignment with a sordid eschatological lineage (refer
to Chapter Two: Israel - and Centuries of Christian anti-Judaism) and
the alternative of alignment with divine, uncompromising recognition
of National Israel in the present, after the manner of Romans 11:28.
This would also involve the recognition of divine acknowledgment of
Jewish ethnicity, nationality and territory as being intrinsic to the
modern Hebrew people of God, notwithstanding their unbelief. The
dilemma then concerns an eschatological vision that inescapably draws
close to a broad premillennial perspective with regard to Israel,
especially concerning the interpretation of passages such as Ezekiel
36-37, Zechariah 14 and Romans 11. On the other hand there is the
disgraceful eschatology that has dominated Augustinian, Roman
Catholic and Reformed church history for centuries.
ISRAEL AND JUDEO-CENTRIC PREMILLENNIALISM UP TO THE REFORMATION
The classic eschatological distinction for centuries was between the

supercessionism of Augustine, as reflected in his City of God, and
chiliasm that was often maligned for its alleged carnality and Judeo-
centricity. As will be demonstrated, undoubtedly chiliasm, and
subsequent premillennialism, have continued to uphold a closer
identity with the perpetuation of the Jewish people as a nation having a
distinct eschatological hope. This being so, and in the light of the
theological anti-Judaism that flowed forth with dominant influence out
of Augustines eschatology, it is easier to understand how
premillennialism suffered belittlement, Cinderella like, as a
consequence. Over the centuries that led up to the Reformation, the
commanding influence of classic amillennialism was not a matter of
choice according to the free biblical enquiry of Christians in general.
During this period, the normative eschatology was upheld by the
ecclesiastical powers, according to the lineage of Augustine and
Aquinas, and it admirably suited the perpetuation, indeed the
consolidation of the Church triumphant on earth as the new Israel that
9
Michael J. Vlach, The Church as a Rplacement of Israel: An Analysis of
Supercessionism, Ph.D. diss., Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary,
May 2004, pp. 72-75.
was rigidly intolerant of any suggestion of a revived and regenerated
old Israel. Thus, upon the dawning of the Reformation,
[i]n the sixteenth century, the rejection of the doctrine of a future terrestrial
millennium was so common in Puritanism, and in Protestantism more
generally, that it represented a mainstream position at the time. Luther and
Melanchthon, Zwingli and Bullinger, and Calvin and Beza repudiated the
millenarian doctrine, as did the Elizabethan Anglicans John Bale and John
Foxe and their Puritan contemporaries Thomas Cartright and William
Perkins. These and other amillennialists, as they are often called, either
assigned the millennium to a past historical epoch that antedated the
supposed corruption of the apostolic church by Roman Catholicism, or saw
the millennium as the whole period of the Christian dispensation between
the incarnation and the second coming, or regarded the millennium as a
purely spiritual condition existing only in heaven or perhaps in the souls of
living believers. But in the early to mid-seventeenth century, this
amillennialist consensus unraveled as the idea of a future millennium on
earth gained popularity, particularly in Reformed circles.10
Only with the advent of printing and the freedom to publish that
coalesced during the early seventeenth century did a more independent
pastorate result and the people at all stratas find themselves exposed to
a revival of more millennial interpretations of Scripture, especially as
eventually designated as premillennialism and postmillennialism.
ISRAEL AND JUDEO-CENTRIC PREMILLENNIALISM BEYOND THE REFORMATION
In broad terms, the eschatology of the late sixteenth century

perpetuated Augustinianism, the result being that chiliasm continued to
be associated with certain extremist segments of Anabaptism.
However the seventeenth century introduced an openness to millennial
speculation that has continued to the present, though the reason for this
eruption and consequent flurry of discussion is a matter that has
already been indicated briefly in Chapter Two with regard to
Puritanism. At the conclusion of Crawford Gribbens published
doctoral thesis, he draws attention to the observations of Christopher
Hill which prove to be most enlightening. Their significance calls for
their being referenced in greater detail at this juncture.
10
Richard W Cogley, The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Restoration
of Israel in the Judeo-centric Strand of Puritan Millenarianism. Church
History, 72:2 (June 2003), pp. 306-307.
If, as [Christopher] Hill claims, English Calvinism was crumbling in the
1590s, then after the 1640s both strict church discipline and Calvinist
theology finally lost their grip: Calvinism broke down when the
Revolution established freedom of discussion. . . . The revolutions
literary implications were also enormous. . . . As Thomas Manton noted in
1655, The press is an excellent means to scatter knowledge, were it not so
often abused. All complain there is enough written, and think that now
there should be a stop. Indeed, it were well if in this scribbling age there
were some restraint. Useless pamphlets are grown almost as great a
mischief as the erroneous and profane. Hill has noted that, The collapse
of censorship saw a fantastic outpouring of books, pamphlets and
newspapers. Before 1640, newspapers were illegal; by 1645 there were
722. Twenty-two books were published in 1640; over 2,000 in 1642. As
both sides in the Civil War appealed for support from the ordinary people,
the issues at stake had to be discussed. But it went farther than that . . . No
old shibboleths were left unchallenged in this unprecedented freedom.
Perhaps Owen had been right in hoping we might have less writing, and
more praying.11
The result was a resurgence of millennialism that continued to be

opposed by much of the Anglican, European Reformed and Lutheran
establishments. Nevertheless,
[o]n the Continent, the key figures in the transition to millenarianism were
two German Reformed theologians, Johann Piscator and Johann Heinrich
Alsted; and in England, they were Thomas Brightman and Joseph Mede, an
Anglican whose influence on the emergence of Puritan millenarianism was
profound.12
Thus as eschatological study of Scripture and resultant speculation

fomented fresh discovery, two distinctive schools of millennialism
emerged and came to the fore. There was premillennialism, which
anticipated the future return of Jesus Christ just prior to the
commencement of his earthly thousand year reign, and
postmillennialism, which anticipated the future earthly thousand year
millennium at the end of which Jesus Christ would personally return to
earth. However, the three major eschatological traditions which the
Christian church has developeda-, pre- and postmillennialismeach
found expression within the puritan movement.13
11
Crawford Gribben, The Puritan Millennium, pp. 194-195.
12
Cogley, Judeo-centric Strand of Puritan Millenarianism, p. 307.
13
Gribben, The Puritan Millennium, p. 16.
Wilhelmus Brakel
A further example of a more pro-Judaic, European eschatology that

broke forth during the seventeenth century was that expressed by
Wilhelmus Brakel (1635-1711), an esteemed Dutch Reformed
theologian who ministered in Rotterdam, Holland, having
eschatological views that contrasted with the more standard
Augustinian variety. Willem VanGemeren explains that, in objecting
to Calvin, Brakel held that,
[t]he Church could not be identified with the New Israel. When Paul wrote
about all Israel (Rom. 11:25) he was referring to the nation, and not the
totality of the church and national Israel. This rejection of Calvin was also
found in Brakels contemporaries. Brakel expected all twelve tribes to
repent and express faith in Jesus as the Messiah. He also held that the Jews
would be privileged to return to their land. The promise of the land is not
just a type of the eternal rest or of heaven, rather it is part and parcel with
the covenant of grace which God made to and affirmed with Israel. Brakel
kept Israel and church together.14
Brakels whole tone is also particularly Pauline since it breathes a

tenderness that at the same time did not see the necessity of denying
Jewish distinctiveness. So he wrote:
Will the Jewish nation be gathered together again from all the regions of
the world and from all the nations of the earth among which they have been
dispersed? Will they come to and dwell in Canaan and all the lands
promised to Abraham, and will Jerusalem be rebuilt?
We believe that these events will transpire. We deny, however, that the
temple will be rebuilt, and that therein the previous mode of worship will
be observed, which prior to Christs coming was of a typifying nature and
would then be of a reflective nature. We also deny that Israel will then have
dominion over the entire worldand other such things which the Jews
imagine and some Christians dream about. Rather, they will be an
independent republic, governed by a very wise, good-natured, and superb
government. Furthermore, Canaan will be extraordinarily fruitful, the
inhabitants will be eminently godly, and they will constitute a segment of
14
Willem VanGemeren, Israel as the Hermeneutical Crux in the
Interpretation of Prophecy, Westmnster Theoloical Journal, 45 (1983), pp.
142-143.
the glorious state of the church during the thousand years prophesied in
Revelation 20.15
It is notable that, like Jonathan Edwards referenced in Appendix E, for

Brakel the unity of the redeemed people of God will yet comprise a
diversity, incorporating territory, in which Israel is a distinctive part of
the whole. What is also significant concerning Brakels belief in the
regenerate future of National Israel is his evident loving attitude,
without compromise concerning Israels unbelief, that is manifest in
his consideration of how Christians should respond to the unbelieving
Jew. Surely his kindly temperament was the result of his Judeo-centric
eschatology. Consider his:
Various Reasons Given for Focusing upon the Conversion of the Jewish
Nation.
(1) Attentively observe the immutability of the covenant God made with
Abraham and his seed. Consider that God, in spite of all their sins and
stiffneckedness under it, does not break His promise nor will He permit any
of the good words spoken to them to fall to the earth.
(2) Do not despise the Jewish nation. Boast not against the branches
(Rom. 11:18), the natural branches of that olive tree into which you, as
branches of a wild olive tree, have been grafted contrary to nature. Be not
high-minded, but fear (Rom. 11:20). 1) They have received more than
enough contempt from the unconverted. 2) They are in one and the same
covenant with Abraham, their father. 3) They are beloved for the fathers
sakes (Rom. 11:28). Therefore, let there be the love of benevolence
toward them. They are the children of the covenant (Acts 3:25). 4) They
will once be converted and be a glorious and holy people above all the
nations on the face of the earth. Therefore, esteem, honor, and love them.
(3) Have pity upon their state, which is so wretched according to the flesh,
being despised and detested among the nationsthis is a righteous
judgment of God upon them for their rejection of Christ. They hate the
Lord Jesus, the true Messiah, with an evil hatred, and are living without the
true religionyes, have a religion which does not even resemble a religion.
Nevertheless, they find a wonderful delight in it; thus they live in a state in
which they cannot be saved, but have nothing to look forward to but eternal
damnation.
15
Wilhelmus Brakel, The Christians Reasonable Service, IV, pp. 530-531.
From a premillennial perspective, one does not have to agree with
Brakels postmillennialism and the common optimism of that new
world period to nevertheless admire his loyalty to the Scriptures
concerning a godly, distinctive and territorial future for national Israel.
(4) Pray for their conversion. How they have prayed for the conversion of
the Gentiles! How they rejoiced in the prophecies that one day the Gentiles
would be converted! Therefore, you ought to do likewise for their
conversion, for you can pray this in faith, since they will certainly be
converted.
(5) By way of a holy life show that you are walking in the footsteps of their
father Abraham. The life of so many so-called Christians offends them and
keeps them from exercising faith in Christ. They do not know, except it be
to a very limited extent, that among Christians there are presently many
who fear and love Jehovah, the God of Israel. Therefore, manifest the
image of Christ by way of a holy walk, so that they may be convicted by it
and yet be aroused to jealousy. Occasionally make use of opportunities to
speak in a friendly manner with them, making your affection known to
them, as well as your anticipation of their restoration in Canaan. Speak to
them about the Lord Jesus by the name of Messiah. Speak of the
dreadfulness of sin and of eternal damnation to follow upon sin, and show
this from the Scriptures of the Old Testament if you are able to do so.
Show them that man cannot be justified before God by works, and that all
their deeds cannot justify them. Show then from the Old Testament that the
Messiah would make satisfaction for sin by His death, reconcile God with
man, and convert souls, proving this from Isaiah 53, 61, and Daniel 9. The
fact is that in doing so you have done your duty, and it will be a delight to
your soul that you have done so. Be very careful not to quarrel, however,
thereby giving them an opportunity to slander and grieve you by their
diatribe.16
Luthers Eschatological Legacy
The inheritance from the Augustinian tradition that modern Europe

received, notwithstanding the opposition of Melanchthon and others to
Luthers excesses, resulted in the continuance of an eschatology that
upheld the essentially anti-Judaic thesis, namely the transference of
blessings, formerly promised to Israel, to the Christian church for its
fulfillment. As a consequence, the Jew continued to be an offence to
western civilization, especially within Europe, a claimant forever
disinherited of his Jewishness. And the Catholic, Protestant and
Reformed churches gave encouragement to this anti-Judaic course.
However the end result was a Germany that, having shaken the world
with its call back to biblical Christianity, yet became the shame of the
world whereby it caused the name of God to be blasphemed amongst
the Jews. Thus Robert Wistrich concludes:
16
Ibid., pp. 534-535.
The German Reformation, under Luthers guidance, therefore led in a very
unfavourable direction for the Jews, when compared with parallel
developments in English, Dutch or Swiss Protestantism. The seed of hatred
sown by Luther would reach its horrible climax in the Third Reich, when
German Protestants showed themselves to be particularly receptive to Nazi
anti-Semitism.17
Evidence of continuity concerning this eschatological lineage is not

difficult to find. Consider a contemporary expression of Luthers
Augustinian anti-Judaism as confessed by The Lutheran Church
Missouri Synod, that is, A Report of the Commision on Theology and
Church Relations on The End Times, A Study on Eschatology and
Millennialism, published in 1989. Here it is stated that, [t]he
eschatology presented in The Lutheran Confessions is clearly
amillennialist.18 The whole content of this document adds unqualified
support to this statement. Then in an Excursus Regarding the Jews,
anti-Semitism is nevertheless repudiated while at the same time we are
told that, Martin Luther, in his last sermon, said concerning the
attitude of Christians toward the Jewish people, We want to treat them
with Christian love and to pray for them, so that they might become
converted and would receive the Lord.19 However, what is unsaid
here is just as significant, for Williamson also explains that, Luthers
last sermon, preached a few days before his death, importunately
appealed that all Jews be driven from Germany.20 Then The End
Times Report concludes:
Believing Jews, together with Gentiles, constitute the New Israel. In Christ
there is neither Jew nor Greek (Gal. 3:28). In speaking of the place of
Jews within saving history, the Scriptures do not ascribe a political
fulfillment to Old Testament texts which deal with the future of Israel.
The modern Israeli state is not the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.
The view of an earthly millennium with the temple rebuilt cannot be
substantiated. Quite simply the Scriptures are silent regarding modern
political events in the Middle East and any Jewish right to the land there.
17
18
The End Times, A Study on Eschatology and Millennialism. A Report of
the Commission on Theology and Church Relations of The Lutheran
ChurchMissouri Synod, September, 1989, p. 7.
19
Ibid., p. 38.
20
Williamson, Has God Rejected His People? p. 102.
Judgments concerning such matters are therefore not theological
questions.21
So, as we have already seen (page 115), the exegesis of Lutheran

commentator R. C. H. Lenski follows the same course. In a similar,
though more vociferous vein, the eschatology of Herman Otten, editor
of the Lutheran Christian News, has been vehemently anti-Judaic in
doctrine, and especially so with regard to the modern State of Israel.
Yet again, also consider Francis Piepers Christian Dogmatics (1953),
a standard Missouri Synod work, which is thoroughgoing in its
amillennialism. Here theological anti-Judaism plainly rears its head.
Pieper opposes the modern State of Israel because its establishment
will
divert the attention of the Jews from the Gospel which in their dispersion
they now hear and are to believe to a future age. This pernicious effect is
intensified if this dream of a future time of the Jews is made attractive to
them by promises of Jewish nationalism, a return to, and possession of, the
land of their forefathers, and a rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, with
re-establishment of its elaborate worship. One of the many deplorable
consequences of the World War is the promise of the Allies to give
Palestine to the Jews as their national home. Instead of repenting of their
sins and believing in the Messiah who has come, the Orthodox Jews dream
of a return to Palestine and the rebuilding of the Temple with its worship
(Zionism), and the Reform Jews envision a spiritual domination of the
world by Jewish intellectual superiority and erudition, to be achieved by
means of a Jewish university on the Mount of Olives.22
What further proof is needed of the shameful eschatological spirit of

Augustine living on in Augustinian Lutheranism? While the Bishop of
Hippo rejected the concept of extreme persecution of the Jews, that is
elimination, yet he favored their being kept in subjection and
impoverishment.23 So Pieper would similarly have them remain as
vagabonds for their own spiritual good! The whole spirit of this
doctrinal expression is repugnant in the light of Romans 11:18-20.
21
The End Times Report, p. 39.
22
Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, III, p. 533-534.
23
James Carroll, Constantines Sword, p. 385.
Departure from Luther
By the time of the late seventeenth century, the creedal formulation of

Lutheranism, along with its cool dogmatic orthodoxy, had resulted in a
nation in spiritual decline which gave birth to the pietistic movement.
It was prompted by Philipp Jacob Spener, of Frankfurt and Berlin, he
being concerned about the spiritually bleak and parched state of
Lutheranism.
The utterly depressed condition of religious life in Germany, the almost
universal immorality in the universities, the almost complete destitution of
edificatory preaching, and the almost lack of other means of awakening
and stimulating spiritual life, remaining unchanged, Spener attempted to
bring about a reformation (1666 onward). Personal conversion, even in the
case of ministers of the gospel, seems not to have been expected. Baptism,
administered in infancy, was supposed to have magical efficacy in
procuring salvation; and the partaking of the body and blood of Christ in
the Supper was supposed to be a means of grace even in the cases of the
most immoral and irreligious.24
While Spener considered himself a dwarf when compared with

Luthers stature, yet he maintained that standing on the shoulders of
this giant he was enabled to see further ahead. He was pained when
Lutherans spoke evil of Luthers Reformation, nevertheless he was
also insistent on ongoing spiritual reform that believed in the necessity
of personal sanctification and piety.25 Joined by A. H. Franke, a new
movement grew that included the founding of the University of Halle
and a large growing body of pastors. Through Speners godson, Count
Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, there developed the Herrnhut
community, which was influential in the ministry of John Wesley.
Of particular interest here is the fact that the pietistic movement lead to
a more millenarian emphasis which also resulted in greater tolerance
toward the Jews. This contrasted with the Augsburg Confession,
Article XVII, which condemned those, who now scatter Jewish
opinions, that, before the resurrection of the dead, the godly shall
occupy the kingdom of the world, the wicked being every where
24
Albert Henry Newman, A Manual of Church History, II, p. 525.
25
K. James Stein, Philipp Jakob Spener, Pietist Patriarch, pp. 264-265.
suppressed.26 Spener evidenced a mild postmillennialism27 that went
hand-in-hand with a stemming of the tide of anti-Semitism in his day.
It has been suggested that Spener, in Frankfurt, treated the Jewish people
not only as potential Christians, but also as neighbors assigned by God. . . .
[His] forthright and frequent denunciation of the teasing and mobbing of
Jewish people on the streets by Christian children caused that malicious
practice to occur with less frequency. . . . Spener replied affirmatively to
the question, Can Christian midwives attend Jewish women? . . . Spener
in numerous later opinions advised against expulsion of Jews or abolition
of their synagogues. . . . Spener was a promoter of Christian missions to
Jews. He himself baptized a number of Jewish converts to Christianity at
Frankfurt. He conceded, however, how difficult it was to help these people,
now bereft of family and position, to recapture financial security. He,
therefore, concluded that reborn Christians could best help in this difficult
task by living out their faith in love-filled lives that would make the Gospel
attractive to Jews.28
As we have already seen with Brakel, here is further proof that

Judeo-centric doctrine, in giving right biblical acknowledgment of the
Jew even in unbelief, while having evanglism in mind, is best suited
for the production of a loving attitude toward the Jew. Hence a
scholarly lineage of Lutheran premillennialists developed that included
Bengel, Zahn, Delitzsch, Godet, Auberlen, and Rothe, along with van
Osterzee being Dutch Reformed. Thus American Lutherans were
aware of these European theologians. Some Lutherans emigrating to
America brought these millennialistic views with them.29 They were
more likely those having a background of Lutheran pietism. In the
United States, three particular Lutherans were influential in the
stimulation of premillennialism that was Judeo-centric. They were
Samuel Simon Schmucker, Joseph Seiss, and George N. H. Peters.
Reformed Development
However, on a much larger scale, the Reformed movement maintained

its allegiance to Augustinian eschatology which especially found
authoritative expression in the writings of Francis Turretin (1623-
26
Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, III, p. 18.
27
John M. Brenner, American Lutheran Views on Eschatology and How They
Related to the American Protestants, p. 6. Internet sourced.
28
Stein, Philipp Jacob Spener, pp. 246-247.
29
Brenner, American Lutheran Views on Eschatology, p. 6.
1687), who studied at Calvins Academy in Geneva where he later
taught for thirty years. His monumental Institutes of Elenctic Theology
became the epitome of Reformed doctrine. Not surprisingly his
quotations of Augustine are copious, even far exceeding references to
Calvin. Consequently Turretins eschatology is almost predictable.
With regard to the prophetic expectations of Israels restoration, that is
beyond the return from Babylon,
the expressions are not to be pressed literally because they are symbolical,
not proper; typical, not literal; to be explained spiritually and not carnally.
Israel is to be restored, not according to the flesh and letter, but according
to the promise and spirit (Rom. 9); the holy city, not Jerusalem, but the
church.30
Certainly there will be a remarkable conversion of the Jews before the

end of the world,
not that all will be converted, but that many will . . . (although we cannot
be certain either in what way or when precisely it will take place). . . . But
whatever that calling of them shall be, a restitution of the Jewish polity in
the land of Canaan is not to be dreamed of. . . . Besides, this polity was to
last only until Christ. . . . Finally, if God had wished to restore that polity,
he would not have suffered it to be abolished for so long a time (for over
sixteen centuries).31
Of course such a mass incorporation into the church of Christ is to the

exclusion of any perpetuation of Jewish identity. Thus in classic
Augustinian fashion there is token recognition of Jewish individuality
for a time, though any form of a Jewish restoration was considered to
be a more gross form of Chiliasm.32 Hence Turretins Institutes
became the central textbook for Systematic Theology in American Ivy
League Colleges during the later half of the 18th century.
Consequently it is not surprising that the early theologians of Princeton
Theological Seminary highly esteemed this most influential legacy,
and of course its eschatology.
30
Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, II, p. 163.
31
Ibid., III, pp. 587-588.
32
Ibid., III, pp. 574-575.
Charles Hodge agreed with Dr. [Archibald] Alexander that Turretins
Institutio Theologiae Elencthicae was incomparably the best book as a
whole on systematic theology and continued its use as the principal text.33
However: In 1845 he [Hodge] had changed his classroom method

from student recitations on Turretins [Latin] text to his own lectures
on theological topics.34 Nevertheless, it ought not to surprise us that
eventually when his magnum opus, Systematic Theology, was first
published in three volumes in 1872, its replacement of Turretin was
more in name than in essential emphasis, as the copious references to
his Reformed mentor indicate.
REFORMED DEVELOPMENT WITH FAIRBAIRN, BAVINCK AND VOS
This now leads us to consider that, in the eschatological milieu of the

western world toward the close of the eighteenth century, a defensive
response against resurgent premillennialism came to the fore which
resulted in a new hermeneutic that actually proved to be nothing
more than revamped Augustinianism. Thus VanGemeren explains that:
By the end of the nineteenth century amillennialism as an eschatological
position had arisen out of the new hermeneutic for which [Patrick]
Fairbairn [1805-1874] was a leading spokesman. The writings of Herman
Bavinck (1895-1964) [of the Free University of Amsterdam] and
Geerhardus Vos (1862-1949) [of Princeton Seminary] are representative of
the change. Both theologians interact with chiliasm in affirming that their
eschatological position is normative. Both Bavinck and Vos are amillennial
in their views and engage in argumentation against premillennialism. . . .
Instead of taking the OT language for what it is, Bavinck argues that there
lies an eternal truth in the earthly, sensual forms of the prophecies. . . .
He strongly objects to millennialism as a hermeneutic in which the earthly
forms of the OT are understood literally.35
We will now consider these three Reformed scholars in terms of their

eschatology with regard to Israel and the all too obvious historic
connection with fundamental Augustinianism.
33
David B. Calhoun, Princeton Seminary, I, p. 262.
34
Ibid., II, p. 32.
35
Willem VanGemeren, Israel as the Hermeneutical Crux in the
Interpretation of Prophecy (II), Westmnster Theoloical Journal, 46 (1984),
p. 261.
Patrick Fairbairn
Born in Hallyburton, Scotland, in 1805, after graduating from the

University of Edinburgh in 1826 he tutored at the Orkney Islands and
advanced in his study of Hebrew and German. Following his first
pastorate in Glasgow, evangelical convictions led to his alignment
with the Free Church of Scotland, hence a leading part in organizing
the Free Church Presbytery of Haddington. In 1853 he was appointed
by the General Assembly to the Chair of Theology in Aberdeen.
However when the Free Church College was founded in Glasgow in
1856 Professor Fairbairn became Principal and Professor of Church
History and Exegesis there, and presided over the institution till his
death in 1874.
Fairbairn (1838-39) versus Fairbairn (1864).
In 1838-39 Fairbairn delivered twelve lectures on, Future Prospects

of the JewsRestoration to Their Own LandUniversal Conversion
to the Faith of Christ. Here the younger Presbyterian minister of
Glasgow presents arguments for a millennial eschatology that
envisages a distinct national future and conversion of the Jewish
people. In 1864 the older Fairbairn, as Principal of the Presbyterian
Free Church College in Glasgow, authored Fairbairn on Prophecy in
which was included, from an amillennial perspective, The Prophetical
Future of the Jewish People. Fairbairns The Typology of Scripture
(1852), Hermeneutical Manual (1858), and Commentary on Ezekiel
(1863) are similarly amillennial. In 1950, Albertus Pieters36 edited a
book in which both articles were included under the title, The
Prophetic Prospects of the Jews, or Fairbairn vs. Faitbairn. The later
writing of Fairbairn proposes three views, the Jewish, semi-Jewish,
and spiritualistic, the last mentioned being his more recently embraced
amillennial perspective, namely that the proper meaning of the
prophecies, in so far as they bear on the future of Israel, is to be made
good simply by the conversion of the people [Jews] to the Christian
faith, and their participation in the privileges and hopes of the church
of Christ.37 Hence we now briefly consider the older Fairbairns
36
Refer to this authors theological anti-Semitism in Chapter Three.
37
Albertus Pieters, The Prophetic Prospects of the Jews or Fairbairn vs.
Fairbairn, p. 91. Of course this incorporation of Israel into the Church of
Christ means that all Jewish identity, whether individual, national, or
territorial, has become null and void.
regard for Israel and the Jews which is simply a recapitulation of
essential Augustinianism, though filtered through a prism of German
scholarship.
We pass by this authors unwillingness to face the Jewish realities of
Matthew 19:28; Luke 21:24; Acts 1:6-7,38 and simply consider his
wrestling with the vital question:
[M]ay not the natural Israel in some other respect have the prospect of a
separate and peculiar standing in the church? . . . Even when the kingdoms
of this world have become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ, shall
the Jewish nation stand out and apart from the rest? . . . Were it to do so, it
would not be a continuation or a renewal of the past, but the introduction
of an entirely new principle into the Church of God.39
Here is no concession such as by David E. Holwerda, professor of

New Testament at Calvin Theological Seminary, who, in commencing
a study of Romans 9-11, asks the question, Is there a future for Jewish
Israel? To this he offers the frank confession that, there is nothing in
the Gospels and Acts that either biblically or logically entails an
absolute or definitive rejection of Jewish Israel.40 However Fairbairn
is quite unyielding at this juncture. He further explains concerning
Israel that,
they were the nation that held the truth, and, as such, stood apart from the
idolatrous nations of heathendom. But when that distinction virtually
ceased to exist by the mass of the people abandoning the truth, and
espousing the corruptions of heathenism, the Lord held the ground of
separation to be abolished, and addressed and treated them as heathen (Isa.
1:1-10; Amos 9:7-8; Ezek. 16-23).41
Yet Fairbairn makes no reference to the fact that ensuing revelation

from all three of the prophets he references gives encouragement
concerning the vital truth of Paul that where sin increased, grace
abounded all the more (Rom. 5:20; cf. Isa. 2:1-4; Amos 9:11-15;
38
Fairbairn frequently disparages literalism. With the same tone of
depreciation he writes of, Prophetical Literalism Essentially Jewish,
Prophecy, Second Edition, pp. 505-507. Is there an inference here that a
true and more figurative biblical hermeneutic, in the realm of eschatology,
should be non-Jewish?
39
Ibid., pp. 131, 133-134.
40
David E. Holwerda, Jesus & Israel, One Covenant or Two? p. 150.
41
Pieters, Prophetic Prospects of the Jews, p. 132.
Ezek. 28:25-26; 34, 36-37), namely the triumph of sovereign grace that
so many of the likes of Fairbairn acknowledge with regard to the New
Covenant dispensation, yet deny for Israel. Though more of this when
we subsequently consider Horatius Bonars objection to this matter
with regard to Fairbairns faulty view of conditionality.
Why then cannot the future one people of God yet incorporate a
diversity of Jew and Gentile or the nations, as certainly Edwards,
Bonar, Ryle, and Spurgeon affirm? Fairbairn explains:
[I]f converted Israelites were still to stand apart from and above them [the
remainder of the kingdom], it would not be the same thing that existed
under the law, but something essentially differentsomething foreign even
to Judaism; how much more, then, to Christianity?42
Here we simply assert that the essence of Judaism is rooted in the

Abrahamic covenant, as signified by circumcision, and not the
temporal Mosaic legal covenant. Hence, a future distinctive
Hebraic/Judaic distinction would not be essentially different. Granted
that there would be new features in this perfected Messianic Judaism,
but it is simply not correct to suggest that there could not be variety
amongst the people of God. After all, we might ask if angelic beings
will also be participants in the future, new glorious order?
Concerning Fairbairns regard of the land of promise, we encounter a
similar problem. He declares,
that the typical character which attached to the people and the religion of
the old covenant, attached also to the inheritancethe land of Canaan; and
that the transition to gospel times is represented as effecting the same
relative change in respect to this as to the others. . . . The land was, in a
manner, the common basis of the people and the worshipthe platform on
which both stood, and in connection with which the whole of their religious
observances, and their national history, might be said to move. To except
this, therefore, from the typical territory, and withdraw it from the
temporary things which were to pass to something higher and better in
Christ, were to suppose an incongruity in the circumstances of ancient
Israel, which we cannot conceive to have existed, and could only have led
to inextricable confusion. . . . [T]he former relation of the Israelites to the
land of Canaan affords no ground for re-occupation by them after their
42
Ibid., p. 134.
conversion to the faith of Christ, no more than for expecting that the
handwriting of ordinances shall then be restored. 43
Yet for all of the twisting and turning here, the fact remains that Gods
promise of the land was made unilaterally to Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob (Gen. 12:1; 15:1-21; 26:2-4; 28:13), and it seems intimated here
that Fairbairn is uncomfortably aware of this fact. The reality here is
that the multilateral Mosaic covenant was a temporary administration
imposed upon Israel (Ps. 147:19-20), which could not nullify that
which had been promised to Abraham (Gal. 3:17); it was added
because of transgressions (Gal. 3:19; cf. Rom. 5:20), and thus could
not invalidate the promise of the land. Yes, we agree that Abraham
would become heir of the world (Rom. 4:13), that the seed of
Abraham, being Christ and His seed (Gal. 3:16, 29), would inherit the
world. But we reject Fairbairns suggestion that this necessarily brings
about the nullification of Israels future possession of the land, as if it
were part of the handwriting of ordinances (Eph. 2:15; Col. 2:14)
that were specifically Mosaic. So again we see here the rigid
unwillingness of amillennial doctrine to incorporate diversity within
unity. However it is the prophets who repeatedly incorporate the
diversity of the land, the prominence of Jerusalem, and the
surrounding nations within the unity of the whole redeemed, inhabited
earth (Isa. 60:1-4; 62:1-12; Mic. 4:1-5; Hag. 2:1-7; Zech. 14:16-21).
Ezekiel 34, 36-38.
The overall approach of Fairbairn in consideration of the future of

national Israel in these classic references is summed up according to a
question he raises and subsequent conclusions.
Could the promise of Messiah, and of the affairs connected with his work
and kingdom, have been unfolded to the Church [of ancient Israel]
beforehand, and with any degree of detail, excepting under the form and
shadow of Old Testament relations? We unhesitatingly answer, No; not
unless the Spirit had violently controlled the minds of the prophets, and
superceded the free exercise of their faculties. . . . [This] prophecy . . .
bears the natural impress of the time to which it belonged. But if any,
determined to hear of nothing but the letter, will still hold by the
watchword of literality,will maintain that as it is a literal Israel that is the
subject of promise, a literal Canaan, a literal dispersion, and a literal return
from it, such too must be all that is to come,then, we say, let them carry
43
Ibid., p. 140, 142.
it out, and the shepherd by whom the good is to be accomplished must be
the literal David, for David alone is expressly named in the promise; and so
the Messiah altogether vanishes from the word of which he is the very
heart and center. And there must be no advance in the Divine
dispensations, nothing but the formal reproduction of the past. Such is a
slavish adherence to the letter; it ends in shutting up the new wine of
Messiahs kingdom in the old bottles of a transitory and provisional
economy. . . . Thus, as the David of the promise is Christ, so the covenant-
people are no longer the Jews distinctively, but the faithful in Christ; and
the territory of blessing no longer Canaan, but the region of which Christ is
king and lord.44
Hence these passages, and thus the human author, although directed by
the Holy Spirit, were culturally landlocked, constrained by the time to
which [they] . . . belonged. To be sure, the tone of the exilic period is
to be expected in Ezekiels style of communication (Ezek. 1:1-3). But
to suggest that God could only present the future of His kingdom
strictly within these exilic parameters is to rashly constrain Him and be
in conflict with Daniel who was not so restricted, for he heard but
could not understand, and was further told, Go your way, Daniel, for
these words are concealed and sealed up until the end time (Dan.
12:8-9). Here Fairbairn begs the question since the necessity of
violent control of the minds of the prophets in predicting the future
is quite unproven, and indeed an unnecessary restriction of the Divine
Will. After all, the vital terms concerning the meaning of Judah and
Israel and land and Jerusalem and Zion and nations are
certainly not restricted by a particular culture. Hence we would suggest
that Fairbairns attempt to generalize with regard to the promised
rapprochement concerning Judah and Israel (Ezek. 37:15-23) so
that it merely represents the result of the resurrection of Gods people
whereby the direct result of this was to unite them to God45 borders
on the fanciful. We would maintain that Judah means Judah and
Israel means Israel, so that God will make them one nation in the
land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king will be king for all of
them (Ezek. 37:22).
Concerning David following his future resurrection, we would first
enquire of the amillennialist as to what his distinctive role will be in
the future kingdom of God. As with Moses and Elijah, surely he will
have great prominence, in which case it is quite likely that he will
44
Patrick Fairbairn, Ezekiel, p. 385, 388, 421.
45
Ibid., p. 416.
indeed be a regent/prince over Israel under the King of kings, Jesus
Christ, the righteous Branch of David (Jer. 23:5). Hence to suggest
that such an understanding results in Messiah altogether vanishing
from the word is simply absurd. Thus, My servant David will be a
prince among them, that is My flock (Ezek. 34:22-24). However,
that this prince is not identical with Christ is indicated by the fact that
he offers a sin offering for himself (45:22), and has distinctive sons
(46:16-17).
Thus the conclusion of Fairbairn is that at the consummation of the
church, peculiar and historic Jewishness will have been done away
with, superceded, absorbed into the one people of God, and
particularly with regard to any distinction concerning the territory of
Israel. In essence, Augustinianism and Catholic eschatology and
Fairbairn are in agreement at this point. Thus the good news for the
Jew today is that his distinctive Jewishness is divinely pass, a biblical
anachronism. Those Christians who believe this will nevertheless
declare their desire is that the Jews be saved. But they dare not explain
to these same Jews their whole agenda which includes salvation from
Jewishness. Yet how this approach flies in the face of Pauls whole
attitude toward the Jews (Rom. 11:28), especially in his evangelistic
endeavors, in that he freely confesses that he remains one of them
(Acts 21:39; 22:3; Rom. 9:3; 11:1). And surely he does not confess
this with a forked tongue!
Ezekiel 40-48.
Interpretations of this concluding and climactic section of Ezekiel are

divided into four categories, the last of which is that of Fairbairn and
to which we offer a brief critical analysis. A. The historico-literal
interpretation. B. The historico-ideal interpretation. C. The Jewish-
carnal interpretation. D. The Christian-spiritual interpretation. Thus,
the whole representation was not intended to find either in Jewish or
Christian times an express and formal realization, but was a grand,
complicated symbol of the good God had in reserve for his church,
especially under the coming dispensation of the gospel. From the Fathers
downwards this has been the prevailing view in the Christian church.46
Now we would thoroughly agree with this historic representation,

except that from the Fathers downwards in reality it describes the
46
Ibid., pp. 443-444.
eschatology of Augustine and the Roman Catholic Church, namely
supercessionism which Fairbairn consistently represents. Would he
just as readily accept the gospel declared from the Fathers
downwards that has been the prevailing view of the Christian
church? However when Ezekiel is instructed concerning his final
vision, Report everything you see to the house of Israel (Ezek.
40:4),47 he was confirming the earlier promise: When My sanctuary is
among them forever, the nations will know that I, the LORD, sanctify
Israel (Ezek. 37:28). Thus Israel and the nations are to become
distinct yet complementary, worshipping entities.
In rejecting Fairbairns interpretation here, we admit to his consistency
with regard to his method of interpreting prophetic Scripture.
However, it is at this juncture concerning Ezekiel 40-48, that we see it
most clearly in terms of its generalization that so blithely rides over the
astonishing particulars in terms of future fulfillment. This is not to
suggest that such a grand and glorious vision is easily comprehended.
Though it does test our willingness to accept the transcendent glory of
Gods future, holy, spiritual materiality. However, it is the spiritual
interpretation here that is so evidently unspiritual in that it implies an
unnecessary verbosity that ends up in justifying any number of vague
interpretations, provided one makes an attempt to deal with the
particulars. Allow Horatius Bonar to explain better the problem here.
Every word of prophecy is big with meaning. Hence it must be most
carefully and exactly interpreted. To attach a general meaning to a whole
chapter, as is frequently done, shows not only grievous irreverence for the
Divine Word, but much misconception of the real nature of that language
in which it is written. Yet such is often the practice of many expositors of
prophecy. They will take up a chapter of Isaiah, and tell you that it refers to
the future glory of the Christian Church; and that is the one idea which they
gather from a whole chapter, or sometimes from a series of chapters. Their
system does not admit of interpreting verse by verse and clause by clause,
and affixing an exact and definite sense to each. Bring them to this test, and
their system gives way. It looks fair and plausible enough, so long as they
can persuade you that the whole chapter is one scene, out of which it is
merely designed that one grand idea should be extracted; but bring it to the
best of minute and precise interpretation, and its nakedness is at once
discovered. Many prophecies become in this way a mere waste of words.
47
In An Exposition of Ezekiel by William Greenhill, 40:4 is considered as
referencing the Christian church in the extreme. Any distinctive regard for
national Israel is wholly absorbed into a Gentile world view.
What might be expressed in one sentence, is beaten out over a whole
chapter; nay, sometimes over a whole book.48
These expositors think that there is nothing in prophecy, except that Jew
and Gentile are all to be gathered in, and made one in Christ. Prophet after
prophet is raised up, vision after vision is given, and yet nothing is declared
but this one idea! Every chapter almost of Isaiah foretells something about
the future glory of the world; and every chapter presents it to us in some
new aspect, opening up new scenes, and pointing out new objects; but,
according to the scheme of some, every chapter sets forth the same idea,
reiterates the same objects, and depicts the same scenes. Is not this
handling the Word of God deceitfully?49
The response of Horatius Bonar.
In Horatius Bonar we have a Scottish contemporary of Fairbairn

responding with perceptive vigor and critical enlightenment. In
Bonars Prophetical Landmarks, and The Quarterly Journal of
Prophecy which he edited from 1849 to 1873, there are detailed
refutations of Fairbairns hermeneutic and resultant eschatology,
though for the sake of brevity, we give a summary of two significant
areas of criticism.
1. All prophecy is, to some degree, conditional.
Classic Reformed theology has commonly distinguished between

prophecy that is predestined or certain, and prophecy that is contingent
or conditional, usually in harmony with the distinction between Gods
decretive will and His preceptive will. Fairbairn addressed this matter
in his Prophecy, viewed in respect to its Distinctive Nature, its Special
Function, and Proper Intepretation (1856), and included a qualifying
appendix in the Second Edition (1865). This was doubtless due to the
controversial nature of his opinion, that is his alleged departure from
the accepted Calvinist stance to that which was more Arminian. In this
48
The latter chapters of Ezekiel, describing the erection of a certain temple,
are involved in so much obscurity, that it seems difficult to arrive at any
determinate conclusion respecting the import of this mysterious prophecy.
It is certain that the attempt to spiritualize it produces little besides
perplexity and confusion; nor have we any example in Scripture of an
allegory so perfectly dark and enigmatic, as it must be confessed to be, on
that supposition.Robert Hall, Works, IV, p. 405.
49
Horatius Bonar, Prophetical Landmarks, pp. 234-235.
regard, Bonar responded in The Quarterly Journal of Prophecy (1858)
with marked disagreement concerning this particular item in Fairbairn
on Prophecy, to which Fairbairn replied with some displeasure in the
preface to his Hermeneutical Manual (1858).
The heart of Bonars concern, as a Calvinist, was Fairbairns belief
that there is in all prophecy an element of contingency,50 which
consequently yields to a more Arminian perspective. Thus Fairbairn
believed that the Second Coming was certainly decreed in a general
sense, although circumstances could change in terms of the time of its
eventual occurrence. By way of example Bonar makes reference to the
following declaration of Fairbairn:
The prophecies, for example, relating to the second coming of the Lord, . . .
may be regarded . . . as protracted beyond what the natural import of the
language might have seemed to indicate, on account of the forbearance of
God waiting for the conversion of men. . . . Yet when [this Advent is]
spoken of, as it often is, of being near, of drawing nigh, or being at
hand, while now so many centuries have elapsed without its taking place,
we can scarcely help admitting (however we may choose to express it) that
some after-respect has been had to moral considerations as influencing the
time of the predicted event; in other words, that there has been the
operation of a conditional element to the effect of delaying longer than the
original predictions might have led us to expect the actual occurrence of
the event predicted.51
Consequently Bonar responds:

[W]e are at a loss to conceive how it [this quotation] can be reconciled with
any theory of predestination whatever. To say that God did not from all
eternity decree the time when the Savior should come the second time, is to
admit at once the Arminian notion of conditional decrees. . . . Nothing can
well be more dishonoring to the Divine Being than to suppose , as Dr.
Fairbairns words imply, that there was enough in the earlier predictions to
warrant an expectation of the advent at a period which has passed by
without it; and that the course of things in the world has led to the
postponement of the Churchs hope.52
50
Horatius Bonar, Professor Fairbairn and Conditional Prophecy,
Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, October, 1858, p. 313.
51
Fairbairn, Prophecy, 63-64.
52
Horatius Bonar, Fairbairn on Prophecy, The Quarterly Journal of
Prophecy, IX, 1857, p. 275.
To criticism such as this by Bonar, Fairbairn responded, with seeming
irritation:
To divide, as he [Bonar] and his authorities do, between prophecy,
considered as equivalent to Divine decrees, and prophecy, as involving
matter of commination or promisethe former absolute, the latter
conditionaldoes not satisfy my exegetical conscience, and I am afraid
never can.53
However a further illustration of Fairbairns understanding of

conditionality concerns the institution of the Davidic Covenant in II
Samuel 7:1-17. Thus we are told:
David himself knew perfectly well, that there was an implied condition,
and that the prophecy must be read in connection with the whole plan and
purposes of God in the administration of the affairs of His church.54
Though we wonder what conditionality, in any sense, could be

understood in the Noachic covenant of Genesis 8:20-9:17. Could in
fact an unprecedented surge in human moral decline bring about an
unexpected Divine interference in which the seasons fail and a similar
universal flood reoccurs? We are not told. However, what interests us
most is where this distinctive hermeneutic leads, and we now discover
that it very much concerns the destiny of Israel. Fairbairn further
explains that,
if the threatened judgments of the prophetic word, then also its promised
blessings, are to be regarded, not as primarily and absolutely predictions of
coming events, but rather as exhibitions of the Lords goodness,
prospective indications of his desire and purpose to bless the persons or
communities addressed, yet capable of being checked, or even altogether
cancelled, in the event of a perverse and rebellious disposition being
manifested by men. . . . [T]he Apostle Paul re-announces the principle with
special emphasis on this particular branch of its application, when he says,
at the close of his reasoning on the case of the Jewish people, Behold,
therefore, the goodness and the severity of God: on them which fell
severity, but toward thee goodness, if thou continue in his goodness;
otherwise, thou shalt also be cut off (Rom. 11:22),that is, the prophetic
intimations of future blessing are to be understood as valid only so long as
the spiritual relation contemplated in them abides. When that ceases, a new
53
Fairbairn, Hermeneutical Manual, p. vii.
54
Fairbairn, Prophecy, pp. 64-65.
and different state of things has entered which the promise did not
contemplate, and to which it cannot in justice be applied.55
In the face of such a disturbing course of reasoning, we would simply

respond to Fairbairn with the enquiry as to whether this same
conditionality applies to the application of the New Covenant gospel to
believing sinners? If it does, then surely the sovereignty of grace has
been done away with and in its place has been substituted a subtle
form of Galatianism.
2. The unhelpful influence of German scholarship.
It is refreshing to discover a conservative scholar such as Bonar who is

not wholly enamored with, even hypnotized by German scholarship, so
that both its strengths and weaknesses are clearly distinguished. So he
provides the following estimate.
The German style of thought is now widely leavening both Britain and
America; and the issue of this is matter for suspicion and fear, in so far as
pure Bible exposition is concerned. It is a style entirely self-revolving, in
which, as one of their poets has described it, the soul is,
Chasing its own dream for ever,
On through many a distant star;
turning in upon its own actings, instead of out upon Gods; making mans
interior self the great region of research, not Gods manifested self; dealing
with spiritual truths as with abstractions or ideas, not as connected with
Divine personality and life.
In spite of all the admiration in which it is fashionable to hold German
critics, and with the full admission that their researches have not been
unrewarded, their system of criticism, as a whole, cannot but be regarded
as a failure, if not something worse. Its results have been inconsiderable for
good, but vast for evil. Dwelling in the region of their own thoughts, they
have lost the power to grasp, and the taste to appreciate the thoughts of
God. They may be interpreters of words, but they are not expounders of
thought, in so far as Scripture is concerned. In the former they excel, in the
latter they fail. They have not brought forth the fullness, the richness, the
vastness of Scripture language; they have rather diluted and emptied it.
They have taken their own thoughts as their standard in measuring, their
55
Ibid., p. 75. The third class conditional clause of Romans 11:22, Robertson,
Word Pictures in the New Testament, IV, p. 397, is defined as being a
More Probable Future Condition, Dana and Mantey, Manual Grammar
of the Greek New Testament, p. 290.
law in interpreting the thoughts of God. Hence, in prophecy, where the
language is doubly pregnant with the thoughts and purposes of God, they
have totally broken down. Few of their works on prophecy are possessed of
much value beyond that of verbal criticism. And it is sad to see their
American imitators rapidly coming up to them, if not outstripping them, in
the race of irreverence and error.56
Fairbairn has obviously spent much time in studying German

theologians and exegetes, and that with considerable reliance. Thus in
reviewing Ezekiel, An Exposition, Bonar comments: We must profess
our great dislike to the many abstract and German forms of expression
employed throughout Mr. Fairbairns volume.57 He further includes in
The Quarterly Journal of Prophecy the following correspondence,
presumably with some agreement.
You [Bonar] have carefully abstained from saying many things regarding
Dr. Fairbairns works in general which you might have said, and which are
freely ventilated in private among German scholars, viz., that Dr. F. has
taken most of his good things, as well as some of his bad things, from
German critics. A great part of his Commentary on Ezekiel is from
Hvernick, as every German scholar knows. His other works are said to be
in like manner large debtors to foreign sources. . . . [Signed] A
CALVINIST.58
While much of German scholarship has been Augustinian and

amillennial in its leaning, and especially with regard to Lutheran
writings even to this day, it remains to be seen if a direct connection
can be made between this and the eschatology of Fairbairns later
writings.
Herman Bavinck
Born in the town of Hoogeveen in the Netherlands, 1854, he first went

to theological school at Kampen, but then moved on to Leiden where
He graduated in 1880 having completed a dissertation on Ulrich
Zwingli. In 1882 he taught theology at the Theological School of the
Christian Reformed Churches, also at Kampen. However in 1902, as
Abraham Kuyper left the Free University for a time to take on the
56
Bonar, Prophetical Landmarks, pp. 191-193.
57
Horatius Bonar, Ezekiel, The Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, III, 1851,
p. 218n.
58
Ibid., X, 1858, p. 410.
Prime Ministership of the Netherlands, he joined the faculty as
Professor of Systematic Theology at the Free University of Amsterdam
where he served until his death in 1921.
In his massive Reformed Dogmatics, and in true Augustinian fashion,
Bavinck approaches the whole of the Old Testament as follows.
The spiritualization of the Old Testament, rightly understood, is not an
invention of Christian theology but has its beginning in the New Testament
itself. The Old Testament in spiritualized form, that is, the Old Testament
stripped of its temporal and sensuous form, is the New Testament. . . . All
Old Testament concepts shed their external, national-Israelitish meanings
and become manifest in their spiritual and eternal sense.59
Further Bavinck delares, with a decidedly anti-Judaic tone, that:

Chiliasm [millennialism] includes the expectation that shortly before the
return of Christ a national conversion will occur in Israel, that the Jews will
then return to Palestine and from there, under Christ, rule over the nations. .
. . Those of the Jews who reject Christ are not really true Jews (Rom. 2:28-
29). They are not the circumcision but the mutilation (Phil. 3:2). They
are the irregulars, idle talkers, deceivers, who must be silenced (Tit. 1:10-
11). They have killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets as well. They
persecute believers, do not please God, and oppose everyone. . . . Real
Jews, the true children of Abraham, are those who believe in Christ (Rom.
9:8; Gal. 3:29, etc.). The community of believers has in all respects
replaced carnal, national Israel. The Old Testament is fulfilled in the
New.60
The salvation of all Israel in Romans 11:26, unlike Calvins

inclusion of converted Jews and Gentiles,
remains a remnant chosen by grace (Rom. 11:5). . . . It is always a
remnant chosen by grace. . . . [T]here is no room left in Pauls sketch [in
Romans 11] for a national conversion of Israel as the chiliasts expect. . . .
[E]ven if Paul expected a national conversion of Israel at the end, he does
not say a word about the return of the Jews to Palestine, about a rebuilding
of the city and a temple, about a visible rule of Christ: in his picture of the
future there simply is no room for all this.61
Thus Bavinck, as a thoroughgoing supercessionist, reveals his

vigorous opposition to restorationist premillennialism, his militant
59
Herman Bavinck, The Last Things, pp. 96-97.
60
Ibid., pp. 99, 102.
61
Ibid., pp. 107.
demeanor here being characteristic of the Reformed environment in
which he worshipped and was educated. Concerning these strong
eschatological convictions, Willem Van Gemeren offers the following
critique:
Bavincks treatment of his subject exemplifies the amillennial approach
toward the prophetic word. On the one hand, he summarizes the
teaching of the OT prophets with respect to the future of Israel, which
includes the conversion of Israel, the Messiahs coming, the benefits to
be enjoyed by the people of the Messiah including the return from the
land of captivity, a restoration of temple and worship, and the Gentiles
sharing in the blessings of the kingdom.
Instead of taking the OT language for what it is, Bavinck argues that
there lies an eternal truth in the earthy, sensual, forms of the
prophecies. He strongly objects to millennialism as a hermeneutic in
which the earthly forms of the OT are understood literally.62
So Bavinck relentlessly imposes the NT over the OT, resulting in the
assembly of Christian believers completely supplanting ethnic Israel.
For this reason VanGemeren frankly concludes that,
he sacrifices the OT prophetic hope to a harmonious understanding of the
NT, in which the NT passages which hold out a hope for Israel and
different exegetical options are either harmonized or not fully considered.
The authority of the OT as well as of the NT seems to be sacrificed out of
concern for unity, harmony, and systematization.63
What then is the response of Bavinck to the European development of

Zionism with which he must have become familiar during his lifespan
(1854-1921)?
The question of the Near East is approaching solution, for turkey owes its
existence to the mutual jealousies of the great powers. Once Turkey is
destroyed there is every chance that Palestine will be assigned to the Jews
to whom by rights it belongs. Furthermore, in the hearts of many Jews, as
is evident from the Zionism that has emerged in recent years, there is a
longing to return to Palestine and to form an independent state there. . . .
62
Interpretation of Prophecy, Westminster Theological Journal, 46 (1984),
p. 261.
63
Ibid., p. 263.
However we may view these political combinations, the New Testament
furnishes not the slightest support for such an expectation.64
Hence, in the light of this classic and influential representation of

Reformed, Augustinian eschatology, channeled through Calvin and
Turretin, it would be well to contemplate exactly what evangelistic
response, with regard to outreach toward the Jews, it might envisage?
It certainly does not appear to reflect the pro-Judaic passion and
methodology of Paul.
Geerhardus Vos
Since the close of the nineteenth century, probably the most influential
and esteemed Reformed scholar in the realm of eschatology, not
unrelated to his pioneering studies in biblical theology, would be
Geerhardus Vos. That such stature is not overstated will be indicated
by the fact that in having already made reference to a variety of
Reformed writers, many of these will be found to have placed
considerable reliance upon Vos, such as with Hoekema, Riddlebarger,
Robertson, Venema, and Waldron. Born at Friesland, the Netherlands,
in 1862, he was raised in a Christian Reformed Church manse in
Michigan. Later he studied at the Theological School of that
denomination in Grand Rapids, then Princeton Seminary, Berlin and
Strasburg. As a result came personal exposure to Abraham Kuyper and
Herman Bavinck in the Netherlands. Returning to a faculty position in
Grand Rapids, he eventually settled back at Princeton Seminary as
professor of biblical theology in 1893 until his retirement in 1932. At
the outset, it is to be noted that the theological environment of Vos was
decidedly intolerant of premillennialism, such as we have already seen
with regard to Bavinck,65 the environment of the Christian Reformed
Church,66 and to a lesser extent overall, Princteon Theological
64
Bavinck, The Last Things, p. 100.
65
Refer to his, The Last Things : Hope for this World and the Next.
66
The Christian Reformed Church, in being traditionally amillennial, has
critically responded to the emergence of any premillennialism within its
ranks. Consider the instances of both Rev. H. Bultema and Prof. D. H.
Kromminga being under synodical investigation. John Kromminga, The
Christian Reformed Church, pp. 72-75; Harry R. Boer, The Premillennial
Eschatology of Diedrich, Honrich Kromminga, Peter De Klerk and
Richard R. De Ridder, eds., Perspectives on the Christian Reformed
Church, pp. 153-169. Boers fair-minded conclusion is significant. The
Seminary.67 In that the Christian Reformed Church was rooted in the
Reformed Church of the Netherlands, along with confessional
allegiance to the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the
Canons of the Synod of Dort, there was the conviction that this creedal
heritage was incompatible with chiliast beliefs. That Vos himself was
vehemently opposed to premillennialism is plainly indicated in his
Pauline Eschatology, specifically the chapter The Question of
Chiliasm In Paul, which includes the following:
Chiliasm has to its credit the astounding readiness it evinces of taking the
O.T. Scriptures in a realistic manner, with simple faith, not asking whether
the fulfillment of these things is logically conceivable, offering as its sole
basis the conviction that to God all things are possible. This attitude is, of
course, not attained except through a reckless abuse of the fundamental
principles of O.T. exegesis, a perversion invading inevitably the precincts
of N.T. exegesis likewise, heedless of the fact that already the O.T. itself
points to the spiritualizing of most of the things in question. Apart from
accidental features, and broadly speaking, Chiliasm is a daring literalizing
and concretizing of the substance of ancient revelation. Due credit should
be given for the nave type of faith such a mentality involves. It is a great
pity that from this very point of view premillennialism has not been
psychologically studied, so as to ascertain whence in its long, tortuous
course through the ages it has acquired such characteristics. Although pre-
millennialism is by no means a local phenomenon, there are evidently
certain milieus in which it has found a more fertile soil than elsewhere. In
certain countries it comes to meet an eccentric interest in the superficial,
visible, curiosity-attracting events in eschatological perspective. The evil is
not so much an evil in itself: it is a malformation or over-rank outgrowth
drawing to itself a surplusage of religious interest, at the expense of what is
more essential and vital in the eschatological sphere. The resulting evil lies
largely in the deficit thus caused in the appraisal of other eschatological
processes far overshadowing in importance this one feature, at least to the
normally-constituted Christian mind.68
virtue of Krommingas contribution is that he has alerted us to

eschatological possibilities in a manner and on a scale that the Reformed
tradition up to now has not taken into account. Most especially an
appreciation of Krommingas eschatological vision should raise the
question by what legitimate rationale can public discussion of it be
ecclesiastically prohibited.
67
David B. Calhouns Princeton Seminary refers to a tolerant
dissatisfaction concerning premillennialism, II, p. 183.
68
Geerhardus Vos, Pauline Eschatology, p. 227.
For this writer, it is difficult to recall a more graceless, indeed
intellectually arrogant denunciation of an opposing Christian
perspective than this. While Richard Gaffin commends the gentle,
retiring, pious manner of Vos,69 such virtue is quite absent here.
Furthermore, within this whole chapter by Vos, although numerous
European sources are employed in support of his critical analysis, there
does not appear to be so much as one reference to a premillennialist of
standing. Hence, it is not so surprising that, as VanGemeran has
pointed out, that Vos was fearful of any considerations of a future,
eschatological conversion of the Jews since then, for chiliasm, a door
might ever so slightly be opened for the entrance of this system into
Refomed eschatology. Nevertheless, commitment to the exposition of
Romans 11 led Vos to yield to what he felt the Apostle Paul
incontrovertibly taught, namely a future conversion of Israel en masse.
So VanGemeren explains:
In his Dogmatiek Vos answers the question why it is so difficult to enter
into detail on the future conversion of Israel by saying: Because it has
been connected on the one hand with the restoration of the Jews to the
Holy Land and on the other hand with the millennial kingdom. . . . The fear
existed to encourage chiliasm (p. 26). Vos affirms, nevertheless, the
exegetical ground for the hope in Israels conversion. He thinks that the
conversion of Israel is clearly predicted (p. 27) and bases this conclusion
on all the prophets of the Old Testament who speak of the apostasy and
the return of the Jews, particularly Zechariah 12 and Romans 11 (p. 26). . .
. He expects the conversion to be a true spiritual revival, when the Jews
have sufficiently been provoked to jealousy . . . by the Gentiles who have
found salvation in Jesus Christ. When the fullness of Jewish and Gentile
Christians has been achieved, the parousia will follow. Vos admits that the
chronological connection is implied in the text, but not explicitly stated (p.
88). Though Vos vehemently opposes a premillennial reading of the NT.
The exegesis of the text itself forces him to expect a future conversion of
the Jews.70
However, like John Murray who confessed to a similar mass

conversion,71 Vos is careful not to express belief in any related,
69
Gerhardus Vos, Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation, ed.
Richard B. Gaffin Jr., p. xiii.
70
Interpretation of Prophecy, Westminster Theological Journal, 46 (1984),
pp. 263-264.
71
John Murray, Romans, II, p. 98.
present, covenantal, national Jewish identity, or present covenantal
land inheritance rights for Israel in unbelief according to Romans 8:28.
Should he do so, he is well aware that he would be crossing over the
divide, so to speak, into millennial territory.72 Nevertheless, in not
following this path, his understanding of what constitutes Jews by
his designation with regard to their mass conversion, in their having
individuality but no national or territorial inheritance, is a common
weakness of this approach. It is as if Paul, in claiming to be an
Israelite (Rom. 11:1), nevertheless repudiates national and territorial
identity according to divine recognition. Such a bifurcated perspective
is quite untenable from a biblical and Hebrew understanding of
Jewishness. In this regard, concerning the reticence of Vos at this point
to clarify exactly what he means by the term Jew in terms of a future
mass conversion, consider his article, Eschatology of the New
Testament which lists two events that will precede the parousia. They
are first, the conversion of Israel, and second the coming of the
Antichrist. The former event is succinctly referenced in approximately
115 words; the latter event is comprehensively referenced in
approximately 2900 words!73
Further indication of the reluctance of Vos to give explanation beyond
his declaration that in the future there will be a comprehensive
conversion of Israel (Rom. 11:5, 25-32)74 is found in an article, The
Second Coming of Our Lord and the Millennium. It is his contention
that Old Testament Jewishness is ultimately superceded by the New
Testament kingdom of God. This being so, then distinctive,
eschatological, covenantal significance for the nation of Israel and the
land has been done away with, whatever conversion of the Jews
toward the end of this present age might entail. Vos declares: The
theory [of premillennialism] has its preformation in a certain scheme
of Jewish eschatology dating back as far as the New Testament period
or even earlier.75 Though one is inclined to enquire how, at that
72
To use Old Testament Scripture for justification of such land and nation
legitimacy would involve passages that, using the same hermeneutic,
would lead to acknowledgment of a millennial economy in which a
distinction is maintained between Jew and Gentile within the one people of
God (cf. Ezek. 36-37; Zech. 8, etc.).
73
Geerhardus Vos, Eschatology of the New Testament, The International
Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, ed. James Orr, II, pp. 983-986.
74
Ibid., p. 983.
75
Geerhardus Vos, Redemptive History and Biblical Revelation, p. 416.
period, any other than a Jewish eschatology would be referenced by
the early church. However Vos continues:
In Judaism there existed two types of eschatological outlook. There was the
ancient national hope which revolved around the destiny of Israel.
Alongside of this existed a higher form which had in view the destiny of
the creation as a whole. The former has its scene on earth, the latter in a
new world, radically different from the present one. Now, in certain of the
apocalyptic writings a compromise is effected between these two schemes
after this manner, that the carrying out of the one is to follow that of the
other, the national earthly hope receiving its fulfillment in a provisional
messianic kingdom of limited duration (400 or 1,000 years), to be
superceded at the end by the eternal state. It was felt that the eschatology of
this world and that of the world to come would not mix, therefore the two
were held together on the purely mechanical principle of chronological
succession. This Jewish compromise was distinctly due to a lack of
spirituality in the circles where it appears. . . .
As stated, the Old Testament avails itself of earthly and eternal forms to
convey heavenly and spiritual things. Sincere attachment to the Old
Testament Scriptures and a profound conviction of their absolute veracity
could and can still underlie a desire to see them in their whole extent
literally fulfilled, and since the eternal world offers no scope for this, to
create a sphere for such fulfillment in the millennial kingdom. Instead of
casting upon such a state of mind the stigma of unspiritualness and narrow-
mindedness, we should rather admire the faith-robustness which it
unquestionably reveals. None the less, we believe such faith to be a
misguided faith.76
Hence, since a millennium would unsatisfactorily result in a mere

upgraded universe, the consummation of this world and the bringing
in of the world to come, this and nothing else can at this point effect
the necessary change.77 Thus, by means of a quasi-Platonic/Gnostic
hermeneutic, the world to come is radically different from this
present world, especially its transcendence of any earthly Jewish
heritage. However, we would suggest that the Bible does indeed
describe an upgraded, thoroughly refurbished rather than a supplanted
universe, that is a victoriously recovered rather than a new world
supplanting that which was defeated by Satan; this is the point of the
restoration/rebirth [palingenesa, palingenesia] of all things about
which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets (Acts 3:21), in
76
Ibid., pp. 416-417.
77
Ibid., p. 419.
which purified Judaism will retain a distinctive role as the prophets
make very clear. The same point is true with regard to the nature of the
future bodily regeneration of the believer. He will receive a changed,
glorified body, not that which is wholly new (I Cor. 15:51). As this
corruptible [body] must be clothed with incorruptibility (I Cor.
15:53), so this perishing world will be renewed, yet retain essential
connection with its original form. Certainly purified Judaisn will be a
distinctive part of that retained essence. However for Vos, this world
to come has left behind any Jewish essence. Concerning this present
world, he describes how Paul outlines for us in Romans a program of
the uninterrupted progress of the kingdom of God and points as its
goal the Christianization of all the nations and the salvation of all
Israel.78 However beyond this present age is the world to come that
leaves behind any thought of Israel in relation to t distinctive
nationality and territory. Why is this so? Vos responds:
Indiscriminate insistence upon the literal import of prophecy were not
merely a weak, but an impossible basis to build chiliasm upon. In point of
fact, even the most radical chiliasts discriminate between what they expect
and do not expect to see materialized in the millennium. On the ground of
the Old Testament alone there is no warrant for such distinction. The
prophets proclaim as emphatically the restoration of the temple, the
priesthood, and the sacrificial system as they predict the return of the
people to Palestine and the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Besides, the serious
difficulty arises that the Old Testament ascribes to the fulfillment of these
things eternal validity and duration.79
The heart of the complaint here is not that of the return of the people
to Palestine and the rebuilding of Jerusalem, which events are not
rooted in the old Mosaic covenant, as clear as these events are
prophesied about in the Old Testament. Rather, in mentioning the
restoration of the temple, the priesthood, and the sacrificial system,
the inference chiefly concerns Ezekiel 40-48 and supposed conflict
here with the abolishment of the Mosaic sacrificial order according to
Hebrews. How Vos interprets this passage is not indicated, though
perhaps we can assume he takes a path here similar to Patrick
Fairbairn. Be that as it may, spurning a premillennial perspective
hardly enlightens us with a positive interpretation of a passage that
presents considerable mystery whatever ones understanding may be.
78
Ibid., p. 420.
79
Ibid., p. 418.
We would simply quote some judicious comments of A. B. Davidson
at this juncture concerning Ezekiel 40-48.
We should go very far astray if on the one hand fastening our attention on
the natural elements of the picture . . . [these] were [regarded as] mere
figures or symbols, meaning nothing but a higher spiritual condition after
the restoration [from Babylon], and that the restoration described by
Ezekiel is no more than one which might be called natural, and which took
place under Zerubbabel and later. Ezekiel of course expects a restoration in
the true sense, but it is a restoration which is complete, embracing all the
scattered members of Israel, and final, being the entrance of Israel upon its
eternal felicity and perfection, and the enjoyment of the full presence of
Jehovah in the midst of it. . . .
Consequently we should go equally far astray on the other hand if fastening
our attention only on the supernatural parts of Ezekiels picture, . . . that all
this to the prophets mind was nothing but a lofty symbolism representing a
spiritual perfection to be eventually reached in the Church of God of the
Christian age. To put such a meaning on the Temple and its measurement
and all the details enumerated by the prophet is to contradict all reason.
The Temple is real, for it is the place of Jehovahs presence upon the earth;
the ministers and the ministrations are equally real, for His servants serve
him in his Temple. The service of Jehovah by sacrifice and offering is
considered to continue when Israel is perfect and the kingdom of the
Lords even by the greatest prophets (Isa. 19:19, 21; 60:7; 66:20; Jer.
33:18).
There can be no question of the literalness and reality of the things in the
prophetic program, whether they are things natural or supernatural, the
only question is, What is the main conception expressed?80
80
A. B. Davidson, Ezekiel, pp. 288-289.
Israel and anti-Judaic hermeneutics 215
Chapter Seven
ISRAEL and Christian anti-Judaic

hermeneutics
O UR concern is now the hermeneutical principle that imposes the

New Testament revelation of Jesus Christ upon the Old
Testament in such a way that the New Covenant (upper layer) has
become the controlling hermeneutic whereby the Old Covenant (lower
layer) is christologically reinterpreted. Not only Colin Chapman, Steve
Motyer, Stephen Sizer, Peter Walker and N. T. Wright, representing
UK Anglicanism, but in addition Anthony Hoekema, William
Hendriksen, Hans K. LaRondelle, and O. Palmer Robertson all add
further basic scholarly agreement. With variation in tone, nevertheless
they all draw upon the same essential Augustinian root whereby the
interpretation of the Old Testament canon is by means of focus
through the controlling lens of the New Testament. They would all
agree with the fundamental hermeneutical approach of Turretin,
Fairbairn, Bavinck, and Vos, representing four hundred years of
Reformed eschatology. However all of these scholars without
exception, this in no way being a matter of coincidence, emphatically
assert the covenantal nullification of ethnic, national and territorial
Israel.
But does not this galaxy of Reformed scholars represent a weighty,
scholastic fraternal? Yes, without a doubt we have here a concert of
notable, esteemed and influential theologians. Nevertheless we
maintain that the eschatological lineage here is not vindicated by
resultant, attractive ethical fruit that parallels Pauls biblical esteem for
the Jew. The reason is that the study of centuries of church history has
led to the unraveling of closely woven strands of shameful anti-
Judaism, be they Lutheran, Anglican, Dutch Reformed,
Nonconformist, or Presbyterian, exceptions notwithstanding. But
perhaps, it is protested, Do not these various strands nevertheless
present sound hermeneutical reasons for their biblical exegesis? To
answer this we would respond with two further questions. Is it
admitted that the root of this sound exegesis takes us back to the
esteemed Augustine? Richard Mueller suggests that this is so when he
writes:
216 Israel and anti-Judaic hermeneutics
Reformed theology appears not as a monolithic structurenot, in short, as
Calvinismbut as a form of Augustinian theology and piety capable of
considerable variation in its form and presentation.1
In this being the case, we further enquire if Augustines seminal

exegesis of Psalm 59:11, Do not kill them [the Jews]; otherwise, my
people will forget. By Your power, make them homeless wanderers,
whereby he establishes centuries of shameful treatment of the Jewish
people (pages 19-22), is representative of his contemporary biblical
successors? We would maintain that Augustine was grievously wrong
in his exegesis at this point, and in so doing he bequeathed a
hermeneutical legacy that has proved to result in dire consequences for
the people of Israel. And this being so, we are bold to suggest that the
traditional Reformed exegesis at this point is likewise in error since it
is grounded upon the same Augustinian root and has resulted in similar
Augustinian fruit. The various Reformed strands have similarly
humiliated the Jew through tokenism and the denial of ethnicity,
nationality and territory according to divine mandate. This being so,
we now move to consider the fallacy of the essential Reformed
hermeneutic insofar as it is concerned with the eschatology of Israel.
Though before doing so there is one significant author in this regard
who merits special consideration.
THE HERMENEUTIC OF GEORGE ELDON LADD
We turn to Ladd since he is often upheld today as the quintessential

historic premillennialist, though we seriously question his
representative status in this regard. Rather it is maintained that earlier
premillennialists, being more Judeo-centric, better qualify as being
characteristic of historic premillenialism. They would include Joseph
A. Seiss, David Baron, Adolph Safir, B. W. Newton, H. Grattan
Guinness, J. C. Ryle, C. H. Spurgeon, George Peters, Nathaniel West,
Horatius Bonar, etc., and as such were far more historic in the accepted
sense of that term when their lineage is traced back at least to the
millennial awakening originating in Protestant England and Europe.
Concerning Israel, without exception, these latter mentioned authors
all upheld the expectation of a distinctive, glorious, prominent,
national prospect for Israel in the land under the personal reign of
Jesus Christ, and that with the explicit support of numerous passages
of Old Testament and New Testament revelation. Theirs was a Judeo-
1
Richard Mueller, Christ and the Decree, p. 176.
centricity that qualified them as being far more authentically historic in
their premillennialism. On the other hand Ladd has maintained that
Revelation 20 explicitly and exegetically provides the sole, albeit
conclusive proof from the Bible for the premillennial school of
eschatology. When pressed concerning the degree to which the Old
Testament gave further support to premillennialism, he responded that
it provided none whatsoever! His reason here was that he perceived
Old Testament passages that have been commonly understood in
millennial terms as finding their fulfillment, not with regard to national
Israels future glory, but rather the Christian church. This New
Covenant community comprised of Jew and Gentile has inherited
Gods Old Testament promised blessings as the newly constituted
people of God. Consequently he identified at this point with a more
Augustinian and Reformed appropriation, by the Christian church, of
promises formerly made to abandoned Old Testament Israel, which
new body of Gods people had become the new spiritual Israel. Thus,
Old Testament prophecies must be interpreted in the light of the New
Testament to find their deeper meaning. . . . I do not see how it is possible
to avoid the conclusion that the New Testament applies Old Testament
prophecies to the New Testament church and in so doing identifies the
church as spiritual Israel.2
By way of example, Ladd refers to Romans 9:24-26 where Hosea

2:23; 1:10, while in its primary setting makes reference to Israel, yet is
quoted by Paul concerning the church in Rome that is comprised
largely of Gentiles and some Jews. Thus it is here that Ladds Gentile
logic, rather than a Hebrew perspective represented by Paul, concludes
that Hoseas prophecy finds a broader, more inclusive fulfillment
which nullifies a more narrow, national, eschatological interpretation
of the prophet. Thus, [t]he prophecies of Hosea are fulfilled in the
Christian church. . . . It is clearly what the New Testament does to the
Old Testament prophecies.3 Therefore, other national promises in the
Old Testament may similarly be understood as being fulfilled in the
church. So Ladd elsewhere concludes that, it is highly probable that
when Paul speaks of the Israel of God (Gal. 6:16) he is referring to
2
George Eldon Ladd, Historic Premillennialism, The Meaning of the
Millennium, ed. Robert G. Clouse,, p. 23. Similarly Ladd declares in A
Theology of the New Testament, p. 433, concerning these same biblical
references: The church is in fact the true Israel of God.
3
Ibid., pp. 23-24.
the church as the true spiritual Israel.4 However, refer to Chapter
Ten: Israel - and a Romans 11 Synthesis, where it is indicated how far
more improbable Ladds opinion here proves to be.
Nevertheless, concerning the reference to the quotations in Romans 9
from Hosea, an explanation is in order, and it will somewhat justify the
prior reference to Ladds Gentile logic. As a converted Jewish rabbi,
Paul confessedly remains a Jew (Rom. 11:1; Acts 21:39; 22:3) who, in
quoting the Old Testament in a manner that a Gentile is not
accustomed to, makes use of Hosea in an applicatory or analogical
manner which nevertheless does not nullify the obvious, original literal
interpretation. So David Stern as a Hebrew Christian scholar
comments:
Shaul [Paul] uses these texts from Hoshea midrashically. Hosea was not
referring to Gentiles but to Israel itself; he meant that one day Israel, in
rebellion when he wrote, would be called Gods people. Shauls meaning,
which does not conflict with what Hoshea wrote but is not a necessary
inference from it, is that Gods people now includes some Gentiles. How
this has come about and for what purpose are examined at [Rom.] 9:30-
10:4 and 11:17-32, as well as in the book of Ephesians.5
In a similar way Sanday and Hedlam have commented:

St. Paul applies the principle which underlies these words [of Hosea], that
God can take into His covenant those who were previously cut off from it,
to the calling of the Gentiles. A similar interpretation of the verse was held
by the Rabbis.6
This basic hermeneutical principle being true, then it opens up a world

of understanding concerning how the Hebrew authors of the New
Testament could legitimately quote from the Old Testament in a more
4
George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, p. 584.
5
David Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary, p. 392. Also refer to this
authors commentary on the quotation of Hosea 11:1 in Matthew 2:15,
where he lists the four basis modes of Scripture interpretation used by the
rabbis. These are explained in more detail later in this chapter under the
heading, A Christocentric Hermeneutic for the Hebrew Scriptures.
6
William Sanday and Arthur C. Hedlam, A Critical and Exegetical
Commentary on Romans, p. 264. Similar analogical interpretations are
upheld by S. Lewis Johnson, Evidence from Romans 9-11, The Coming
Millennial Kingdom, eds. Campbell & Townsend, pp. 203-211, and John
Murray, Romans, II, p. 38.
applicatory, illustrative sense without invalidating the original literal
meaning, as Ladds rigid exclusionary approach demands, and as is
frequently the case with Reformed amillennialists.7
Nevertheless, according to his exclusionary hermeneutical method,
Ladd is led necessarily to introduce a term of doubtful legitimacy, that
is reinterpretation with regard to his approach concerning the Old
Testament.8 Obviously he appreciates that careful exegesis of
eschatological texts within the Old Testament, employing his
interpretive methodology, confronts him with difficulties. As a result
he finds himself willingly boxed into a corner of generalization and
suggestion according to his imposition of the New Testament upon the
Old Testament. Proof of this is found in his dealing with such classic
eschatological passages as Ezekiel 36-37 and Zechariah 8, 14,
especially as they relate to Israels national and territorial destiny.
Regarding these references in his A Theology of the New Testament,
instead of specifically referencing Israel, nations, land, and
Zion/Jerusalem, he repeatedly and accommodatingly substitutes
his/Gods people. Thus he will not particularize in a precise
exegetical manner since his hermeneutic is more arbitrary and
inclusive with regard to the Old Testament. Hence we are not surprised
at the diminutive place that the Jew holds in Ladds eschatology. He
does acknowledge Jewish individuality; even nationality seems to find
some brief, indistinct, uncertain mention; though consideration of the
land and its validity for national Israel is virtually nonexistent.
However we believe that the specificity and historic reality of the
Prophets is of much greater importance than mere New Testament
window dressing. We further believe that the New Testament authors,
according to a Hebrew mindset, when rightly comprehended, would be
startled to discover that they are chargeable with the principle of
reinterpretation that tends to denigrate the plain, original meaning of
the Prophets. A final perceptive objection to Ladds hermeneutic of
New Testament imposition upon the Old Testament is that of Walter
C. Kaiser Jr.
7
Consider the same form of amillennial argumentation, employing Romans
9:24-26; cf. Hos. 2:23; 1:10, in Oswald T. Allis, Prophecy and the Church,
p. 156; W. J. Grier, The Momentous Event, p. 44; William Hendriksen,
Israel and the Bible, p. 57; Hans K. LaRondelle, The Israel of God in
Prophecy, pp. 130-131; Cornelius P. Venema, The Promise of the Future,
pp. 271-272; etc.
8
George Eldon Ladd, The Last Things, pp. 9-18.
It is widely held that the most obvious corollary to the Christocentric
hermeneutic is the theologia crucis that the New Testament must always be
our guide to interpreting the Old Testament. But why would a rule be
imposed on the revelation of God that demands that the Old Testament
passages may not become the basis for giving primary direction on any
doctrines or truths that have relevancy for New Testament times? This is
only to argue in the end for a canon within a canon. . . . [W]e misjudge the
revelation of God if we have a theory of interpretation which says the most
recent revelation of God is to be preferred or substituted for that which
came earlier.9
THE INSTRUCTIVE EXAMPLE OF HEBREWS
Of all the books of the New Testament, Hebrews has the most
concentrated collection of quotations from the Old Testament. In P.
Ellingworths, The Epistle to the Hebrews, 1993, drawing heavily
upon his doctoral research (1977), he assesses 35 explicit quotations,
including 14 from the Psalms and 13 from the Pentateuch. This leads
us to immediately refer to the cautionary comment of John Owen on
Hebrews: There is not any thing in this Epistle that is attended with
more difficulty than the citation of the testimonies out of the Old
Testament that are made use of in it.10 The reason is that the author of
Hebrews is comfortable with the flexible use of the Old Testament in a
number of ways. Therefore it is both cavalier and misleading to
suggest that a controlling New Testament hermeneutic kicks in, so to
speak, with the result being that the original meaning of the Old
Testament quotations is now invalidated. With this in mind, it cannot
be too emphatically pointed out that Hebrews was written by a Hebrew
Christian to Hebrew Christians. This being the assumed case, we need
to approach the interpretation of this epistle, not so much with a
Gentilic frame of reference as with the very frank conclusion of Simon
Kistemaker in mind, with regard to his doctoral thesis, The Psalm
Citations in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
In contrast to the NT authors the present day writer is bound in his writing
and thinking by profane [secular] motifs, by grammatico-historical
principles, which characterize him as a child of his time. Hence our motifs
9
Walter C. Kaiser Jr., The Land of Israel and the Future Return (Zechariah
10:6-12), Israel, the Land and the People: An Evangelical Affirmation of
Gods Promises, ed. H. Wayne House, pp. 219. 222.
10
John Owen, An Exposition of Hebrews, I, p. 106.
and principles may never be foisted upon the writers and literature of the
first century of our era.11
Then he concludes the section dealing with hermeneutical principles as

follows:
It is quite understandable that this type of [Midrashim] sermon delivery
was transferred from the Synagogue to the Early Church. Many of the
characteristics in the Jewish manner of expounding a portion of Scripture
in respect to method, were directly passed on to the sermons preached by
the apostles and evangelists. There are still a few of these early Christian
Midrashim extant. The Second Epistle of Clement, usually considered a
homily, is in fact an early midrash. It may be said conclusively that the
recipients of the Epistle to the Hebrews were addressed in accordance with
the literary methods prevalent in that day.12
Thus Horatius Bonar, although writing over a century earlier, never-

theless appreciates this same approach concerning the presupposition
of a Hebrew hermeneutic when he writes:
Much is to be learned in the way of typical exposition from the Epistle to
the Hebrews, not merely in reference to the passages cited, or the events
referred to, but respecting a multitude of others to which there is no
allusion at all. The apostle proceeds upon certain principles of
interpretation recognized among his countrymen. He did not write as one
who had discovered a new theory of interpretation which he called on them
to receive [emphasis added]; but he proceeds upon principles owned by and
familiar to them. He takes his stand upon their own application of the
prophecies regarding Messiah, and reasons with them upon principles
which both he and they acknowledged. To ascertain these is of much
importance. They are the principles adopted by the nation to whom the
prophecies were addressed, and, therefore, acquainted with the
circumstances in which they were spoken; a nation to whom the language
and dialect of prophecy were as their native tongue, and of whose history
every event had been an accomplished prophecy; a nation who had not
only prophets to predict, but also to guide them to the right meaning of
what manner of things the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, did
signify [I Pet. 1:11]; a nation that in their last days had the Messiah
himself to expound to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning
11
Simon Kistemaker, The Psalm Citations in the Epistle to the Hebrews,
Th.D. thesis, p. 89n.
12
Ibid., p. 93.
Himself [Luke 24:17], to correct their principles wherein they were false,
and to confirm them wherein they were true.13
In this regard due credit should also be given to John Calvin who, in
considering the manner in which some of the Old Testament
quotations are employed in Hebrews, comes to a conclusion not unlike
that of Stern, Kistemaker, and Bonar. In commenting on Hebrews 2:7
where Psalm 8:5-6 is quoted, he declares:
[This] Psalm which he [Paul?] quotes must be examined, for it seems to be
unfitly applied to Christ. . . . He [David] does not, then, speak of any
particular person, but of all mankind. To this I answer, that all of this
affords no reason why the words should not be applied to the person of
Christ. . . . It was not the Apostles design to give an exact explanation of
the words. For there is nothing improperly done, when verbal allusions are
made to embellish a subject in hand, as Paul does in Romans 10:6, from
Moses. . . . [H]e only bids us to consider the abasement of Christ, which
appeared for a short time, and then the glory with which he is perpetually
crowned; and this he does more by alluding to expressions than by
explaining what David understood.14
Hence we conclude that the hermeneutic of reinterpretation and

transference which takes the adapted quotation of the Old Testament in
the New Testament to be justification for nullification of the literal
interpretation of that same Old Testament passage is illegitimate. The
reason is that it not only ignores a fundamental, Hebrew,
hermeneutical frame of reference, but also brings about a serious
distortion of meaning, especially where the eschatological message of
the Prophets is concerned. Representatives of this hermeneutic of
reinterpretation and transference are now considered.
A CHRISTOCENTRIC HERMENEUTIC AGAINST THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES
An anti-Judaic eschatology is most often grounded upon a New

Testament re-interpretation of the Old Covenant Scriptures. By this
means the Christianizing of the Old Testament results in it being
evacuated of its distinctive Jewish roots and substance. Some
definitive examples of this teaching are as follows along with
subsequent comment. What stands out here is that, apart from some
variations in emphasis, the essentially Augustinian transference
13
Horatius Bonar, Prophetial Landmarks, pp. 211-212.
14
John Calvin, Hebrews, pp. 56, 58-59.
hermeneutic unfailingly results in the national and territorial
nullification of Israel.
N. T. Wright writes:
He [Jesus] had not come to rehabilitate the symbol of the holy land, but to
subsume it within a different fulfillment of the kingdom, which would
embrace the whole creation. . . . Jesus spent his whole ministry redefining
what the kingdom meant. He refused to give up the symbolic language of
the kingdom, but filled it with such new content that, as we have seen, he
powerfully subverted Jewish expectations.15
[T]hrough the Messiah and the preaching which heralds him, Israel is
transformed from being an ethnic people into a worldwide family.16
Those who now belonged to Jesus people were not identical with ethnic
Israel, since Israels history had reached its intended fulfillment; they
claimed to be the continuation of Israel in a new situation, able to draw on
Israel-images to express their self-identity, able to read Israels Scriptures
(through the lens of Messiah and spirit) and apply them to their own life.
They were thrust out by that claim, and that reading, to fulfill Israels
vocation on behalf of the world.17
As if, The song is ended, but the melody lingers on, so historic Israel
and the holy land, while having come to a substantial conclusion, yet
are universalized through symbolic language and images. Here
is an attempt to linguistically adorn what in reality is the offensive face
of supercessionism. The end result is that today the Jew, his nation and
his territory are subsumed within the kingdom of God, that is, they
are absorbed into glorious homogeneity. The Old Testament promises
concerning a distinctive restoration were a literary accomodation, a
mere shadowy representation that should not be taken too finely!
Colin Chapman writes:
It was not that Jesus was simply spiritualizing Old Testament prophecies,
and thereby leaving open the possibility that they might one day be
interpreted literally. Rather, according to him, the gathering of believers
into the kingdom of God was the true fulfillment of these prophecies. Some
Christian writers have pointed out that the prophets predicted the return of
the exiles from all countriesfrom north, south, east and west. Moreover,
they say, some of the prophets (notably Zechariah) specifically predicted
15
N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, pp. 446, 471.
16
17
N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, pp. 457-458.
that exiles of the northern kingdom of Israel would return to the land as
well as exiles from the southern kingdom of Judah [Ezek. 37:15-23; Zech.
8:13]. They go on to ask: has anything happened in history which fits this
descriptionexcept the recent return of Jews to the land? The question at
first sight seems unanswerable; it sounds a convincing knock-down
argument. But if the Christian is to interpret Old Testament prophecy in the
light of the teaching of Jesus, the question simply does not arise. Why?
Because in the perspective of Jesus, the ingathering of the exilesfrom
north, south, east and westtakes place when people of all races are
gathered into the kingdom of God. This is the true, the real, the intended
fulfillment of prophecy.
Christians today do not have the liberty to interpret the Old Testament in
any way that appeals to them. Everything in the Old Testament has to be
read through the eyes of the apostles. It is they who, so to speak, give us
the right spectacles for a genuinely Christian reading of the Old Testament.
Therefore if Christians today find that certain details in books like Ezekiel
appear to fit certain situations in the Middle East today, they should resist
the temptation to draw direct connections with these contemporary events.
The reason is that since the apostle John has given his interpretation of
Ezekiels visions, this should be seen as the normative Christian
interpretation of these visions, and not only one possible interpretation.18
The subjective arbitrariness of the supposed interpretation of

Zechariah here is simply breathtaking. Though in all of this one senses
a suppressed unease. The plain teaching of the exilic and post-exilic
prophets is obliquely confessed as obvious, then put down. After all, if
Ezekiel and Zechariah are allowed to stand according to their plain and
obvious sense, then a whole eschatological edifice comes tumbling
down. As a result, there would be an eschatological future for national
Israel. But this would never do! Consequently we need to turn to the
Jewish apostles, such as John, who have renounced that carnal Jewish
focus of the past and ascended to more spiritual heights whereby
Ezekiel and Zechariah are reinterpreted in more universal,
Christocentric terms. Therefore be warned that this is the one and only
interpretation; yield to it as the new norm lest one become beguiled by
the deceitful, obvious clarity of literal interpretation. But then we turn
to Acts 5:31 where these same Jewish apostles declare concerning
Jesus Christ: God exalted this man to His right hand as ruler and
Savior, to grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. This
does not sound like supercessionism any more than was the case when
Paul declared to the leading Jews in Rome that his captivity was for
18
Colin Chapman, Whose Promised Land? (2002 ed.), pp 150, 172.
the hope of Israel (Acts 28:20). These Jewish apostles here do not
mislead us with ambiguous terminology whereby reinterpretation of
Israel in fact means the homogenous people of God! No, we beg to
assert that these Jewish apostles held to a future hope for national and
territorial Israel whereby the nation would eventually be saved by its
Messiah and retain its identity amongst the saved nations (Isa. 66:8,
12; Acts 3:21-22; Rom. 11:26-28).
Stephen Sizer writes:
As Palmer Robertson also observes, by the end of the Apostolic era, the
focus of Gods redemptive work in the world has shifted from Jerusalem to
places like Antioch, Ephesus and Rome. There is, therefore, no evidence
that the apostles believed that the Jewish people still had a divine right to
the land, or that the Jewish possession of the land would be important, let
alone that Jerusalem would remain a central aspect of Gods purposes for
the world. On the contrary, in the Christological logic of Paul, Jerusalem as
much as the land, has now been superceded. They have been made
irrelevant to Gods redemptive purposes.
Their selective and dualistic hermeneutic leads Christian Zionists to ignore
how Jesus and the apostles reinterpreted the Old Testament. . . . Under the
old covenant, revelation from God came often in shadow, image, form and
prophecy. In the new covenant that progressive revelation finds its
consummation in reality, substance and fulfillment in Jesus Christ and his
church.19
To suggest that the Jewish apostles, especially at the time of the

Council at Jerusalem apparently under the headship of James, did not
believe that the Jewish people still had a divine right to the land, or
that the Jewish possession of the land would be important, is sheer
Gentilic nonsense. In the plainest terms, we are told here that not only
have Jerusalem and the land of Israel become irrelevant to God, but
also that now they have become superceded. Here is unclouded,
arrogant anti-Judaism that Paul so adamantly opposes in Romans 11.
Perhaps we should be grateful here for the honest confession of
supercessionism which others of a similar persuasion have attempted
to ingeniously dance around. To attempt to claim support from Pauls
Christological logic is to fly in the face of not only the apostles
passionate, persistent pro-Judaic stance, but also his repeated claim
that he retained full status as a Jew or Israelite (Rom. 11:1; Acts 21:39;
22:3). For Paul to be told that his Jewishness, so integrated with
19
Stephen Sizer, Christian Zionism, pp. 170, 204.
Jerusalem and the land as a Benjamite, was irrelevant would have
invited the strongest disavowal (Rom. 3:1-2; 9:1-5; 11:18-21). Yet
again we point out that the original promise of the land was not part of
the old covenant; rather it was integral to the promise God originally
gave to Abraham, 430 years before Moses, that eventually found
fulfillment through Joshua. Therefore we assert that the land is not
identical with the shadows established through the Mosaic covenant.
Refer to Chapter 9: Israel and the Inheritance of the Land through
Abraham.
Steve Motyer Writes:
Throughout the New Testament, we see the first Christians wrestling with
the relationship between the new thing that God has now done in Christ,
and the old thing which he had done in Israel, and re-interpreting the
latter in the light of the former. If we are to be New Testament Christians,
we must do the same. . . . [D]istinctive Jewish Christianity finally died out.
. . . [T]he first Christians set themselves the wonderful, exciting task of
completely re-thinking their understanding of the Scriptures, in the light of
Jesus Christ. . . . The New Testament re-reading of the Old Testament
promises sees their climax in Jesus, and makes him the end of the story.
The interpretation of Old Testament prophecy and other Israel texts must
be approached from the perspective of this basic New Testament teaching,
and must follow the guidelines of New Testament interpretation. . . . [T]he
New Testament writers are normative for us, in showing us how to
interpret Old Testament prophecy.20
To suggest that the first Christians set themselves the wonderful,

exciting task of completely re-thinking their understanding of the
Scriptures, in the light of Jesus Christ, especially by a re-reading of
the Old Testament promises, is simply a reflection of Gentilic
blindness and bias. For theological convenience Motyer sets aside the
Jewish Apostles continuing Jewish, albeit clarified regard for the Old
Testament. They would be offended at the suggestion here that they
had instigated a radically new hermeneutic. There was no such novel
formulation. To declare that distinctive Jewish Christianity finally
died out is to avoid mentioning the doctrinal conflict whereby it was
put to death by proud Gentile ascendancy through Justin Martyr and
Melito of Sardis on through to Augustine. If then the New Testament
writers re-interpretation of the Old Testament had established a new,
20
June, 2003. Internet sourced: http://eauk.org/Content-Manager/Content/-
Christological, normative hermeneutic, then what of those frequent
occasions in which they interpreted the Old Testament quite literally?
Has this literal hermeneutic now become sub-normal? Consider is
comment at this juncture:
[I]n so far as prophecy has been already fulfilled, that fulfillment has been
a literal one. Take the predictions regarding the Messiah. His being born of
the house of David; of a virgin; at Bethlehem; being carried down to and
brought up out of Egypt; His healing diseases; His entering Jerusalem on
an ass; His being betrayed by one of His disciples; His being left by all His
familiar friends; His being smitten, buffeted, spit upon; His side being
pierced; His bones unbroken; His raiment divided by lot; His receiving
vinegar; His being crucified between two thieves; His being buried by a
rich man; His lying three days in the tomb; His rising on the third day; His
ascending up on high, and sitting at the right hand of God; these and many
others, have all been fulfilled to the very letter; far more literally than we
could have ever conceived. And are not these fulfillments strong arguments
in favor of the literality of all that yet remains behind? Nay, do they not
furnish us with a distinct, unambiguous, and inspired canon of
interpretation?21
O. Palmer Robertson writes:

[A]ny transfer from the old covenant to the new covenant involves a
movement from shadow to reality. The old covenant appealed to the human
longing for a sure and settled land; yet it could not compare with the
realities of new covenant fulfillment. This perspective is confirmed by a
number of references in the new covenant documents. Abraham is declared
to be heir, not of the land, but of the world (Rom. 4:13). By this
comprehensive language the imagery of the land as a picture of restored
paradise has finally come of age. No longer merely a portion of this earth,
but now the whole of the cosmos partakes of the consummation of Gods
redemptive work in our fallen world.
This perspective provides insight into the return to the land described by
Ezekiel and the other prophets. In the nature of things, these writers could
only employ images with which they and their hearers were familiar. So
they spoke of a return to the geographical land of Israel. Indeed there was a
return to this land, though hardly on a scale prophesied by Ezekiel. But in
the context of the realities of the new covenant, this land must be
understood in terms of the newly recreated cosmos about which the apostle
Paul speaks in Romans. The whole universe (which is the land from a
new covenant perspective) groans in travail, waiting for the redemption
that will come with the resurrection of the bodies of the redeemed (Rom.
21
Horatius Bonar, Prophetical Landmarks, pp. 246-247.
8:22-23). The return to paradise in the framework of the new covenant does
not involve merely a return to the shadowy forms of the old covenant. It
means the rejuvenation of the entire earth. By this renewal of the entire
creation, the old covenants promise of land finds its new covenant
realization.22
To read Robertsons The Israel of God is to quickly discover his

intoxication with the representation of virtually the whole Old
Testament in terms of shadowy, temporal forms.23 This is especially
true with regard to the lands alleged temporal significance in view of
Abrahams subsequent inheritance of the world in Romans 4:13.
Though for some strange reason it is vital for Robertson that this
universal prospect should absorb, rather than include the particularity
of Israel, and thus eliminate national identity. The same emphasis on
absorption, or supercession, is made by Wright, Chapman and Sizer.
Whereas it seems perfectly clear that since in you [Abraham] all the
families of the earth will be blessed (Gen. 12:3), that is the Gentile
nations, this broad prospect does not at all eliminate the distinctive
inclusion of national Israel dwelling in the promised land under Christ
surrounded by these same saved Gentile nations who are also under
Christ. So Barrett rightly relates Pauls exposition of Romans 4:13,
which summarize[s] the content of the promise [to Abraham], to
Genesis 22:17-18.24 Thus the world includes the land of Israel at the
center of the world (Ezek. 38:12). Yet for Robertson, even the
explicit restorationist language of Ezekiel is merely a necessary
geographic accommodation to the times of the prophet that calls for a
more universal perspective. However to this Bonar responds that such
a hermeneutic of accommodation, evidently unoriginal, was not at all
necessary.
So far, then, from conceding the opinion that the prophets used language of
the peculiarly Jewish, or, as we might call it, Mosaic cast, because they had
no other by which to convey their representations of the future glory of the
Church, we maintain just the opposite. . . . The reason for which they [the
prophets] used their peculiar style was, because it was the fullest, richest,
and most exact that could be adopted; nay, because it was especially
constructed by God to express that vast variety of ideas which prophecy
22
O Palmer Robertson, The Israel of God, pp. 25-25.
23
Ibid., p. 82.
24
C. K. Barrett, Romans, p. 94. Similarly Moo, Romans, pp. 273-274.
unfolds, with a correctness, and, at the same time, with a power, of which
common language did not admit.25
We agree with Robertson that there will certainly be an eschatological

newly created cosmos according to Romans 8:22-23. Nevertheless
we are once again at a loss to understand how this universal of a
redeemed creation cannot include the particular of a redeemed national
Israel, that is except the author cannot break free from the shackles of
a rigid, unbiblical, eschatological homogeneity.
A CHRISTOCENTRIC HERMENEUTIC THAT IS MISGUIDED
From the foregoing it will be noticed that the anti-Judaic or

supercessionist hermeneutic of Wright, Chapman, Sizer, Motyer and
Robertson, etc., is declared to be founded upon a supremely
Christocentric reinterpretation of the Old Testament, even as Ladd
propounds. It is therefore implied that a Judeo-centric eschatology is
not sufficiently Christocentric since it is impeded by a more literal
understanding of Old Testament Judaism whereby its shadows are
allowed to obscure the reality of Christ. Of course in response it
simply needs to be pointed out that the risen, glorified Christ has never
declared that His Jewishness would ever be abandoned. Though a
supercessionist hermeneutic would tend to require this. Thus on the
Emmaus road, the two Jewish disciples were enthralled when
beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He [Jesus] explained to
them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures (Luke
24:27). Here was no imposition of Himself on Scripture, no
reinterpretation of Scripture, but rather Jesus fulfillment of Scripture
at every hand which the disciples embraced, not as radically new, but
rather as wonderfully fulfilling in terms of the promises of the Old
Testament.
However there is also the need to consider with closer scrutiny the
extent to which Jesus Christ ought to be dominant in the interpretation
of biblical eschatology, that is as an overriding hermeneutical
principle. Some would emphatically suggest that the more we see
only Jesus, even in the Old Testament, then the more we are keeping
to the heart of the Bible. Hence this Christocentricity in interpreting
the Old Testament, even as accentuated by Reformed hermeneutics,
has to be right. However we would carefully assert, in upholding a
25
Bonar, Prophetical Landmarks, p. 238.
Trinitarian perspective with regard to the headship of the Father, that it
is possible for such an understanding of Christocentricity to be
misguided.26 This is not an insignificant point since, as has been well
pointed out by Thomas Smail in The Forgotten Father, it is common
today for an incorrect prominence to be given to Jesus Christ,
especially within Reformed Christianity, as though impossible to
challenge, while in fact it results in biblical distortion.27 For this reason
we believe Chapman, Sizer, Motyer and Robertson, etc., take a
legitimate Christological interpretive principle and give it a
disproportionate primacy and driving emphasis. Consider how Bernard
Ramm provides a more balanced approach when he recommends, for
the interpretation of the prophetic segments of Scripture, four
principles, the third being: The interpreter should take the literal
meaning of a prophetic passage as his limiting or controlling guide.
The fourth is: The centrality of Jesus Christ must be kept in mind in
all prophetic interpretation.28
As an example of this radical christocentricity, consider the following
somewhat lengthy quote of Steve Motyer. It represents a variation of
the more common type of supercesionism in which Jesus Christ
replaces national Israel rather than the church. Nevertheless, the end
result is identical, that is the nullification of Jewish nationality and
territory.
The view which I am arguing in this paper does not see the church as the
replacement for Israel, but sees Jesus in this role. . . . In the opening
chapters of his Gospel, Matthew deliberately tells the story of Jesus birth,
baptism, temptations and entry into ministry in such a way that Jesus
26
While the Christocentricity of the Gospel of John might be considered
beyond dispute, in fact the ministry of Jesus throughout this record is
repeatedly subsidiary to the will, calling and exaltation of His Father (4:34;
5:19; 8:29).
27
Thomas A. Smail, The Forgotten Father. Initially captivated by the
Charismatic Movement, this Anglican author became troubled by a
seeming primary emphasis on pneumatology that gave little place to God
the Father. He further mentions that this lack of biblical proportion was
indeed characteristic of the kind of Reformed Christocentric emphasis in
which I had been grounded. Indeed when one widens the scope and looks
at vital modern Christian movements of any kind, one has to admit that
emphasis upon and devotion to the Father has not been a main
characteristic of many of them. Pp. 18-19.
28
Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation, pp. 234, 248.
history replays the Exodus history of Israel. This is a dramatic re-telling of
Israels story, which would have been immediately obvious to Jewish
readers, but can easily be overlooked by us.
Jesus, too, goes down to Egypt by divine guidance, just like Jacob and his
family. Then he comes out of Egypt in fulfillment of Hosea 11:1, Out of
Egypt have I called my son (Matt. 2:15). Matthew knows full well that he
is applying to Jesus a verse originally about the Exodus! He is giving a clue
to help us interpret the significance of Jesus. Armed with this clue, we then
see how Jesus passes through water, just like Israel on her way out of
Egypt, and, just as for Israel, this is a defining moment in Jesus
relationship with God (Mat. 3). Then he is tested in the wilderness, just like
Israel after the Exodus (Matt. 4:1-11), and he quotes to the Devil three
verses all drawn from the story of that wilderness testing of Israel, with
flying colors. Finally, just as Israel came to a mountain where she heard
Gods ten words, constitutive of her life with him, so now Jesus climbs a
mountain and utters the nine words constitutive of life in the kingdom of
Godstatements not of duty, but of blessedness (Matt. 5:1-12).
We could hardly ask for a clearer presentation of the conviction that Jesus
steps into he role of Israel, in Gods plan.29
It is the hermeneutic that especially concerns us here. To begin with,

apart from this conjectural extrapolation, there is not one explicit
statement in the New Testament which supports the suggestion that
Jesus Christ is the new covenant replacement for old covenant Israel.
However, strictly for the sake of argument, let us grant the rationale
here that Matthew subtly portrays Jesus as the Old Testament
revelation of Israel. Then, in allowing this subjective representation,
where in all of this is there the necessity for Jesus to replace, and not
simply be identified with Israel? A wonderful case can be made for the
representation of Jesus by Joseph in Genesis, in spite of the fact that
there is not one explicit verse of justification for this analogy to be
found in the New Testament. Of course, this being the case, at best we
are left with a good and helpful illustration. And this being so,
Motyers proposal is likewise at best a good and helpful illustration.
However, to build a doctrinal case upon this for the replacement of
national Israel by Jesus is both extreme and unsound! Robert Strimple,
another Reformed theologian making a defense of the amillennial
disenfranchisement of national Israel, likewise declares that,
29
June, 2003. Internet sourced: http://eauk.org/Content-Manager/ Content/-
The true Israel is Christ. . . . Yes, Israel was called to be Gods Servant, a
light to enlighten the nations and to glorify Gods name. But since Israel
was unfaithful to her calling and failed to fulfill the purposes of her divine
election, the Lord brought forth his Elect One, his Servant, his true Israel.30
However this particular claim for supercession is made without the

slightest warrant from the New Testament. Yes, there is a sense in
which the suffering Servant of Isaiah does take the name of Jacob
and Israel (Isa. 44:1), though we believe it is entirely arbitrary and
unwarranted to suggest in a manner of replacement. Rather we would
suggest that, by such terminology in Isaiah, the Messiah intimately
identifies with Israel because of a specific saving purpose that is in
mind: I [the LORD] will keep you [my servant], and I make you a
covenant for the people [Israel] and a light to the nations (Isa. 42:6;
cf. 44:21-23). Nevertheless, the fact that Israel is consistently
defined in the New Testament, with regard to the nation rooted in
Abraham and never the Gentiles, wholly excludes the idea that Christ,
or for that matter the church, have superceded Israels national
identity. Thus William Campbell explains:
Although we do acknowledge Jesus as the true Israelite, the ideal servant of
God, we must not totally identify him with Israel. We cannot claim that
Christ is Israel. . . . Nor is it legitimate to claim that Christ displaces or
becomes Israel. In such a theology, the humanity of Christ is obliterated
with Israel, and the outcome is that we are left with a theological docetism
that manifests itself as individualism.31
Certainly we accept the truth that Jesus Christ, as the seed of Abraham,
both represents and embodies the nation of Israel in a vivid sense; His
intimate identification in this respect must not be downplayed. Indeed
we would further agree that there does appear to be a helpful analogy
between the exodus of Israel and the life of our Lord Jesus Christ.32
Nevertheless we object to the out of bounds portrayal here of Jesus
30
Robert Strimple, Amillenialism, Three Views on the Millennium and
Beyond, ed. Darrell L. Bock, pp. 87-90.
31
W. S. Campbell, Church as Israel, People of God, Dictionary of the Later
New Tstament and Its Developments, eds. Martin and Davids, p. 217.
Similarly, Craig Blaising, A Premillennial Response to Robert B.
Strimple, Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond, ed. Darrell L.
Bock, pp. 145-147.
32
Paul D. Feinberg, Hermeneutics of Discontinuity, Continuity and
Discontinuity, ed. John S. Feinberg, pp. 121-122.
Christ replacing national Israel to the point of elimination through
transference.
A CHRISTOCENTRIC HERMENEUTIC FOR THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES
In contrast with the foregoing, we maintain that there is a right

Christocentric method of interpretation that is relevant to all of
Scripture. In the light of modern supercessionism, this hermeneutic
especially addresses both the Old Testament and the New Testament
according to the unifying principle of Judeo-centricity. In other words,
as the Scriptures of the whole Bible are mainly of Hebrew origin, and
the Savior was Hebrew along with the founding church, then we
should never cease to keep this Hebrew perspective before us. The
Hebrew character of Old Testament Scripture ought not to be regarded,
in its literal form, as pass, and therefore the object of reinterpretation
by the New Testament Gentile Christian! In Tet-Lim N. Yees Jews,
Gentiles and Ethnic Reconciliation: Pauls Jewish Identity and
Ephesians, he significantly concludes:
[I]t is my hope that the lasting impression of this study will be that the
substantial contribution of Christianity is Jewish. Our assessment of
Ephesians within the new perspective which helps us to gain a clearer
view of the first-century Jews and Judaism has shown abundantly
clearly that the theme of Jewish attitudes toward the Gentiles and ethnic
reconciliation cannot be fully appreciated unless we give the enduring
Jewish character of Christianity which is represented in Ephesians its
due weight.33
This does not simply involve being acquainted with extra-biblical

Jewish sources but rather that Jewish hermeneutic with which the
apostles almost unconsciously breathed. This is especially to be the
case when Gentiles desire to understand the Word of God. Thus when
the Old Testament is quoted in the New Testament by a Hebrew
33
Tet-Lim N. Yees Jews, Gentiles and Ethnic Reconciliation: Pauls Jewish
Identity and Ephesians, p.228. Although this revision of a doctoral thesis at
Durham University, especially focusing upon Ephesians 2, draws upon the
new perspective emphasis of E. P. Sanders, James D. G. Dunn, and N. T.
Wright, disagreement with some of the conclusions of this movement does
not detract from appreciation of the fundamental approach that calls for
heightened regard for the essential Jewish nature of biblical Christianity.
Refer to Chapter 10: Israel and a Romans 11 Synthesis, for further
references to Dr. Yees study in relation to Ephesians 2.
author, we anticipate his use of an established Hebrew hermeneutic,
not necessarily so familiar to the Gentile mind, though certainly not
some supposed new, superceding and radical hermeneutic. This is the
point that Horatius Bonar makes so well which we repeat from page
219. The apostle [as the author of Hebrews] proceeds upon certain
principles of interpretation recognized among his countrymen. He did
not write as one who had discovered a new theory of interpretation
which he called on them to receive [emphasis added]. This vital,
essential principle being established, it follows that when the New
Testament Jewish author quotes from the Old Testament, sometimes
with a methodology that is not following the exact literal meaning, we
consider it the height of presumption to conclude that this usage
nullifies the possibility of the original passage retaining literal validity.
Rather we look to a more Hebrew based hermeneutic that remains
based upon a literal understanding of the text. And in this regard, we
find ourselves in agreement with David Sterns comment that the
New Testament is a Jewish book, written by Jews in a Jewish
context,34 as well as his explanation of the four basic modes of
Scripture interpretation used by the Rabbis. These are:
(1) Pshat (simple)the plain, literal sense of the text, more or less
what modern scholars mean by grammatical-historical exegesis,
which looks to the grammar of the language and the historical setting
as background for deciding what a passage means. Modern scholars
often consider grammatical-historical exegesis the only valid way to
deal with a text; pastors who use other approaches in their sermons
usually feel defensive about it before academics. But the rabbis had
three other modes of interpreting Scripture, and their validity should
not be excluded in advance but related to the validity of their implied
presuppositions.
(2) Remez (hint)wherein a word, phrase or other element in the text
hints at a truth conveyed by the pshat. The implied presupposition is
that God can hint at things of which the Bible writers themselves were
unaware.
(3) Drash or midrash(search)an allegorical or homiletical
application of a text. This is a species of eisegesisreading ones own
thoughts into the textas opposed to exegesis which is extracting
from the text what it actually says. The implied presupposition is that
the words of Scripture can legitimately become grist for the mill of
human intellect, which God can guide to truths not directly related to
the text at all.
34
David Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary, p. 13.
(4) Sod (secret)a mystical or hidden meaning arrived at by operating
on the numerical values of the Hebrew letters, noting unusual
spellings, transposing letters, and the like. . . . The implied
presupposition is that God invests meaning in the minutest details of
Scripture, even the individual letters.
These four methods of working a text are remembered by the Hebrew word
PaRDeS, an acronym formed from the initials; it means orchard or
garden.35
Michael Vlach points to the same four categories, as referenced by

Richard N. Longenecker, that would have been common knowledge
to the authors of the New Testament.36 Hence, keeping these Judeo-
centric hermeneutic principles in mind, we now turn to three
examples frequently referenced concerning the manner in which
Old Testament passages are quoted in the New Testament. In these
instances, we believe it is wrong to allege that a New Covenant
hermeneutic, previously unknown, is introduced that nullifies the
original, literal Old Testament meaning. On pages 215-217, Hosea
2:23; cf. Romans 9:24-26, has already been considered in this
regard.
Example 1. Hosea 11:1; cf. Matthew 2:15.
At face value, the strict meaning of Hosea 11:1 seems at variance with
the quotation from this verse found referenced in Matthew 11:1. Hosea
is plainly speaking of Israel when he declares, out of Egypt I called
My son. However Matthew, having advised that the child Jesus had
found refuge in Egypt from Herod, then anticipates His eventual return
from Egypt as fulfillment of Hoseas explanation, out of Egypt I
called My Son. Has Matthew then introduced a new Christocentric
hermeneutic that nullifies the former reference to Israel? Is Christ now
identified as Israel? To begin with it is important that the subsequent
context of Hosea 11:1 be considered. Whereas v. 1 introduces Gods
original redemptive love for Israel, yet vs. 2-7 tell of His relentless,
compassionate pursuit, mingled with judgment, for a constantly
35
Ibid., pp. 11-12.
36
Michael J. Vlach, The Church as a Replacement of Israel: An Analysis of
Supercessionism, Ph.D. diss., Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary,
2004, p. 176n. Richard N. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic
Period, pp. xxxiii, 14-35.
rebellious, betrothed people. However vs. 8-11 reveal the eventual
triumph of Gods sovereign grace whereby I will not turn back to
destroy Ephraim. . . . They will follow the LORD; . . . Then I will settle
them in their homes. This is the LORDS declaration. Clearly, the
ultimate restoration of Israel is envisaged here, except that if Matthew
has introduced a new hermeneutic, then this can be reinterpreted as
simply the inclusive triumph of Gods love for His people, quite apart
from any more exclusive national considerations that have now been
superceded. However, not only is this unnecessary, but also it does not
satisfy our reading of vs. 2-11. Hence, on the one hand the literal
interpretation of Hosea stands, and especially as this so obviously
agrees with Ezekiel 36-37 concerning the future salvation of national
Israel. On the other hand, as we have already considered (pages 228-
231), Matthew identifies Jesus as the personification of Israel, though
certainly not as a replacement, even as Isaiah identifies the suffering
Servant of the Lord as both Messiah and the personification of Israel.
So David Stern sees here a [Hebrew] remez, a hint of a very deep
truth. . . . the Messiah is equated with, is one with, the nation of
Israel.37 Therefore Matthew does not reinterpret Hosea; he simply
fulfills Hosea, for the restoration of national Israel will be inseparably
related to that time when, the sons of Israel will return and seek the
LORD their God and David their king [Messiah]; and they will come
trembling to the LORD and to His goodness in the last days (Hos. 3:5).
Example 2. Amos 9:11-12; cf. Acts 15:16-18.
According to Amos 9:11-15, the future restoration of Israel is declared

in terms of reconstruction for the house of David, inclusive of national
deliverance for the Gentiles, vs. 11-12, recovery from destitution, v.
13, return from captivity, v. 14, and relocation in the promised land, v.
15. The quotation of vs. 11-12 by James in Acts 15:16-18 is deemed
by those of a supercessionist persuasion to be proof that the Christian
church has inherited the promises originally made to Israel through
Amos. Thus as amillenialist Kim Riddlebarger states:
James saw the prophecy as fulfilled in Christs resurrection, exaltation, and
in the reconstitution of his disciples as the new Israel. The presence of both
37
Ibid., p. 12.
Jew and Gentile in the church was proof that the prophecy of Amos had
been fulfilled. Davids fallen tent had been rebuilt by Christ.38
It is important to notice here that Riddlebarger, along with others who

take a similar supercessionist stance, seems eager to disqualify the
Jewish eschatological implications of the whole of Amos 9:11-15. For
him, the hermeneutic of James, this quintessential Jewish Christian
leader of the Jewish church at Jerusalem and likely author of the
Epistle of James, is supposed to have completely nullified the nation of
Israel, the future restoration, and the land as he would have understood
it, with one fell blow! This we believe to be highly unlikely, in spite of
Motyers extreme language that here, James dramatically re-reads
Amos prophecy of the restoration of Israel. . . . [Concerning the
inclusion of the Gentiles] Its a new action, demanding a new reading
of Scripture.39 Rather James references Amos simply to indicate his
agreement with Peters experience that the Gentiles have been
included in Gods gospel program. In no way does this reinterpret
Amos 9:13-15 where Israels restoration to the land is specified. Even
Palmer Robertson admits that all of Amos 9:11-15 cannot be
exclusively equated with the blessings of the present church age.
Rather
the present fulfillment of Amos prophecy may be seen as only the first
stage of Gods consummation activity. The restoration of the Davidic
throne takes on the lowly form of a booth or tent. Yet the first installment
of the Spirit as possessed by Gentiles today guarantees the future
restoration of all things. Endowed in the end with bodies transformed by
the resurrection power of the same Holy Spirit, believers in Christ
ultimately shall participate in the restoration of all things at the re-creation
of heaven and earth.40
Of course the obvious weakness that remains here, being accentuated

by the necessity of the foregoing, is the fact that Robertson still refuses
to allow the inclusion of any eschatological future for the nation of
Israel in the land. This is in spite of the fact that Amos 9:14-15
explicitly declares: Also I will restore the captivity of My people
38
Kim Riddlebarger, A Case for Amillennialism, p. 39.
39
June, 2003. Internet sourced: http://eauk.org/Content-Manager/ Content/
40
O. Palmer Robertson, Hermeneutics of Continuity, Continuity and
Discontinuity, ed. John S. Feinberg, p. 108.
Israel, . . . I will also plant them on their land, and they will not again
be rooted out from their land which I have given them. Thus as
Kenneth Barker puts it well:
[W]at happened in Acts 15 constitutes a stage in the progressive fulfillment
of the entire prophecy in Amos 9 (cf. Acts 15:12-15). It is an instance of
direct fulfillment, but not the final and complete fulfillment, as the
following verses in Amos (9:13-15) plainly indicate.41
Similarly, from a Hebrew Christian perspective, Stern comments:

The complete fulfillment of Amos prophecy will take place when the
undivided realm of Davids time is restored. Meanwhile, this is a
beginning.42 In other words, the either-or hermeneutic of Reformed
eschatology in which saved national Israel cannot coexist with the
Gentile nations in the consummate kingdom of Christ does not mesh
with the prophetic revelation here. The supposed necessity of Judaic
exclusion, dressed in the language of supercession or transference,
must yield to the both-and eschatology of one people of God in which
Israel and the Gentile nations distinctively exist under Christ. When
this fundamental issue is yielded to, then will result a change of
temperament whereby a shameful anti-Judaic attitude is supplanted by
Pauline, pro-Judaic passion.
Example 3. Zechariah 12:10-14; cf. John 19:37; Revelation 1:7.
According to Zechariah 12:1-9, the final eschatological attack upon

Jerusalem results in the Lords intervention. So David Baron explains,
Israels great national deliverance and the destruction of the armies of the
confederated anti-Christian world-powers which shall be gathered in the
final siege of Jerusalem. That will, indeed, be a great and wonderful day in
their history. . . . But yet there is something greater, more solemn and more
blessed, than mere outward deliverance and triumph over their enemies that
Israel is to experience on that day, and that is Gods final conquest over
them.43
41
Kenneth L. Barker, The Scope and Center of Old and New Testament
Theology and Hope, Dispensationalism, Israel and the Church, eds.
Blaising and Bock, p. 327. Also refer to Homer Heater, Jr., Evidence from
Joel and Amos, The Coming Millennial Kingdom, eds. Campbell &
Townsend, pp. 147-157.
42
Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary, p. 277.
43
David Baron, Zechariah, p. 436.
Then the house of David will be redeemed by means of the Spirit of
grace and supplication, v. 10. Here is the crowning act by which the
Lord saves Israel. It is this Spirit which causes Israel to look, mourn,
and weep (Ezekiel 36:26-27; 37:1-4, 9-10, 14; 39:25-29) concerning its
crucified Messiah. By way of application, God saves the Jews in the
same way as He saves the Gentiles, through Holy Spirit regeneration
that gives the repentant sinner eyes to see Jesus as Savior. So there will
be the piercing of the Lords first-born, vs. 10b-14. While it was
Roman soldiers who pierced Jesus Christ, yet it was at the instigation
of the Jews (Acts 2:22-23).
But what of John 19:37? Is this the sole and complete fulfillment of
Zechariah 12:10? In view of the rest of v. 10 and on through to v. 14,
undoubtedly not. Furthermore, consider the additional reference of
Revelation 1:7. As all of Israel paid off its shepherd (Zech. 11:12), so
all of Israel pierced the Lord, and will continue to do so in a corporate
sense to the end of this age. In effect John 19:37 refers to a fulfillment
in part, that is the specific incident of Messiahs piercing, but certainly
not the whole of the national mourning yet to come. It is similar to the
previous study of Amos 9:11-12 which was seen to be fulfilled in part
by James in Acts 15:16-18. Hence after Israels national eschatological
regeneration (Rom. 11:12, 15, 26) there will be national, bitter and
prolonged weeping, vs. 10c-14. Undoubtedly this intensive and
extensive mourning has never yet come to pass, though in recollection
of the centuries of rejection, such thoroughgoing, consummate grief is
not to be considered unexpected or inappropriate. Notice how Israel
has grief as one mourns for an only son, even over a firstborn, and
thus the deity of Christ as the only begotten of the Father is suggested.
Feinberg adds: When the one who is greater than Joseph makes
himself known to his brethren, they will be heartbroken with grief and
contrition44 (Gen. 45:14-15). There will not only be special mourning
in Jerusalem, v. 11, but also total mourning throughout the land, vs.
12-14. Nevertheless if Israel should so weep, then should any saved
Gentile weep the less on account of his guilty participation in the
piercing of the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 4:27)?
Hence the partial soteriological fulfillment of Zechariah 12:10
according to John 19:37 in no way diminishes anticipation of the
eschatological repentance of national Israel. It may be that Revelation
44
Charles L. Feinberg, Zechariah, Wycliffe Bible Commentary, eds. Pfeiffer
and Harrison, p. 909.
1:7 should be translated, And all the tribes of the land will mourn
over Him45 (cf. Matthew 24:30); but if not and tribes of the earth is
substituted, the overall eschatological expectation of Israels national
repentance and salvation according to Zechariah 12:10 is in no way
diminished.
In conclusion, we return to the fundamental character of the Reformed
eschatological hermeneutic, here severally represented, which so
vehemently disallows a diversity within the unity of Jesus Christs
consummate kingdom. We believe that for reasons more philosophic
than logical, more historic than biblical, more systematic than
exegetical, there is a tenacious refusal to allow a both-and regard for
Israel and the Gentile nations. Indeed there has come about a Gentilic
fear for the perpetuation of Judaic influence upon Christianity, as if the
church at Antioch should supercede the church at Jerusalem. Though
Acts 15 indicates how invalid such a proposal is. Of course the ethical
results in this regard have not been inconsequential. It is as if history
dominates, that is Augustinianism reigns and holds exegesis in
captivity. However history also indicates that in the realm of
eschatology, Augustine was terribly wrong and therefore so are those
who follow in his eschatological steps with regard to the
disenfranchisement of national Israel. Thus we believe that in this
particular realm of divine truth, much of Reformed exegesis has been
driven more by an historic hermeneutic rather than the principle of
semper reformandum, always reforming. After all, Luther, Calvin,
Turretin, Fairbairn, Bavinck, and Vos could not possibly be wrong! Or
could they? They are all part of the same eschatological lineage that
focuses through lenses that are essentially Augustinian. And if this
patristic root, with its unsavory eschatology, does not result in the
ripening of its fruit through the sweetening of sovereign grace, its
continuance and bitter influence, after the manner of centuries of
church history, will only result in branches that bring forth tart produce
during this 21st century.
45
So J. A. Seiss and David Stern.
Israel and the harmony of spiritual materiality 241
Chapter Eight
ISRAEL and the harmony of

spiritual materiality
A LL eschatological opinions are open to perversion, even with

regard to the three major schools of interpretation. They each
have attracted devotees who have strayed from the mainstream of the
historic norm. Amillennialism has drifted in a gnostic and platonic
direction through identification with a more spiritually amorphous,
extraterrestrial, ethereal, egalitarian future kingdom that defies human
comprehension. Postmillennialism has inclined toward a legislated
political kingdom, somewhat Mosaic in character, that more recently
has drifted toward extreme preterism. Premillennialism, in proclaiming
a future earthly reign of Jesus Christ upon a renewed earth, has been
associated with carnal Zionism that lacks authentic spirituality. It is
this allegation against premillennialism that we are here concerned
about for it certainly does have a degree of validity with regard to some
deviant proponents. Certainly there are those who have given undue
prominence to Israels prospective glorious dominion in predominantly
political and sensationalist terms. Nevertheless this remains quite
invalid in the light of a classic historic premillennial understanding
with regard to Israels biblical future prospects.
It was Augustine who, in considering a seventh-day millennial Sabbath
of a thousand years, commented that this opinion would not be
objectionable, if it were believed that the joys of the saints in that
Sabbath shall be spiritual, and consequent on the presence of God; for I
myself, too, once held this opinion.1 However, in further expounding
upon Revelation 20, he opposed chiliasm or millennialism, and
characterized an extreme materialistic example of it as,
the leisure of immoderate carnal banquets, furnished with an amount of
meat and drink such as not only to shock the feeling of the temperate, but
even to surpass the measure of credulity itself, [so that] such assertions can
be believed only by the carnal. They who do believe them are called by the
1
Aurelius Augustine, The City of God, XX, 7.
242 Israel and the harmony of spiritual materiality
spiritual Chiliasts, which we may literally reproduce by the name
Millenarians.2
We can only designate this as an extreme representation which an

authoritarian church perpetuated for centuries. A more biblical
portrayal of classic millennialism, even incorporating a form of
Christian Zionism, is now presented according to the essential
distinguishing characteristic of spiritual materiality.
THE FALL OF SPIRITUALITY AND MATERIALITY
When we read in Genesis 1:31, God saw all that He had made, and it
was very good [tob], the totality here includes the light, dry land,
the gathering of the water, the earth, the vegetation . . . plants . . .
seeds . . . trees, the two great lights, the large sea creatures and
every living creature . . . every winged bird, the wildlife of the earth .
. . the livestock . . . and creatures that crawl on the ground (Gen. 1:4,
10, 11-12, 16-18, 21, 25). Hence we believe that this whole creation
was very good in its substance in conjunction with a hovering and
inherent spirituality. Perhaps we could go so far as to say that Gods
original creation was comprised of spiritual materiality, and thus was
wholly unpolluted, undefiled. There was nothing carnal or second-
rate about this holy materiality. If the Spirit of God was moving over
the surface of the waters (Gen. 1:2) at the commencement of creation,
how much more did this same Spirit inhabit the whole of that same
creation at its completion, and especially the Garden of Eden. Further,
the fact that Adam and Eve, in their innocence, had intimate fellowship
with God (Gen. 3:8-9) indicates that there was blessed spiritual kinship
and union. From Gods perspective, that which He had created was
good, spiritually and materially, especially in the sense of it being
admirable both ethically and esthetically. Psalm 104:1-6, 24, 30-31
well reflects the overall glory of Gods creation, not its material earthly
inferiority that pales before spiritual heavenly superiority.
My soul, praise the LORD!
LORD my God, You are very great;
You are clothed with majesty and splendor.
He wraps Himself in light as if it were a robe,
spreading out the sky like a canopy,
laying the beams of His palace on the waters [above],
2
Ibid.
making the clouds His chariot,
walking on the wings of the wind,
and making the winds His messengers,
flames of fire for His servants.
He established the earth on its foundations;
it will never be shaken.
You covered it with the deep as if it were a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
How countless are Your works O LORD!
In wisdom You have made them all;
the earth is full of Your creatures.
When You send Your breath, they are created,
and You renew the face of the earth.
May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
may the LORD rejoice in His works.
In resting, immediately following the creation, God reflected and
mused upon the excellence of His labor, surely in greater terms of
veneration than any Psalmist could express. If it could be said that God
sings (cf. Christ singing, Matt. 26:30; Heb. 2:12), it would have been at
such a time that He sang an exultant doxology of worthy Self-praise
concerning the perfection resulting from His six days of labor.
However the fall of Adam and Eve in sin contracted the curse of God
upon the whole created order over which they had been commissioned
to have righteous dominion. The holy materiality of the creation
became an unholy materiality. The consequences of this universal
sinful pollution, being judgment upon Adam and his posterity, also
included judgment upon the world in its broadest sense, not just
humanity. In particular, decay and degradation in the human species
also resulted in decay and degradation within the whole material order.
Such is the world that today we inhabit. It is difficult for redeemed
man, let alone unredeemed man, to conceive of a world in which
materiality and spirituality perfectly coalesce. Nevertheless, the
promise that the child of God eagerly looks forward to is that future
time when, the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of
corruption into the glorious freedom of Gods children, . . . [that time
of] the redemption of our bodies (Rom. 8:21, 23).
THE SPIRITUALITY OF MATERIALITY IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
Not only is the Old Testament revelation a transcript of the truth of

God communicated through a Hebrew prism, but also it reveals
visceral earthiness and admiration of the imminent creation that is in
confluence with transcendent spirituality reaching to Gods glorious
throne in heaven. Thus as George Eldon Ladd explains:
Hebrew thought saw an essential unity between man and nature. The
prophets do not think of the earth as merely the indifferent theater on which
man carries out his normal task but as the expression of the divine glory.
The Old Testament nowhere holds forth the hope of a bodiless,
nonmaterial, purely spiritual redemption as did Greek thought. The earth
is the divinely ordained scene of human existence. Furthermore, the earth
has been involved in the evils which sin has incurred. There is an
interrelation of nature with the moral life of man; therefore the earth must
also share in Gods final redemption. . . . The fact that man is a physical
creature is not the measure of his sinfulness and therefore a state from
which he must be delivered. Rather, the acceptance of his creaturehood and
the confession of complete and utter dependence upon the Creator God are
essential to mans true existence. . . . Salvation for man does not mean
deliverance from creaturehood, for it is not an evil thing but an essential
and permanent element of mans true being. Salvation does not mean
escape from bodily, creaturely existence. On the contrary, ultimate
redemption will mean the redemption of the whole man. For this reason, the
resurrection of the body is an integral part of the biblical hope.
The corollary of this is that creation in its entirety must share in the
blessings of redemption. There is no Greek dualism or Gnosticism in the
Old Testament hope. The world is not evil per se and therefore a realm
from which man must escape to find his true life. When God created the
world, he saw that it was good (Gen. 1:31). The goodness of nature has
indeed been marred by sin. The earth is cursed for mans sake, bearing
thorns and thistles, and condemning man to a life of sweat and toil. This
does not, however, suggest any intrinsic moral evil in nature. It does not
mean that creation has fallen from goodness to evil, so that it has become
offensive to its Creator. The world was created for Gods glory (Ps. 19:1);
and the ultimate goal and destiny of creation, along with man, is to glorify
and praise the Creator (Ps. 98:7-9). The world is not a temporary stage
upon which man acts out the drama of his mortal existence; neither is it the
reality of sin and evil from which man must be rescued. The world was and
remains Gods world and therefore is destined to play a role in the
consummation of Gods redemptive purpose.3
3
George Eldon Ladd, The Presence Of The Future, pp. 59-60, 63-64.
Thus, from a Hebrew Christian perspective, Baruch Maoz comments:
It is true that redemption from sin is not to be conceived of in terms that are
primarily material. On this point the New Testament is as clear as the Old,
though much more emphatic. But salvation is not to be thought of as
exclusively spiritual and moral, as if Israels living in the land had no
spiritual and moral implications! The gospel message is replete with
appreciation for the material realm. The New Testament makes it quite
clear that the material is the arena in which ultimate salvation is to take
place (Rom. 8:18-25), thus reconfirming Old Testament expectation. Even
our bodies are to be redeemed.4
With this in mind, we reject that imposition of the shadowy character

of the Mosaic covenant upon the general ethos of the Old Testament as
a whole. This is in no way meant to depreciate the significance of
progressive revelation where type and promise in the Old Testament
proceeds toward antitype and fulfillment in the New Testament.
However we believe that Palmer Robertsons The Israel Of God, in
repeatedly using the term shadow or type in a very comprehensive
sense with regard to the Old Testament, goes way beyond the obvious
temporal, typological limitations of the Mosaic Covenant. He does this
by attempting to incorporate similar limitations within the Abrahamic
Covenant since he knows that it is here that the promise of the Land is
rooted.5 So he further comments: In speaking of Israels land under
the old covenant, it is necessary to think in categories of shadow, type,
and prophecy, in contrast to reality, substance, and fulfillment under
the new covenant.6 This we believe to be a fundamental error. As we
have repeatedly maintained, the Land is rooted in the abiding
Abrahamic covenant, not the transient old covenant. Furthermore the
materiality of this Land should not be divorced from any prospective
spirituality. Being aware of this, Robertson responds:
redemption, but was to point to Christs tabernacling among his people (cf.
John 1:14), and just as the sacrificial system could never atone for sins but
4
Baruch Maoz, People, land and Torah: a Jewish Christian perspective,
The Land of Promise, eds. Philip Johnston and Peter Walker, p. 196.
5
In Chapter One, The Israel of God: Its Land, Robertson makes at least
twenty references to the Land as shadow or type, and principally in
parallel with Mosaic entities.
6
O. Palmer Robertson, The Israel of God, p. 4.
experienced the blessing of its full possession. In this way the patriarch
learned to look forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and
builder is God (Heb. 11:10).7
It is significant that Robertson cannot prove his point here apart from
the further use of inappropriate identification of the Land with the
Mosaic Covenant, along with an attempt at depreciation of the original
Abrahamic Covenant. Here also is recourse to an incorrect, Gentilic,
antithetical understanding of Hebrews 9:23-26; 11:10, that is the
concept of a superior, other-worldly heaven above and inferior earth
below, as an either/or rather than a both/and prospect. It appears to
escape Robertson that here in Hebrews we have a learned Hebrew
Christian author instructing Hebrew Christians concerning Hebrew
Scripture using a Hebrew hermeneutic. When Abraham first entered
and surveyed the promised land, it was manifestly unholy as a result of
extreme Canaanite defilement. His looking was for the consummation
of the promise originally given when heaven would come down and
transform the unholy land into the land that was to become truly holy
(Zech. 2:12). Doubtless at that glorious time, the Land will have
become regenerated and at the same time spiritually material.
Nevertheless, it will still be the Land of Israel. Refer to Chapter Nine:
Israel and the Inheritance of the Land through Abraham.
THE SPIRITUALITY OF MATERIALITY IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
At the transfiguration of Jesus, it seems that for a fleeting period, the

veil of perfect humanity is penetrated to reveal essential glory so that
His face shone like the sun. Even His clothes became as white as the
light (Matt.17:2). The account of Luke adds concerning Moses and
Elijah: They appeared in glory [doxa] (Luke 9:31). Evidently Moses
was identifiable as Moses while Elijah was identifiable as Elijah. Here
was the embodiment of spiritual materiality on planet earth. So with
the resurrection appearances of the Lord Jesus; He was transformed
into tangible, spiritual materiality (Luke 24:13-16, 30-31; John 20:15-
16). In Galilee, He Himself stood among them. He said to them,
Peace to you. But they were startled and terrified and thought they
were seeing a ghost (Luke 24:36-37). Then He invited them: Touch
Me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can
see I have (24:39). Subsequently He ate fish, after which He left
7
Ibid., p. 13.
them and was carried up into heaven (Luke 24:51). Again, here is the
formerly crucified, but now resurrected, Son of God plainly evidencing
spiritual materiality. So Paul similarly instructs us in I Corinthians
15:35-57 that the seed of the buried dead human body is to be raised
with a distinctively new body. Concerning the more exact nature of this
resurrection body we are told: So it is with the resurrection of the
dead: Sown in corruption, raised in incorruption; sown in dishonor,
raised in glory; sown in weakness, raised in power; sown a natural
body, raised a spiritual body. . . . And just as we have borne the image
of the man made of dust, we will also bear the image of the heavenly
man [as a both/and result]. Brothers, I tell you this: [sinful] flesh and
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and corruption cannot inherit
incorruption [except resurrection change be accomplished when]. . . .
this corruptible must be clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal
must be clothed with immortality (I Cor. 15:42-44, 49-50, 53).
So the Judeo-centric, premillennial hope anticipates that time when the
spiritual materiality of the redeemed, who have been regenerated and
resurrected, will have become gloriously manifest. They will comprise
Israel and the Gentile nations; they will enjoy the consummation of
their salvation on an earth of spiritual materiality where the glorious,
spiritually tangible and spiritually material Jesus Christ will reign from
the spiritually material Jerusalem. However for those who continue to
charge that premillennialism is carnal at its roots, Horatius Bonar has a
compelling response that is worth pondering.
I am told that the literal sense is often so carnal that it must be departed
from. Perhaps in some cases it may be so; but every passage must first be
brought separately to the test. A literal fulfillment is often just as spiritual
as any other; and it is a strange misapprehension of the true scope of
Scripture to suppose that because some interpret literally, therefore they do
not interpret spiritually. . . . Take the prophecies regarding the incarnation
of Christ. Before that event took place, there might be a controversy as to
whether they were to be literally fulfilled or not. A Jew might have argued
with much apparent force against a literal meaning, What! Is God to take
upon Himself the form of a man? Is Jehovah to become an infant of days,
nay, to be born of a creature, to be a man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief, to die and be buried, as men die and are buried? Impossible! the very
idea is carnal beyond endurance. These prophecies cannot be interpreted in
their literal sense; they must have some figurative, some spiritual meaning.
So might a Jew have argued before Messiah came; and truly, when we
think what it was that he had to believe regarding his Messiah, we could not
have wondered had he found much difficulty in receiving such prophecies
as literal; our wonder is at the strength of that faith which, in spite of
difficulties so vast, could take in the idea, and believe in the reality of that
stupendous fact which the literal interpretation of prophecy involved. The
fact, the glorious but stupendous fact, made known in the fullness of time,
proved not only that the literal was the true sense of these prophecies
regarding Messiahs first coming, but also established this truth, that the
literal interpretation and fulfillment may be the more truly spiritual of the
two. Take, as another illustration of the point in hand, the doctrine of the
resurrection. That doctrine appeared to some, in the first ages, such a carnal
doctrine, that they denied the literal accomplishment of those Scriptures
which speak of it. Of these were Hymenus and Philetis, mentioned in the
Second Epistle to Timothy. They maintained that a literal resurrection was
such a carnal thing, that those passages which refer to it must mean
something spiritual,the resurrection of the soul from sin. They erred
concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection was past already. Here,
also, the literal was the more spiritual of the two interpretations.
It is said, All are one in Christ Jesus, therefore there can be no national
distinction of the Jews, no national restoration, no national pre-eminence. I
am unable to comprehend the ground or force of this reasoning. I cannot
discern the very shadow of inconsistency between the two things; nor can I
understand how the national distinctiveness, or even national pre-eminence
of the Jews, should prevent their being one in Christ Jesus with their
Gentile brethren.
Some have surely a strange notion of what is meant by being one in
Christ, when they make their spiritual oneness depend upon the uniformity
of external circumstances. What a low idea of Christian oneness! They
charge us with carnal views because we insist upon the future
distinctiveness of the Jewish nation; but it appears that the charge of
carnality belongs to them, not to us! We believe in the literal
accomplishment of the prophecies regarding the Jews, in which there
appear to be many promises of temporal blessings as well as spiritual; but
we lay no further stress upon these than the Word of God lays; we admit
spiritual blessings to be the highest and noblest. Our opponents, however,
lay such stress upon external circumstances, as to insist, that if these exist
the oneness in Christ is gone. We had always understood Scripture as
telling us, not that there were no national distinctions, but that, in spite of
these, there was a oneness which bound together all believers; a oneness so
spiritual, so divine, so unearthly, so unapproachable, as not to be in the very
least affected by temporal distinctions of time, or place, or rank.8
We might take this argument further by referring to the Apostle Johns

insistence, not only that the Word became flesh and took up residence
among us (John 1:14), but also that, every spirit who confesses that
8
Horatius Bonar, Prophetical Landmarks, pp. 231-233, 240-241.
Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. But every spirit that
does not confess Jesus [has come in the flesh] is not from God (I John
4:2-3). Indeed, added to this impeccable carnality of the Son of God
was the vital sensual attestation that John esteemed to be of funda-
mental significance concerning, what we have heard, what we have
seen with our eyes, what we have observed, and have touched with our
hands, concerning the Word of Life (I John 1:1). Surely there is
allusion here to Christs post-resurrection appearances that manifest a
glorious and spiritual materiality that has been promised as the form of
His personal second coming (Acts 1:9-11). In Jesus Christ has come
about the union of eternal deity and holy materiality, while at the same
time He has received from His Father the Spirit without measure
(John 3:34).9
Thus the original creation before the fall, especially within the
boundaries of the Garden of Eden, was not of such a lowly and inferior
status that it will be superceded by a heavenly existence. On the other
hand, this is not to say that the vindication of God by means of the
future millennial reign of Jesus Christ upon earth will be the
employment of an economy identical with that of Eden.
THE INFLUENCE OF PLATONISM, ARISTOTELIANISM, AND STOICISM

UPON THE EARLY CHURCH
The early Christian Fathers were Gentile Greeks and Romans. Having
embraced Christian truth, they nevertheless were influenced by the
dominant world view of their time, namely Greek philosophy,
particularly Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Stoicism, often in blended
forms. Gager indicates that the appropriation of Middle- and Neo-
Platonic philosophy by such theologians as Justin, Clement of
Alexandria, Origen, Ambrose, and Augustine, eventually came to play
an important role in the formulation of Christian doctrine.10 Platonism
also had ongoing relevance for Christian mysticism as represented by
Dionysius the Areopagite and Bernard of Clairvaux. Later in the
Medieval Church, John Scotus, then in the Renaissance, John Colet,
Thomas More, and Richard Hooker, imbibed this ongoing stream of
Platonic thought. The prevailing philosophic understanding of Hellen-
9
Concerning this interpretation of John 3:34, refer to Barrett, Carson,
Morris.
10
John G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism, p. 160.
istic deity was that of a transcendent, spiritual, unchanging being in
contrast with the changing character of this material world. Thus Greek
thought was predominantly negative about this earthly existence. It
considered material life in this world to be temporal, transient, the
creation of an inferior deity. The philosophical approach to this world
was usually ascetic in which the philosopher sought to rise above the
things of the world. The Greek or Hellenist despised the material world
because it was tangible substance and changing, deteriorating as an
inferior creation. Man was comprised of body, the mere clothing of the
soul, which was regarded as the real essential person. Future hope was
release from the imprisonment of the earthly body. Of course it is not
difficult to recognize some agreement in certain areas here with
biblical Christianity, especially in the realm of the transcendence of
God. However the thought that God would participate in human flesh,
and indeed resurrect the body, was abhorrent to Greek thought (Acts
17:32; I John 1:1-3; 4:1-3; II John 1:7). Hence we can easily see how
other-worldly Hellenistic thought was in conflict with a more earthy
Hebrew world view, except that some mode of reconciliation could be
employed. Alfred Edersheim explains how rapprochement could be
obtained, even amongst Jews influenced by Hellenism during the time
of Jesus Christ.
To those who sought to weld Grecian thought with Hebrew revelation, two
objects would naturally present themselves. They must try to connect their
Greek philosophers with the Bible, and they must find beneath the letter of
Scripture a deeper meaning, which would accord with philosophic truth. So
far as the truth of Scripture was concerned, they had a method ready at
hand. The Stoic philosophers had busied themselves in finding a deeper
allegorical meaning, especially in the writings of Homer. By applying it to
mythical stories, or to the popular beliefs, and by tracing the supposed
symbolical meaning of names, numbers, &., it became easy to prove almost
anything, or to extract from these philosophical truths ethical principles,
and even the later results of natural science. Such a process was peculiarly
pleasing to the imagination, and the results alike astounding and
satisfactory, since as they could not be proved, so neither could they be
disproved. This allegorical method was the welcome key by which the
Hellenists might unlock the hidden treasury of Scripture.11
It should not surprise us then that the early Christians Fathers, but
particularly the influential Augustine, should be similarly influenced
by Greek thought in such a way as to subtly include elements of
11
Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, II, pp. 33-34.
Hellenism within his hermeneutical frame of reference concerning
Scripture, but especially with regard to eschatology.12 In other words,
the Augustinian concept of the City of God was based upon an
either/or, that is inferior/superior eschatological regard for earth and
heaven rather then the Hebrew both/and eschatological hope
concerning earth and heaven, materiality and spirituality. Herein lies a
fundamental point of difference that this writer regards to be at the
heart of much amillennial allegiance, often quite unconsciously, to
anti-Semitic eschatology. To embrace the Augustinian dichotomy
between materiality and spirituality and impose it on the Old
Testament canon is to fly in the face of the Hebrew hope of spiritual
materiality. However, of supreme importance is the consequence of
this philosophic/theological amalgam that has lead to the depreciation
of national and ethnic Israel. Augustines City of God found its earthly
expression in the Roman Catholic Church that, as the new Israel of
God, would not suffer any legitimacy from a rival old Israel of God. B.
B. Warfield writes:
It was particularly in the doctrine of the Church, which he [Augustine] thus
took up and transfigured, that he became in a true sense the founder of
Roman Catholicism, and thus called into being a new type of Christianity,
in which, the idea of the Church became the central power in the religious
feeling and in ecclesiastical activity, in a fashion which has remained
unknown to the East. . . . To Augustine the Church was fundamentally the
congregatio sanctorum, the Body of Christ, and it is this Church which he
has in mind when he calls it the civitas Dei, or the Kingdom of God on
earth.13
That a Christian today should, in retrospect, consider the subsequent

centuries of denigration of the Jewish people that have transpired
through the widespread influence of Augustinian eschatology and
ecclesiology, and yet at the same time boast in this eschatology, is
difficult to comprehend. Consider Jewish historian Robert S.
Wistrichs estimate in this regard.
The Augustinian theology reinforced the notion of the Jews as a wandering,
homeless, rejected and accursed people who were incurably carnal, blind to
12
Otto Heick, A History of Christian Thought, I, p. 133, quotes Anders
Nygren in Agape and Eros, all his life he [Augustine] remained a Neo-
Platonic Christian or, if you will, a Christian Platonist, p. 458.
13
B. B. Warfield, Calvin and Augustine, p. 313. He quotes Hermann Reuter,
Augustinische Studien, vii, p. 499.
spiritual meaning, perfidious, faithless, and apostate. Their crime, being one
of cosmic proportions, merited permanent exile and subordination to
Christianity. Israel, the older son, must be made to serve the Church, the
younger son, which is the true heir and rightful owner of the Divine
promises enunciated in the Old Testament.14
Hence, when Reformed writers write with admiration concerning their

eschatological linkage with Augustine,15 they might reconsider exactly
what the fruit of this legacy has produced, and how their derived
understanding of national and ethnic Israel would help or retard their
witness to unbelieving Jews.
THE REDEMPTION OF SPIRITUALITY AND MATERIALITY
In rejecting the Platonic/Augustinian eschatological dichotomy

between inferior, earthly materiality and superior, heavenly spirituality,
the preferred alternative of both earthly materiality and heavenly
spirituality in holy union should be carefully understood. Craig
Blaising describes this essential distinction in the millennial debate in a
manner that is well worth consideration at this juncture. It concerns
what he designates as Two Models of Eternal Life. There is The
Spiritual Vision Model which he defines as follows that in fact is the
basic presupposition, or as he defines it, the preunderstanding of
amillennialism.
In the history of the church, many Christian theologians have claimed that
the final state of the resurrected will be in heaven. The way in which they
have described it draws not only on biblical themes . . . but also on cultural
ideas common to the classical philosophical tradition. That tradition has
contributed to the spiritual vision model in three basic convictions.: (1) a
basic contrast between spirit and matter; (2) an identification of spirit with
mind or intellect; and (3) a belief that eternal perfection entails the absence
of change. Central to all three of these is the classical traditions notion of
an ontological hierarchy in which spirit is located at the top of a descending
14
15
W. J. Grier writes glowingly of Augustine as one of the greatest men of
the Christian Church of all time since it has been said that he laid the
ghost of premillenialism so effectively that for centuries the subject was
practically ignored. The Momentous Event, p. 27. Cornelius P. Venema
writes of the the great church father, Augustine with regard to his
instrumental role in establishing the predominant place of amillennialism
over succeeding centuries and on through the Reformation. The Promise of
the Future, pp. 236-237.
order of being. Elemental matter occupies the lowest place. In the spiritual
vision model of eternity, heaven is the highest level of ontological reality. It
is the realm of spirit as opposed to base matter. This is the destiny of the
saved, who will exist in that non earthly, spiritual place as spiritual beings
engaged eternally in spiritual activity.
The perfection of heaven in the spiritual vision model means that it is free
from all change. This changelessness is contrasted with life on the material
earth. While changelessness means freedom from death and decay, it also
means the absence of development or growth. It means freedom from
temporal and historical change, such that the arrival of eternity (or better
ones arrival in eternity) is characterized as the end of time and history.
Following the classical traditions identification of spirit with mind or
intellect, the spiritual model views eternal life primarily as cognitive,
meditative, or contemplative. With this point of emphasis, the place or
realm of eternal life is really a secondary or even inconsequential matter. In
its essential reality, eternal life is a state of knowing. Knowing what?
Knowing God, of courseand this is a perfect way, which means in a
changeless manner. Perfect spiritual knowledge is not a discursive of
developmental knowledge but a complete perception of the whole. The
Platonic tradition spoke of it as a direct, full, and unbroken vision of true
being, absolute good, and unsurpassed beauty. Following the biblical
promise that the saints will see God, the Christian tradition has spoken of
eternal life as the beatific vision of Godan unbroken, unchanging
contemplation of the infinite reality of God.16
Then there is the New Creation Model which is the basic

presupposition, or preunderstanding of premillennialism.
The new creation model of eternal life draws on biblical texts that speak of
a future everlasting kingdom, of a new earth and the renewal of life on it, of
bodily resurrection (especially of the nature of Christs resurrection body),
of social and even political concourse among the redeemed. The new
creation model expects that the ontological order and scope of eternal life is
essentially continuous with that of present earthly life except for the
16
Craig A. Blaising, Premillennialism, Three Views on the Millennium and
Beyond, eds. Darrell L. Bock, Stanley N. Gundry, pp. 161-162. It is
acknowledged that some amillennialists have attempted to retain materiality
involving the present planet earth in their understanding of the future new
heavens and new earth. Nevertheless, this must surely be seen as a
precipitous situation in that it opens the door for a more earthy
understanding of Old Testament passages that, according to a prima facie
reading, proclaim a glorious, holy earthly existence. In such a case the door
would then open even wider to Messiah inhabiting and reigning over a
geographic Jerusalem, Israel, and the nations.
absence of sin and death. Eternal life for redeemed human beings will be an
embodied life on earth (whether the present earth or a wholly new earth),
set within a cosmic structure such as we have presently. It is not a timeless,
static existence but rather an unending sequence of life and lived
experiences. It does not reject physicality or materiality, but affirms them
as essential both to a holistic anthropology and to the biblical idea of a
redeemed creation.
While eternal life is essentially continuous with present existence, it is not
simply an unending eternal life. Those who share that life will be immortal,
having been freed from death through resurrection or translation. Sin will
not exist. The saints will be confirmed and glorified in a holy character by
the Spirit of God. As such they will enjoy communion with God as well as
with one another in the new creation. This is the Spirituality of eternal life
in the new creation modelnot the absence of materiality but the full effect
of the Holy Spirits indwelling the resurrected physical bodies of the
redeemed. (This is also the meaning of spiritual bodies in I Corinthians
15material bodies indwelt by and glorified by the Holy Spirit.
Following the language of Isaiah 25, 65, and 66, of Revelation 21, and of
Romans 8, the new creation model expects the earth and cosmic order to be
renewed and made everlasting through the same creating power that grants
immortal and resurrection life to the saints. The nonhuman aspects of
creation, both animate and inanimate, will be greatly blessed beyond the
state of things prior to the transgression of Adam and Eve. This is the
new in the new creation view of eternity.17
THE TENSION BETWEEN SPIRITUALITY, MATERIALITY

AND AUGUSTINIANISM
It is worthwhile considering Robert Strimples critique of the

preceding scenario of Craig Blaising since it raises a more recent
development within amillennial eschatology. In disclaiming a proven
connection between amillennialism and the Spiritual Vision Model,
reference is made to Charles E. Hills Regnum Caelorum: Patterns of
Future Hope in Early Christianity, which volume considers the streams
of millennialism and amillennialism that flowed during the early
church up to the mid-third century. Thus Hill concludes:
Nor should it be thought permissible to portray all opposition to early
chiliasm as Greek, allegorizing, or spiritualizing. Doubtless chiliastic
hopes must have seemed a chimera [a fantastic/gross result of imagination]
to any who were favorably disposed to Platonism, but the eschatological
scheme that looked for a return of Christ to be followed, without an
17
Ibid., pp. 162-163.
interregnum, by a last judgment and an eternal state was no less realistic,
no less historical, and no more allegorical, mystical, or Greek than
was chiliasm. Nor was the amillennial tendency necessarily or ultimately
antimaterialistic; it only looked for the next stage of material realization
to be final, perfect, and eternal (Rom. 8:19-23), rather than intermediate,
gradational, and temporal.18
However, aside from this conclusion which spans a period of

approximately 150 years, and thus hardly encompasses the history of
the church as Blaising puts it, it must be asked as to how Augustine,
immediately following the period of Hills consideration, arrived at his
amillennialism. After all his doctrine was, as previously pointed out,
influenced by the dominant world view of that time, namely Greek
philosophy, particularly Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Stoicism,
often, as we have already pointed out, in blended forms. As Gager
indicated, those especially impacted by this teaching were Justin,
Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Ambrose and Augustine.19 Hill himself
admits: We know that Augustine, in continuity with the non-chiliastic
tradition, still reserved a large place in his exegesis for the Church
triumphant in heaven.20 Hence, not surprisingly, in Augustine having
been a Neo-platonist prior to his conversion, Warfield concludes: [I]t
was as a Neoplatonist thinker that Augustine became a Christian; and
he carried his Neoplatonic conceptions over into Christianity with
him.21 Not that this legacy remained; quite to the contrary, Warfield
suggests that it diminished. Thus Augustine is not expounding the
Neoplatonist philosophy in Christian terms: he is developing the
philosophy of Christianity in terms of the best philosophic thought of
the day.22 With this in mind, as well as the subsequent Aristotelian
legacy of Thomas Aquinas and centuries of Roman Catholic
mysticism, it is not surprising that this era, up to the present, has indeed
been dominated by Blaisings Spiritual Vision Model.
Nevertheless, in the light of the preceding, it is interesting to consider
that more recently a number of Reformed amillennialists have upheld a
version of Blaisings New Creation Model, and from a premillennial
18
Charles E. Hill, Regnum Caelorum, Patterns of Millenial Thought in Early
Christianity, p. 251.
19
John G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism, p. 160.
20
Hill, Regnum Caelorum, p. 267.
21
Benjamin Breckinridge. Warfield, Calvin and Augustine, p. 369.
22
Ibid., p. 374.
perspective, we believe this to be a step in the right direction. In
considering the representations of Anthony Hoekema, Robert Strimple,
Cornelius Venema, and Samuel Waldron, we find interpretations of the
new heavens and a new earth which do appear to affirm a hope in
future spiritual materiality. Thus Hoekema raises the question as to
whether the new earth will be totally other than this present earth or a
renewal of the present earth. . . . Lutheran theologians have often
favored the former of these two options. . . . We must, however, reject
the concept of total annihilation in favor of the concept of renewal.23
Now we would agree with Hoekema concerning his rejection of the
Lutheran perspective. Nevertherless we would suggest a far more
broad legacy has prevailed within Christendom that, as we have
already indicated, involved centuries of a mystical heavenly hope
rather than anything earthly, especially Jewish, according to spiritual
materiality. Even so Hoekema appears to quote approvingly Edward
Thurneysen who wrote that:
The world into which we shall enter in the Paousia of Jesus Christ is
therefore not another world; it is this world, this heaven, this earth; both
however, passed away and renewed. It is these forests, these fields, these
cities streets, these people, that will be the scene of redemption. At present
they are battlefields, full of the strife and sorrow of the not yet
accomplished consummation; then they will be fields of victory, fields of
harvest, where out of seed that was sown with tears the everlasting sheaves
will be reaped and brought home.24
Concerning Revelation 21:24 and 26, Hoekema declares:

One could say that, according to these words, the inhabitants of the new
earth will include people who attained great prominence and exercised
great power on the present earthkings, princes, leaders, and the like. One
could also say that whatever people have dome on this earth which glorified
God will be remembered in the life to come (cf. Rev. 14:13). But more
must be said. Is it too much to say that, according to these verses, the
unique contributions of each nation to the life of the present earth will
23
Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and The Future, p. 280. It is significant
that Hoekema acknowledges his indebtedness to Patrick Fairbairns
Typology of Scripture with regard to the development of his teaching on
The New Earth, pp. 276n, 279. Refer to Chapter Six: Israel - and
Christian anti-Judaic hermeneutics in History for a consideration of
Fairbairn in this regard.
24
Ibid., p. 281. Thurneysen, as a pastor theologian, was a close colleague of
Karl Barth in Germany.
enrich the life of the new earth? Shall we then perhaps inherit the best
products of culture and art which this earth has produced?
Then he concludes:
Whereas ecologists often picture the future of this earth in gloomy terms, it
is encouraging to know that some day God will prepare a glorious new
earth on which the ecological problems which now plague us will no longer
exist. . . . As citizens of Gods kingdom, we may not just write off the
present earth as a total loss, or rejoice in its deterioration. . . . As we live on
this earth, we are preparing for life on Gods new earth.25
All of this is quite astonishing. Without blushing, language is used

being very similar to that which premillenarians have employed for
generations. Even more startling is the mention of distinctive national
contributions, which of necessity would surely have to include the
cultural benefactions of Israel! But then, according to amillennialism,
such a distinction is pass. Hence, it is also fascinating to note that
more recently, several amillennial authors have expressed their
agreement with Hoekemas exposition with regard to the nature of the
eschatological New Earth. Three examples are:
1. Robert B. Strimple, Amillennialism, Three Views on the
Millennium and Beyond, ed. Darrell L. Bock, pp. 256-276. Referencing
Bavinck and Vos in support, he also draws upon Hoekemas even
more earth-oriented vision.
2. Cornelius P. Venema, The Promise of the Future, pp. 454-488. Also
referencing Bavinck and Hoekema, he makes a significant though
unexplained comment: Ironically, the future millennium of
dispensational expectations is in some ways a less literal fulfillment of
the biblical promise of the news heavens and earth than that of
Amillennialism.26
3. Samuel E. Waldron, The End Times Made Simple, pp. 225-241. In
confessing his dependence on Hoekema, this author declares that:
The heavenly country is not a country in heaven, but a country from
heaven. The heavenly kingdom is the kingdom from heaven and not the
kingdom in heaven. . . . Though heaven is the happy abode of the
disembodied righteous during the present age, in the age to come heaven
comes to earth. . . . This doctrine enables us to answer the best argument of
25
Ibid., pp. 286-287.
26
Cornelius P. Venema, The Promise of the Future, p. 469n.
both pre- and postmillennialists. What is this argument? It is the countless
Old Testament and New Testament prophecies that clearly prophecy a
future, earthly kingdom. In the past, those opposing millenarianism often
failed to satisfactorily interpret such passages. They attempted to apply
them to the church in the present age or to heaven. Such interpretations did
not make sense to many good people. They shouldnt have! They were
wrong. Only the doctrine of the new earth [Isa. 65-66] provides a proper
interpretation of such passages.27
In reply, we very much appreciate the hermeneutical advance here

from former classic amillennialism that is more genuinely literal.
Though Waldron struggles with the interpretation of Isaiah 65-66 and
the possibility of death,28 as does E. J. Young,29 relegating an alleged
premillennial economy to the eternal state which will nevertheless
constitute a millennial environment upon a renovated earth. Now we
readily confess that Isaiah 65-66 is not an easy passage to interpret,
whatever eschatology one follows. Yet our main objection to Waldron
remains. In terms of Judeo-centric premillennialism, there is inconsis-
tency in attributing millennial conditions to the eternal state because,
[t]he emphasis on the earth and land is too pervasive and too deeply rooted
in the biblical doctrine of creation itself to be explained away on this basis.
To dismiss all of the emphasis on the earth in favor of a more spiritual
view of the eternal state raises serious questions.30
This being all too true, in again considering Isaiah 65-66 in this regard,
it is astonishing that the distinction that will exist between My
people/My chosen ones (65:15, 19, 22) and the nations (66:12, 18),
as well as the identification of Jerusalem/Zion/My holy mountain
(65:18-19, 25; 66:8, 10, 13, 20), is rejected because of supercessional
presuppositions concerning Israel. Are these terms, in distinctively
representing the community and geography of heaven on earth, to be
identified as the actual Jerusalem where Messiah will personally reign
from Zion over Israel, My servant (49:3) as the Holy One of Israel
(60:14)? Surely the pervasive Judeo-centric language of Isaiah 41:8-10;
43:1-7; 44:21; 45:17; 46:3-4, 13; 49:5-7; 55:5; 60:9, 14; 63:7-8
27
Samuel E. Waldron, The End Times Made Simple, pp 240-241.
28
Ibid., pp. 235-238.
29
Commenting on Isaiah 55:20, The conditions of Paradise are to be
restored, but the new age will surpass Paradise, E. J. Young, Isaiah, III, p.
515.
30
Waldron, End Times Made Simple, p. 227.
provides an eloquent and positive answer. In the glory of the earthly
kingdom yet to come, Israel will have distinctive prominence.
However supercessionist amillennialism plainly conflicts with such an
expectation while its eschatological outworking concerning Israel has
proved to be historically shameful.
THE REDEMPTION OF ISRAELS FALLEN SPIRITUAL MATERIALITY
Surely the preeminent passage of Scripture that describes the

regeneration, resurrection and restoration of national Israel is Ezekiel
36:22-37:28. Spurgeons sermon on this Ezekiel 37:1-10 is well worth
studying. He proposes that dispersed national Israel will experience
national conversion as well as glorious residency in the Land under
Christ.31 His plain exposition is in stark contrast with O. Palmer
Robertsons attempt to spiritualize this passage in terms of a New
Testament resurrection motif.32 We would strongly maintain that
Spurgeon is essentially and obviously correct, while it is difficult to
avoid the conclusion that Robertsons explanation is born of avoidance,
at all costs, of what is, according to Spurgeon, patently obvious. Two
related matters should be considered at this point. First, the nation of
Israel will enjoy the redemption of its fallen spiritual materiality. The
language is full of the inert material becoming gloriously alive unto
God. The national and personal form remains, but the bones come to
life and are clothed with redeemed flesh that responds with submissive
adoration. Second, 37:28 declares, When My sanctuary is among
them forever, the nations [Gentiles] will know that I, the LORD,
sanctify Israel. There is no absorption here of the Jews into the
Gentile community or of the Gentiles into the Jewish community.
Rather the Jews will inhabit the Land, and the Gentiles will surround
them, manifesting perfect diversity in unity, as the seed of Abraham.
Carnal Zionism
In Chapter Five: Israel - and Christian Encounter with Zionism, not

only the predominant secularity of this modern movement was
described, but also many remarkable providential circumstances. So
31
C. H. Spurgeon, The Restoration and Conversion of the Jews, Ezekiel
37:1-10, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, X, 582, Ages Software.
32
O. Palmer Robertson, The Israel of God, pp. 21-25.
David Larsen has written in this regard concerning this impressive rise
of European Zionism.
While doubtless there were complex motives of self-interest on the part of
Great Britain, [Chain] Weitzmann stoutly maintained in his memoirs that
the sincere Christian beliefs of Balfour, Lloyd-George, and Jan Christian
Smuts were more responsible than anything else for the new opening for
the Jews in Palestine.33
Certainly the present leadership of Israel in general, also the population

and diaspora, reflect no love for Jesus of Nazareth as its longed for
Messiah. Before such animosity the Apostle Paul never ceased to
witness in synagogues wherever he traveled. Though it is interesting to
note that whereas in 1967, the year of the Six Day War in which Israel
regained ancient Jerusalem, there were hardly any Messianic Jewish
congregations in the world, by 1998 there were 350 gatherings.34
Within Israel, whereas in the 1950s there were at least 20 Christian
churches, congregations and groups, in the 1990s there are over 130
such gatherings.35 However, as is pointed out in Chapter Eleven: Israel
- as God'sBeloved Enemy with reference to Romans 11:28, God still
has a covenantal regard for His beloved enemies in the flesh, that is a
preponderance of severed natural olive branches (Rom. 11:17, 20-21).
In essence, carnal Zionism places a primary emphasis upon
circumcision of the flesh, related religious form, external legal
conformity, and secular nationalism. In the realm of eschatology, it
excludes the primacy of necessary spiritual renovation both personally
and nationally. By way of example, consider the common referencing
of, Pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Ps. 122:6). Dr. Stanley Ellison
directs us to more seriously reflect upon this plea of King David.
To pray this prayer intelligently in the will of God, it is important to discern
more specifically what peace the Psalmist had in mind. Was he speaking
of military triumph for the nation? Are we to pray for modern Israels
political dominance over the Arabs? Should we encourage her annexation
of the West Bank and Gaza Strip? How about praying that the Muslim
Dome of the Rock be replaced by a new Jewish temple? Or should we
33
David Larsen, Jews, Gentiles, and the Church, p. 182.
34
Gary Thomas, The Return of the Jewish Church, Christianity Today,
September 7, 1998.
35
Kai Kjr-Hansen and Bidil F. Skjtt, Facts and Myths About the Messianic
Congregations in Israel, pp. 67-69.
simply pray for Israels international prominence and peaceful relations
with her neighbors in the Middle East?36
Here is also exposed the very heart of carnal Christian Zionism. It is

chiefly concerned with a prophetic agenda, the Nation of Israel as if it
were merely a playing piece on a chess board. However there is no
Pauline passion for the very soul of Israel after the manner of the Lord
Jesus Christ weeping over Jerusalem (Matt. 23:37-38)!
Spiritual Zionism
By way of contrast, spiritual Zionism places a primary emphasis

upon circumcision of the heart, related Godly virtue and Spirit
constrained worship, while yet continuing to acknowledge the
significance of circumcision, national and territorial identity. But
again with reference to Psalm 122:6, also vs. 7-9, the primary desire
of David is for him, in fellowship with authentic believing brethren,
to draw close to God within His house. This then is the very source
of the peace, with rejoicing, he so longs for. But further he also
acknowledges that ultimately this peace is a sovereign, gracious
bestowment of God and not an achievement of man.
So Dr. Ellison further explains:
The context of this Psalm appears to have a very different emphasis.
Davids concern was for the house of the Lord, that is, the tabernacle in
Jerusalem. As Hebrew pilgrims ascended the rugged hills to the city, they
especially anticipated a time of fellowship with their covenant Lord,
bringing with them various offerings. They came To give thanks to the
name of the Lord, as the psalmist expresses it. Warfare would restrict or
deny this privilege, but that was not his main concern. The peace of which
he speaks is not primarily outer, but inner peacenot political, but
spiritual. May peace be within you, is his emphasis. His concern
throughout the Psalm is the house of the Lord and the spiritual peace that
comes through a right relationship with God.
For this peace of Jerusalem all creation groans, and all Gods people are
exhorted to fervently pray. It is the grand climax of the biblical drama of
Israel, through whom God will bring the full blessing of Abraham to all the
world.37
36
Stanley A. Ellison, Who Owns The Land? pp. 184.
37
Ibid., pp. 185-186
Hence, what is of supreme importance is that, in the sovereignty of

the grace of God, Zion will undergo resurrection unto spiritual
materiality. Because the LORD of hosts says: I am extremely
jealous for Jerusalem and Zion (Zech. 1:14), He will once more
comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem (Zech. 1:17). As a result,
I [the LORD] will return to Zion and live in Jerusalem. Then
Jerusalem will be called the Faithful City, the mountain of the LORD
of hosts, and the Holy Mountain (Zech. 8:3). Commenting on this
last reference and what follows, David Baron admirably describes
the essential character of spiritual Zionism.
Jehovah, in the person of the Messiah, will dwell in the midst of
Jerusalem, which shall become the center of His governmental dealings
with the world, and the place whence light and truth shall go forth unto all
the nations. And Jerusalem shall be called Ir ha-emeth, the City of truth;
first, because it shall be the seat of the El-emeth, The God of Truth; and,
secondly, because the remnant of Israel, which shall then dwell in it,
shall not any longer do iniquity, nor speak lies (Zeph. 3:13), but be
known throughout the earth for their truth and fidelity toward God and
man. And the mountain of Jehovah of hosts, i.e., Mount Zion, shall be
called The Holy Mountain, because there the Holy one of Israel shall
once more take up His abode, and by His presence in their midst sanctify
His people, so that they, too, shall be holy; and, Qodesh la-Yehovah
Holiness (or holy) unto Jehovah, shall be written, not only upon their
hearts and foreheads, but upon all their possessions, down to the very bells
of their horses, and the pots which they shall use to prepare their food
(14:20-21; Isa. 1:26; 60:14; 62:12).
Now follows a beautiful picture of restored and flourishing Jerusalem. No
longer shall the holy city, and the land of which it is the metropolis, be
depopulated by war and other grievous calamities, and lie desolate. The
LORD of hosts says this: Old men and women will again sit along the
streets of Jerusalem, each with a staff in his hand because of advanced age.
The streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in them.
Zech. 8:4-5).38
Here spiritual materiality shall have attained to that glorious

consummation over which Jesus the Messiah shall reign, with the
harmonious, distinctive incorporation of both Israel and the Gentile
nations.
38
David Baron, Zechariah, pp. 233-234.
Israel as heir of the land through Abraham 263
Chapter Nine
ISRAEL and the inheritance of

the land through Abraham
I T is an astonishing fact that, at the heart of the controversy

surrounding the nation of Israel today and the Jews in particular, the
matter which most frequently awakens fervent dispute concerns the
ownership and inhabitation of the land of Palestine, that is the Land of
Israel, a specific geographic region, a material territory, a piece of
historic real estate, that generates world shaking concern. In parallel
with this are underlying biblical considerations that raise the question
of disputed legitimacy for the Jewish people who have now comprised
the State of Israel since 1948, and thus regained the Land, haaretz.
The reason for this dispute is no small matter for consideration. It
should be noted that while Jews, as individuals, are barely tolerated in
their dispersal throughout the world, yet it is the current dispute over
the Land, especially in relation to the hostile claims of the surrounding
Arab nations and Arab Palestinians, that continually threatens to bring
about calamity of international proportions. Hence, it is proposed that,
as emphasized elsewhere in this book, as Jewish individualism is
endured while at the same time Jewish nationalism is more strenuously
opposed, even within the United Nations, so the Land has especially
become a trigger, a catalyst that ignites world-wide animosity to
Zionism. For Zionism is rooted in the biblical concept of the Land.
And the Land epitomizes an indivisible union between territory and
people. So Baruch Maoz explains this distinctive phenomenon.
[Linguistically] Israel denotes both people and land. . . . The land is no
passive observer, a mere sphere in which Israel as a people operate. It is
spoken of as altogether at one with the peopleso much so that it becomes
liable for the peoples actions (Lev. 26:14; Deut. 6:12). It is also a privilege
granted to the land (Lev. 25:4-5). Israels sin brings punishment to the land
(Lev. 26:33; Deut. 24:4, 28-29), for God will be angry with the land
because of the peoples sin. Conversely, when the people are true to God,
264 Israel as heir of the land through Abraham
he will bless them and the land (Deut. 30:9). Israels destiny is that of the
land (Ps. 122:1-2, 6; 147:2).1
Hence we repeat that while the individual Jew is socially tolerated at

best in Western society, yet his national identification with the Land of
Israel seems to awaken much greater controversy. And this appears to
be the case in the theological realm as well, particularly when
replacement theology or supercessionism are considered. Jewish
individuality is suffered, in a token sense, while the nation and territory
of Israel is repudiated by means of such misguided epithets as carnal
Zionism, Dispensationalism, a temporal earthly shadow, etc.
Those who have no millennial sympathies that closely identify ethnic
Israel with the land are usually quick to present a common objection,
namely that the New Testament revelation of the Word of God places
no emphasis on the land of Israel in contrast with the Old Testament
where references are so numerous. It is interesting that these comments
frequently arise in the consideration of Romans 9-11. With regard to
Romans11:25-26 Herman Bavinck comments:
[E]ven if Paul expected a national conversion of Israel at the end, he does
not say a word about Palestine to the Jews, about a rebuilding of the city
and a temple, about a visible rule of Christ: in his picture of the future there
simply is no room for all this.2
Similarly C. E. B. Cranfield writes concerning Romans 11:26b-27:

[T]here is here no trace of encouragement for any hopes entertained by
Pauls Jewish contemporaries for the re-establishment of a national state in
independence and political power, norincidentallyanything which
could feasibly be interpreted as a scriptural endorsement of the modern
nation-state of Israel.3
Martyn Lloyd-Jones is even more shrill in tone when, in preaching on

vs. 25-32 during 1964 and 1965, he declared:
Where do you find any reference whatsoever to the land of Palestine or of
Israel in this section? Where is there any mention of the restoration of the
1
The Land of Promise, eds. Philip Johnston and Peter Walker, pp. 191-192.
2
Herman Bavinck, The Last Things, p. 107.
3
C. E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle To The Romans, II, p. 579.
Jews to the land? Where is any mention of Jerusalem as such and the
reigning there of the Lord for a thousand years?4
Finally, Bruce Waltke gives similar strong criticism that relegates the
premillennial/dispensational understanding of the land to a cheap
representation of that which is transcendently enriching in its spiritual
fulfillment.5
What is astonishing here is that such comments are made of Paul, the
converted rabbi, who, especially in Romans 9-11, is so eager to
maintain his passionate loyalty and love for ethnic Israel. In other
words he writes as a Hebrew Christian and it is a conspicuous
weakness concerning Bavinck, Cranfield, Lloyd-Jones, and Waltke,
that they seem to avoid contemporary conservative scholarship which
is rooted in a Hebrew Christian perspective that is similar to that of
Paul. Indeed, it could be enquired, apart from such categorical Gentile
criticism, where is there any breadth of Hebrew Christian scholarship
that would add support with equal force to what these authors
maintain? To the contrary, it ought to be considered that a
preponderance of Hebrew Christian opinion does indeed repudiate such
4
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans, Exposition of Chapter 11, pp. 231-235.
Preaching during 1964-5, prior to the 1967 Six Day War, He is repetitive in
this vein, even denying any relationship in this passage to the Second
Coming of Christ. However one wonders if there was an adjustment in
perspective by 1980, shortly before his passing in 1981. When, interviewed
by Carl Henry for Christianity Today, the response was given: To me
1967, the year that the Jews occupied all of Jerusalem, was very crucial.
Luke 21:43 is one of the most significant prophetic verses: Jerusalem, it
reads, shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles
be fulfilled. It seems to me that that took place in 1967something
crucially important that had not occurred in 2,000 years. Luke 21:43 is one
fixed point. But I am equally impressed by Romans 11 which speaks of a
great spiritual return among the Jews before the end time. While this seems
to be developing, even something even more spectacular may be indicated.
We sometimes tend to foreshorten events, yet I have a feeling that we are in
the period of the end. . . . I think we are witnessing the breakdown of
politics. I think even the world is seeing that. Civilization is collapsing.
Carl Henry, Martyn Lloyd-Jones: From Buckingham to Westminster,
Christianity Today, February 8, 1980, pp. 33-34.
5
Bruce K. Waltke, A Response, Dispensationalism, Israel And The
Church, eds. Craig A Blaising and Darrell Bock, pp. 357-9.
a Gentile understanding with equal vehemence.6 It is granted that

amidst the dominance of contemporary Gentile Christianity this voice
is not as influential. Nevertheless ought not this neglected focus cause
the Gentile student of the New Testament to more carefully consider
Romans 9-11 in the light of the fact that is was written by a converted,
highly qualified Jewish Rabbi? Frankly, one suspects that Paul might
respond with exasperation at that exegesis which, while strangely
tolerating limited individualism concerning the contemporary fact of
the Jew, most vigorously opposes any territorial nationalism that might
still be rooted in the Abrahamic covenant. Besides, to suggest that the
exclusion of the term land in Romans 9-11 has significance is as
insignificant a conclusion as that which might be drawn from the
exclusion of the terms repentance in the Gospel of John and love
in the Acts of the Apostles. To suggest that in boldly confessing, I too
am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin,
11:1, yet the Apostle disavows any attachment to the Land, is
ludicrous. Here, as already indicated, is sadly evident that Gentile
tendency towards detachment and aloofness from the natural
branches 11:17-24 which has been the blight of the Christian church
for centuries.
THE LAND IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
The origin of the land commences, as Stephen relates, when the glory
of God appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia,
before he settled in Haran, and said to him: Get out of your country
[pagan Ur of the Chaldees] and away from your relatives, and come to
the land that I will show you (Acts 7:2-3). In Haran, following the
death of his father Terah, the call is repeated to Abraham, The LORD
said to Abram: Go out from your cland, your relatives, and your
fathers house to the land [Jr#a#h,* haaretz] that I will show you (Gen.
12:1). Upon his arrival at Shechem from Haran, there is further
confirmation: The LORD appeared to Abram and said, I will give this
land to your offspring (Gen. 12:7). Hence this specific territory is
rooted in persistent promise (Gen. 13:14-17) that is then covenantally,
unilaterally signified or cut (Gen. 15:7-21). The finality here was in no
way abrogated when, 430 years later, the temporary, intervening,
6
Refer to the writings of Michael Brown, Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Dan
Gruber, Baruch Maoz, Mark Nanos, David Stern, as well as the ministry of
the Caspari Center, Jerusalem.
foreshadowing administration of Moses was added because of

transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise had been made
would come (Gal. 3:19; cf. Jer. 11:7-8; Rom. 5:20). Just prior to
Israels exodus from Egypt, God instructed Moses to reassure His
captive people of their eventual inhabitation of the promised Land
according to the Abrahamic Covenant (Exod. 6:1-9). The subsequent
necessity of the interregnum Mosaic Covenant was never intended to
supercede or overshadow that which had originally been promised. In
this regard we believe that W. D. Davies is incorrect when he writes
that, In the Christological logic of Paul, the land, like the Law,
particular and provisional, had become irrelevant.7 With respect, the
Land was not promised to Abraham as a passing shadow, as something
merely provisional. There is no such representation in the Bible.
Rather, unlike the structure of the Mosaic economy, the land is
perpetuated as a vital element of the new covenant (Jer. 31:27-40;
Ezek. 11:14-21; 36:22-37:23). In other words, it is important to
understand that the Abrahamic Covenant finds its fulfillment in the
New Covenant, notwithstanding the intervening, temporal Mosaic
Covenant. As the Abrahamic Covenant promised the land, and the
intervening Mosaic Covenant involved temporal association with the
land, yet the New Covenant declares consummate fulfillment of that
promise to Abraham with its specific references to the land, and not
some extrapolated, abstract universalism. In particular, the New
Covenant describes Israels return to the land from dispersion as the
land that I gave to your forefathers (Jer. 31:38-40; Ezek. 11:17; 36:24,
28).
Hence in terms of roots, the Old Testament as a whole always
originally identifies the land with the Abrahamic Covenant, but never
the subsequent Mosaic Covenant. Certainly the Mosaic Covenant
draws upon the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant (Exod. 3:6-8, 15-
17; 13:5; 33:1-3; Lev. 20:24; Num. 13:27), nevertheless the Mosaic
Covenant can never nullify that which was inaugurated with unilateral
finality 430 years earlier (Gal. 3:17). While the New Testament
Scriptures frequently describe the Mosaic Old Covenant as being
comprised of shadows and types, this terminology is never directly
applied to the promise character of the Abrahamic Covenant,
notwithstanding its signification by means of circumcision (Col. 2:16-
17; Heb. 8:3-6; 10:1). Certainly circumcision was a sign of the
7
covenant that God made with Abraham. However, the land was never
regarded as a sign of the covenant; rather it was intrinsic to that
covenant, and this is a most vital distinction to keep in mind (Gen.
12:1, 7). It is for this reason that the land is distinguished from Mosaic
typology since it is an abiding reality in itself.
By way of summary, we may understand the land from different
perspectives according to the ways in which it is predicated.
1. The land as promise, according to Gods irrevocable covenant, His

sworn oath (Gen. 50:24; Exod. 12:25; Deut. 6:3; 19:8).
2. The land as holy, that is set apart by God, who is holy, from other
lands for inhabitation by His people (Ex. 15:13; Zech. 2:12-13).
3. The land as Gods possession, so that the people of Israel, as His

redeemed children, are tenants since the land is Mine (Lev.
25:23).
4. The land as Gods gift, according to His gracious bestowal to

Abraham and his descendants (Deut. 1:20, 25; 2:29).
5. The land as the fathers possession, that is Abraham, Isaac, and

Jacob, hence subsequent generations (Gen. 31:3; 48:21; Exod.
33:1).
6. The land as the nation of Israels inheritance, possession,

permanent dwelling place, according to covenant promise (Gen.
12:7; 15:7; 24:7; 28:4; 36:43; 40:15).
7. The land as security, blessing, and rest, a place flowing with milk
and honey, hence material and spiritual prosperity (Exod. 33:3;
Lev. 20:24).
8. The land as the center of the world, that is its navel, the intention
being that it will be a blessing to the world (Ezek. 5:5; 38:12).
9. The land as Gods dwelling place with His people, especially in

holy and intimate union (Ps. 37:9, 11, 22, 29, 34; 132:13-15; Isa.
1:19).
THE LAND IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
The following compendium addresses the objection with regard to the

supposed silence of the New Testament concerning the land of Israel as
a continuing divine heritage. During the formative years of the
Christian Church, certainly no Jewish Christian, and especially the
mother Church in Jerusalem, would have faintly considered the thought
that the promise concerning the land was about to be rescinded or
transcended. For that matter, it is just as unlikely that the Gentile
Church at Antioch, having been granted great liberty by the Council of
Jerusalem, would have concluded that the Jewish Church at Jerusalem
had, by its decree in giving freedom to the Gentiles, at the same time
established its own demise with regard to being distinctively Jewish.
Surely this was never in the mind of Paul or Barnabas.
Some Biblical Indications
In the New Testament, Israel, is used seventy-three times, eleven of

which are found in Romans (9:6 (2), 27 (2), 31; 10:19, 21; 11:2, 7, 25,
26). Israelite/s is used four times (John 1:47; Rom. 9:4; 11:1; II Cor.
11:22). With regard to the Synoptic use, Mayer declares that Israel
stands for the people and the land (Matt. 20:1; 21:1).8 Concerning
Pauls overall usage, and after consideration of Romans 2:29; 9:6; I
Corinthians 1:18; Philippians 33:3, Burton concludes that, there is, in
fact, no instance of his using Israel, except of the Jewish nation or a
part thereof.9 Hence, to suggest that Paul the Israelite had nevertheless
abdicated recognition of the legitimacy of the land is to impose upon
the Apostle a Gentile perspective that he never remotely contemplated.
In the light of the preceding, it is astonishing to consider once again a
further aspect of Robert Strimples earlier referenced definitive
proposition concerning Israel (pages 229-239):
The true Israel is Christ: He is the suffering Servant of the Lord [Isa. 41:8-
9; 42:1-7; 44:1-2, 21; 45:4], this one who iswonder of wondersthe
Lord himself! . . . Yes, Israel was called to be Gods servant, a light to
enlighten the nations and to glorify Gods name. But since Israel was
8
R. Mayer, Israel, Dictionary of New Testament Theology, II, p. 315.
9
Ernest De Witt Burton, Galatians, p. 358.
unfaithful to her calling and failed to fulfill the purposes of her divine
election, the Lord brought forth his Elect One, his Servant, his true Israel.10
To begin with, here is a Reformed seminary professor describing

Israels lost election through disobedience! However Berkouwer
rightly addresses this inconsistency as follows:
Can a past that has been qualified by election ever come to naught? Can
election of God as we usually understand it ever be changed into
rejection? Can the Church inherit the place of the chosen people of Israel,
so that election passes over to the church? Do we not usually consider
Gods election as something irrevocable, definitive, and all-powerful; and
is it consequently meaningless to assume that the election of Israel could be
negated by human reaction, even unbelief?11
The emphatic inference here that Gods election of Israel is absolute

leads us to consider the related fact that the land of Israel is part of that
election, and as such it too is part of the inviolate character inherent in
the Abrahamic covenant. It is for this reason that we believe the
following references quite clearly give New Testament indications that
the land of Israel has retained its validity during the Church age,
particularly because the gifts [emphasis added] and calling of God are
irrevocable (Rom. 11:29).
1. Matthew 24:30; cf. Rev. 1:7. Then the sign of the Son of Man will
appear in the sky, and then all the peoples of the earth will mourn;
and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven
with power and great glory. A problem is brought to the fore here
concerning the translation of, hai phulai tes ges, the tribes of the
earth, since if, tes ges is uniformly translated in the New
Testament as the earth, then the absence of any mention of the
land of Israel in the New Testament is virtually guaranteed.
However the context suggests that Zechariah 12:10, 14 is inferred
by Matthew in this instance, in which case the tribes of the Land
[of Israel] is a more appropriate translation.12 The meaning here
would then indicate that reference is being made to the conversion
10
Robert B. Strimple, Amillennialism, Three Views on the Millennium and
Beyond, pp. 87-88.
11
G. C. Berkouwer, The Return of Christ, pp. 326-327.
12
Indebtedness here for this interpretation is due to David Stern, Restoring
The Jewishness Of The Gospel, p. 39. Similarly John Gill, also J. A. Seiss,
Revelation, I, pp. 57-58, concerning Revelation 1:7.
of national Israel at the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Indeed the subsequent reference that Christ will gather His elect
from the four winds Matt. 24:31), and further the parable of the
fig tree, would all the more lend credence to the focus here being
upon national Israel. The same translation problem arises in
Revelation 1:7 where, in the light of reference again being made to
Zechariah 12:10, 14, the translation should probably read, the
tribes of the Land [of Israel], not the families of the earth.
Certainly reference to the Land in Zechariah 12:11-12 offers
further support to the aforementioned interpretation.
2. Luke 21:20-24, especially v. 24. They [the Jerusalemites] will fall
by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all the nations; and
Jerusalem will be trampled by the Gentiles until [achri hou, as
Rom. 11:25] the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Thus
following the subjugation of Jerusalem, and consequently the
Land, to Gentile dominion for many centuries, there will follow a
reversal of this order in which the Jerusalemites, and hence the
Jews, shall regain dominion over the Land and Jerusalem. Such a
fulfillment would unquestionably validate Israels covenant claim
to the Land at the close of this present dispensation. This
restoration to tangible favor would include the climactic
fulfillment experienced by Israel according to Romans 11:12. So
J. C. Ryle concludes:
While the nations of Europe are absorbed in political conflicts and
worldly business, the sands in their hour-glass are ebbing away.
While governments are disputing about secular things, and
Parliaments can hardly condescend to find a place for religion in their
discussions, their days are numbered in the sight of God. Yet a few
years and the times of the Gentiles will be fulfilled. Their day of
visitation will be past and gone. Their misused privileges will be
taken away. The judgments of God shall fall on them. They shall be
cast aside as vessels in which God has no pleasure. Their dominion
shall crumble away, and their vaunted institutions shall fall to pieces.
. . . When [the times of the Gentiles] do end, the conversion of the
Jews and the restoration of Jerusalem will take place. . . . The Jews
shall be restored. The Lord Jesus shall come again in power and great
glory.13
13
J. C. Ryle, Luke, II, pp. 371, 374.
3. John 1:11. He came to his own [embassy, residence, inheritance],

and his own people did not receive [welcome] him. That Christ
came to, ta idia, his own things/possessions, indicates his
territory and all that it contains, that is the land of Israel (II Chron.
7:20; Isa. 14:24-25; Jer. 16:18; Mal. 3:1). The same expression is
found in John 19:26-27. Jesus saw His mother and the disciple He
loved standing there [John]. . . . And from that hour the disciple
took her into his home [ta idia, his own things/possessions]. In
support of this territorial understanding, Westcott comments:
There can be no reasonable doubt that this phrase [ta idia], and the
corresponding masculine which follows, his own (hoi idioi) i.e.
his own people, describe the land and the people of Israel as being,
in a sense in which no other land and people were, the home and the
people of GOD, of Jehovah (Lev. 25:23; Jer. 2:7; 14:18; Hos. 9:3;
Zech. 2:12).14
4. Romans 9:26. Here Paul quotes Hosea 1:10 as follows: And it

will be in the place where they were told, you are not My people,
there they will be called sons of the living God. Danish scholar
Johannes Munck, in his classic work Christ & Israel, notes that,
there, ekei, is a natural designation for Palestine, in order to
imply that the Gentile nations will gather in Jerusalem and the
Messianic kingdom will be established there (cf. 11:26).15
5. Romans 11: 1. Here Paul is boasting that, I too am an Israelite, a
descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. The last
expression being, phules Beniamin, would, for a Hebrew Christian,
undoubtedly include territorial meaning or divine land allocation.
Tribal association for the Jew meant not only demographic
personal identification, but also geographic territorial identification
with a portion of the Land. Hence W. H. Bennett declares that,
After the conquest [of the Land] the tribes became essentially
territorial.16 So before King Agrippa, Paul declares: And now I
stand on trial for the hope of the promise made by God to our
fathers, the promise our 12 tribes hope to attain as they earnestly
serve Him night and day. Because of this hope I am being accused
14
B. F. Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John, p. 8. Likewise Alford
and Ryle.
15
Johannes Munk, Christ & Israel, p. 12.
16
W. H. Bennett, Tribe, Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, IV, p. 810.
by the Jews, O king! (Acts 26:6-7). Surely Paul not only has the
Diaspora in mind, but also the geographic portions and
accompanying populace of the Land as a whole. There is not the
slightest intimation here that upon conversion of the Jews, such
territorial regions will be eliminated. Again in James 1:1 we read,
James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ: To the twelve
tribes in the Dispersion. Greetings. The attempts to spiritualize
this reference are numerous and betray a Gentile bent, though it is
not difficult to sense that such a conclusion is doctrinally rather
than exegetically driven, especially in the light of the Jewishness
that Diaspora in this same verse clearly indicates.17 A similar
problem is faced in Revelation 7:4-7 where the 144,000 from the
twelve tribes of Israel is commonly understood, according to
frequent Gentile exegesis, as representing the Church, even though
v. 9 describes a distinct Gentile assembly, that is a great multitude
which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and
people and tongues.18 Of course, in all of these references to the
tribes of Israel, their demographic Hebrew identity, inevitably
suggests a territorial association as well.
6. Romans 11:26. More recently, many commentators have expressed
a belief that this passage does indeed refer to an eschatological
national conversion of Jews toward the end of this age. More often
than not in these expositions, there is no qualification as to whether
such resultant Jewish Christians will retain national Jewish identity
according to divine mandate. John Murray is a case in point where
he argues very persuasively for a future national conversion of the
mass of Israel,19 according to covenantal promise, that is because
of their forefathers [Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob], v. 28. However
he fails to explain the resultant status of converted Israel as a body,
17
In An Introduction to the New Testament by Carson, Moo, and Morris, p.
415, to begin with we are told, this designation [of 1:1] is so general as to
be of little help in identifying the addressees. Then in conclusion there is
the grudging confession: Nevertheless, the early date and Jewishness of
James favors the more literal meaning.
18
So J. A. Seiss writes: [T]hese 144,000 are just what John says they are
Jews, descendants of the sons of Israelthe first fruits of that new return of
God to deal mercifully with the children of His ancient people for their
fathers sakes. Revelation, I, p. 408.
19
John Murray, Romans, II, p. 98.
that is as to whether it retains national distinction in the sight of

God, which would then entail a relationship to the land.20 Morris
similarly opts for a future national conversion of Israel, though he
less distinctly concludes: Paul then is affirming that the nation of
Israel as a whole will ultimately have its place in Gods
salvation.21 A number of writers convey the idea that while there
will be some future Jewish ingathering, no national identity
according to a covenantal basis is to be attributed here. Rather such
a corporate conversion will result in incorporation into the people
of God, that is the church, which has no identification with national
and geographic Israel. So John Stott comments:
The prophecy of Romans 11 is a prophecy that many Jews will return
to Christ, but the land is not mentioned, nor is Israel mentioned as a
political entity. . . . [A]ccording to the apostles, the Old Testament
promises are fulfilled in Christ and in the international community of
Christ. A return to Jewish nationalism would seem incompatible with
this New Testament perspective of the international community of
Jesus.22
To begin with, Stotts reference to many Jews is nebulous

terminology since any definition he might offer disallows
fundamental Jewishness. Again we have here a condescension to
temporal, vague individuality that seems almost offended at the
thought of prospective national expression. But further
inconsistency arises concerning this overall modern approach to
Romans 11. By yielding to the obvious comprehensive meaning of
references to Israel that are consistent throughout Romans 9-11
whereby some future form of national conversion is admitted,
there is yet a reluctance to accept the obvious national associations
that Paul makes with the term Israelite (11:1) as a converted
Hebrew. Rather, the explicit boasting of Paul concerning his
Jewishness in Romans 9:3-5; 11:1, particularly obvious territorial
implications, must surely be associated with v. 26 and thus
anticipate national conversion unto the Land. However a major
problem arises at this point if a mere vague approach toward the
future conversion of the Jews is concerned. If there is belief in
20
John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, II, pp. 96-101.
21
Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans, p. 421.
22
John Stott, Forward, The Promised Land, eds. Philip Johnston & Peter
Walker, p. 11.
some type of national conversion of Jews at the conclusion of the

times of the Gentiles, then what was their national status prior to
this awakening, and what shall it be following their regeneration?
Are they in every sense of the word national Jews according to the
flesh, even though remaining in bondage to unbelief (Rom. 11:28)?
If so, then while their unbelief has resulted in dispersion from the
land, yet their conversion would qualify them for inhabitation of
that same land, especially since there is no biblical indication that
the land has been forever taken from the Jew. In other words, to
speak merely nominally of the Jew in Romans 9-11 is to fly in the
face of the Jewishness that Paul there upholds, especially in
Roman 9:1-5; 11:1-2, 28-29. Pauls ongoing Jewishness would
find it quite unthinkable for him to uphold his Jewish national
status and at the same time deny continuity with its territorial
foundation.
A final, conclusive proof in this regard concerns the eschatological
hope of Israel because of their forefathers (Rom. 11:28). Surely
the referencing here of the Abrahamic Covenant must include the
essential component of the Land, which, as Matt Waymeyer points
out, exegetically leads us back to the all Israel of Romans 11:26.
The antecedent of the supplied they in v. 28 is them (atoj,
autois) in v. 27, which refers back to Jacob ('Iakb, Iakob) in v.
26b, which in turn refers back to all Israel (pj 'Isral, pas Israe
l) in v. 26a. This is significant because it indicates that the group of
individuals described in v. 28 describes the all Israel of v. 26 and
helps to establish its identity.23
Put another way, the all Israel of Romans 11:26 is the

unbelieving nation of Israel in v. 28, plus the remnant of v. 5 as it
accumulates, which in total remains an heir of the Abrahamic
Covenant which is inclusive of the Land.
7. Romans 11:26-27 appears to incorporate quotations of both Isaiah
59:20 and Jeremiah 31:33-34, which passages contextually include
23
Matt Waymeyer, The Dual Status of Israel in Romans 11:28, The
Masters Seminary Journal, (Spring 2005), p. 61-62. Also refer to Michael
J. Vlach, The Church as a Replacement of Israel: An Analysis of
Supercessionism, Ph.D. diss. Southeastern Baptist Theologica Seminary,
May 2004.
restoration to the land as part of Israels redemptive blessings (cf.

Isa. 60:21; Jer. 31:23).
8. Romans 11:29. Gods gracious gifts and calling are irrevocable.
The plurality of the gracious gifts, ta charismata, surely follows
on, by way of explication, from that which is declared secure
according to the Abrahamic Covenant originating from their
[Israels] forefathers, v. 28. Of course from a Hebrew perspective,
the gifts include saving grace for Israel, yet surely more is
included such as the encompassing covenant blessings of 9:4-5 that
would unquestionably include the land.24
9. Galatians 3:16, cf. v. 21. Now the promises [hai epangeliai] were
spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, And to
seeds, as though referring to many, but and to your seed,
referring to one, who is Christ. While the usual focus here falls
upon Pauls doctrinal understanding of the singular seed, which
is indicated to be Jesus Christ as the seed of Abraham, rarely is
there any relating of this truth to the plurality of the promises.
What then were the promises that were spoken both to Abraham
and consequently Jesus Christ? Lacking specificity, Burton
explains that, [t]he promises here spoken of are those which
accompanied the covenant and which constituted it on the side of
divine grace.25 However Lightfoot appears to get closer to the
truth when he comments:
A question has been raised as to the particular passage to which Paul
refers. In answering this question it should be observed, (1) That the
words must be spoken to Abraham himself, and not to one of the
later patriarchs; (2) That kai must be part of the quotation. These
considerations restrict the reference to Genesis 13:15; 17:8, either of
which passages satisfies these conditions. It is true that in both alike
the inheritance spoken of refers primarily to the possession of the
land of Canaan, but the spiritual application here is only in
accordance with the general analogy of New Testament
interpretation.26
Aside from Lightfoots dismissal of the literal primacy of the land

here with regard to the details of the promises, based upon
24
So H. C. G. Moule, Romans, p. 164; Shulam, Romans, p. 327.
25
Ernest De Witt Burton, Galatians, p. 181.
26
J. B. Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 142.
supercessionist presuppositions,27 the parallel references to this

covenantal term in Romans 9:4; 15:8 are instructive. Gentile
commentators generally identify the promises as those made to
the fathers and especially those that are Messianic, though without
specific reference to the Land. An exception is H. C. G. Moule
who defines the promises as being of the Land, and of the
Messiah.28 However Jewish commentator Joseph Shulam
provides the most comprehensive explanation of the plurality here
that also includes the Land.
The promises are those God gave to Abraham, that his descendants
would be as the sand and the stars (cf. Gen. 12:2; 15:5: 17:1f; 28:14);
of the land ( cf. Gen. 15:7; 17:8; 28:13; Exod. 12:25; 13:5; Deut.
1:11; 6:3; 19:8; Neh. 9:8; Rom. 11:29; Heb. 11:11-13, 17); to the
House of David and his messianic offspring (cf. I Kgs. 2:24; 8:20; II
Kgs. 8:19; Isa. 7:13-16; 9:6-7; 11:1-5; Rom. 1:3; II Cor. 1:20; Gal.
3:16-22; I Pet. 1:10, 12); of the Spirit and the new covenant (cf. Jer.
31:31; Ezek. 37:26; Joel 2:28; Acts 2:16-21, 39; Gal. 3:8, 15f; 4:24-
28; Eph. 1:13; 2:12); and of life itself (cf. Deut. 8:3; 30:15-16; 32:39;
Prov. 3:16; 8:35; Hab. 2:4; I Tim. 4:8; II Tim. 1:1; II Pet. 1:4).29
Of course the promises of Romans 9:4; 15:8 are rooted in the

forefathers, . . . and from them, by physical descent, came the
Messiah, who is God over all, blessed forever (Rom. 9:5).
However it is obvious from the preceding context that the plurality
of the promises includes much more for Paul, who writes as
presently being an Israelite (Rom. 11:1), and thus in his
terminology undoubtedly incorporates the Land as part of the
overall present inheritance.
Some Theological Indications
The argument from supposed silence put forward by Bavinck,

Cranfield, Lloyd-Jones, Waltke, etc., is simply based on the alleged
absence of explicit and even implicit references to the Land in the
27
Lightfoot subsequently explains that, the Israel after the flesh becomes the
Israel after the Spirit; the Jewish nation denotes the Christian Church, p.
143. Concerning 6:16, the Israel of God . . . stands here not for the faithful
converts from the circumcision alone, but for the spiritual Israel generally,
the whole body of believers whether Jew or Gentile, p. 225.
28
Moule, Romans, p. 164.
29
Joseph Shulam, A Commentary On The Jewish Roots Of Romans, p. 27.
New Testament. The tone of these commentators is often quite

categorical and we believe it is not inappropriate to suggest that such a
response has Gentile undertones lacking the grace which Paul
commends in Romans 11:18-20. Even if acknowledgment of the
possibility of a national or mass conversion at the end of this age is
granted, on purely exegetical grounds, yet it nevertheless remains a
grudging admission that lacks Pauline enthusiasm. Certainly few
Jewish Christian commentators would support their reasoning. Rather
we believe that the preceding biblical evidence, especially when
viewed through Jewish lens that most of the New Testament writers
employed, provides both explicit and implicit references to the Land
which are intimately related to such expressions as Israel and tribe,
as well as Jerusalem, Zion, etc. But furthermore, it could also be
argued that since the land was undoubtedly a divine bestowal up to the
New Testament era, then it is necessary that evidence be provided of
explicit land disinheritance that is irrevocable. Such evidence is
patently absent.
Reference has already been made in Chapter Six: Israel - and
Christian anti-Judaic Hermeneutics in History to Willem A.
VanGemerens article, Israel As The Hermeneutical Crux In The
Interpretation Of Prophecy. With regard to infrequent references in the
New Testament to the restoration of the Jewish people, he provides two
significant reasons which also relate to the question of the sparseness
of references to the Land when compared with the Old Testament.
First, most of the NT writings were written before the events of A.D. 70.
The judgment described by Jesus in the Mt. Olivet discourse pertains to
Jerusalem and not the Jewish people. When Jerusalem was destroyed, the
Jewish population remained in Judea and Galilee in large numbers. Most
Jews voluntarily left the land during the subsequent centuries because of
business opportunities elsewhere; however, a flourishing community
continued in Palestine (Yabneh, Beth Shearim, and Tiberias). The
excavation of ancient synagogues witnesses to a thriving and learned
Jewish population in the land. All of this fulfilled Gods promise given by
Amos. Arguments against the future of Israel in the land, based on a nave
view of history, are not uncommon because most Christians do not know
the history of Judaism post-A.D. 70. A study of the historical and
theological development of Judaism would help Christians have a proper
understanding of Jews and Judaism.
Secondly, the apostolic concern is for the conversion of the Jewish people.
The Gospels of Matthew (pre-A.D. 70) and John (post-A.D. 70) share this
concern. The restoration of the land was never an issue because the Jews
were in the land and remained in the land in large numbers for hundreds of
years after the fall of Jerusalem (A.D. 70). They voluntarily left the land in
large numbers over a period of hundreds of years, but returned before the
founding of the State of Israel. Their return was not from exile but from the
diaspora. They look on themselves as olim (returnees), not golim (exiles).30
Baruch Maoz, being a pastor in Israel of Reformed Baptist convictions,

presented an insightful paper for the Lausanne Consultation on Jewish
Evangelism in 1986 that was subsequently revised and included in The
Land of Promise, edited by Philip Johnson and Peter Walker, titled,
People, land and Torah: a Jewish Christian perspective. Some
perceptive representative statements that climax on the significance of
the land in the New Testament are as follows.
Israel as a people cannot truly fulfill its duties to God apart from the land.
Please note this is not land in general, nor even any land in particular, but
only on certain and specific land. This is the land repeatedly designated in
the Bible by way of its borders (Gen. 15:18; Exod. 23:31; Deut. 11:24;
Josh. 1:4), its topography (Deut. 1:7; Judg. 1:9, 15; I Sam. 14:4-5), its
climate (Deut. 11:10-11; Judg. 6:40; Isa. 18:4; 55:10; Jer. 18:17; Hag. 2:17)
and its history. . . . The land of Israel is not merely a piece of turf. It is
Gods blessing (Gen. 1:22; 26:3; Num. 24:1, 5-7) and it is Gods presence
(Gen. 15:18; Exod. 23:31; Deut. 11:24; Josh. 1:4). It is evidence of an
ongoing relationship between God and the people of Israel (Deut. 7:12-13;
II Kgs. 21:14; Jer. 23:39; Lam. 5:16-22). The land is the covenant made
concrete (Gen. 17:7-8; Exod. 6:8; Neh. 9:8; Jer. 31:31, 38-40; 32:37-41).
The climax of blessing in the land is the divine promise: I will be your
God (Lev. 25:17, 55). The land is thus the epitome of Gods promises, and
an important part of the whole without which the remainder is incomplete.
Nowhere in the Scriptures are the people of Israel considered to be blessed
outside of the land. Nowhere is blessing promised to the people apart from
blessing to the land (Deut. 28:65-68; Ps. 69:35-36; 85:10, 12). Small
wonder, then, that the people of Israel have come to love the land so
vehemently.
The people will be restored to the land if they repent (Deut. 30:1-10);
otherwise they will be brought back to the land, and will there repent (Jer.
50:20; Ezek. 30:27-29; 36:4-21). . . . Spiritual restoration and a return to the
land are linked (Jer. 23:7-8; 24:6-7; 30:1-9; Ezek. 34:13-27; 36:16-38;
37:21-27; Mic. 4:1) so that the people are never considered blessed,
forgiven or redeemed except in the land promised to their fathers: You will
30
Willem A. VanGemeren, Israel As The Hermeneutical Crux In The
Interpretation Of Prophecy, WTJ, 46 (1984), pp. 293-294.
know that I am the LORD, when I bring you into the land of Israel (Ezek.
20:42).
The New Testament neither contradicts nor corrects what we have deduced
from the Old Testament data. On the contrary, Old Testament expectations
are heightened in the New Testament by the sheer fact that their fulfillment
of Old Testament promise, the reliable description of a climax of hope
being realized and clarified by the coming of Messiah. Jesus is not a
cancellation of the Old Testament hope but its unequivocal affirmation
(Luke 24:38-44; John 11:24; 20:24-27; Acts 24:15; Rom. 8:18-24; Phil.
3:21; Rev. 21-22). . . . Consequently, Israel is not displaced by the church.
Rather, the church enters into enjoyment of Israels blessings as a strange
branch grafted in . . . contrary to nature, but never in place of the natural
branches, who will be grafted in again (Rom. 11:23-24).31
THE LAND AND PATRICK FAIRBAIRN
While the amillennial perspective of Fairbairn has already been

considered in Chapter Six: Israel - and Christian anti-Judaic
Hermeneutics in History, the fact that this author addresses the matter
of the land in his The Typology of Scripture, as well as his Commentary
on Ezekiel, calls for additional consideration. It should also be
appreciated that Anthony Hoekema has indicated his reliance upon
Fairbairn,32 and this in turn has influenced Venema, Waldron, etc.
The relationship between the Abrahamic and Mosaic Covenants.
It is not uncommon for amillennialists to associate the temporal nature
of the conditional Mosaic Covenant with the abiding nature of the
unconditional Abrahamic Covenant, the result being that elements of
the former are imposed upon the later. Of course by this process, the
promise of the land to Abraham in Genesis 12:13 becomes absorbed
into a conditional, typological frame of reference. As a result, this same
land having been forfeited through disobedience, is merely regarded as
a micro earthly representation of future macro heavenly glory that the
church inherits on a universal scale. We have already addressed O.
31
The Land of Promise, eds. Philip Johnston and Peter Walker, pp. 189, 192,
194-195, 198.
32
Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, p. 276n, 279. He
specifically references Fairbairns Typology of Scripture, I, pp. 329-61; II,
3-4.
Palmers Robertsons representation of this concept in pages 77-88. He

wrote:
The land of the Bible served in a typological role as a model of the
consummate realization of the purposes of God for his redeemed people
that encompasses the whole of the cosmos. Because of the inherently
limited scope of the land of the Bible, it is not to be regarded as having
continuing significance in the realm of redemption other than its function as
a teaching model.33
However Patrick Fairbairn expressed a similar approach, though over

150 years prior. He likewise writes that
the relations of the covenant people, as connected with the occupation of
Canaan, leads naturally to the conclusion, that their peculiar connection
with that territory has ceased with the other temporary expedients and
shadows to which it belonged.34
In other words, the land is merely a basic type that projects through the
Mosaic economy into the New Testament reality, and as such has no
tangible relevance today. Hence one cannot but suspect that this
association of the Abrahamic land promise with the Mosaic economy is
most necessary, even if unbiblical, so that the former might, by
association, be abrogated. Thus for Fairbairn there is necessary
progression from Abraham to Moses:
The Mosaic religion did not start into being as something original and
independent; it grew out of the Patriarchal, and was just, indeed, the
Patriarchal religion in a further state of progress and development. . . . We
are not to imagine, however, that the additional religious truths and
principles which were to be historically brought out at the commencement
of the Mosaic dispensation, must have appeared there by themselves,
distinct and apart from those which descended from Patriarchal times.35
However, we vigorously respond that this unsupported portrayal is

incorrect and further sense a difficulty in proving what is a most
necessary point for the upholding of a system. After all, if the land
promised to Abraham remains as permanent for national Israel as the
other terms of that covenant, then it radically interferes with
supercessionist theology. In reality, the New Testament makes a clear
33
O. Palmer Robertson, The Israel of God, p. 194.
34
Patrick Fairbairn, The Typology of Scripture, I, p. 497.
35
Ibid., II, pp. 2-3.
distinction between the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants, and

especially their conditionality, along with the permanence of one and
the abrogation of the other, as Galatians 3:17 and Hebrews 8:13 make
abundantly clear. Further, Pauls explanation concerning the purpose of
the law, that it was added because of transgressions (Gal. 3:19; cf.
Jer. 11:7-8; Rom. 5:20) also conflicts with the idea of progression from
Abraham.
The Critical Analysis of Horatius Bonar
Having already considered Bonars general critical assessment of

Fairbairns eschatology in Chapter Six Israel: - and Christian anti-
Judaic Hermeneutics in History, nevertheless there are further specific
aspects that should be considered. They arise in a review article by
Bonar in which he further challenges the amillennialism of Fairbairn as
represented in his Typology of Scripture. Bonar freely acknowledges
the authors dignified manner, learning, and lofty views. Nevertheless
he comments:
That with such powers and dispositions he has still so widely missed the
truth, is owing, we think, to an undue influence to late German authors who
have led him to mistake their false systems for the teachings of the word of
God.36
What then is the essential problem with Typology of Scripture? It is

reflected in Fairbairns subtitle taken from the first edition: The
Doctrine of Types, investigated in its principles, and applied to the
Explanation of the earlier Revelations of God considered as
preparatory exhibitions of the leading truths of the Gospel. With an
appendix on the Restoration of the Jews. Thus Bonar sums us the
fundamental problem as follows.
He alleges that not only the principle things in the Mosaic ritual are types of
corresponding things in the work of redemption as it is unfolded in the New
Testament; but that all the chief personages, acts, and arrangements, that
are recorded in the Old Testament, both in the histories and prophecies, are
typical, in like manner, of other persons and events in the Christian church;
and assumes and affirms that the very nature and design of the patriarchal
and Mosaic dispensations, and actors, acts, and events that appear in their
records, are such, that they are of necessity typical of things in the Christian
36
Horatius Bonar, The Typology of Scripture, The Theological and Literary
Journal, ed. David N. Lord, January, 1852, p. 354.
church, and are to be taken, as far as they are prophetic, as exclusively

predictive of them. No prophecy of the Old Testament, accordinglyif this
scheme is adhered tocan by possibility relate in any degree to the real
Israelites or Gentiles, Jerusalem or Palestine, or any other persons or places
that are literally mentioned in them, and are philologically the subjects of
their declarations.37
The Hermeneutic of Supercession
As was pointed out, the very subtitle of Fairbairns Typology of

Scripture leads us to the conclusion that far more than a mere
consideration of types in the Bible is the authors intention here.
Rather, we have the proposal of a whole hermeneutical system
whereby the Old Testament revelation, as a complete unit, is regarded
as typological whereby it is fulfilled and superceded by the New
Testament. We have already suggested in pages 225-227 that O.
Palmer Robertson replicates this approach. Thus Bonar rightly
complains that this work
is nothing else than the theory of Origen reproduced under another name,
and set off with much speciousness of learning and argument, but in fact
without any ground for its support. . . . The supposition indeed which led to
the invention of the system, that the persons, transactions, and events of the
Old Testament histories and predictions must be contemplated as types of
answering things in the Christian system, in order that they may be the
means to us of that instruction for which they were designed, is altogether
mistaken. Mr. F. proceeds throughout his volumes on the assumption, that
were it not for a typical office, the persons and occurrences of which the
ancient Scriptures present a record would be almost wholly uninstructive to
us.38
We believe this criticism to be especially true when it comes to the

interpretation of Old Testament prophecy. In this regard, it is
fascinating to detect considerable correspondence here with the
hermeneutic of reinterpretation that George Eldon Ladd upholds,
whereby the Old Testament has no independent, objective prophetic
significance except it be expounded by the New Testament. Hence, we
find ourselves in a period in which Fairbairns considerable influence,
especially as evidenced in the writings of Hoekema, Venema, Waldron,
etc. with regard to amillennialism, has led to a dominant typological
37
Ibid., p. 355.
38
Ibid., p. 392.
hermeneutic. Since this in turn has resulted in objective textual and

historic realities being subjected to New Testament categories, it is
suggested that we need to reconsider Bonars call for a return to one
hermeneutic for the whole Bible and not two.39 Further, that
hermeneutic needs to return to the apostolic Judeo-hermeneutic that is
not obscured by means of typological reinterpretation focusing through
a Gentile lens. Then Judeo-centric premillennialism will come into its
rightful place once again.
THE LAND AND W. D. DAVIES
The scholarly contribution of W. D. Davies toward a Christian

understanding of the Land is massive indeed, though from the outset it
must be frankly considered that the presuppositions of this author are
not according to a conservative evangelical perspective. This being
said, appreciation of his exegetical conclusions is important, especially
because of their influence, even as is evident in the subsequent further
consideration of the more conservative contribution of David
Holwerda. To get to the heart of the matter, we focus upon Paul and
the Land and quote the following as of the very essence of Davies
conclusions.
With the coming of Christ the wall of separation between Israel and the
Gentiles was removed. This wall, usually interpreted of the Law, or of
the veil in the Temple, in the passage in Ephesians 2:11-22, which here,
whether written by him or by a member of his school or not, brings Pauls
thought to its full expression, we may also interpret implicitly to include
geographic separation between those in the land and those outside the land.
Because the logic of Pauls understanding of Abraham and his
personalization of the fulfillment of the promise in Christ demanded the
deterritorializing of the promise, salvation was not now bound to the Jewish
people centered in the land and living according to the Law: it was
located not in a place, but in persons in whom grace and faith had their
writ. By personalizing the promise in Christ Paul universalized it. For
Paul, Christ had gathered up the promise into the singularity of his own
person, In this way, the territory promised was transformed into and
fulfilled by the life in Christ. All this is not made explicit, because Paul
did not directly apply himself to the question of the land, but it is implied.
39
Especially refer to his Prophetical Landmarks, the full text of which is
available, via PDF files, at www.bunyanministries.org, under the new title of
Judeo-centric Premillennialism.
In the Christological logic of Paul, the land, like the Law, particular and
provisional, had become irrelevant.40
To begin with, concerning Ephesians 2:11-12, the alienation of the

Gentiles was from citizenship of Israel, and . . . the covenants of the
promise, particularly as rooted in Abraham. However Christs
breaking down was of the dividing wall of hostility. In His flesh He
did away with the law of the commandments in regulations (Eph.
2:14-15; refer to Chapter Ten: Israel - and a Romans 11 Synthesis).
This abrogation by Christ was of the Mosaic economy (Rom. 7:1-4),
and not the covenants of promise in which the Land is integral. Davies
incorporation of the Land into the dissolution of the Law, with the use
of terminology that speaks of the land, like the Law, is a common
but unwarranted association. Further we would suggest that it is
logically unnecessary for the doctrine of both Jew and Gentile, being
in Christ, to necessitate the deterritorializing of the original land
promise. To similarly suggest that to be in Christ is consequently to
universalize the land promise is to wrongly assume that within a
universality there can be no diversity, which in fact the Old Testament
prophetically anticipates (Isa. 60:1-4; 62:1-12; Mic. 4:1-5; Hag. 2:1-7;
Zech. 14:16-21, etc.). The same fallacy arises with regard to the
frequent appeal to Galatians 3:28 where in fact the stated unity
incorporates a masculine and feminine diversity. So the triunity of the
only blessed God comprises the personal diversity of the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. So Jonathan Edwards describes the unity of the
coming kingdom of Christ on earth that comprises Israel in the Land,
under its Messiah, having harmonious relations with the surrounding
Gentile nations.41 While it is comforting to read of Davies
acknowledgment that his conclusion here is at best implicit, it would
undoubtedly be discomforting for the contemporary Jew to be
evangelized with the glorious good news that the Land has become
irrelevant. Does anyone for a moment think that, as Paul witnessed
from synagogue to synagogue, this was integral to his gospel message?
THE LAND AND DAVID E. HOLWERDA
A significant volume from Professor David E. Holwerda of Calvin

Theological Seminary is Jesus & Israel: One Covenant or Two? The
40
41
Jonathan Edwards, Works, Apocalyptic Writings, V. 8, pp. 135.
importance is particularly due to it being a more recent Reformed

estimate of Jewish national identity, especially in the light of Romans
11. There is acknowledgment of Gods present regard for unbelieving
Jews as a whole, and not simply the Christian remnant, while the
question of nationality as well as the divine validity of the land is
raised. Nevertheless it is this territorial aspect which is not answered
with any degree of hoped for clarity. Even so on pp. 85-112 this
subject is dealt with in some detail under the chapter heading, Jesus
and the Land: A Question of Time and Place. Hence we now consider
this authors explanation which certainly reflects sensitivity for a
subject that is controversial within a Reformed environment. Clearly
Holwerda is aware of criticism of much Reformed teaching in this
regard when he comments:
[T]he faith of many Christians has been more heaven-oriented than land-
oriented. The biblical themes of land and city have been spiritualized and
focused elsewhere than on this earth. Is this the inevitable result of New
Testament teaching? Is the land or this earth no longer important?
Strikingly, since the return of the Jews to Palestine, the biblical theme of
the land has caught the attention of Christian theologians.42
To begin with the Land is identified with an irrevocable promise,

though like so many of a Reformed persuasion, there is no interaction
with the vital place of the unilateral signification of the Abrahamic
covenant in Genesis 15.43 However the Land is then qualified as a
conditional possession according to the covenant stipulations
promising blessing or cursing in conjunction with obedience or
disobedience. Consequently, in continually breaking the covenant
Israel reaps judgment through exile. Nevertheless under the sub-
heading of The Land: Lost and Promised Again, we read:
The amazing message of the prophets is that in spite of the faithlessness of
his people, God is faithful and will act in mercy to restore the covenant
blessings. Gods covenant with Israel is as certain as the order of creation.
As long as the fixed order of creation continues, so will Gods covenant
with Israel continue (Jer. 31:35-37).44
42
David. E. Holwerda, Jesus & Israel: One Covenant or Two? p. 87.
43
A classic instance of this omission is found in, Dispensationalism Today,
Yesterday, and Tomorrow, by Curtis I. Crenshaw and Grover E. Gunn, III.
In Appendix 3, Conditional & Unconditional Covenants, pp. 321-325,
there is not so much as one reference to Genesis 15.
44
Holwerda, Jesus & Israel, p. 95.
Yet how strange it is that here the author makes no reference to the fact
that his comments and reference to Jeremiah 31, also Ezekiel 36, are in
fact with regard to the new covenant made with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah that replaces the old covenant.
Furthermore, the Land was never lost since it was rooted in the
unilateral, unconditional Abrahamic covenant. Though Gods people
were exiled from the Land, yet the promise of Jeremiah was that they
would return to it after seventy years (Jer. 29:10). In the same way the
new covenant replaces the Mosaic covenant and incorporates the
promises of the Abrahamic covenant, including restoration to the land
(Ezek. 11:17; 36:24, 28).
The most vital matter arises when we move on to consider Holwerdas
understanding of the Land according to the New Testament and the
closely related eschatological Jerusalem. With obvious sympathy for
W. D. Davies aforementioned explanation whereby the promises
concerning the Land have been personalized and universalized in
Christ, the author offers evidence from Ephesians 6:2-3. Here Pauls
rendering of Deuteronomy 5:16 concerning the land is modified to, so
that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. Thus,
By omitting this specification [concerning the land], Paul declares that now
in Christ the promise applies to any land. The promise has indeed been
universalized, but it has been universalized precisely with reference to land.
What was once a blessing promised to Gods people in the particular land
of Canaan, given by God as a gift, is now promised to Gods people living
anywhere on the earth, which was given by God as a gift. Thus, there is at
least this one hint that Pauls relative silence about the land should not be
construed as an implicit declaration that the land has become irrelevant and
that the promise of the land should be forgotten. A universalized land is not
an irrelevance.45
We would agree with the author that at best we have a hint here of
his proposal, especially since the fact that while Paul appears to adapt
the Mosaic reference on account of his Gentile audience, he in no way
is denying the original territorial intent.46 However, of greater concern
is the further linguistic plasticity that is employed to suggest that Gods
saving intent with regard to the whole earth is somehow an indication
of how He continues to have continued interest in the land. From a
45
Ibid., p. 102. Support is claimed from Calvins exegesis at this point.
46
Refer to p. 98 concerning Pauls more likely employment of Exodus 20:12
in Ephesians 6:2-3 according to a Judeo-centric hermeneutic.
contemporary Reformed perspective, Palmer Robertson employs the

same hermeneutic.47 To add some substance to his explanation,
Holwerda refers to Pauls explanation in Galatians 3:29 whereby
Christ is the corporate embodiment of Abrahams seed, the One who
represents and defines the authentic covenant lineage. In Christ it has been
revealed that the inheritance of the promises is not by law but by promise,
that the inheritance is a gift of Gods grace (as was Canaan in the Old
Testament) to those who believe. All those who have faith as Abraham had
faith, who now believe in Jesus Christ, are Abrahams offspring, heirs
according to the promise (Gal. 3:29).
Heirs of what? Of the promises, according to Galatians, and, according to
Romans 4:13, these promises to Abraham and his descendants can be
summarized in the promise that he would inherit the world. For Paul, the
promise of Abraham has a cosmic sweep, including not just the territory of
Canaan but the entire inhabited world.48
Granted that Abraham would inherit the world, it is strange logic

indeed that concludes that this prospect would of necessity eliminate
distinct national identity for Israel, especially since the original
promise of Genesis 12:1-3; 18:18; 22:18 indicated that Israel, as a
nation and through its seed, would bring about blessing to the families
of the earth, that is the Gentiles (Gal. 3:8). This promise never
indicated that there would be a final blending, an absorption whereby
Israel would lose its identity, and nor did subsequent confirmations of
this promise. Thus Paul tells us that Christ [the seed, Gal. 3:16] has
become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the truth of God, to
confirm the promises to the fathers, and so that Gentiles may glorify
God for His mercy (Rom. 15:8-9). Here again we are faced with the
same illogical, unbiblical suggestion that a universal cannot
incorporate distinctive particulars, that oneness in Christ cannot
47
In the process of redemptive history, a dramatic movement has taken
place. The arena of redemption has shifted from type to reality, from
shadow to substance. The land, which once was the specific place of Gods
redemptive work served well in the realm of old covenant forms as a
picture of paradise lost and promised. But in the realm of new covenant
fulfillments, the land has expanded to encompass the whole world. The
Israel Of God, pp. 30-31. Again we would point out that the land is
grounded in the Abrahamic rather than the old Mosaic covenant. Further, it
is not represented as a shadow, but rather as part of the promise of the new
covenant (Jer. 31:31-40; Ezek. 11:14-21; 36:22-32).
48
Holwerda, Jesus & Israel, p. 103.
incorporate distinctive maleness and femaleness, that the messianic

kingdom of Christ cannot include Jewish and Gentile identity. Such a
concept is quite fallacious. But we are further told:
Has Paul rejected or even forgotten the promise of the land? By no means.
Instead, the horizons of the land have been shaped by the revelation of
Jesus Christ. His previous Jewish focus on a particularistic fulfillment has
been transformed into a Christian universalism focused on the new
creation.49
Yet again, definition of the Land is linguistically reshaped whereby

the land of the nations has both assimilated the land of the fathers and
evacuated it of any distinctive Jewish heritage. Whether this process is
called transformational or whatever, what stands out here, that is yet
essentially akin to replacement theology or supercessionism, is the
eventual striping away of all things Judaic so that pure Christian
universalism might remain. This does not appear to seriously heed
Pauls warning to the Gentiles, You do not sustain the root, but the
root sustains you (Rom. 11:18). It will not do for Holwerda to
identifty the Jews as all Israel, and not merely the remnant alone,
according to Romans 11,50 and then at the same time take away
national and territorial identity. As W. D. Davies makes plain, The
Land is so embedded in the heart of Judaism, the Torah, thatso, its
sources, worship, theology, and often its history attestit is finally
inseparable from it.51 But more importantly we would suggest that this
is so according to the terms of the new covenant.
49
Ibid., p. 104.
50
Ibid., p. 164.
51
W. D. Davies, The Territorial Dimension Of Judaism, p. 85. It should be
noted that this author adds the following qualification: However, all this
being recognized, it remains to emphasize one thing. If by a territorial
religion is meant, as is usually the case, a cult whose constituency is a
territorial group identified by common occupation of a particular land area,
so that membership of the cult is in the final instance a consequence of
residence and not kinship or ethnic designation [quoting J. M.
Schoffeleers], then Judaism is not a territorial religion: The Land is not the
essence. As far as it goes, this is true. Of course this would also be true of
carnal, hence cultic Israel as Diaspora having longings for the Land prior to
1948. But what stands is Gods covenant promise to convert a carnal Israel
into a spiritual Israel with the result that there will be kinship in the Land
(Ezek. 36:22-28; 37:1-23). This being the case, then surely the Land
24For I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the
countries, and will bring you into your own land. 25I will also sprinkle clean
water upon you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your
impurities and all your idols. 26I will give you a new heart and put a new
spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of
flesh. 27I will place My Spirit within you and cause you to follow My
statutes and carefully observe My ordinances. 28Then you will live in he
land that I gave your fathers; you will be My people, and I will be your
God (Ezek. 36:24-28; cf. 11:14-21; Jer. 31:31-37).
THE LAND AND THE HEAVENLY JERUSALEM
As already noted in Chapter Seven: Israel - and Christian anti-Judaic

Hermeneutics, when the interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews is
considered, one major problem appears to loom larger than even that
which has to do with a right understanding of certain warning passages.
It is the manner in which a number of Old Testament quotations and
inferences appear to be related to the authors New Covenant teaching.
In this regard we repeat John Owens warning: There is not any thing
in this Epistle that is attended with more difficulty than the citation of
the testimonies out of the Old Testament that are made use of in it.52
This being the case, let cavalier explanations of these Old Testament
references and intimations be shunned, that is those which
simplistically suggest that the more illustrative use of an Old
Testament passage in Hebrews automatically nullifies any original
literal meaning. The truth is that the Hebrew author feels he is at liberty
to quote with some variation in his hermeneutical methodology. In
pages 218-220 we have referenced Kistemaker, Bonar, and Calvin in
support of this contention.
Hence this leads us to suggest that, with regard to this recommended
caution, perhaps one of the most significant and yet neglected
characteristics of this distinctive portion of Scripture concerns the vital
truth that this epistle was written by a Hebrew Christian for Hebrew
Christians. This might seem an unnecessary comment except for the
fact that problems can arise when a Gentile imposes his
presuppositions upon the text that only Hebrew presuppositions can
illuminate. Whether Paul wrote Hebrews or not, it is a thought well
remains covenanted until that glorious day, intervening national conflict

notwithstanding.
52
John Owen, An Exposition of Hebrews, I, p. 106.
worth bearing in mind that whereas the epistles of the Apostle were all
addressed to Gentiles in the main, here the distinctive character of
Hebrews is due to the fact that Jewish Christians are addressed by a
Jewish Christian who presumes a Jewish mindset in his addressees.
With the preceding thoughts in mind, we now move to consider the
most common objection to the idea of national Israel having title to the
land promised to Abraham, whether in the present or future. This
concerns several New Testament references that are all set forth as
evidence that the earthly haaretz is indeed a former earthly hope that
has been superceded by a more universal and heavenly hope. This
cluster of references is Hebrews 11:10, 16; 12:22, along with Galatians
4:25-26, whereby it is proposed that while Israels inheritance of the
land according to the Old Testament economy was decidedly earthy,
materialistic, and shadowy, the Christians future, although rooted in
the promise God made to Abraham, is yet a more transcendently
spiritual and heavenly hope. As an example of this popular
understanding, especially where the repudiation of national Israel is
concerned, consider O Palmer Robertsons explanation.
redemption but was to point to Christs tabernacling among his people (cf.
John 1:14), and just as the sacrificial system could never atone for sins but
experienced the blessing of its full possession. In this way, the patriarch
learned to look forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and
builder is God (Heb. 11:10). . . . [I]f the promised land of the old covenant
becomes the blessed object to be achieved, then its tremendous fulfillment
in the new covenant could be missed. To claim the city with foundations,
whose architect and builder is God (Heb. 11:10), Abraham had to look
beyond the shadowy form of the promise, which he never possessed, to the
realities that could be perceived only by faith.53
Also consider Peter Walkers similar commentary.

[In Hebrews 11] positive descriptions of the physical land, however, are
then immediately eclipsed by his [the authors] insistence that the real focus
of the promise to which Abraham looked forward was the city with
foundations, whose architect and builder is God (v. 10). This
eschatological focus is then repeated in verse 16: Instead, they were
53
O. Palmer Robertson, The Israel of God, pp. 13, 31.
looking for a better countrya heavenly one. Therefore God is not

ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
So the patriarchs were looking forward, not so much for the day when their
descendants would inherit the physical land, but rather to the day when they
would inherit the heavenly country (or city) which the physical land
signified. In a sense they saw through the promise of the land, looking
beyond it to a deeper, spiritual reality.54
Consequently, we consider a collection of expressions, the present

Jerusalem . . . the Jerusalem above (Gal. 4:25-26), the city which has
foundations, whose architect and builder is God (Heb. 11:10), a
better landa heavenly one (Heb. 11:16), Mount Zion . . . the city of
the living God (the heavenly Jerusalem) (Heb. 12:22), that are
commonly agreed to be speaking of a truth that is essentially the same,
but especially represented in the perception of Israels founding
patriarch.
To begin with, consider Abraham, called of God and converted from
paganism in Ur of the Chaldees, having entered Canaan via Haran, is
confronted with more paganism in the land of promise. He explores
this inheritance from north to south, as an unsettled nomadic tent-
dweller, and continues to be appalled at its pervasive unholiness that
only the future leadership of Joshua could begin to cleanse. Yes, he
was looking for a better country, that is a heavenly one, but the vital
matter here concerns not how a Gentile world view perceives this
expression, but the Hebrew perspective of the author. Franz Delitzsch
makes a significant comment on Hebrews 11:16 at this point.
It must be confessed that we nowhere read of the patriarchs, that they
expressed a conscious desire for a home in heaven. The nearest approach to
anything of the kind is in Jacobs vision of the angel-ladder, and his
wondering exclamation, this is the gate of heaven (Gen. 28:17), but even
there no desire is expressed for an entrance into the heavenly land, but the
promise renewed of future possession of the earthly Canaan; The land
whereon thou sleepest will I give to thee.55
54
Peter Walker, The Land in the Apostles Writings, The Land of Promise,
eds. Philip Johnston and Peter Walker, p. 90.
55
Franz Delitzsch, Hebrews, II, p. 246.
Then he adds further concerning Hebrews 11:10.

[H]ere the heavenly Jerusalem is not contrasted with the earthly city, but
with the frail and moveable dwellings of the patriarchs in their nomad life.56
Thus Abrahams hope was eschatological, but certainly not in the sense
of the superiority of heaven above compared with earth below, of the
superiority of the spiritual over the material. Rather his hope was of the
future messianic age, the millennial kingdom in which heaven would
be manifest on earth and residence there would be gloriously holy,
permanent. Consequently George Peters explains this perspective as
follows.
Evidently that which misleads the multitude in this matter is the statement
of the apostle (Heb. 11:16), that they desire a better country, that is, a
heavenly. Commentators, as Barnes, Bloomfield, etc., overlooking entirely
the Theocratic relationship that this country (i.e. Palestine) is to occupy in
the Kingdom of God, at once conclude that this heavenly country is the
third heaven. They forget that this phraseology would not mislead a
Hebrew, who was accustomed to designate the restored Davidic Kingdom a
heavenly Kingdom, and the country enjoying its restoration and Theocratic
blessings, a heavenly country. The expression does not mean the third
heaven, but something that pertains to, or partakes of, the heavenly, as
heavenly vision, body, calling, etc.57
Hence the hope of a heavenly Jerusalem was not a matter of a

superior, exclusively spiritual extraterrestrial location, but rather a
fulfilled, holy, spiritually substantial regeneration of that which was
formerly polluted and imperfect. James Calvin De Young explains
such a Hebrew hope.
This eschatological liberation [of Jerusalem] is the antitype of the liberation
of the Israelites from the bondage of Egypt, but is, of course, far greater and
more glorious. Israel will at this time be gathered and re-established;
Jerusalem will be rebuilt and her glory will last forever. Of all the
apocalyptic literature, Tobit 13:8-18 paints the clearest and best picture of
the future restored Jerusalem. . . . The clearest evidence that this renewed
56
Ibid., p. 238.
57
George N. H. Peters, The Theocratic Kingdom, I, p. 295. J. B. Lightfoot
confirms this thought of Hebrew perception when, on Galatians 4:26
concerning the Jerusalem above, he comments. St. Paul here uses an
expression familiar to rabbinical teachers, but detaches it from those
sensuous and material conceptions which they invested it. Galatians, p.
182. Also refer to Alford, Greek Testament, III, p. 48.
city is the earthly Jerusalem of Palestine is found in the numerous passages

in Jewish literature where this renewal demands a great expansion in the
citys territory.58
The problem then concerns, as was stated earlier, the necessity of a

hermeneutical approach to these passages under consideration,
especially in Hebrews, that gives weighty import to Hebrew
perception. It is granted that rabbinical embellishment must be
considered and purged. Nevertheless C. K. Barrett, in making such an
allowance, concludes that such eschatological language, as represented
in Hebrews, looked forward to holy earthly glory, that is a both/and
resolution rather than one which takes us out of this world.
The Rabbinic literature in general looks forward to a restored Jerusalem
under earthly conditions. The new city is described in detail in terms which
are often fantastic, but the welter of imagination bestowed upon the subject
does not alter the fact that what the Rabbis hoped for, and described as the
Jerusalem of the age to come, was essentially the material capital of a
material state.
The heavenly tabernacle in Hebrews is not the product of Platonic idealism,
but the eschatological temple of apocalyptic Judaism, the temple which is
in heaven primarily in order that it may be manifested on earth.59
Again, such an approach to any supposed tension concerning the

material and spiritual, that is between the material land and the
heavenly Jerusalem, should be considered according to a both/and
rather than an either/or resolution. Thus Baruch Maoz writes:
Of course, salvation is not exclusively or primarily a matter of material
realities (Heb. 4:8); nor are the Old Testament promises exhausted by
exclusively material accomplishments as opposed to heavenly ones (Heb.
11:16). The contradictions found between heavenly and earthly lie not
in terms of geography but in terms of the priority of things: Godward or
otherwise, holy or sinful. The new heaven and new earth are said to
descend. There are spiritual bodies and natural ones (I Cor. 15:36-44), and
the New Testament doctrine of resurrection implies a spiritual kind of
58
James Calvin De Young, Jerusalem In The New Testament, pp. 113-114.
59
C. K. Barrett, The Eschatology of Hebrews, The Background of the New
Testament and its Eschatology, eds., W. D. Davies and D. Daube, p. 374,
389.
material existence rather than a non-material state of being (Exod. 3:6, 8;

Num. 32:11; Deut. 30:20; Neh. 9:7-8).60
Though not in the mainstream of Augustinian thought, nevertheless we

appreciate the confession of amillennialist Samuel Waldron at this
juncture.
The heavenly country is not a country in heaven, but a country from
heaven. The heavenly kingdom is the kingdom from heaven and not the
kingdom in heaven. . . . Though heaven is the happy abode of the
disembodied righteous during the present age, in the age to come heaven
comes to earth.61
In conclusion, it is readily confessed once more that some

manifestations of premillennialism are carnal with regard to a balanced
or both/and comprehension of spiritual materiality. So with regard to
national Israel, but especially the territorial factor, there are some
manifestations of premillennialism that are carnal in their Zionist
loyalty. Nevertheless, these deviant representations in no way nullify
the essence of a biblical, Judeo-centric, premillennial eschatology.
More specifically this involves a future, holy, consummate messianic
kingdom subsequent to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ comprised
of spiritual materiality. It will be spiritually tangible. Even more
specifically this universal kingdom upon a glorified earth will
incorporate a blessed unity with diversity, that is the regenerate nation
of Israel inhabiting the fruitful promised land under the reign of Jesus
Christ from Jerusalem surrounded by regenerate Gentile nations. In this
setting of heaven come to earth, Israel and the Jewish people will be
fulfilled (Rom. 11:12), not superceded, and the Gentile nations will
happily submit to this divine order as engrafted wild olive branches. To
this end was the gospel sent forth (Zech. 14:9; Acts 3:19-21; Rom.
8:18-23).
60
The Land of Promise, eds. Philip Johnston and Peter Walker, p. 192.
61
Samuel E. Waldron, The End Times Made Simple, pp 239-240.
296 A Judeo-centric New Testament synthesis
Chapter Ten
ISRAEL and a Romans 11 synthesis
R OMANS 11 is, by common confession, the locus classicus passage

with regard to the New Testament teaching concerning the present
nature and destiny of national Israel. Consequently the following six
summary expositions concerning Romans 11:11-32; Galatians 6:16,
Ephesians 2:11-22, Philippians 3:2-3, Hebrews 8:7-13, and I Peter 2:9-
10, aim at establishing harmony with Pauls preeminent gospel
teaching that we would define as vigorously Judeo-centric. Historic
exegesis of these portions of Scripture, being predominantly Gentile in
character, has tended to result in conclusions supportive of
replacement, supercessionist, or fulfillment theology.
However it should go without saying that all of these passages of the
Word of God were penned, humanly speaking, by Hebrew Christian
authors. Hence there needs to be recollection of Romans 1:16 where
the gospel is to be offered to everyone who believes, first [protos] to
the Jew, and also to the Greek, which principle the Lord Jesus
revealed to Ananias, namely that Paul was to carry My [Christs]
name before Gentiles, kings, and the sons of Israel (Acts 9:15). As a
result Paul consistently witnessed to the Jews at every opportunity,
even from the beginning at Damascus following his conversion (Acts
9:22). His first missionary journey saw initial synagogue witness at
Salamis, Pisidian Antioch, and Iconium (Acts 13: 5, 14; 14:1). Note
that Acts 13:46 reveals: It was necessary that Gods message be
spoken to you [Jews at Psidian Antioch] first. But since you reject it,
and consider yourselves unworthy of eternal life, we now turn to the
Gentiles! Nevertheless, at the next stop at Iconium, Paul first visits the
synagogue (14:1). His second missionary journey finds him seeking the
Jews first at Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth and
Ephesus (Acts 16:13; 17:1, 10, 16-17; 18:1-4, 19). Note that Acts 18:6
records, Your blood [that of the Jews at Corinth] is on your own
heads! I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.
Nevertheless, at the next stop at Ephesus, Paul first visits the
synagogue. His third missionary journey finds him returning to
Ephesus, but first to the synagogue for three months (Acts 19:8). Pauls
final journey, in which he is led captive to Rome for trial, commences
A Judeo-centric New Testament synthesis 297
in Jerusalem where he witnesses in the Temple (Acts 21:26), and then

declares to the Jews that, I am a Jewish man (Acts 22:3). Three days
following his arrival at Rome, he called together the leaders of the
Jews, and declared that, it is for the hope of Israel that Im wearing
this chain (Acts 28:17, 20).
It should be born in mind that Romans was received in Rome from
Corinth approximately three years before Pauls arrival in Rome just
described. Thus the Apostle, although repeatedly scorned and assailed
by the Jews, nevertheless manifested an indefatigable and gracious
persistence with those to whom he continued to feel so indebted (Rom.
9:4-5). Paul was relentlessly pro-Judaic, even when faced with the
most stubborn unbelief and spiritual adultery (9:1-3; 10:1; 11:1, 11; cf.
Hosea 11:8-9; I Thess. 2:14-16). Indeed he manifests a degree of
ongoing Jewishness that, while on occasion used pragmatically (Acts
16:1-3), yet is reflective of deep love for my kinsmen according to the
flesh (9:3). Hence, no Christian should harbor any lesser attitude,
though sad to say, as is abundantly clear in Chapter Two: Israel - and
Centuries of Christian anti-Judaism, many Christians have continued
to be anti-Judaic both racially and theologically.
With this in mind, a correct interpretation of the New Covenant
writings requires a hermeneutic that gives serious consideration to the
Jewish presuppositions that are inherent in them. Consequently this
being an assumed approach as established in Chapter Seven: Israel -
and Christian anti-Judaic hermeneutics, it should not surprise us when
such a Hebrew orientation results in truth agreement leading, by means
of the progress of revelation, from the Old Testament to the New
Testament, from promise to fulfillment, that finds no necessity for the
displacement of national Israel.
The relationship of Romans 9-11 with Romans 1-8 is not parenthetical,
but continuative and climactic. Many earlier references indicate an
underlying interest in the destiny of Gods covenant people (2:9-10,
17-29, 3:1-2, 9, 29) and particularly the character of true Jewishness
(2:28-29; cf. 9:6-8). Further the theme of Romans being Gods saving
righteousness (1:16-17; 3:21-26; 5:17-21; 8:4, 10) has highlighted the
integrity of God in saving sinners, whether Jew or Gentile. Hence
Gods righteousness is not to be questioned, even if some [Jews] did
not believe (3:3). Therefore there is good reason for maintaining that
9:6a is of crucial importance when it declares: But it is not as though
the word of God has failed/fallen out [ekpipto]. So John Piper rightly
argues at this juncture that 9:6a declares,
the main point which Romans 9-11 was written to prove, in view of Israels
unbelief and rejection. What is at stake ultimately in these chapters is not
the fate of Israel; that is penultimate. Ultimately Gods own trustworthiness
is at stake. And if Gods word of promise cannot be trusted to stand forever,
then all our faith is in vain.1
Thus the Word of God has not failed, and for this reason neither has its
promised dealings with national Israel. And in considering final proof
of this fundamental truth, with Pauls close argument in mind we
proceed from the gospel and Israels election in Romans 9, to the
gospel and Israels defection in Romans 10 and now, ultimately, the
gospel and Israels salvation in Romans 11.
ROMANS 11:1-32
If ever an opportunity presented itself for Paul to renounce unbelieving

Israel once and for all it would be at this juncture where the argument
of chapter 10 has so conclusively demonstrated the accountability of
the Jew for his blatant rebellion against the light of the gospel. A
similar situation presented itself in 2:28-29 where we were told that, a
person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, and [true] circumcision is
not something visible in the flesh. On the contrary, a person is a Jew
who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heartby the Spirit,
not the letter. His praise is not from men but from God. Surely at that
point the extinction of national Judaism could have here been affirmed
once and for all. But we immediately read: So what advantage does
the Jew have? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? Considerable in
every way. (3:1-2). So here at the commencement of Romans 11 we
find another passionate endorsement of the national descendents of
Abraham. Hence Pauls subsequent dynamic argument calls for intense
investigation since it best challenges anti-Judaism at its roots.
Israels rejection by God is denied, vs. 1-10.
Admittedly, even amongst Christians of this twentieth century who are

indebted to the Reformation for the recovery of the gospel of the free
grace of God, there has been vigorous disagreement with regard to the
1
John Piper, The Justification of God, p. 19.
future destiny of Israel. Nevertheless this writer has no hesitation in

declaring, from the outset, his strong commitment to Gods eschato-
logical promise of a regenerated nation of Israel in the Land under its
acknowledged Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.2 Indeed, it is believed
that a prima facie reading of Romans 9-11 will readily lead to this
conclusion; it is only when a preconceived system of doctrine becomes
dominant, such as in the magisterium or teaching authority of the
Roman Catholic Church, or entrenched Augustinian theology, or
denominational/creedal loyalty, that an alternative interpretation is
desperately sought. However Paul is equally adamant in this matter
when, in reply to the question, Has God rejected His people? He
vehemently responds, Absolutely not! [Perish the thought; it is
unthinkable] (Rom. 11:1). Cranfield is right to designate Pauls
dogmatic exclamation here as being not only reflective of national
Israel, but also the theme of this chapter.3 So Horatius Bonar has
penned a hymn that is just as emphatic about this truth.
Forgotten; no that cannot be;
All other names may pass away,
But thine, MY ISRAEL, shall remain
In everlasting memory.
Forgotten! No, that cannot be;
Inscribed upon My palms thou art,
The name I gave in days of old
Is graven still upon My heart.
Forgotten! No, that cannot be;
Beloved of thy God art thou
His crown forever on thy head,
His name forever on thy brow.
2
To quickly assuage the protest of those who are certain that the Land has no
place in Romans 11, we invite them to recall the evidence declared in
Chapter Nine: Israel - and the Inheritance of the Land through Abraham.
But further, for converted Rabbi Paul to reference the unbelieving
Israelites present investment in the promises of their forefathers, v. 28,
cf. 9:4, and then to suggest that the Land is not included, is simply
ridiculous.
3
Cranfield, Romans, II, p. 542, 574-577.
Forgotten! No, that cannot be:

Sun, moon, and stars may cease to shine,
But thou shalt be remembered still,
For thou art His and He is thine.4
Immediate proof of Israel not having been rejected is the biblical
principle that there is at the present [now] time a remnant chosen by
grace, v. 5. This sovereign preservation is the guarantee of the
presservation of the nation as a whole in the future. But it is vitally
important to understand also that although a present remnant justifies
Gods ongoing faithfulness, the subsequent teaching here indicates that
this is in no way meant to convey His final satisfaction with a remnant,
even as v. 23 seems to suggest. Rather there will ultimately be Israels
fulfillment, v. 12, Israels resurrection, v. 15, that is the salvation
of all Israel, v. 26.
Israels Stumbling at Christ is Temporary, vs. 11-24
The preceding stark definition of Israels blindness, even as the church

at Rome could so plainly observe, might lead to the belief that the
nation as a whole had been finally abandoned by God. Further it would
then be assumed that in the main the saved Gentiles now constituted
the new spiritual nation comprised of all races, including a Jewish
remnant. Sadly the early Christian church, in embracing replacement or
supercessionist theology, did eventually come to this conclusion, and
with tragic consequences for the Jew.5 But No! exclaims Paul. Gods
rejection of Israel is in no way final, v. 1; hence Israels present
stumbling is not irretrievable, v. 11.
4
Horatius Bonar, Lamp & Light Hymns, 154.
5
While the first century was dominated by the Jewish mother church at
Jerusalem that acknowledged the inclusion of the Gentiles into the
blessings of Abraham, during the second to the fourth centuries a change
evolved so that by the time of Constantine the Jews were believed to have
forever forfeited the blessings of Abraham that had now been inherited by
the Gentiles. Refer to H. Wayne House, The Churchs Appropriation Of
Israels Blessings, Israel, The Land and the People, ed. H. Wayne House,
pp. 77-110; Walter Kaiser Jr., An Assessment Of Replacement
Theology, Mishkan 21, (February 1994), pp. 9-20; Ray Pritz, Replacing
The Jews In Early Christian Theology, Mishkan 21, (February 1994), pp.
21-27; Jeffrey S. Siker, Disinheriting The Jews, 296 pp.
God will bless the Gentiles to bless the Jews, vs. 11-15.
For Paul, while his own distinctive Gentile ministry is significant in

this divine saga, yet his ultimate vision concerns the saving of Israel,
their full number, v. 12, and life from the dead, v. 15, yet through
his distinctive vocation, vs. 13-15. However the interim bringing in of
the full number of the Gentiles, v. 25, ought to provoke the Jews to
jealousy, that is make them desirous of Gods evident outpoured
blessing and so become, not Gentiles, but fulfilled Jews under their
Messiah. So, as David Larsen points out:
Christian love, instead of arrogance [cf. vs. 18-20], ought to foster envy or
jealousy among the Jews for what Christians possess in Christ (Rom.
11:11). How frequently has this phenomenon been in evidence in Christian
history or now?6
The answer is all too sadly obvious. Nevertheless, as Barrett states:

Paul looks beyond the advantage conferred on the Gentiles by the
unbelief of Israel to the far greater eschatological bliss which Israels
return will inaugurate.7 While Israels downside is its rejection/being
cast aside vs. 15, 26-27 (cf. Ezek. 37:11), yet its greater upside is its
eschatological resurrection (Ezek. 37:7-10, 12-14).
God will bless the Jews through wise cultivation, vs. 16-24.
While many a man quits a difficult task, the burden of Paul is now to
demonstrate that Gods resolve in the saving of national Israel has
never faded (Gen. 18:14; cf. Phil. 1:6), as is reflected by two Old
Testament images in vs. 16-24 that will stimulate the climactic
declaration of vs. 25-32. Israels Gomer-like spiritual adultery (Hos.
3:1) has resulted in all of the tawdry vicissitudes of human history, as
with the conflict of the centuries in which the Jew has suffered
unspeakable persecution, being for many days without king or prince,
without sacrifice or sacred pillar and without ephod or household
idols (Hos. 3:4). Nevertheless the people of Israel will return and
seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come with
awe to the LORD and to His goodness in the last days (Hos. 3:5).
6
David L. Larsen, A Celebration of the Lord our Gods Role in the Future
of Israel, Israel, the Land and the People, ed. H. Wayne House, p. 319.
7
C. K. Barrett, Romans, p. 214.
The analogy of Israel as a lump of dough, v. 16a.
While the firstfruits piece of dough is holy (Num. 15:17-21), that is the
Abrahamic root to which the remnant of Jewish Christians is attached,
how certain is the ultimate consecration to holiness of the whole lump
or cake (Lev. 6:14-18). Again, the salvation of the remnant, v. 5,
guarantees the salvation of the full number, v. 12, of Israel.
The analogy of Israel as natural olive branches, vs. 16b-24.
By means of the olive tree parallel, Paul intends to provide his most
compelling reasons as to why national Israel has glorious prospects in
spite of ongoing obstinacy through unbelief resulting in dispersal. In a
word, the reason is grace through unilateral, unconditional,
covenental promise (4:13-16; 9:8). However, while this Gentile
dominance continues, such privilege for saved barbarians should
stimulate their humble gratitude and loving respect for the severed
natural branches rather than arrogance and conceit.
Moo comments that, Gentile believers [in Rome] were apparently
convinced that they belonged to a new people of God that had simply
replaced Israel,8 and consequently their derisive attitude was showing.
Haldane adds that here is well described, the [overbearing] spirit that
has long prevailed among the Gentiles who profess Christianity. What
marvelous ignorance, folly, and vanity, are often displayed even in
Gods people!9 However, while Israel is under discipline in the Lords
woodshed, Gentiles are to show them loving respect, even if the task is
at times frustrating. Yet here church history does not reflect a good
record.10 Though the manifest attitude of Paul, already summarized in
pages 294-295, becomes a model in terms of what is here commended.
Nevertheless concerning the shameful record of many centuries, one
scholar declares:
8
Moo, Romans, p. 704.
9
Haldane, Romans, p. 546.
10
A study of church history regarding the treatment of the Jews by Christians
is vital at this point. Refer to Chapter Two: Israel - and centuries of
Christian anti-Judaism, also Paul E. Grosser and Edwin Halperin, The
Causes And Effects Of Anti-Semitism; David L. Larsen, Jews, Gentiles, And
The Church; David Rausch, A Legacy Of Hatred; Clark M. Williamson,
Has God Rejected His People?
The Holocaust was, of course, the bitter fruit of long centuries of Christian
teaching about the Jewish people. From the time of the gentile Church
Fathers and the legal establishment of a triumphant ecclesiastical and
philosophical control system with Constantine the Great, Christendom
treated the Jewish people with contempt and taught contemptuously of
them. . . . [T]he baptized gentiles succumbed to that wrongheadedness
against which Paul had warned: they turned in jealousy and envy against
the very root that bore them (Rom. 11:18).11
Hence the Gentile, in not being arrogant, in continuing in the kindness

of God, v. 22, is to allow grace received to be a stimulant of
graciousness that is to be directed toward the unbelieving Jews, and
thus promote jealousy, vs. 11, 14. It is well worth contemplating here
how a Christian, whose eschatological system denies the existence of
Jews in the sight of God since 70 AD, can adequately respond here in
glad conformity with Pauls exhortation.
Israels Hardening in Unbelief is Impermanent, vs. 25-32
Since the beginning of Romans 9, the overriding concern of Paul has

been the justification of God in His covenant dealings with the nation
of Israel. Now a climactic thrust is reached that seals the dogmatic
assertions of 11:1, 11. The emphasis upon the nation as a whole
continues in large focus, especially since for Paul the Old Testament
manifestation has ongoing New Testament significance.
The hardening of Israel will conclude, v. 25.
Pauls remedy for Gentile conceit, whereby they might esteem

themselves as singularly and forever favored by God to the exclusion
of the Jew, is the revelation of Israels future salvation. The present
hardening of Israel will be until, cri o, the mystery of the
inclusion of the Gentiles, within Gods saving purpose, has run its
course and attained its full number (Luke 21:24). Moo rightly
comments that Paul
leaves no doubt about what he wants his readers to learn from this mystery:
to stop thinking so highly of themselves in comparison with Jews (v. 25a).
We who are Gentiles should likewise take these verses as a reminder that
11
Forward by Franklin H. Little, Chairman, Department of Religion, Temple
University. Paul E. Grosser and Edwin G. Halperin, The Causes And
Effects Of Anti-Semitism, p. xii.
we are only part of the great salvation-historical plan of God and that that
plan has its climax in the salvation of Israel.12
They are not to act with an elder brother attitude (Luke 15:25-32).
Trench, in expounding the Parable of the Prodigal Son, explains:
[W]e Gentiles must not forget that at the end of the present dispensation all
will be reversed, and that we shall be in danger of playing the part of the
elder brother, and shall do so if we grudge at the largeness of the grace
bestowed upon the Jew, who is now feeding upon the husks, far away from
his Fathers house.13
The Deliverer will save national Israel, vs. 26-27.
And in this way, all Israel will be saved, v. 26. The controversy that
surrounds this verse is closely related to systems of eschatology that
have espoused three main perspectives. 1. Israel here refers to the
redeemed of the New Testament era who comprise the church, whether
converted Jew or Gentile. Thus the Christian church has become the
new Israel that has replaced the former Old Testament nation. This
view of Calvin has diminished support because of obvious exegetical
weakness. 2. Israel here refers to the accumulation, over many
centuries, of the saved remnant of national Israel, 11:5. While it is
comprised of Jewish Christians, yet it merges with the church which is
the new Israel. Both of the above views can admit to a larger number
of Jews being converted at the end of this age, though without there
being any national or territorial significance with regard to the future.
Such an increase, again, merges with the church. This view is
especially supported by English, Dutch and Reformed scholars. 3.
Israel here refers to a future national conversion of Israel, the larger
unbelieving segment in particular, that results in Israel serving under
Christ in the promised land with restored glory. This view, with
variations, is most widely held today within evangelical Christendom,
12
Moo, Romans, p. 713. Also Barrett, Cranfield, Haldane, Hendriksen,
Hodge, Morris, Murray, Shedd.
13
R. C. Trench, Notes on the Parables of Our Lord, p. 152. Cranfield makes a
similar comment: The order of salvation thus described marks
significantly an inversion of the order in which the good news is preached
according to 1:16 (both for the Jew first and for the Greek). Romans, II, p.
572.
even as N. T. Wright acknowledges.14 It is the obvious meaning that is

also in full harmony with a Judeo-centric eschatology.15
The national salvation of all Israel, v. 26.
In relation to the clear chronological sequence of v. 25, in this way all

Israel [the same national Israel of v. 25, inclusive of the remnant of
v.5] will be saved. The agent of this salvation is the Liberator . . .
from Zion. Pauls flexible use of Isaiah 59:20 and Jeremiah 31:33-34
probably incorporates Psalm 14:7; 53:6 as well. The future tense here
suggests the return of Jesus Christ, having come from the heavenly
Zion and his throne of intercession (Heb. 12:22-24) for the purpose of
coming to earthly Zion in its present ungodly state; it complements the
other future aspects of vs. 24, 26. This is further indicated since this
Liberating One will remove [again future tense] ungodliness from
Jacob (Isa. 27:9; cf. vs. 6, 12-13, which, according to Pauls reference
here, must transcend the return from Babylon).
The national covenant of cleansing, v. 27.
The continuing quotation of Isaiah 59:21a, now incorporating the

thought of covenant cleansing from Isaiah 27:9; Jeremiah 31:31, 33-34,
indicates that the basis of the aforementioned salvation of Israel will be
the atoning Seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:16). The newness of this
covenant (Heb. 8:8-13; 12:18-24) is in relation to the old covenant
made at Mt. Sinai, while it is but the fulfillment of the Abrahamic
covenant, v. 28. Cranfield rightly concludes that such unilateral
deliverance, dashes Israels self-centered hopes of establishing a
claim upon God, of putting Him under an obligation by its merits,
making it clear that the nations final salvation will be a matter of the
forgiveness of its sins by the sheer mercy of its God.16
14
15
For more conclusive proof in this regard, refer to Matt Waymeyer, The
Dual Status of Israel in Romans 11:28, The Masters Seminary Journal,
(Spring 2005),
16
Cranfield, Romans, II, p. 579.
The salvation of Israel will be comprehensive, vs. 28-32.
The whole problem for the Gentile has been one of misplaced focus,
that is self-centeredness; the overriding purpose of Paul has been to
correct this narrow vision so that it encompasses the broader
perspective of Jew and Gentile in Gods plan of redemption. Notice the
emphatic contrast between they (Israelites) and your (Gentiles), v.
28, between you (Gentiles) and their/these/they (Israelites), vs. 30-
31. By way of concluding summation, Paul now continues to address
the Gentile in much the same way that God needed to address and
correct the narrow focus of Peter (Acts 10:44-11:18).
According to irrevocable covenant, vs. 28-29.
Refer to Chapter Eleven: Israel - as God's Beloved Enemy, for a more

detailed study of v. 28. Here biblical covenantalism, with regard to
Gods saving purposes, is brought to the forefront, and this in turn
causes us to grasp that Gods gospel is rooted in His sovereign will and
purpose rather than human cooperation. Hence we are constrained to
view Gods dealings from His point of view rather than that of either
the Gentile or Jew, and here this calls for continued emphasis on the
Gentile having his vision expanded even as this thrust was introduced
at v. 17. The necessity may also be due to the glorious deliverance of
vs. 26-27 that could arouse Gentile discomfort, again after the manner
of the elder brother (Luke 15:25-32).
According to universal mercy, vs. 30-32.
It is a common quirk of human nature that we more readily focus on

grace bestowed upon ourselves while at the same time sin manifest in
others (Matt. 7:3-5). Likewise the Gentiles, particularly in their
ascendancy, have tended to look with admiring exclusivity at
themselves and disparagement toward the Jews. However Paul is
persistent in communicating Gods inclusive, loftier perspective which,
though none the less particular, intends that Gentile and Jew should be
accepting of each other even as He has been equally gracious in
showing mercy to all. As Frederick W. Faber has well penned:
Theres a wideness in Gods mercy
Like the wideness of the sea;
Theres a kindness in His justice
Which is more than liberty.
For the love of God is broader

Than the measure of mans mind,
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.
The significance of Paul continuing to exhort the Gentiles in particular
from v. 13 up to v. 32 ought not to be missed. The point is that a wider
perspective is necessary concerning Gods design for human history.
So often we are blinded by a narrow and exclusive frame of reference,
v. 18, that requires divine enlightenment, vs. 24-29.
GALATIANS 6:16
When apologists for Augustinian Reformed eschatology seek to

biblically justify the identification of the Christian church as the new
spiritual Israel of God, invariably Galatians 6:16 is offered as the
primary proof-text.17 Though it should be pointed out that this
reference is really the only explicit verse in the New Testament that can
reasonably be appealed to in this regard, especially if the NIV
translation is considered.
The Context
Paul has almost reached a point of exasperation with the Jewish

legalists who are so adamant in requiring that Gentile Christians be
circumcised and thus commence submission to the Law of Moses
(Acts 15:5). So in Galatians 5:12 he expresses, in a very down-to-earth
manner, his desire that they would get themselves castrated. Again in
Galatians 6:12-13 Paul assails the carnality and hypocrisy of his
opponents, particularly their boasting in gaining submission to
circumcision. So he responds with a different sort of boasting, which is
self-renouncing and exalts alone in Jesus Christs atonement. This
proclamation of confidence in grace alone through Christ alone is
antithetical to the formalistic religion of this world, v. 14. And when all
17
This is clearly evident in Hendriksen, Israel and the Bible, pp. 33-34;
Palmer Robertson, The Israel of God, pp. 39-46; Venema, The Promise of
the Future, pp. 274-277. So La Rondelle comments, Pauls Benediction in
Galatians 6:16 becomes, then, the chief witness in the New Testament in
declaring that the universal Church of Christ is the Israel of God, the seed
of Abraham, the heir to Israels covenant promise (cf. Gal. 3:29; 6:16).
The Israel of God in Prophecy, pp. 110-111.
has been said and done, what matters most is that sovereignty of grace
which alone is able to convert a works-boasting sinner into a new
[spiritual] creation/species [ktisis, cf. II Cor. 5:17], v. 15.
The Israel of God, v. 16
So Paul exhorts those to whom he is writing, being principally

Gentiles (1:2), to show discernment in this matter. Peace . . . and
mercy, which are so central and resultant concerning a true experience
of his gospel, will be bestowed upon those who are exclusively
directed in their daily walk by the fundamental rule of grace and life in
union with Christ. But for those who employ Moses along with Christ,
as it were with a relationship that may be likened to spiritual bigamy
(Rom. 7:1-4), peace . . . and mercy are impossible. Moses will only
aggravate the problem (Rom. 5:20; 7:7). Then Paul is reminded of a
minority group in the church at Galatia, a remnant chosen by grace
(Rom. 11:5), that is a small number of Jewish Christians. They are
ethnically Jewish, yet very different from those who want to make a
good showing in the flesh (5:12). So he includes them as well in his
exhortation since they, as Christians, being authentically Jewish, are
the Israel of God, and with the Gentiles are equally able to
participate in the benediction of peace . . . mercy.
The Jewish Christian Interpretation
Considerable debate has surrounded the translation of this verse. Many

translations follow the NASB which reads: And those who will walk
by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and [emphasis added]
upon the Israel of God. Then the HCSB reads, May peace be on all
those who follow this standard, and mercy also [emphasis added] be on
the Israel of God. However the NIV translates: Peace and mercy to
all who follow this rule, even [emphasis added] to the Israel of God.
Concerning the NIV version, Jewish Christian commentator David
Stern remarks:
The consequence of this wrong interpretation has been immeasurable pain
for the Jews. The conclusion was reached that the Church is now the New
Israel and the Jews, the so-called Old Israel, no longer Gods people. If
the Jews are no longer Gods people, isnt it appropriate to persecute them?
There are four reasons why this anti-Semitic conclusion is false and is not
taught by this verse or any other: (1) the Greek grammar, (2) the Jewish
background, (3) Shauls [Pauls] purpose here, and (4) Shauls teaching
elsewhere.18
The distress of Stern here is by no means unfounded. In John Gagers

The Origins of Anti-Semitism, there is an honest reckoning with
Galatians 6:16 concerning the unfortunate neglect of certain historic
doctrinal factors that conflict with the common association of Israel
with the church.
Peter Richardson has shown that Justin Martyr was the first Christian writer
to identify Christianity with Israel in explicit terms [refer to footnote 22].
This is a sobering discovery. If language provides any clues to reality, we
ought now to be more cautious when speaking about rejection-replacement
views of Israel in the earliest stages of Christian development. Pauls
writings come a full century before the time of Justin. They are certainly
the earliest Christian documents to have survived and perhaps even to have
been written. If we knew nothing of their contents and were forced to
hazard a guess based solely on an extrapolation from Richardsons
observation about Justin, would we arrive at anything like the traditional
interpretation of Paul on Israel and the Torah! In fact, Paul nowhere
addresses his churches as Israel. Nor does he transfer to them Israels
distinctive attributes. The RSV translation of Philippians 3:3 (We are the
true circumcision. . . .) indicates such a transfer, but the RSV translation at
this point must be seen as dependent on the rejection-replacement view of
Israel, not the other way around.19
Then in rejecting the identification of Israel with the church, and

having cited Ernest D. Burtons designation of the Israel of God as
the pious Israel, the remnant according to the election of grace (Rom.
11:5), Gager appears to opt for Richardsons conclusion. It is that the
blessing [of peace and mercy] falls on two separate groups: those
who follow Pauls standard and the Israel to whom God will show his
mercy, namely, all of Israel (cf. Rom. 11:26).20
18
David Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary, p. 574.
19
John G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism, p. 228. He also footnotes the
fact that, concerning Philippians 3:3, There is no counterpart for true in
the Greek text. Ibid.
20
Ibid., pp. 228-229.
The Exegesis of Two Key Words
Israel according to Paul.
There is no use of the term Israel in the New Testament that is an

explicit equivalent to the Christian church. This is confirmed by
Burtons declaration: [T]here is, in fact, no instance of his [Pauls]
using Israel, except of the Jewish nation or a part thereof.21
Furthermore there is no evidence taken from history that the term
Israel was synonymously used with regard to the church before A.D.
160.22
And rather than even.
The continuative and, kai, is not only contextually but also

statistically preferable when compared with the ascensive even. Most
commonly the translation is, and upon the Israel of God (KJV,
NKJV, NASB, ESV), in which case Hebrew Christians retain a distinct
identity within the one people of God, while the minority translation
reads, even upon the Israel of God (NIV), in which case the church,
comprised of all of the people of God, is simply given a refined title, it
being the spiritual Israel of God. However in the New Testament of the
KJV the approximate usage is 97% for kai as and compared with 3%
for kai as even. Hence the continuative use of kai has a far greater
frequency than the ascensive use. Concerning the NIVs uncommon
use of even in this regard, Peace and mercy to all who follow this
rule, even to the Israel of God, a degree of ambiguity yet remains
since not only can the ascensive use of kai be understood, but also the
emphatic use, that is, Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule,
even [by way of an adjunctive, emphatic thought] to the Israel of God.
A. T. Robertson suggests this is possibly the original meaning of kai,
so that also here would seem to be a preferable translation, as with
21
Ernest De Witt Burton, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on The
Epistle to the Galatians, p. 358. In Romans 9:6, Paul writes of an Israel
within ethnic Israel. John Murray, Romans, II, p. 9.
22
In Peter Richardsons acclaimed Cambridge University doctoral thesis, he
writes, The word Israel is applied to the Christian Church for the first
time by Justin Martyr c. A.D. 160. It is a symptom of the developing take-
over by Christians of the prerogatives and privileges of Jews. Israel In The
Apostolic Church, p. 1.
the HCSB.23 May peace be on all those who follow this standard, and
mercy also be on the Israel of God. In this instance the distinctive
character of the Jewish Christian is retained. However it is difficult not
to suspect that the NIV translation is doctrinally driven so that the
intention is to identify the church as in fact the new Israel of God.
The Compatibility with Romans 11:5, 26
There is a broad Judeo-centric approach here which divides into two

interpretations that both relate to Romans 11. On the one hand there is
association with the remnant according to the election of grace
(Rom. 11:5). These are authentic Jewish Christians, at the time when
Paul wrote Romans, who readily parallel the remnant that Paul
identifies as the Israel of God, a minority within the Gentile churches
of Galatia when Galatians 6:16 was written. In holding to this
perspective, Ernest D. Burton writes:
[T]here is, in fact, no instance of his [Pauls] using Israel, except of the
Jewish nation or a part thereof. These facts favor the interpretation of the
expression [Israel tou theou] as applying not to the Christian community,
but to Jews; yet, in view of tou theou, not to the whole Jewish nation, but to
the pious Israel, the remnant according to the election of grace (Rom.
11:5).24
So a number of scholars has taken a similar exegetical pathway

including G. C. Berkower, Hans Dieter Betz, Walter Gutbrod, A. T.
Hanson, and Gottlob Schrenk.25 On the other hand it is difficult to
ignore Pauls eschatological hope in a future authentic conversion of
national Israel, at which time all Israel will be saved (Rom. 11:26).
Hence this full number (Rom. 11:12) parallels the consummation of
the Israel of God, as we have already seen with Richardson, but also
F. F. Bruce and Franz Mussner. However, notwithstanding variations
here, there is consensus that Galatians 6:16 refers to Jewish Christians
23
A. T. Robertson, A Grammar Of The Greek New Testament In The Light Of
Historical Research, p. 1180.
24
Burton, Critical and Exegetical Commentary on The Epistle to the
Galatians, p. 358. Also Hans Dieter Betz, Walter Gutbrod, Gottlob
Schrenk.
25
G. C. Berkouwer, The Return of Christ, p. 344; Hans Dieter Betz,
Galatians, p. 323; A. T. Hanson, The Pioneer Ministry, pp. 34-35.
and therefore cannot be identified as a synonym for the homogonous

people of God.
The Conflict between Exegesis and Doctrine
Dr. S. Lewis Johnson, a former Dallas Seminary professor who later

embraced the doctrines of sovereign grace, has written a highly
significant article on the interpretation of Galatians 6:16. One
particular comment is most insightful.
I cannot help but think that dogmatic considerations loom large in the
interpretation of Galatians 6:16. The tenacity with which this application of
the Israel of God to the church is held in spite of a mass of evidence to
the contrary leads one to think that the supporters of the view believe their
eschatological system, usually an amillennial scheme, hangs on the
reference of the term to the people of God, composed of both believing
Jews and Gentiles. Amillennialism does not hang on this interpretation, but
the view does appear to have a treasured place in amillennial exegesis.
A certain rigidity in evangelical eschatological debate emerges again in the
discussion of Galatians 6:16. For example, amillennialists seem to strongly
desire to equate the Israel of God with the church. Some amillennialists,
however, think an ethnic future for Israel is compatible with their system.
An example of this is found in the fine work of Anthony A. Hoekema on
eschatology. He grants that an ethnic future for Israel would with certain
strictures be compatible with his amillennial views, but he argues strongly
against such an interpretation.
Why, then are amillennialists so opposed generally to an ethnic future for
Israel? This is not an easy question to answer. It may be perfectly
conceivable that an amillennialist would grant that an ethnic future for
Israel at the Lords return could be fitted into his system. But if such a
normal interpretation of the language of the Old Testament is followed in
this instance, it is difficult to see how one can then escape the seemingly
plain teaching of many Old Testament prophecies that the nation of Israel
shall enjoy a preeminence in certain aspects over the Gentiles in the
kingdom that follows our Lords advent (cf. Isa. 60:1-4; 62:1-12; Mic. 4:1-
5; Hag. 2:1-7; Zech. 14:16-21, etc).26
26
S. Lewis Johnson, Jr. Paul and The Israel of God: An Exegetical and
Eschatological Case-Study, Mishkan, No. 6 & 7, 1987, pp. 49-65.
The Exegesis of Drs. Herman Bavinck and Geerhardus Vos
Whereas Herman Bavinck believed that the future salvation of Israel

would only incorporate a remnant gleaned through the centuries, Vos
believed in a future mass conversion of Israel. In the light of this, the
preceding explanation of Dr. Johnson is born out by the previous
reference in Chapter Six: Israel - and Christian anti-Judaic
Hermeneutics in History, concerning the anti-premillennial,
eschatological understanding of Bavink with regard to the future of
Israel. We briefly quote again Willem VanGemeren as follows:
[I]n the interest of polemic against premillennialism Bavinck sacrifices the
OT prophetic hope to a harmonious understanding of the NT, in which the
NT passages which hold out a hope for Israel and different exegetical
options are either harmonized or not fully considered. The authority of the
OT as well as of the NT seems to be sacrificed out of concern for unity,
harmony, and systemization.27
VanGemeren also references Geerhardus Voss similar anti-

premillennial concern and why it was so difficult for him to enter into
detail about his belief in the future conversion of Israel and its
absorption into the Christian church. It was [b]ecause it had been
connected on the one hand with the restoration of the Jews to the Holy
Land and on the other hand with the millennial kingdom.28
Conclusion
The Apostle Paul, who never repudiated his Jewishness, who always
gave priority to Jewish evangelism, who continued to indicate the most
tender love for his countrymen by physical descent (Rom. 9:3), is
hardly likely to be propounding here a vital truth through the use of
ambiguous, even specious terminology. Surely he would not be
declaring to the Galatian Jews that, through absorption amongst the
Gentiles, they were about to be racially disenfranchised by God. Upon
his arrival at Rome, several years after the Epistle to the Galatians had
27
Interpretation of Prophecy (II), Westminster Theological Journal, 46
(1984), p. 263.
28
Ibid., pp. 263-264, with reference to Geerhardus Vos, Eschatologie,
Dogmatiek, 5.26. It was on exegetical grounds that Vos affirmed a hope in
Israels eventual conversion. Refer to pp. 111-112.
been penned, Paul first sought to witness to the leaders of the Jews
concerning the hope of Israel (Acts 28:17, 20). To suggest that in this
situation he spoke deftly with his tongue using an expression, often
employed before, that in fact he believed would soon require divine
reinterpretation, is simply unthinkable. Certainly he would not have
been declaring the demise of Judaism. Rather in Rome he would have
preached Christ to both Jew and Gentile with the especial hope that
unbelieving natural branches, through jealousy, might become part of
the remnant chosen by grace (Rom. 11:5), that is the true Israel of
God. In this way Paul would have heartily rejoiced in declaring, I
magnify my ministry (Rom. 11:13-14).
EPHESIANS 2:11-22
In churches of a Reformed persuasion, any eschatological distinction

made between national Israel and the Church will often be challenged
with the teaching of Paul in Ephesians 2:11-22. Here it is asserted that
the apostle describes Israel and the Church as having been uniformly
joined together, that is amalgamated into one body, one new man, the
new people of God that nevertheless retains the title of the Church of
Jesus Christ. However it is further stressed that in such a unity, in the
sight of God the Jew has been completely, covenentally divested of his
Jewishness, even as the Gentile no longer retains any distinction.. So
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, strongly influenced by Reformed commentary,
declares that,
[t]he one new man here, the one body, is the Church, consisting of these
various parts, all as a representation of the body of Christ. . . . The Jew has
been done away with as such, even as the Gentile has been done away with,
in Christ. If you believe in the new creation, you must realize that all else
has been entirely done away with, put aside. There is neither Jew nor
Greek. . ., for ye are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28). Another obvious
principle is that nothing that belonged to the old state is of any value or has
any relevance in the new state. If that seems startling to us we have but to
read what Paul says in Galatians 6:15: In Christ Jesus neither circumcision
availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. . . . So the Jew
has gone, Gentile has gone; all that belonged to the Jew, all that belonged to
the Gentile, is irrelevant henceforward. It is the new creature that matters.29
29
Lloyd-Jones, Ephesians 2, pp. 216-7. Gary Burge similarly aligns with the
view that here, in Christ the former categories of Jew and Gentile are
abolished. . . . God has one people. Whose Land? Whose Promise? p. 238.
Apart from the erroneous absolutist referencing of Galatians 3:28;

6:15,30 Lloyd-Jones believes, again in oughtright terms, that God has
eliminated all racial distinctions, whether Jewish or Gentile. Hence
there is no possibility of any divine future for national Israel and
individual Jewish identity, though it is really not difficult to appreciate
that this extreme egalitarian spirit has overstepped itself. The reason is
that in Romans 9-11 the same author presents teaching that certainly,
according at least to a prima facie perspective, is in direct conflict with
Lloyd-Jones exposition of Ephesians 2.
Of course, as already asserted in pages 294-296, Romans is best
understood from the Jewish perspective that so thoroughly permeates
its doctrine, and not according to Gentile imposition upon this pivotal
gospel account. So Ephesians is similarly confronted with the same
problem, especially in terms of centuries of protestant exposition. In
this regard Dr. Tet-Lim Yee expresses concern at
the previous scholarship which has been hampered by too rigid an
understanding of Pauline Christianity. This can be attributed substantially
to scholarly tradition whose hermeneutical grid has been derived from the
philosophy of dialectics or the Protestant Reformation. The new
perspective(s) on Paul, however, shifts our perspective back to first-
century Judaism and enables us to penetrate fully into the historical context
of first-century Jews and Judaism.31
Further this preferred Judaic approach is not to be thought so surprising

when one considers the conclusion of Dr.Yees study of Ephesians
overall.
The reason for the heavy use of the Jewish Scripture in Ephesians is
obvious enough: it shows the continuity of Ephesians with the Jewish
tradition to such an extent that the Jewish scriptures had become part of the
30
Obviously Christian conversion does not eliminate racial, gender, and
social distinctions. They remain as diverse characteristics of Christian
unity. Neither did Paul nullify circumcision for the Jewish Christian.
31
Tet-Lim N. Yee, Jews, Gentiles and Ethnic Reconciliation: Pauls Jewish
Identity and Ephesians, p. 213. As previously mentioned in Chapter Six:
Israel - and Christian anti-Judaic Hermeneutics in History, we do not have
to agree with all of the conclusions that the new perspective presents via
E. P. Sanders, James D. G. Dunn, and N. T. Wright, to nevertheless
appreciate the significance of a heightened regard for the essential Jewish
nature of biblical Christianity, especially as reflected in Paul.
authors tacit dimension, forming the grid of his theological and ethical
weaving.32
Now it is vital to note that the rapprochement presently under

discussion here in Ephesians 2 is predicated upon that period when
Jesus declared to the chief priests and Pharisees, the kingdom of God
will be taken away from you [though not eternally, Matt. 23:38-39] and
given to a nation [mainly the Gentiles/the new people of God],
producing its fruit (Matt. 21:43). Hence this union that has been
instituted through the blood of Christ, vs. 13-16, commences at the
inauguration of the Church age, signified at Pentecost, and thus
progresses through the subsequent centuries and advancing fullness of
the Gentiles (Luke 21:24; Rom. 11:25). In the language of Romans 11,
we are at that point where the [natural] branches were broken off, and
you, though a wild olive branch [of Gentile stock], were grafted in
among them [the remnant], and have come to share in the rich root of
the cultivated olive tree. v. 17.
The Gentiles are the Main Subject of Discussion
As with Romans 11:11-32, here in Ephesians 2 Paul is similarly

addressing those formerly Gentiles in the fleshcalled the
uncircumcised, v. 11, so that they might understand that they have
been graciously engrafted into the root of Abraham as wild,
uncultivated stock, except that the language here is of being brought
near by the blood of the Messiah, having formerly been without the
Messiah, excluded, . . . foreigners to the covenants of the promise, with
no hope and without God in the world, vs. 12-13.
The Gentiles were excluded from the citizenship of Israel, v. 12
They were excluded from the citizenship [politeia] of Israel [as a

nation/state], and foreigners to the covenants of the promise,33 that is
separate from the rich root of the cultivated olive tree, being the
Abrahamic covenant and the forefathers (Rom. 11:17, 28). Such
alienation was when you were dead in your trespasses and sins, . . .
32
Ibid., p. 43.
33
The plural covenants especially anticipates the continuity of the original
promise, declared to Abraham on several occasions (Gen. 12:1-3; 15:5-21;
17:7-8; 26:1-5; 28:10-17; 35:9-12), by means of the subsequent Davidic
Covenant (II Sam. 7:8-17) and New Covenant (Jer. 31:31-37).
[and] walked according to this worldly age. . . . We too all previously

lived among them in our fleshly desires, (Eph. 2:1-3). Thus the
Gentiles were prodigals, with no hope and without God in the world,
(Eph. 2:12).
The Gentiles have been brought near by the blood of the Messiah,
vs. 13-19
It is vital to notice here that the Gentiles are not saved to comprise the
Church, but are brought near to an unidentified entity by means of
Christs atonement. So in Romans 11:17, the wild olive branches are
not independently saved as the church, but are engrafted into the rich
[Abrahamic] root of the cultivated olive tree, that is brought near to
the Abrahamic covenant. Carl Hoch, Jr. describes the connection here
as follows:
The Gentiles are brought near to Israel in Christ to share with Israel in its
covenants, promise, hope, and God. They do not become Israel; they share
with Israel.34
Near to the blessing of Abraham, vs. 13.
The context makes it clear that this nearness does not refer to union
with or nearness to Christ. Rather it is by means of the blood of
Christ that we are brought near to something else. In parallel with
Romans 11:17 we suggest the Gentile is certainly brought near to God,
though more particularly through being engrafted into the Abrahamic
covenant. Thus J. S. Perowne explains:
The thought of remoteness and nearness in respect of God is of course
implied, and comes out clearly in v. 18; but it is not the immediate thought
of this passage, which rather speaks of the incorporation of once heathen
souls into the true Israel. But the two views cannot be quite separated.
Nigh and far were familiar terms with the Rabbis in the sense of having
or not having part in the covenant.35
That is, by faith the Gentiles draw near to the blessing of Abraham
(Gal. 3:14, 29); as uncultivated olive branches, they become engrafted
into the rich root of the cultivated olive tree (Rom. 11:17); they too
34
Hoch, Jr. The New Man of Ephesians 2, Dispensationalism, Israel and
the Church, Blaising and Bock, eds., p. 125
35
J. S. Perowne, Ephesians, p. 78.
become participants in the covenants of the [Abrahamic] promise, v.

12, the sustaining root (Rom. 11:18).
Near as breaking down the barrier between Jew and Gentile, v. 14.
Formerly there was a seeming impenetrable fence/partition (phragmos)

of animosity between Jew and Gentile, especially on account of the
law, v. 15. There may be reflection here upon the Temple wall that
divided the Court of the Israelites from the Court of the Gentiles.
However Christ has established reconciliation and peace with the result
that the two warring factions have become one, as in a marriage, even
though the Jew and Gentile distinction is still present as with the
male/female distinction within a Christian marriage (Gal. 3:28). Jewish
Christian commentator David Stern makes an interesting explanation at
this point.
Shauls [Pauls] point is that Gentiles are no longer separated but can now
join the Jewish people and be one with them as Gods people through faith
in the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua. The partition is down, the Gentiles can join
us! The critics understand it the other way round: the partition is down, so
that once Jews believe in their own Messiah they can no longer have the
right to maintain their Jewish identity but must conform to Gentile patterns.
Amazing! And certainly not what Shaul himself did.36
Thus we would declare that former Gentile alienation having been

transformed through incorporation into the concord of one new man,
certainly does not result in the elimination of distinctions that concern
sexuality, personality, giftedness, appearance, and ethnicity. Hence,
with Romans 11 also in view, we reject the rather common Gentile
understanding that this oneness results in a homogenous union which
completely eliminates former Jew/Gentile distinctions, even as Lloyd-
Jones has represented. Note that this one new man is identical with
the one body of God, v. 16, which according to Pauls analogy
comprises a diversity within a unity with regard to the church as the
body of Christ (I Cor. 12:14-27). Similarly in marriage, a man and a
woman, while retaining gender distinction, become one flesh (Gen.
2:24). Thus Dan Gruber well describes this oneness as follows:
The church is composed of believers called out of the Gentiles to be joined
to the faithful remnant of Israel. It is Israels fruit. There is a distinction
between Israel and the Church, not a separation. There is a union without a
36
David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary, p. 584.
loss of identity. . . . Believers are not identically the same, but Messiah is
all, and in all. Messiah is the ONE new man, and we are all part of Him.
There are many members of the body, with different appearances and
functions, but only one body.37
Near as making two into one new man, v. 15.
Prior fierce enmity between Jew and Gentile having been eliminated,
the result is one new man from the two. This is the church, Gods
household, or better, Gods household, (oikeioi tou theou) v. 19,
rooted in Abraham, that presently comprises a growing fullness of
Gentiles and a growing Jewish remnant that will attain to a climactic
fullness (Rom. 11:12, 26); it is a holy sanctuary in the Lord being
Gods dwelling in the Spirit, vs. 21-22. A significant part of this
new man is disassociation from the law of the commandments in
regulations, v. 15, that is the Old Covenant, so that you may belong
to anotherto Him who was raised from the dead, (Rom. 7:4). Thus
redeemed Jew and Gentile are at peace with each other due to a better
foundation. Yet, as v. 19 indicates, the redeemed Gentiles are no
longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints.
Such a united relationship in no way invalidates a Jew/Gentile
distinction within Gods household, any more than the male/female
distinction is invalidated because they are one in Christ Jesus (Gal.
3:28). Again David Stern comments:
In this entire passage Shaul is writing to Gentiles, and his object is to
reassure them that they are fully Gods people, that because of their faith in
the Messiah and his work no barrier exists between them and Jews
Gentiles are not second-class citizens of the Kingdom. His purpose is not to
downplay Jewish distinctives, but to up-play what God has now done for
Gentiles. To find in these verses grounds for opposing Messianic Judaism is
simply to misappropriate them for a purpose Shaul never dreamed of.38
The new man then is the seed of Abraham brought to new

covenant fulfillment; the newness here is not a replacement, as if
brand new, but a fulfillment newness, a union through
incorporation that involves the luster of grace and unity in the seed of
Abraham which the Old Testament people of God were never able to
manifest. This household of God is essentially and foundationally
37
Dan Gruber, The Church and The Jews, pp. 331, 410.
38
Hebrew, with Zion as its headquarters (Rom. 11:26; Rev. 14:1), while
the incorporated wild Gentile branches participate in a oneness that
retains individuality.
Near as one body to God, vs. 16-18.
The church or Gods household, v. 19, is established through

reconciliation to God in one body to God, v. 16. Its foundation is
the rich root of the cultivated olive tree (Rom. 11:17), which
supports the cultivated, along with the uncultivated branches that have
been engrafted into the Abrahamic Covenant. Thus through Christ, the
seed of Abraham (Matt. 1:1-17; Gal. 3:16, 29), peace, instead of former
enmity between Jew and Gentile, has been brought to those who were
far away and those who were near (Isa. 57:19), v. 17. Further, we
both, Jew and Gentile, as with the man and woman, through Christ the
one Mediator, have identical access by one Spirit to the Father, while
yet retaining Jew/Gentile distinctiveness.
Near as fellow citizens with the saints, comprising Gods

household, v. 19
Here then is the resolution of the tension which Lloyd-Jones

introduced. Here also is further explanation concerning the one new
man of v. 15. While some interpret the holy ones/saints ton hagion
with reference to believers in general, for converted Rabbi Paul this
term, in context here, would indicate Jewish Christians,39 or the
remnant according to Romans 11:5, in parallel with Galatians 6:16.
Thus Gentiles, through grace in Christ, now share with a remnant of
Israel, through grace in Christ, resulting in coexistence as the new
man, the church, the rich [Abrahamic/Hebrew] root of the cultivated
olive tree (Rom. 11:5, 17).40 However the church is now constituted
as Gods household/householders [oikeioi tou theou], it being
comprised of Gentile Christians who are fellow citizens with the
saints [Jewish Christians], v. 19. As another writer puts it:
39
Carl B. Hoch, Jr. All Things New, p. 309. Also refer to John Gill.
40
Hoch, Jr. The New Man of Ephesians 2, Dispensationalism, Israel and
the Church, Blaising and Bock, eds., p. 125. Also refer to the classic study
of William Rader, The Church and Racial Hostility, which traces the
interpretation of Ephesians 2:11-22 throughout church history.
The Church is not the people of God which has taken the place of Israel, the
Old Testament people of God. Rather, according to Rom. 11:1, the Church
is only the participant in the root (Israel) and its forefathers, the extended
people of God who together with Israel form the one people of God.41
With this in mind, it is well to remember that Paul, who wrote this
Epistle to the Ephesians (1:1), continued to identify himself as an
ethnic Jew, in the present tense (Acts 21:26, 39; 22:3; Rom. 9:3; I Cor,.
9:20), and that surely without any thought of a mere shallow fraternal
acknowledgment or even duplicity in his profession. Hence we have
harmony with the eschatological prospect of Israels national
conversion and re-engrafting according to Ezekiel 37 and Romans
11:15, 23-26. This great, distinctive ingathering (Rom. 11:12, 15, 24-
26) shall become part of the one Gods household, v. 19.
Conclusion
The main point that many Augustinian amillennialists attempt to derive
from this passage is that the one new man and God in one body,
vs. 15-16, evidence a homogonous unity that does not allow diversity,
namely divine recognition of Jewish and Gentile Christians. This we
believe to be a fundamental error since the one Spirit and one Lord
and one God and Father (Eph. 4:4-6) comprise a personal diversity in
the essential unity of the Godhead. So here in 2:13-16, and in I
Corinthians 12:12-30 where there is one body of Christ that is
composed of distinctively gifted members, overall unity comprises a
complementary diversity, as in the marriage union. Thus the one new
man and the one body to God, indeed the the whole building, . . . a
holy sanctuary in the Lord, v. 21, represent a unity that incorporates
Jewish and Gentile individuality ordained of God (Gal. 3:28-29; 6:15-
16).
PHILIPPIANS 3:2-3
It has been common, especially amongst Gentile commentators, for

Philippians 3:2-3 to be understood as a clear indication that Paul has
now come to understand that all Christians comprise the circumcision
of God. This new alleged identification, according to Gods
perspective, is in lieu of a now defunct physical rite that parallels an
equally defunct nation of Israel. Thus Palmer Robertson comments:
41
Franz Mussner, Tractate on the Jews, p. 9.
[I]n Romans 2:29 and Philippians 3:3, Paul indicates that all believers
in Christ, whether or not they are Jewish externally, are truly the Israel
of God.42 This we believe to be a mistaken understanding of Pauls
overall teaching, he being an ongoing brother in the flesh of the
Israelites, . . . [to whom presently] belong the adoption, the glory, the
covenants, the giving of the law, the temple service, and the promises
(Rom. 9:4). According to Pauls own confession, he remains a
distinctive, bona fide Jew (Acts 16:1-3; 22:3; Rom. 9:3-4; 11:1).
The Warning against Carnal Signification, v. 2
In Paul writing to the local church at Philippi, that is predominantly

Gentile, he is especially concerned with regard to [devouring] dogs, . .
. evil workers, . . . those who mutilate the flesh. Whether these
troublemakers be Gentiles who have been Judaized or Judaizing Jewish
Christians, the Apostles concern is akin to that which he confronted
with regard to the churches in Galatia (Gal. 5:12). Clearly these
disturbers zealously attempt to, as it were, collect Gentile foreskins like
scalps, and then boast in their harvest for the cause of perpetuated
Judaism (Gal. 6:12-13; Phil. 3:2).
The Encouragement of Spiritual Signification, v. 3
While the HCSB translates: For we are the circumcision, the NASB
reads, for we are the true circumcision, and the ESV: For we are the
real circumcision. To begin with, the we here must be identified,
and many have concluded that the general congregation at Philippi,
along with Paul and his immediate entourage, is collectively indicated.
However there is good reason for believing that a more exclusive
reference is in mind, that is Paul himself and Timothy, both
circumcised, even as v. 17, cf. 1:1, would suggest. In a similar vein,
note the significant contrast in Galatians 3 between the we [Jews] of
2:15-17; 3:23-25; 4:3-5, and the you [Galatian Gentiles] of 3:1-3, 26-
29. Carl Hoch, Jr. makes a good case for the interpretation of we
here as being equivalent to we Jews. He first references J. B.
Lightfoot who comments that latreuo, that is worship/service here,
had got to be used in a very special sense to denote the service
42
O. Palmer Robertson, The Israel of God, p. 44n. This view follows a
common Reformed perspective, even as does Richard Sibbes, Works, V, p.
69.
rendered to Jehovah by the Israelite race, as His peculiar people.43 He

then adds that, In every instance where Paul uses this verb to describe
service to God, he uses it of his own personal ministry (see also Acts
24:14; 26:7; 27:23; Rom. 1:9; II Tim. 1:3).44 Then Hoch, Jr. further
comments:
When Paul refers to possible confidence in the flesh in Philippians 3:5-6, he
mentions, circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the
tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; in regard to the law, a
Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness,
faultless. Paul is definitely contrasting his pre-Christian experience with
his present Christian Jewish experience. Saying we are the circumcision
may have been his way of anticipating the list of his pre-Christian
credentials versus his new position in Christ.45
Hoch, Jr. makes further reference to A. T. Hanson, from whom we

quote more extensively. While explaining that the prevailing
interpretation of Philippians 3:3 identifies the we as all true
Christians, he nevertheless declares that this understanding
seems quite foreign to Pauls thought and means actually reading into
Philippians ideas which seem to have originated at the time of the
Reformation. . . . The Philippians, being Gentiles, would have no reason to
boast in the flesh anyway. Paul goes on to describe what he means by this
phrase in the ensuing verses: it is plain that he means boasting of the
national and spiritual privileges peculiar to the Jews. This the Philippians
could not do. . . . It is simpler to take we here as we believing Jews, or
even we, Paul and Timothy, in whose name the letter is written. We
know that Timothy was circumcised. So there is no good reason for
maintaining that the use of the circumcision here suggests that Paul could
apply the name Israel to Gentiles. 46
Furthermore, the NASB is not to be preferred at this point when it

translates v. 3: For we are the true circumcision, who worship in the
Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the
flesh. In spite of the reference to the false circumcision, v. 2, better
translated by the NIV as those mutilators of the flesh that
immediately precedes, the inferential true is misleading since it
43
J. B. Lightfoot, Philippians, p. 145.
44
Carl B. Hoch, Jr. All Things New, p. 289.
45
Ibid.
46
A. T. Hanson, The Pioneer Ministry, p. 35.
suggests a contrast with a false circumcision. The NIV, similar to the

KJV, better translates: For it is we who are the circumcision, we who
worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put
no confidence in the flesh. However, consider the more literal: For
we are the [spiritual] circumcision, those by the Spirit of God serving
and boasting in Christ Jesus, not having placed confidence in [the]
flesh. Pauls intention here is not to contrast a false with a true
circumcision so as to indicate that Jewish racial circumcision has been
nullified and replaced with the true circumcision, namely whoever
authentically believes in Jesus Christ. Rather, while he does not reject
the physical identification of a racial Jew by means of circumcision, he
is certainly opposed to those who demand that circumcision is of such
importance that it overshadows its significance which is a
representation of a truly circumcised heart. Paul might be likened to
someone who, in proposing baptismal regeneration, perverts the
significant role of water baptism. In this vein he might protest:
Beware of the water dippers; for we are the baptized, we who worship
by the Spirit of God [having been baptized by the Spirit], who glory in
Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the mere rite of water
baptism, of flesh washing. In no way would such a response be a total
repudiation of water baptism.
The Parallel with Romans 2:25-3:2; 4:11-12; 15:8-9
The definition of an authentic Jew for Paul the Jew, especially here in
Romans, is a matter of disagreement amongst conservative Christians.
Some suggest that in this church age, it is the true Christian who is now
the real and only spiritual Jew, and that since God has finished forever
with Israel as a nation, there is no such thing in His sight as a national
or ethnic Jew. As already indicated, we believe this to be contrary to
what Paul has in mind, not only with regard to Philippians 3:3, but also
here in Romans 2:25-29, especially in the light of 3:1-2; 11:1-36; Acts
22:3; Galatians 6:16. Consider that if Paul was here, in Romans 2:25-
29, so categorically dismissive of the Jew in the flesh, then the
conclusion of Romans 2 presented him with an opportunity to continue
relentlessly this thought on into Romans 3. However, what
astonishment results when this mistaken perspective is confronted with
Pauls enthusiastic vindication concerning the great advantage of the
circumcised Jew (Rom. 3:1-2)! The same surprise awaits the reader of
Romans 10:18-21 where the opportunity was ripe for Paul to repudiate
again national Judaism. However, in anticipating such a thought, he
immediately responds that such an idea is unthinkable (Rom. 11:1-2).

Thus an unbelieving Jew is still a racial Jew, nevertheless with his soul
in jeopardy (John 8:24); yet at the same time he is a beloved enemy
of God (Rom. 11:28). However a Jewish Christian is an authentic,
fulfilled Jew, one who has been circumcised both of the heart and of
the flesh, even as Paul describes himself and Timothy in Philippians
3:3. Likewise a Gentile Christian is in brotherhood with the Jewish
Christian, reckoned as spiritually circumcised of the heart (Rom. 2:26)
and thus joined to Abraham through faith as a Gentile (Gal. 3:29). Here
then is racial diversity within spiritual unity, in the same way as a
Christian man and wife are diverse in their spiritual unity (Gal. 3:28).
This same diversity in unity is strongly intimated in Romans 15:8-9
since Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the
truth of God, to confirm the promises to the fathers, and so that
Gentiles may glorify God for His mercy [because of their inclusion as
Gentiles with the fathers].
The Perpetuation of Distinctive Signification
Concerning the diversity in unity with regard to Jew and Gentile

comprising the people of God rooted in the Abrahamic Covenant, the
Council at Jerusalem is of foundational significance. How very much
we would like to know in detail of the actual deliberations, both public
and private, that led to an astonishing decision. Surely Pauls
contribution was substantial as a Jewish spokesman for the Gentile
church at Antioch. Even so, it is Peters testimony and conclusion,
upheld by James, which is of supreme importance. Notwithstanding
Peters later capitulation in weakness (Gal. 2:11-14), the declaration
that, we [Jews] believe we are saved through the grace of the Lord
Jesus, in the same way they [Gentiles] are, (Acts 15:11), was
revolutionary to the common Jewish mind. Here was a definitive
statement unambiguously pronouncing that physical circumcision was
not salvific, and therefore neither was entrance into Judaism. Thus the
Gentiles at that time well understood that the Council never for a
moment was considering if it was requisite that Jewish Christians
should renounce circumcision. The uncultivated olive branches were
not expected to become cultivated branches; neither were the cultivated
branches expected to become uncultivated olive branches. However, by
the time of the fourth century when Constantine converted to
Christianity, Gentile assertiveness unbiblically required that Jews
converting to Christianity should renounce their Jewishness.
Conclusion
Thus for national Judaism, circumcision remains a valid signification
of distinctive racial identity that was originally ordained to represent
circumcision of the faithful, spiritually circumcised heart (Deut. 30:6;
Rom. 2:25-29). There is no biblical indication that this outward right
has been divinely disqualified for the Jewish Christian. Thus, as Stern
explains:
Although Jews and Gentiles are equal as regards salvation, there are other
distinctions between them, as Shaul acknowledges immediately (Rom. 3:1-
2) and later (9:4-5, and especially 11:28-29). One distinctive (Shaul does
not deal with it, but Yeshua does at Luke 21:20-24), for example, is that the
Jewish people are to inherit the Land of Israel in perpetuity. This is a
promise to physical or national Israel that has not yet been entirely fulfilled,
but it will be. . . . [T]he only real Jew is the born Jew who has been born
again by trusting in Yeshua the Messiah, for only he lives up to what the
name Jew, conferred on him at birth and confirmed by physical
circumcision, implies and demands.47
HEBREWS 8:7-13; CF. 10:15-18; JEREMIAH 31:31-40
A common interpretation of Hebrews 8:7-13 has concluded that

Jeremiah 31:31-40 finds its fulfillment in the Christian church as the
new Israel. For example W. J. Grier writes:
In the Epistle to the Hebrews (chapters 8 and 10), we have the sacred writer
claiming that the new covenant (of New Testament times) is the fulfillment
of these words of Jeremiah: Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I
will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
Israel and Judah are evidently the Israel of God, the New Testament
Church.48
Certainly this perspective has predominated through the centuries of

the Christian church, though very much in parallel with replacement
theology and its derogation of national Judaism, even as we have seen
in the incorrect interpretations of Romans 11, Ephesians 2:11-22,
Galatians 6:16, and Philippians 3:3.
On the other hand, anyone who reads Jeremiah 31:31-40, especially in
its immediate context without any recollection of Hebrews 8 and 10, is
47
Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary, pp. 340, 339.
48
W. J. Grier, The Momentous Event, p. 47.
unlikely to conclude that we are solely considering the New Testament

church. Further, Alford approvingly quotes Delitzsch concerning the
Jeremiah passage:
It belongs throughout to the cycle of Messianic prophecies, and is one of
the most beautiful and sublime of them; and its true fulfillment can only be
sought in the covenant brought in by the Savior, and in the salvation
through Him imparted to mankind, and ever more and more unfolded and
completed. This is the case, however this salvation, in the perception and
declaration of the prophet, is bound up with the restoration of the ancient
covenant people and their reunion in the land of their home.49
Some Background Comments
The title, PROS HEBRAIOUS, TO HEBREWS, traceable to the

early third century, rightly suggests that the addressees were obviously
Jewish Christians,50 that is, a remnant chosen by grace (Rom. 11:5).
No pagan background, associated with Gentile converts, is mentioned
in this Epistle. The danger is that these addressees drift away from
sound teaching, 2:1, neglect such a great salvation 2:3, develop an
evil, unbelieving heart that departs from the living God, 3:12,
become lazy, 6:12, stay away from meetings, 10:25, become led
astray by various kinds of strange teachings, 13:9. But the author is
especially concerned that his Jewish Christian audience might have an
insufficient understanding of the superiority of Jesus Christs
priesthood over Moses and Aaron, both ministers of the old covenant
(Heb. 3:1-6). Hence it is reasonable to expect that the Hebrew author
has a decidedly Jewish appreciation of Jeremiah 31. Further, assuming
that the date of composition is prior to 70 A.D, especially since there is
no mention of the catastrophe that befell Jerusalem at that time, we
conclude that Hebrews was written during a period when there was no
extra biblical evidence of Israel being equated with the church, that is
until about A.D. 160 when Justin Martyrs Dialogue with Trypho was
published.51
49
Henry Alford, The Greek Testament, IV, p. 152.
50
This opinion has prevailed over the centuries of church history, Donald
Guthrie, Hebrews To Revelation, New Testament Introduction, pp. 24-29.
51
Peter Richardson, Israel in the Apostolic Church, p. 1.
What are the old and new Covenants?
The old covenant is the broken, bilateral Mosaic covenant established

on tables of stone, mediated through Moses (Exod. 19:1-9; 20:1-17),
and affirmed by Israel with sacrificial offerings (Exod. 24:1-8). It is to
be distinguished from the unilateral Abrahamic covenant (Gen. 15:1-
18), established 430 years earlier (Gal. 3:17). The new covenant,
according to its heart-renewing and cleansing ability, is designed by
God to inaugurate His true worship by Israel (Jer. 31:31-40; cf. Ezek.
11:14-21; 36:22-32). Subsequently we learn that it is Jesus Christ who
initiates this divine contract in the very presence of Israel (Luke 22:20;
23:33-49; I Cor. 11:25; II Cor. 3:6).
According to Jeremiah 31:31-40.
It is Jeremiah 31:31 which anticipates that redemptive transaction

made with the blood of Christ, when I [the LORD] will make a new
covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
Although the unilateral nature of this covenant is implicit at this stage,
it becomes more explicit in v. 33 when I will place My law within
them and write it on their hearts. Both the nations of Israel and Judah,
their unification also being implicit (cf. Ezek. 37:15-23), are here the
primary objects of the Lords saving design, not the Gentile Christian
church. With regard to its addressees, the new covenant is plainly
established with the nation of Israel through its Messiah who was, in
covenantal terms, cut, that is pierced because of our transgressions,
crushed because of our iniquities (Isa. 53:5). However through this
new covenant all the families [nations] of the earth [will] be blessed
(Gen. 12:3) as wild olive branches that become engrafted into the
cultivated root of the olive tree (Rom. 11:17). Consequently the new
covenant communicates the new torah of the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, which is incorporated in the new commandment (John
13:34-35; I John 2:7-8). Then shall the Gentiles also enter into new
covenant blessings. Similarly Ephesians 2:13 describes this direction of
reconciliation concerning the Gentiles, who were far away [but now]
have been brought near by the blood of the Messiah [to the cultivated
root of the olive tree].52
52
The indication of common misunderstanding here on the part of Christians
is illustrated by a sermon of Charles Simeon on Jeremiah 31:31-34 titled
The New Covenant. In the whole message there is not one reference to
Subsequent blessing after Israels national conversion will be the more

glorious establishment of Jerusalem, vs. 38-40, so that
this prophecy does not refer to the rebuilding of Jerusalem after the exile,
but, under the figure of Jerusalem, as the center of the kingdom of God
under the Old Testament, announces the erection of the more spiritual
kingdom of God in the Messianic age.53
According to Hebrews 8:1-13 and 10:15-18.
Consider that the Jewish addressees of this epistle are well acquainted
with Jeremiah 31, so that when the author writes of the first
[covenant], v. 7, which is the covenant that I made with their fathers
[the leaders of Israel at the Exodus], v. 9, and a new covenant with
the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, v. 8, they are instantly
in tune with the weeping prophet. There is not the slightest suggestion
that the author of Hebrews has in mind a new covenant that is
different or reconstituted from that which Jeremiah writes about. Nor is
there here any reference to the fact of the incorporation or engrafting of
the Gentiles into this new covenant as Romans 11 and Ephesians 2
indicate. The reason is that this is not the authors concern here, but
rather the very necessary comprehension by Hebrew Christians of the
superiority of the new covenant over the old covenant, 8:13-10:18.
So Jeremiah 31:33-34 is quoted again in Hebrews 10:16-17 to support
the gospel truth that, by one offering [not innumerable offerings] He
[Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant] has perfected forever those
who are sanctified, 10:14.
Israel or Judah while the new covenant is twice called the Christian
covenant. The following sermon on Jeremiah 31:35-37 is titled The
Churchs Security. Nevertheless, Simeons pro-Semitism is clearly
indicated in the next sermon titled The Future Conversion Of The Jews,
based on Jeremiah 32:37-42, in which he clearly expresses his belief in the
restoration of Israel to the land. There is the specific qualification that this
diffusion of piety will not precede, but follow, their [Israels] restoration to
their own land. Then they will be an holy people unto the Lord. Hor
Homiletic, IX, pp. 236-255.
53
C. F. Keil, The Prophecies of Jeremiah, II, p. 46.
The New Covenant for Jewish and Gentile Christians
At this juncture it is again emphasized that Judeo-centric eschatology

embodies a unity which at the same time incorporates a functional
diversity. Like the instrumentally diverse unity of a symphony
orchestra that produces a glorious concerto, or the individual notes that
unite through chords to resound with harmonious melody, so the new
covenant involves complementary diversity resulting in holy harmony.
As Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. puts it:
[T]here is one people (the people of God) with a number of discernable
aspects within that one people (such as Israel and the church), and there is
only one program of God (the kingdom of God) with numerous aspects
under that single program.54
The new covenant confronts Jewish Christians (Luke 22:20).
As has already been indicated, the context of Jesus declaration to the

twelve disciples in the upper room, This cup is the new covenant
[established by] My blood, is that of Messiah as the King of the
Jews (John 19:19) addressing twelve believing Jews.55 In a proleptic
manner of speaking, the Son of God exclusively proclaims to
representatives of the house of Israel and . . . the house of Judah (Jer.
31:31), direct benefactors of the new covenant, that He Himself is
about to cut this new agreement by means of the shedding of His own
blood. To point this out is in no way intended to stimulate Gentile
discontent any more than the fact that the Abrahamic covenant was
exclusively cut with Abraham (Gen. 15:1-21) to the exclusion of
Gentile participation. However, as the Abrahamic covenant was to
result in blessing to all the peoples on earth (Gen. 12:3), so the new
covenant similarly is to result in the incorporation of other sheep
(John 10:16), that is uncultivated olive branches by means of their
being engrafted into the rich root of the cultivated olive tree (Rom.
11:17). Nevertheless, this same new covenant was inaugurated in
Jerusalem (Acts 1:8), that is with the Jews first (Rom. 1:16; Acts 3:26).
54
Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., An Epangelical Response, Dispensationalism,
Israel and the Church, eds. Blaising and Bock, p. 367.
55
The new covenant confronts Gentile Christians (Acts 10-11, 15).
While the conversion of Paul anticipates the proclamation of Christ

before Gentiles, kings and the sons of Israel (Acts 9:15), it is Peters
encounter with the converted household of Cornelius (Acts 10:1-48)
that sets the stage for the definitive proclamation from the Jewish
church at Jerusalem that God has granted repentance resulting in life
to even the Gentiles. . . . [That] He made no distinction between us
[Jews] and them [Gentiles], cleansing their hearts by faith (Acts
11:18; 15:9). Hence the letter sent from the Jewish church in Jerusalem
to the Gentile church in Antioch was an astonishing acknowledgment
by Jewish Christians that there was no necessity for Gentile Christians
to become Jewish Christians (Acts 15:22-30), and the resultant
rejoicing on the part of the Gentile Christians was demonstrative
acknowledgment of this truth (Acts 15:31). However, the thought that
while Gentile Christians were free to enjoy their liberty as Gentiles, the
Jewish Christians should give up their Jewishness, would have been
unthinkable at Antioch as well as Jerusalem. Yet such has been the sad
historic development that, for centuries, Gentile Christians have been
harshly enforcing their liberty upon Jewish Christians and
disenfranchising them of national and geographic identity. This ought
not to be.
The new covenant celebrated by Jewish and Gentile Christians (I

Corinthians 11:25).
Paul instructs us that the ordinance of the Lords Supper was received
from the Lord Jesus (I Cor. 11:23). That is, the Apostle intends to
convey that these specific directions had been directly related to him
by the Son of God, and this being the case, connection with Luke 22:20
should be readily understandable. Hence, when Paul relates the words
of the Lord Jesus in I Corinthians 11:25, This cup is the new covenant
in My blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me,
doubtless he well appreciates the source of the terminology here as
being Jeremiah 31:31. However it is plain that he is communicating the
importance of this new covenant celebration to not only Jews, but also
a preponderance of Gentiles amongst his audience at Corinth. Thus the
Lords Supper is for Jewish Christian, the remnant chosen by grace
(Rom. 11:5), or branches of the rich root of the cultivated olive tree
(Rom. 11:17), as well as Gentile Christians, or uncultivated olive
branches engrafted into the same root of Abraham (Rom. 11:17).
The new covenant operative in Jewish and Gentile Christians (II Cor.
3:1-18).
Paul delights to point out the intrinsic, distinctive character of the new
covenant that Jesus Christ has inaugurated. Like the author of
Hebrews, he uses a fortiori argumentation to stress the surpassing
greatness of that which Jeremiah 31:31 promised. Thus there is
contrast between:
THE OLD COVENANT THE NEW COVENANT

Tablets of stone, v. 3 Tablets of the human heart, v. 3
The letter kills, v. 6 The Spirit gives life, v. 6
The ministry of death, v. 7 The ministry of the Spirit, v. 8
The ministry of condemnation, v. 9 The ministry of righteousness, v. 9
The fading glory, vs. 10-11 The remaining glory, v. 11
Veiled heart, vs. 13-15 Unveiled heart, vs. 16-18
The resultant effect of the new covenant is heartwork, upon both Jew
and Gentile, whereby the formerly concealed glory of God is revealed
to the children of God. So, we all, with unveiled faces, are reflecting
the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image
from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit, v. 18.
Conclusion
Other passages in Hebrews, 9:15; 12:24; 13:20, draw fulfillment from

Jeremiah 31, even as do Luke 22:20; I Corinthians 11:25; II
Corinthians 3:6, but especially Romans 11. Here the Gentiles become
invited guests with Abraham (Luke 14:16-24), and at the same time
join in fellowship with the remnant of Christian Jews. However, when
the full number of the Gentiles has cone in, then will follow Israels
full number and consummate national salvation (Zech. 12:10; Rom.
11:12, 25-26). As a result, in the consummate earthly kingdom there
will be a unity under Christ that accommodates a functional difference
between Jew and Gentile, as Johnson indicates in his study of Galatians
6:16, with regard to Isaiah 60:1-4; 62:1-12; Micah 4:1-5; Haggai 2:1-7;
Zechariah 14:16-21, etc.56
56
S. Lewis Johnson, Jr. Paul and The Israel of God: An Exegetical and
Eschatological Case-Study, Mishkan, No. 6 & 7, 1987, pp. 49-65.
I PETER 2:9-10
The assumption on the part of many is that Peter, in his First Epistle, is
addressing Christians in general throughout Pontus, Galatia,
Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia (1:1). Hence his designation of these
same believers as a chosen race, a royal priesthood [cf. 2: 5], a holy
nation, a people for His possession. . . . Once you were not a people,
but now you are Gods people; you had not received mercy, but now
you have received mercy (2:9-10), indicates that Old Testament
designations concerning Israel are now applied to Jews and Gentiles
without distinction. Hence, the Church is now Gods chosen people,
that is the new Israel. Consider Richard J. Mous explanation in this
regard, he being the President of Fuller Theological Seminary.
The church is, after all, in an important sense the new Israel. I have been
especially taken with the imagery employed in the First Epistle of Peter.
The apostle is writing to a group of Christians that obviously includes
Gentiles, but he begins his letter with Old Testament terminology, greeting
his readers as the exiles of the Dispersion (I Pet. 1:1, NRSV). Especially
significant is the way, in the second chapter, he takes a series of images of
Old Testament Israel and applies them to the New Testament church: But
you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, Gods own
people. He then adds a quotation from one of the prophets: Once you
were not a people, but now you are Gods people (I Pet. 2:9-10, NRSV).
These verses helped clarify my own thinking about the nature of Christian
community. . . . I realized the implications of I Pet. 2:9-10. God is putting
together a new kind of race, a new kind of priesthood, and a new kind
of nation. Jesus is in the business of actively promoting a unity that he
does not want us to define ourselves along artificial lines of what the sinful
world sees as ethnic-racial or denominational or national identities.
Through the blood of Jesus Christ we have been made into a new kind of
people, in which there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave not free, male nor
female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28).57
57
Richard, J. Mouw, The Chosen People Puzzle, Christianity Today, March
5, 2001, Vol. 45, No. 4, p. 70. Internet sourced. F. J. A. Hort similarly
comments, with an extreme supercessionist view that seems almost blindly
Gentile: The truth is that St. Peter, as doubtless every other apostle,
regarded the Christian Church as first and foremost the true Israel of God,
the one legitimate heir of the promises made to Israel, the one community
which by receiving Israels Messiah had remained true to Israels covenant,
while the unbelieving Jews in refusing their Messiah had in effect
apostatized from Israel. The First Epistle of St. Peter, I:1-II:17, p. 7.
Hence of crucial importance at this juncture is the identification of the

addressees, whether they be, in the main, Jewish or Gentile. E. G.
Selwyn sums up the main conclusions over the centuries as follows:
In the patristic age Origen, Eusebius, and the Greek fathers generally
maintained that they [the addressees] had been Jews, while Augustine,
Jerome, and other Latin writers held the opposite view. This divergence has
continued almost to our own day, the Greek view on the whole prevailing
under the weighty impetus given to it by Erasmus, Calvin, Bengel, and
Grotius on the threshold of the modern age. Its doughtiest champion in
more recent days has been Bernard Weiss, and the facts and arguments
which he adduces deserve careful attention. Chief of them is what may be
termed the Jewish character of the Epistle as seen in the O.T. quotations
and allusions, which would hardly be familiar to Christians of Gentile
origin, and in the conception of the Church which is markedly Levitical and
suitable only to those who had been nurtured in Judaism.58
However, from a Reformed perspective, it is common to read of

interpretations of which the following by Cornelius P. Venema is
representative.
In I Peter 2:9-10, the apostle gives a summary statement regarding the New
Testament church. Writing to the scattered believers and churches
throughout Asia Minor, Peter defines the new covenant church in terms
drawn from the old covenant descriptions of the people of Israel. . . . What
is so remarkable about this description of the church is that it identifies the
church with the exact terminology used in the Old Testament to describe
the people of Israel with whom the Lord covenanted. The best reading of
this language takes it literally to mean that the new covenant church is
altogether one with the old covenant church. The Lord does not have two
peculiar peoples, two holy nations, two royal priesthoods, two chosen
raceshe has only one, the church of Jesus Christ.59
The Textual Indications of Jewish Addressees
Certainly the Epistle of I Peter is widely acknowledged to be a writing

addressed to Christians who suffer intense persecution that does not
appear to have the prospect of abating, that is for pilgrims upon earth
58
E. G. Selwyn, The First Epistle of St. Peter, p. 42. While disagreeing with
this author when he opts for an inclusive view of Jew and Gentile
addressees, we would agree with his suggestion that the congregations
would have included god-fearers and proselytes.
59
Cornelius P. Venema, The Promise of the Future, pp. 271-272.
(1:6; 2:20-21; 3:14; 4:1, 12-19; 5:8-10). This being the case, it was
especially the lot of Jews to have little rest from opposition to their
racial distinctiveness at around the time of Peters writing, c. 60 A.D.,
and particularly if they were Jewish Christians under the reign of Nero.
Believing this to be the case, we find much evidence that Peter, who it
would readily be expected would be writing to Jewish Christians, is
indeed addressing, in the main, the Jewish Christian Diaspora. This is
not to deny that Gentiles, engrafted into the stock of Abraham as wild
olive branches (Rom. 11:17), could read this passage and derive
personal blessing and encouragement from it. They have been
incorporated into this chosen race, . . . royal priesthood, . . . holy
nation (I Pet. 2:9), the end result being both cultivated and
uncultivated branches having diversity in unity. However we do deny
that this passage establishes that the Christian church is here designated
as the New Israel that has supplanted any designation of historic,
individual, national and territorial Jewishness.
I Peter 1:1.
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ: To the temporary residents of the

Dispersion in the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and
Bithynia. Bigg explains that, Diaspora, [is] a word which in its
proper sense denotes those Jews who for one reason or another were
domiciled in foreign countries.60 Peter being the addressor here, there
is good reason for believing that he had Biggs meaning in mind (Gal.
2:7-9). Further, a right healthy interest in the doctrine of election
according to Reformed standards should not be allowed to obscure the
fact that for the Apostle, here eklektos, elect/chosen draws principal
focus upon Israels national election, in which Jewish Christians
individually participated (LXX, Deut. 14:2; Isa. 41:8-9; 44:1-3; 45:4;
49:7; 65:9).
I Peter 2:5-10.
For the suffering Diaspora, here is comfort indeed that aims at

recollection of the Old Testament revelation concerning a holy
priesthood that has been consummately established through Jesus
Christ, v. 5 (Exod. 19:5-6; Deut. 4:20; 7:7; 10:15; 14:2; Psalm 118:22;
Isa. 4:14; 28:16; 43:20; 61:6; 66:21). In Jesus Christ, a chosen and
60
Charles Bigg, I Peter, p. 70.
valuable cornerstone, . . . a stone that causes men to stumble, and a

rock that trips them up, is fulfillment of the hope of the Diaspora truly
becoming a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people
for His possession, . . . Gods people, . . . [who] have received mercy.
Thus John Calvin comments:
[H]owever, as the greater part of the nation was unbelieving, the Apostle
indirectly sets the believing Jews in opposition to all the rest, though they
exceeded them in number, as though he had said, that those only were the
children of Abraham, who believed in Christ, and that they only retained
possession of all the blessings which God had by a singular privilege
bestowed on the whole nation. He calls them a chosen race, because God,
passing by others, adopted them as it were in a special manner. They were
also a holy nation; for God had consecrated them to himself, and destined
that they should lead a pure and holy life. He further calls them a peculiar
people, or, a people for acquisition, that they might be to him a peculiar
possession or inheritance; for I take the words simply in this sense, that the
Lord hath called us, that he might possess us as his own, and devoted to
him. This meaning is proved by the words of Moses, If ye keep my
covenant, ye shall be to me a peculiar treasure beyond all other nations.
(Exod. 19:5). There is in the royal priesthood a striking inversion of the
words of Moses; for he says, a priestly kingdom, but the same thing is
meant. So what Peter intimated was this, Moses called your fathers a
sacred kingdom, because the whole people enjoyed as it were a royal
liberty, and from their body were chosen the priests; both dignities were
therefore joined together: but now ye are royal priests, and, indeed, in a
more excellent way, because ye are, each of you, consecrated in Christ, that
ye may be the associates of his kingdom, and partakers of his priesthood.
Though, then, the fathers had something like to what you, have, yet ye far
excel them. For after the wall of partition has been pulled down by Christ,
we are now gathered from every nation, and the Lord bestows these high
titles on all whom he makes his people.61
The identification of the Diaspora as once being not a people who

had not received mercy thus recollects, not some Gentile
characteristic of alienation, but the declaration of Hosea 1:10; 2:23
concerning the house of Israel. That is, I will say to Not My people:
You are My people, and he will say: [You are] My God. From a
Jewish Christian viewpoint, David Stern comments:
Christians are indeed a chosen people set aside for God to possessnot by
way of superceding the Jews as Gods people, but by way of being joined
to them by faith in the same God and in the Jewish Messiah. A so-called
61
John Calvin, I Peter, Calvins Commentaries, internet sourced.
Christian who opposes or looks down on the Jews as merely Gods

former people has missed the point altogether.62
I Peter 2:11-12.
Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and temporary residents to abstain

from fleshly desires that war against you. Conduct yourselves
honorably among the Gentiles. The language here is of temporary
residents of the Dispersion, 1:1, that is aliens and temporary
residents, 2:11, who parallel those not a people, v. 10, even the
Jewish seed of Abraham (Hos. 1:10; 2:23; Heb. 11:9-10, 13-16; cf.
Lev. 25:23), hence the Diaspora and not preeminently Gentiles. Thus:
Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles [tois ethnesin], v.
12, is a most natural exhortation to Jewish Christians in the main who
reside in Gentile Asia Minor. Hence Calvin adds:
And he [Peter] expressly says among the Gentiles; for the Jews were not
only hated everywhere, but were also almost abhorred. The more carefully,
therefore, ought they to have labored to wipe off the odium and infamy
attached to their name by a holy life and a well-regulated conduct.63
However, for Gentile Christians having union with the Diaspora as

children of Abraham (Gal. 3:29), this injunction would also have real
personal meaning.
I Peter 2:25.
For you were like sheep going astray, but you have now returned to
the shepherd and guardian [overseer] of your souls. Here is language
that would immediately bring to the Jewish Christian mind the Old
Testament representation of Jehovah as the Shepherd of Israel that
finds messianic fulfillment in Jesus Christ (Ps. 23:1; 78:52; 80:1; Isa.
40:11; 53:6; Jer. 31:10; Ezek. 34:11-16). This also is a reminder of
Peters commission from Jesus: Shepherd My sheep (John 21:16)
which the Apostle later understands more specifically as being a
vocation directed toward the Jews (Gal. 2:7-9). By way of contrast,
Paul, the minister to the Gentiles (Gal. 2:7-9), never uses the shepherd
metaphor except with reference to the Christian pastor, and that only
twice (Acts 20:28; Eph. 4:11).
62
63
Calvin, I Peter, Calvins Commentaries, internet sourced.
I Peter. 4:3.
For there has already been enough time spent in doing the will of the
pagans. The former lifestyle of these Jewish Christians was one in
which they lived in the midst of Gentile dominance, especially in Asia
Minor. To their shame, there was capitulation to and lusting after
aspects of Gentile paganism (cf. II Chron. 36:14). So Calvin explains:
But instead of the lusts or covetings of men, he [Peter] now mentions the
will of the Gentiles, by which he reproves the Jews for having mixed with
the Gentiles in all their pollutions, though the Lord had separated them
from the Gentiles.64
Conclusion
Why should it surprise us that Peter, the Apostle to the Jews (Gal. 2:7-
9), would, in the main, address Jewish Christians? Could it be that
Gentiles, especially Gentile commentators, tend to find it difficult to
appreciate that they are not always the center of New Covenant focus
(Rom. 11:18)? Nevertheless, concerning the addressees of I Peter,
amillennialist Patrick Fairbairn writes that this epistle was addressed,
more immediately, to believing Israelites scattered throughout the
cities of Asia Minor.65 They were the remnant of Romans 11:5. It may
also be significant in further considering the fact that the earliest
interpreters of I Peter did indeed identify the addressees as
predominantly Jewish Christians, this being at a time of waning
dominance emanating from Jewish Christian leaders in Jerusalem.
Subsequent Gentile identification of the addressees as being inclusive
of Gentiles, who now collectively comprise the New Israel, parallels
the surging dominance of the Gentile church that depreciated both
Judaism as a whole and any Jewish Christian distinctiveness.
64
Ibid.
65
Patrick Faitbairn, The Prophetic Prospects of the Jews, or Fairbairn vs.
Fairbairn, p. 106.
Israel as Gods beloved enemy 339
Chapter Eleven
ISRAEL as Gods beloved enemy
W HILE we have elsewhere considered and upheld the status of the

Jewish Christian, that is in terms of his retention of ethnic,
national and territorial identity, it is also important for us to consider
the status of the unbelieving Jew from a Christian perspective. In
particular, we raise the question as to whether the contemporary Jew,
who does not believe in Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Messiah,
who is in Christian biblical terms carnal and spiritually
uncircumcised (Rom. 2:25; 9:3; I Cor. 10:18; Gal. 2:9), nevertheless
is still recognized by God as a Jew, even if only according to the flesh?
We would also press this question further by enquiring as to whether
national, unbelieving Israel in this present age is the object of any
divine recognition, especially in covenantal terms? In immediately
responding positively to both questions, we would indicate that
negative responses pose more than a doctrinal difference of opinion.
Consider how today a Christian may propose that God has no
covenantal interest whatsoever in unbelieving national Israel and the
Jews, especially in the light of their strident opposition to biblical
Christianity. In this case, for such a Christian, his eschatological belief
raises the most profound of ethical considerations with regard to his
present treatment of Jews. He is forced to reckon with his covenantal
repudiation of national Israel and the Jew while at the same time being
confronted with Pauls contrasting recognition of and eschatological
hope for national Israel, his personal identification with Judaism, his
passionate pro-Semitism and his lifestyle as a model for distinct,
prioritized, persistent, loving Jewish evangelism.
Christians are generally agreed that in Romans 11:5 Paul distinguishes
the Jewish Christian in terms of being part of a remnant chosen by
grace (Rom. 11:5). Even then, some will use the term Jewish here at
best deferentially and nominally while at the same time rejecting any
divine ethnic or covenantal meaning with regard to Jewishness.
Nevertheless, the term Jewish Christian stands. But when in Romans
11:17 Paul writes of branches broken off . . . the rich root of the
cultivated olive tree, and these are clearly unbelieving Jews, then what
is their ongoing status, if any, in the sight of God? Some would suggest
340 Israel as Gods beloved enemy
that the only authentic Jew, as part of the remnant in this Christian
dispensation, is the Jewish Christian. But if this is so, then what does
Paul mean when in Romans 11:18 he exhorts the Gentile Christian:
[D]o not brag that you are better than those [cultivated] branches
[broken off], that is the unbelieving Jews, and then contemplates that
nevertheless, God has the power to graft them in again (Rom.
11:23)? How could he speak this way if these severed cultivated
branches had lost all Jewish identity in the sight of God forever? Does
not the context of these [cultivated] branches broken off indicate
that, for all of their carnality, rebelliousness and unbelief, God still
retains a distinctive loving interest in them, as Romans 11:28 appears
to plainly indicate?
CARNAL ISRAEL AS GODS BELOVED ENEMY IN ROMANS 11:28
For all of the expressed good intentions of those with historic

Reformed convictions who hold to an Augustinian, amillennial
eschatology and at the same time abide by the unqualified authority of
Scripture, it is not always easy, by way of the primacy of exegesis, to
unreservedly adhere to a confessional standard. This is especially the
case when one considers the commitment of these same people to an
integrated system of doctrine that is linked to a historic creedal lineage.
Thus when a Christian becomes convinced of this body of Reformed
doctrine, that is renowned for adhering to a logical and systematic body
of truth, it is inevitable that he will also become immersed in the
history of European Christianity, especially that of the pivotal sixteenth
and on through to the eighteenth century. To be sure, no child of God is
immune from pitfalls concerning the logic of his doctrinal system.
However belief in biblical Calvinism, euphemistically called the
doctrines of grace, although closely rooted in one of the most esteemed
expositors of all time, yet also finds itself integrated within a historic
and scholastic environment. We have already noted how, in varying
degrees, much of historic Reformed Christianity has not only been
undergirded by Platonic, Aristotelean and Stoic thought, but also
channeled through the lineal heritage of Augustine, Aquinas, Luther,
Calvin, Turretin, Fairbairn and Vos, etc. Hence there has developed a
commitment to systematic Reformed theology by many that has tended
to assume that this faithful corpus of biblical truth, as an interlocking
whole, directs us in our exegesis of major texts with regard to whatever
area of doctrine we may study. In other words, the tendency is to
assume that the exegesis has already been masterfully achieved by the
Reformed fathers, and thus their eschatology is equally as dependable

as that of the realm of Reformed soteriology. However, his conclusion
we believe to be exegetically, ethically, and thus doctrinally flawed.
Hence, on account of the Reformation witnessing a rediscovery of the
biblical/Pauline gospel, many heirs of this emancipating heritage have
erroneously tended to assume that the eschatology emanating from that
era must have also been an equally authentic recovery according to
Scripture. However for centuries it was in fact the accepted belief of
Roman Catholicism that as the true church of Jesus Christ it was the
supplanting New Israel, and this teaching in fact became perpetuated in
the Reformed and community, its breach with Rome notwithstanding.
Refer to Chapter Six: Israel - and Christian anti-Judaic Hermeneutics
in History. Thus the Reformation did not involve an eschatological
biblical recovery according to the first and early second century, but
rather it embraced a medieval inheritance that has produced shameful
consequences. This is abundantly evident, with some exceptions, in
consideration of the ongoing exegesis of the most important passage in
the New Testament concerning the status of national Israel, namely
Romans 11. Certainly John Murrays break with Calvin at this point is
one of these exceptions. When this writer attended Westminster
Theological Seminary in California, he recalls one professor indicating
that considerable time elapsed between Murrays release of his two
volumes on Romans due to his wrestling with the exegesis of chapters
9-11 in particular.1 Nevertheless, in the area of eschatology, by and
large Reformed exegesis has tended to be influenced by a systematic
theological tradition that must uphold a certain understanding of a
passage of Scripture, otherwise a crack in the dyke will result in an
overwhelming flood of inevitable millennial truth. Dr. S. Lewis
Johnson comes to this conclusion in his significant study of Galatians
6:16 when he considers the reasons why those of Reformed conviction
so strenuously defend their belief that the Israel of God here is
identical with the Christian Church. Refer to Chapter Ten: Israel - and
a Romans 11 Synthesis. With this in mind, we now turn to Romans
11:28, a supremely critical passage with regard to Gods present regard
1
Murrays commentary on Romans 1-8 was published in 1959; his
subsequent commentary on Romans 9-16 was published in 1965. While his
eventual conclusion anticipated an eschatological mass conversion of
Jews being Israel as a whole, that is the theocratic election, he refrains
from using the term nation and mention of the territorial implications of
his conclusion. Romans, pp. 98, 101.
for national Israel. According to a prima facie assessment, it is

obviously declaring that God continues to have a loving covenant
regard for rebellious, alienated national Israel, represented by the
figure of disciplined, detached, cultivated olive branches.
The interpretation of Romans 11:28
By way of an expanded translation, Paul declares: From the

perspective of the gospel of the righteousness of God that saves both
Jew and Gentile, the bulk of national Israel presently remains an enemy
of God for the sake of the salvation of Gentiles throughout the world.
However from the perspective of Gods original election of national
Israel, still remaining in unbelief, at the same time this Hebrew people
continues to be beloved for the sake of the unconditional Abrahamic
covenant ratified to Isaac and Jacob. Therefore because of Gods
covenant integrity, the gospel gifts and the saving call of God directed
toward national Israel, through promise given to Abraham, will not be
repealed (Rom. 11:28-29). Far more literally we translate: On the
one hand, according to the gospel [to euangelion], enemies [echthroi]
they [unbelieving Israel] are for you [Gentiles]; on the other hand,
according to the election [ten eklogen], beloved [agapetoi] they
[unbelieving Israel] are for the fathers, for irrevocable/not to be
regretted,/abrogated are the gifts [ta charismata] and calling [he klesis]
of God. The antithetical parallelism in v. 28 is exact and instructive.
On the one hand, according to the gospel, enemies they [Gentiles] are for you [Jews],
kata men to euangelion echthroi

on the other hand, according to the election, beloved they [Jews] are for the fathers.
kata de ten eklogen agapetoi,
The interplay that God sovereignly ordains in history between Jew and
Gentile, having been finely argued in vs. 11-27, is now brought to a
summary conclusion. The absence of a connective with the preceding
context only enhances the climactic nature of this truth. Thus the force
of argument peaks here in terms of what precedes. Back of all of Pauls
argument in Romans 11 is Gods covenant with them [Israel], when I
take away their sins, v. 27, cf. vs. 1, 17, that references the new
covenant promise of Jeremiah 31:33-34. Here is the fundamental
reason as to why all Israel will be saved, v. 26, en masse, nationally,
eschatologically. Refer to the exegesis of Romans 11 in Chapter Ten:
Israel - and a Romans 11 Synthesis. As Matt Waymeyer well points

out:
[I]t is difficultif not impossibleto understand these two clauses as
describing the church. In what sense can those of the Body of Christ be
described as the enemies of God?2
Hence the historic tension between Gentile and Jew will be wondrously
resolved in the historic process that God has ordained. On the one
hand, according to the present gospel dispensation, they, that is the
unbelieving Jews, corporate Israel, not the remnant, are enemies for
the sake of the Gentiles, even the audience in the main that Paul
addresses. That is they are enemies passively, of God, in parallel
with passively being beloved of God.3 On the other hand, from the
standpoint of the election, the original, irrevocable choice of national
Israel in pure grace according to forknowledge/distinguishing
forelove, vs. 1-2 (cf. Ps. 33:11-12; Isa. 41:8-9; 44:1-2; Amos 3:2),4
they, those just designated as enemies, hence not the remnant but
unbelieving national Israel, are at the same time beloved on account
of the original, irrevocable promise made to the fathers, Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob.5 So Ronald Diprose concludes, after his careful study
at this point:
In the light of the conclusion in v. 28, we can safely say that Paul also is
confirming the election of Israel despite the nations failure to recognize
Jesus as their Messiah. Nothing, not even their opposition to the gospel,
could cancel the special love of God for his people. It is this election of
Israel which makes her eschatological salvation certain. Likewise, her
status as an elect people explains why, in the present time, even in her
2
Matt Waymeyer, The Dual Status of Israel in Romans 11:28. The
Masters Seminary Journal, Spring 2005, p. 63.
3
So Cranfield, Morris, Murray, Schreiner, though Moo suggests that both an
active and passive sense is intended.
4
Here the election is descriptive of they and thus the nation rather than a
reference to the remnant according to Gods gracious choice, v. 5. So
Barrett, Cranfield, Haldane, Hodge, Moo, Morris, Murray, Schreiner,
contra Lenski, Palmer Robertson.
5
Matt Waymeyer points out that Pauls use of the correlative conjunctions
[men . . . de] indicates that these individuals are simultaneously enemies
and beloved, not enemies for a time and the later beloved. The Dual
Status of Israel in Romans 11:28. The Masters Seminary Journal, Spring
2005, p. 65.
unbelief, Israel contributes to the enrichment and the reconciliation with

God of the other nations of the world (vv. 11-15).6
If one is committed to the position that God is no longer covenantally

related to national Israel in the present, then how is this verse to be
interpreted? Palmer Robertson, in being aware of the problem here,
attempts to identify those beloved for the sake of the fathers as being
elect Jews, not unbelieving Israel in a national sense.7 Amillennialist
Lenski is of a similar interpretation, although the overwhelming
opinion of most commentators in that, as Barrett concludes, [t]hey
[Israel] are the race [emphasis added] whom God elected to be his
peculiar people, and their election rests in no way upon their merits or
achievements.8 Moo also responds,
Some think, because of the way that Paul describes election in 9:6b-13an
act by which God brings people into relationship with himselfthat Paul
must be referring here to the remnant. But a switch in subject in mid-verse,
from the Jews who are Gods enemies in the light of the gospel, to Jews
who are beloved by God as elect members of the remnant, seems
unwarranted.9
The eschatological significance of Romans 11:28
Thus Murray rightly concludes concerning Romans 11:28, Unfaithful

as Israel have been and broken off for that reason, yet God still sustains
his peculiar relation of love to them, a relation that will be
demonstrated and vindicated in the restoration (vs. 12, 15, 26).10
Similarly Willem VanGemeren writes: In the sense of historic and
national continuity, Israel is still the people of God, even in their
rejection of Messiah.11 Likewise David Holwerda declares:
We err if we assume that the significance of the remnant pertains only to
the elect individuals who constitute the remnant. Paul is not implying that
6
Ronald E. Diprose, Israel and the Church, pp. 14-21.
7
Ibid., p. 190.
8
C. K. Barrett, Romans, p. 225. Likewise, Cranfield, Hodge, Moo, Morris,
Murray. Shedd, Schreiner.
9
Douglas Moo, Romans, p. 731.
10
Murray, Romans, II, p. 101.
11
Willem VanGemerem, The Progress of Redemption: The Story of Salvation
from Creation to the New Jerusalem, p, 400.
the remnant alone is Israel and no one else. If we assume that the people of
God in Romans 11:1 is now restricted to the elect remnant, we undercut the
rest of Pauls argument. Nowhere in Romans 11 does the apostle withdraw
from unbelieving Jewish Israel the reality of being the people of God or the
fact of their election. Instead, Paul points to himself and other Jewish
Christians as evidence that God has not withdrawn his grace from Jewish
Israel. The remnant is a sign that God is still faithful to his election of
Jewish Israel.12
Now all of these declarations are good as far as they go, even so they
really do not go, what might be called, the full distance.. Indeed most
commentators who agree with Murray, VanGemeren and Holwerda,
nevertheless still hold back from expounding upon the ramifications of
national Israel being in the present a beloved enemy, that is
covenantally in the sight of God. It is as if they sense what Paul is
saying from an exegetical perspective, yet for various presuppositional
reasons refrain from confessing the outcome of this truth in terms of
the course of church history and the future. That is, while God was
graciously dealing with the Gentiles, nevertheless unbelieving Jews
continued to retain an identity in His sight that in fact the Gentile has
been loathe to confess, but especially in the national and territorial
spheres. Again we are faced with this limited, temporal acknowledge-
ment of Jewishness that in fact contemporary Jewishness can in no way
rightly endure. Granted that there is mystery here, yet for the Christian,
who should be a student of history, he cannot easily deny that God
continues to evidence a hovering concern over the Hebrew people as a
nation concerning which He is both offended and covenantally
gracious. Thus J. C. Ryle explains this inescapable truth as follows.
I assert then that the Jews are at this moment a peculiar people, and utterly
separate from all other people on the face of the earth. They fulfill the
prophecy of Hosea: The children of Israel shall bide many days without a
king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice (Hos. 3:4). For eighteen
hundred years they have been scattered over the globe, without a country,
without a government, without a capital city, strangers and aliens
everywhere, often fiercely persecuted and vilely treated. Yet to this moment
they continue a distinct, isolated and separate nation, far more than any
nation on the earth.
Now how shall we account for this extraordinary state of things? How shall
we explain the unique and peculiar position which the Jewish people
occupies in the world? Why is it that, unlike Saxons, and Danes, and
12
David E. Holwerda, Jesus & Israel: One Covenant or Two? p. 164.
Normans, and Flemings, and French, this singular race still floats alone,
though broken to pieces like a wreck, on the waters of the globe, amidst its
1500 million inhabitants, and after the lapse of eighteen hundred years is
neither destroyed, nor crushed, nor evaporated, nor amalgamated, not lost
sight of; but lives to this day as separate and distinct as it was when the arch
of Titus was built in Rome?
I have not the least idea how questions like these are answered by those
who profess to deny the divine authority of Scripture. In all my reading I
never met with an honest attempt to answer them from the unhappy camp
of unbelievers. In fact it is my firm conviction that among the many
difficulties of infidelity there is hardly any one more really insurmountable
than the separate continuance of the Jewish nation. It is a burdensome stone
which your modern skeptical writers may affect to despise, but cannot lift
or remove out of their way. God has many witnesses to the truth of the
Bible, if men would only examine them and listen to their evidence. But
you may depend on it there is no witness so unanswerable as one who
always keeps standing up and living, and moving before the eyes of
mankind. That witness is the Jew.13
Hence in the light of the Pauls explicit teaching here in Romans 11:28
concerning the present status of unbelieving Israel, a brief confession
of Colin Chapman is significant at this point. As the author of Whose
Promised Land? which volume, on account of its replacement
theology, is not appreciated in Jewish Christian circles,14 he
nevertheless comments:
13
J. C. Ryle, Coming Events And Present Duties, pp. 148-150.
14
David Stern writes: Let them [Christians] not be taken in by Colin
Chapmans book, Whose Promised Land?, which uses replacement
theology as its basis for denying that the Land of Israel is any longer
promised by God to the Jews. Restoring The Jewishness Of The Gospel, p.
40. Chapman denies his subscription to replacement theology, explaining
that Gentiles are grafted into Israel (Rom. 11:17-24), which is thereby
transformed to become the one new humanity (Eph. 2:15). Ten
questions for a theology of the land, The Land of Promise, ed. Philip
Johnston and Peter Walker, p. 178. Apart from the subtlety here whereby
Jewishness nevertheless ceases, Sterns objection is quite valid in the light
of Chapmans plain statement: As a Christian, I feel bound to conclude
that the promise of the land to Abraham and his descendants as an
everlasting possession does not give the Jews a divine right to possess the
land for all time. . . . Could it be that God is challenging the whole Jewish
people to think again about their destiny as a people? What is the whole
enterprise of settling Jews in the land and setting up a Jewish state doing to
the soul of Judaism? Did God really intend that they should be a peculiar
Unlike some of my Arab and Western Christian friends, I still believe there
is something special about the Jewish people. They are loved on account
of the patriarchs (Rom. 11:28). But I also believe that the fulfillment of
all that was promised to Abraham and his descendants is found in the
kingdom of God which came in Jesus.15
Unfortunately, something special is not only left undefined, but also

quite inadequate in explaining Pauls meaning here. To a considerable
degree, Chapmans mystery here is really of his own making. Such a
concession is almost grudging since, in the bulk of this authors
writing, he is quite adamant in his denial of Israels national and
territorial identity. We are grateful for Chapmans patronizing honesty
at this point in the face of the obvious meaning of such a crucial text of
Scripture. Nevertheless, as a whole, his book in its several editions
remains theologically anti-Judaic.
CARNAL ISRAEL AND THE SPIRITUAL REMNANT IN GODS DEALING

WITH HIS PEOPLE IN GENERAL
We have already considered the remnant according to Gods gracious

choice in Romans 11:5 and identified it as those Jewish Christians
who are circumcised in both body and soul. On the other hand we have
also seen that the bulk of unbelieving national Israel, although carnal in
their unbelief, yet according to Romans 11:28 retains national Jewish
identity in the sight of God. However, consideration of the historic
origins of this truth, with regard to a godly remnant, is necessary in
relation to Gods dealings with national Israel as a whole in the Old
Testament, especially concerning persistence in unbelief. The reason
for this is that it has sometimes been claimed that the only Jews of the
old covenant era were those who were of faith. By extension it is also
claimed that in fact unbelieving Jews today, being wholly carnal, are
not Jewish in the sight of God in any sense whatsoever.
The doctrine of the remnant in Old Testament Israel has its origin in
the idea of something left over from a large corporate body, as is
suggested in Deuteronomy 4:26-27. While the Jews as a whole were
people for ever and ever? Whose Promised Land? (1983 ed.), pp. 226-
228. Surely the nuance here is inflammatory!
15
Colin Chapman, Ten questions for a theology of the land, The Land of
Promise, ed. Philip Johnston and Peter Walker, p. 178. This book is heavily
slanted against any premillennial understanding of Israel and the Jews.
subject to considerable destruction in the Land, they were also told that
[t]he LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be
reduced to a few survivors among the nations where the LORD your
God will drive you. In this instance Israel, as a diminished, scattered
nation, at the same time became a remnant. Furthermore, the remnant
idea also has reference to part of national Israel, that is a relative
minority of exiles who survived judgment and captivity in Babylon.
Following mourning and repentance, they joyfully became returnees to
Jerusalem under Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah (Ezra 9:8, 13-15;
Neh. 1:3; Jer. 42:2; 50:19-20; Isa. 10:20-22; 11:11-16). In turn this also
anticipates an eschatological remnant with regard to the Diaspora that
will be gathered from the four corners of the earth for the Messianic
age (Jer. 31:7-8; Mic. 5:7-8; 7:18; Zech. 8:6-12). Hence, in the Old
Testament, a repentant remnant returned to Jerusalem from Babylon
which contrasted with the larger part of national Israel remaining
abroad as the exiled dispersion. So in the present, according to Romans
11:5, a remnant, a relatively small number of Jewish Christians,
contrasts with the larger part of unbelieving Israel that remains
dispersed throughout the world. However the question that must now
be asked concerns Gods attitude toward the nation of Israel as a
whole, from its very inception as a nation and onward to the
Babylonian captivity, and particularly with regard to its division
according to carnal and spiritual lines of demarcation. And the answer
that becomes so obviously clear is the fact that while God did sharply
distinguish between carnal and spiritual characteristics, He
nevertheless regarded even the carnal constituency as retaining national
status. Now let us consider several Old Testament indications of this
truth which is maintained as a principle in the New Testament.
Gods Dealing with Carnal Israel in the Wilderness and Today
Almost immediately after their redemption from Egypt, the children of

Israel repeatedly murmured against God and sinned before they
reached Mt. Sinai (Ex. 15:22-24; 16:1-3; 17:1-3). For this reason the
Law was added because of trangressions (Gal. 3:19, cf. Jer. 11:7-8;
Rom. 5:20). Upon departure from Mt. Sinai the complaining continued
(Num. 11:1-12:16) and led to a point of crisis at Kadesh Barnea. There,
as a result of further unbelief and rebellion (Num. 14:1-10), God in His
wrath nevertheless heeded the intercession of Moses (Num. 14:11-19)
and declared, I have pardoned [them] as you requested (Num.
14:20). However, the resultant discipline was banishment of the
original redeemed generation from entrance into the Promised Land

and consequent wandering in the Sinai wilderness (Num. 14:22-23, 26-
37). Even so the faithful remnant, namely the households of Joshua
and Caleb, as well as the new generation (Num. 14:31), were assured
of settlement in Canaan (Num. 14:24, 38). All of this transpired in
under two years, that is from Israels departure from Egypt up to
Kadesh Barnea. Hence the thirty-eight years that followed saw the
nation of Israel wandering in the wilderness, this period commencing
with the rebellion of Korah and a resultant plague whereby over 14,700
of Gods people perished (Num. 16:1-50). The actual wilderness
wanderings from Kadesh Barnea and eventually back to that same
location, are briefly recorded in Numbers 15-19. Then Israel proceeded
north to the plains of Moab, though murmuring, unbelief, and rebellion
continued (Num. 20:1-5; 21:5). Especially notable was the
deceitfulness of Balaam that resulted in national apostasy and
judgment once again, that is by plague with the death of 24,000 of the
people of God. This being the case, it is hardly possible to say that the
new generation was that much better than the preceding fathers.
Nevertheless they gained entrance into the Promised Land.
Now in this Old Testament setting it is readily obvious that God
esteemed Israel after the Spirit, surely a remnant, and was vexed by
Israel after the flesh, or the bulk of Israel. We might further say that
Israel after the Spirit was the true Israel having circumcision of the
heart and of the flesh. On the other hand Israel after the flesh had only
circumcision of the flesh and was simply carnal Israel. However, it
would be totally incorrect to say that Israel after the flesh had no
national, indeed territorial identity in the sight of God in that historic
setting. In all of this forty year period there was an overarching
national identity granted on the part of Jehovah which, from the very
beginning of Israels redemption was based, not upon the Mosaic, but
the Abrahamic covenant. To begin with this was clearly established
before Moses had even encountered God at the burning bush near
Mount Horeb. Then, God heard their [the Israelites] groaning, and
He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exod.
2:24). However, once Moses did stand barefooted before God on holy
ground, there mention was made to him by Jehovah concerning His
covenantal identity, namely that I am the God of your father, the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (Exod. 3:6, cf.
15-16; 4:5; 6:3). In particular, Moses was instructed to pass on to
Israel: I will be your God. You will know that I am Yahweh your
God, who delivered you from the forced labor of the Egyptians. I will
bring you to the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
and I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD (Exod. 6:7-8).
Even after Israel sinned under the leadership of Aaron by worshipping
the golden calf, and Moses intercession before God was accepted, yet
we read that [t]he LORD spoke to Moses: Go, leave here, you and the
people you brought up from the land of Egypt, to the land I promised
to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying: I will give it to your offspring
(Exod. 33:1).
So when Israel was about to cross the Jordan into Canaan, God
instructed His people: You are not going to take possession of their
[the Canaanites] land because of your righteousness or your integrity.
Instead, the LORD your God will drive out these nations before you
because of their wickedness, in order to keep the promise He swore to
your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Understand that the LORD
your God is not giving you this good land to posses because of your
righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people (Deut. 9:5-6). Here
then, Israels possession of the Land was ultimately to be based, not
upon disobedience or disobedience, but covenant promise alone!
Significantly, on account of disobedience, Moses also did not inherit
the Land, though upon viewing it from the heights of Mt. Nebo, the
LORD then said to him, This is the land I promised Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, I will give it to your descendants. I have let you see it with
your own eyes, but you will not cross into it (Deut. 34:4). This
should be a sufficient indication that those who did not inherit the land
ought not to be bundled together, in a simplistic sense, as if they
represent unbelievers who are wholly carnal, while the subsequent
generation was spiritual.
However, the main point here is that Gods dealing with the nation of
Israel is not merely with the Israel after the Spirit, with the remainder
having no identity in the sight of God. Israel after the flesh was still the
recipient of Gods covenant interest. Granted it was of this world, so to
speak. But this in no way nullifies the fact that God in human history
had a covenantal interest in the earthly nation of Israel in total, both
Spiritual and carnal. We are repeatedly told that Gods persistence with
national Israel, from the very beginning of its redemption, is for the
sake of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So we would conclude that it
ought not to surprise us that in this present age, while there is a
[Jewish Christian] remnant according to grace (Rom. 11:5), this
language of necessity demands that there is an unbelieving national
Israel that still has Gods offended, yet loving steadfast covenant
interest, for the sake of the fathers (Rom. 11:28).
In further consideration of the fact that unbelieving national Israel
today retains Gods covenantal interest, consider the significant
exposition of Dan Gruber with regard to Romans 10:21-11:2.
When Paul says, I also am an Israelite, he is identifying himself with his
unfaithful, physical brethren. That identification is not the same as his
identification with the Church. Paul is pointing to his own relationship with
God as proof of the fact that God has not cast off unfaithful Israel. For
indeed, Paul himself was part of unfaithful Israel.
21But as for Israel He [God] says, All the day long I have stretched out
my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people. 1I say then, God has not
rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a
descendant [seed] of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2God has not
rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the
Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against
Israel? (Rom. 10:21-11:2).
Israel in this first verse is physically identified, including the disobedient
and obstinate. Israel in this third verse is also physically identified,
including the disobedient and the obstinate, i.e. the un-faithful un-believers.
Pauls identification of himself, in the middle verse, as an Israelite is also
an obvious physical identification with an Israel that includes the
disobedient and obstinate. To substantiate his claim that he is an Israelite,
Paul points out that he is of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of
Benjamin (Rom. 11:1). He is referring to his physical descent. For Paul,
being of the tribe of Benjamin proves that he is an Israelite.
This physically identified Israel is still called His people. Within His
people, God has kept for Himself a faithful remnant.
The fact that the faithful in Israel are a remnant of Israel indicates that
there is much more of Israel that is not faithful. Paul makes this quite clear.
Otherwise, there could not be a remnant. Had Israel signified only the
faithful, Gods continual call to Israel throughout the Bible would not have
been to repentance, but to perseverance.
Paul said, I could pray that I myself were anathema, separated from
Messiah for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh,
who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons and the glory and
the covenants and the giving of the Law and the service and the promises,
whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Messiah according to the
flesh, who is over all God blessed forever. Amen (Rom. 9:3-5).
It is clear that he is talking about physical, natural Israel. It is impossible to
understand his words differently. It is for his unbelieving Jewish brethren
that Paul is willing to be anathema. It is from them that Messiah came. It is

to them that the adoption, glory, and covenants, etc. belong. It is they who
are Israelites.
Had Israel signified the faithful only, there would have been no need for,
and no sense to, Pauls unceasing grief and continual sorrow, nor to his
willingness to be accursed for their salvation.16
Gods Dealing with Carnal Israel in Hosea
The appropriateness of Hosea for the subject of Gods dealing with

Spiritual and carnal Israel is twofold. First, as a prophet to the northern
kingdom of Israel, he ministered in times when, although Gods people
prospered, yet their religious devotion was at best external (6:4-6; 7:8-
10; 8:14; 10:1-2; 12:8; 13:15) and at worst pagan (4:11-14; 6:7-10;
13:1-2). Second, in the light of spiritual declension, indeed spiritual
adultery, yet God remained covenantally faithful in being wedded to
Israel as a nation (1:10-11; 2:14-23; 3:1-5; 11:8-11; 14:4-8). The
prospect was not merely the saving of a remnant for indeed nowhere in
Hosea is a remnant mentioned. Rather it is the nation as a whole that is
both an enemy of God and beloved by God, even as is the case in
Romans 11:28. However the triumph of pure grace is such that
although God has become wedded to an adulterous people (3:1), and
the Israelites must live many days without king or prince, without
sacrifice or sacred pillar, and without ephod or household idols.
Afterwards, the people of Israel will return and seek the LORD their
God and David their king. They will come with awe to the LORD and to
His goodness in the last days (Hos. 3:4-5). The reason for this
prophetic illustration of the truth that ultimately all Israel will be
saved (Rom. 11:26), concerns Hoseas closing declaration from the
LORD: I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for My anger
has turned from him (Hos. 14:4). This is really identical with Pauls
declaration that unbelieving, even adulterous Israel, is loved because
of their forefathers (Rom. 11:28), and for this reason, with absolute
certainty, the Liberator will come from Zion; He will turn away
godlessness from Jacob (Rom. 11:26).
16
Dan Gruber, The Church and The Jews, pp. 365-366.
Gods Dealing with Carnal and Remnant Israel in Micah
The appropriateness of Micah for the subject of Gods dealing with

Spiritual and carnal Israel is threefold. First, as a prophet primarily
ministering to the southern kingdom of Judah, he encountered times
that saw the common people harassed by foreign enemies,
impoverished, and insecure. While the wealthy class and religious
establishment fostered carnal security, injustice, and oppression of the
poor in particular, at the same time they continued to participate in
mere formal religion (2:1-2, 8-9; 3:1-12; 6:6-8, 10-12; 7:1-6). Thus
Micah declared that judgment was inevitable (1:5-7; 2:3-5; 6:13-16).
Second, in the light of overall spiritual poverty, yet God remained
covenantally faithful in view of his inevitable future triumph and
redemption through the promised Messiah (5:1-5). Third, unlike
Hosea, a distinction is made between a faithful remnant that results
from the judgment of captivity (2:12-13; cf. Isa. 10:20-22), and the
nation of Israel as a whole that was exiled. Further, in the future, there
will be another remnant of Jacob [that] will be among many peoples
like dew from the LORD (5:7-8; cf. Rom. 11:5) having originated from
the coming of Messiah (5:1-5). But for the present, Micah identifies
himself as part of the remnant in his time by means of the confession of
sin and the confident assertion,
7
But as for me, I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my
salvation. My God will hear me. . . . 9Because I have sinned against Him, I
must endure the LORDS rage until He argues my case and establishes
justice for me. He will bring me into the light; I will see His salvation (7:7,
9).
Concerning the note of expectation here, Hosea has earlier described

the eschatological hope of national restoration (Mic. 2:12-13).
However here there is anticipation of the Messianic age incorporating a
regenerate Israel walking in the name of the LORD being
headquartered in restored Zion.
1
In the last days the mountain of the LORDS house will be established at the
top of the mountains and will be raised above the hills. Peoples will stream
to it, 2and many nations will come and say, Come, let us go up to the
mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us
about His ways so we may walk in His paths. For instruction will go out of
Zion and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. 3He will settle disputes
among many peoples and provide arbitration for strong nations that are far
away. They will beat their swords into plows, and their spears into pruning
knives. Nation will not take up the sword against nation, and they will
never again train for war. 4But each man will sit under his grapevine and
under his fig tree with no one to frighten [him]. For the mouth of the LORD
of Hosts has promised [this]. 5Though all the peoples each walk in the name
of their gods, we will walk in the name of Yahweh our God forever and
ever. (4:1-5).
This future distinctive glory of national Israel is further expounded at

the close of Micahs prophecy. Here he describes the reversal of
circumstances with regard to the Gentiles and Gods children of Jacob.
16Nations will see and be ashamed of all their power. They will put
[their] hands over [their] mouths, and their ears will become deaf.
17They will lick the dust like a snake; they will come trembling out of
their hiding places like reptiles slithering on the ground. They will
tremble before the LORD our God; they will stand in awe of You.
18Who is a God like You, removing iniquity and passing over
rebellion for the remnant of His inheritance? He does not hold on to

His anger forever, because He delights in faithful love. 19He will
again have compassion on us; He will vanquish our iniquities. You
will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. 20You will show
loyalty to Jacob and faithful love to Abraham, as You swore to our
fathers from days long ago. (7:16-20).
Clearly national Israel in Micah 4:1-5; 7:14-20 has an identity that is

distinct from the nations. It is the people of Jacob according to Gods
faithful [covenant] love to Abraham (7:20). While the spiritual
remnant, that is the exiles who eventually return to Jerusalem,
continues as the perpetuated core of the nation, yet God will also
continue to acknowledge the carnal remainder that is eventually to be
dispersed. Throughout the centuries subsequent to 70 A.D., there has
always been a remnant of unbelieving Jews in the Land,
notwithstanding Arab dominion. However the dispersion is also
described as the remnant (Isa. 11:11; Jer. 23:3). Nevertheless as
Scripture abundantly teaches, even the Diaspora is not to be spurned
forever (Isa. 11:11; 14:1; Jer. 16:14; 23:3; 24:6-9; Ezek. 37:21, 25;
39:28; Amos 9:14-15; Zech. 10:10). Then I will pour out a spirit of
grace and prayer on the house of David and the residents of Jerusalem,
and they will look at Me whom they pierced. They will mourn for Him
as one mourns for an only child and weep bitterly for Him as one
weeps for a firstborn. (Zech. 12:10). Then, according to Romans
11:12, 26, the remnant will eventually become part of the full
number of Israel when all Israel will be saved (Rom. 11:26).
CARNAL ISRAEL AS ISRAEL AFTER THE FLESH
In Romans 1:3 Jesus Christ is described as being a descendant of David

according to the flesh [kata sarka]. So in I Corinthians 10:18 Paul
declares, Look at the people of Israel [according to the flesh, blepete
ton Israel kata sarka]. Here the HCSB translation is correct since the
historic or physical nation of Israel is designated. There is no intended
intimation here concerning national Israels lack of spiritual life.
However the physical Jewish emblem of circumcision is used in
Scripture as a distinguishing feature in the contrasting realms of the
flesh and the Spirit. God associated Israels unfaithfulness with an
uncircumcised heart (Lev. 26:41). To national Israel circumcised in
the flesh, Moses declared:
12
And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you except to fear
the LORD your God by waking in all His ways, to love Him, and to worship
the LORD your God with all your heart and all your soul. . . . 16Therefore,
circumcise your hearts and dont be stiff-necked any longer (Deut. 10:12,
16).
Jeremiah similarly exhorted the nation of Judah: Circumcise

yourselves to the LORD; remove the foreskin of your heart, men of
Judah and residents of Jerusalem. Otherwise My wrath will break out
like fire and burn with no one to extinguish [it], because of your evil
deeds (Jer. 4:4). However in all of these instances, there is not the
slightest intimation that God ceased to recognize Israels national
identity, notwithstanding carnality and consequent discipline. With this
in mind, we consider in some detail Pauls use of the same dichotomy
in Romans 2:25-29.
An observer of Pauls preceding confrontation with the Jew in Romans
2:17-24 might well ask the question: How is it possible for the Jew to
so shamelessly maintain his proud self-esteem and nationalism in the
face of such deplorable condemnation by the Gentile? as in v. 24,
The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.
The answer, that really goes without saying, is in a word,
circumcision. Whereas the current teaching was that, no person who
is circumcised will go down to Gehenna [hell as the lake of fire],17 so
Paul now commences to destroy the religious hypocrites last bastion,
namely sacramental/ritual/ covenantal regeneration.
17
Moo, Epistle to the Romans, p. 167; also Hodge, Romans, p. 63.
Circumcision is Significant, not Effecting, Romans 2:25
For circumcision benefits you if you observe the law, but if you are a
lawbreaker, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. Some
background on circumcision is called for here. According to Genesis
17:9-14, circumcision was ordained by God as signification of the
covenant He had made with Abraham and his subsequent seed. For this
reason the seed organ was cut. Note that at that same time, the name
Abram meaning exalted father, was appropriately changed to
Abraham meaning father of a multitude (Gen. 17:5). As a modern
conservative Jew puts it, For Jews circumcision today, as in the past
four thousand years, is not a detail of hygiene. It is the old seal of the
pledge between Abraham and his Creator, a sign in the flesh, a mark at
the source of life.18 However, even Jeremiah became aware that a
physically circumcised Hebrew could yet be uncircumcised of heart
(Jer. 9:25-26), and therefore subject to punishment.
Circumcision is significant, that is, it is an authentic sign when it
points to an authentic practicer of the Law. But for the lawless,
circumcision has no significance and in fact is invalidated; it is
certainly not regenerative. Later in Romans 4:9-12, the point will be
made that Abraham was justified through faith, and hence regenerated,
before he was circumcised. Therefore Paul is not repudiating
circumcision as a sign of national Jewish identity, as 3:1-2 plainly
indicates. Rather he is negating a delusive function of circumcision that
never really existed.
Circumcision is Significant for the Gentile, Romans 2:26-27
The implications of this right teaching on circumcision are encouraging

for the Gentile. Otherwise, he is ipso facto excluded from the favor and
grace of God because of an absent physical qualification.
His obedience is as circumcision, v. 26.
Therefore if an uncircumcised man keeps the laws requirements, will

his uncircumcision not be counted as circumcision? Paul posits a
Gentile who keeps the righteous requirements of the Law, that is an
uncircumcised God-fearer who reveres and obeys the Mosaic Law
18
Herman Wouk, This Is My God, p. 140.
such as Cornelius (Acts 10:1-2; cf. 13:26), or a lesser sincere disciple

of the God of Israel. How then is he to be regarded? God will
reckon/accredit circumcision to him, even as any fair minded observer
ought to do, because God regards the doing of righteousness as the
justifying evidence of his sonship. He may not have the fleshy
circumcision of Abraham, but he is nevertheless a child of Abraham
because he does the deeds of Abraham (John 8:39) and therefore
evidences circumcision of the heart.
His obedience shames the transgressor, v. 27.
A man who is physically uncircumcised, but who fulfils the Law, will
judge you who are a lawbreaker in spite of having the letter [of the
Law] and circumcision. Should a Gentile have a heart for God, a heart
that is alive to God, a heart that loves God, a heart of holy affections
that yearns to please God, then he is circumcised of heart even though
he be physically uncircumcised. Consequently this man is the judge of
the ungodly, circumcised Jew, since, by example, he reflects shame
upon him and lays bare the hypocrisy of mere legal conformity (Matt.
8:5-13, especially vs. 10-12).
The word judge is emphatic here, and it relates, by way of contrast
with the Jew having the letter [of the Law], by means of which he is
quick to judge. Such a circumcised religionist has the Bible in his hand
and mind, intellectual proficiency, doctrinal comprehension, and an
attitude that is quick to judge, yet his disgraceful godlessness will reap
severe condemnation by the mere presence of the godly Gentile,
without a word being spoken (Phil. 3:2-3). By way of illustration, in an
office situation, the unbaptized member of The Salvation Army who
manifests genuine graces of the Spirit will stand out in obvious silent
judgment upon the baptized Baptist who manifests the works of the
flesh.
Circumcision is Significant for the Real Jew, Romans 2:28-29
The definition of an authentic Jew, especially for Paul here, is a matter

of varying opinions according to conservative Christians. Some
suggest that in this church age, it is the true Christian who is now the
real and only spiritual Jew, and that since God has finished forever
with Israel as a nation, there is no such thing in His sight as a national
Jew. This is not what Paul has in mind here, especially in the light of
3:1-2 (cf.11:1-36; Acts 22:3; Gal. 6:16). A genuine Jew is one who,
having been circumcised of the heart, is also circumcised of the flesh,

and identifies geographically with those of the same commitment, cf.
9:6. In this respect circumcision has not been abrogated.
It does not signify a real Jew, v. 28.
For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, and [true]

circumcision is not something visible in the flesh. A more literal
translation reads, For not the one in outward manifestation is
[essentially] a Jew, neither is the one in the outward manifestation of
fleshy circumcision. What is it that essentially identifies a Jew?
Negatively, it is not any outward religious ceremony, not even the
physical rite of circumcision. However this does not mean that formal
circumcision itself has been eliminated (Romans 3:1-2; Acts 16:3). At
best, circumcision identifies a professing Jew. Yet it is the profession
itself that validates or invalidates the significance of the individual
persons circumcision.
It does signify heart circumcision, v. 29.
On the contrary, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and

circumcision is of the heartby [or in the] Spirit, not the [outwardly
performed] letter. His praise is not from men, but from God [who
knows his heart]. The sine qua non of true Jewishness is heart
circumcision which divine operation is by the Spirit, being more
probable than in the spirit, though as Morris writes, either way
gives good sense (cf. 7:6; II Cor. 3:6-7).19 In such a case, the true Jew
receives his affirmation of Jewishness from God, which for him is what
really matters, and not as was commonly sought in Pauls time
according to the letter, the praise of man (John 5:41-44). Above all
else, a true Jew has a heart that is made by God, owned of God, and
consecrated to God.
19
Morris, Epistle to the Romans, p. 142. Spirit is supported by Calvin,
Hodge, Moo, Morris, Murray, Schreiner; spirit by Barrett, Haldane,
Lloyd-Jones, Shedd.
CARNAL ISRAEL AS A PRESENT REALITY IN

THE PERSONAL TESTIMONY OF PAUL
On several occasions the Apostle Paul declared himself presently to be

a Jew. In the temple precincts of Jerusalem, the chained Apostle
implored a Roman commander, who had arrested him, that he be
allowed to address an enraged Jewish crowd. He argued: I am a Jew
[Ego eimi Ioudaios] of Tarsus in Cilicia (Acts 21:39). His request
having been granted, Paul then addressed the crowd in Hebrew, but
again declared, I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia (Acts 22:3).
Further, in Romans 11:1 Paul declares that I am an Israelite, [ego
Israelites eimi]. In all three instances the present tense is significant.
Then in Romans 9:3-4 Paul lovingly writes of my kinsmen according
to the flesh, who are Israelites [hoitines eisin Israelitai]. Here again
the present tense is used, and concerning this Schreiner comments that
the Jews still are Israelites and that all the blessings named still
belong to them.20 Such a conclusion has profound ramifications with
regard to the present validity of Jewish ethnicity, nationality and
territory.
Hence it is obvious that the Apostle regards his Jewishness as a present
reality, both with regard to himself as a Jewish Christian as well as his
kinship with unbelieving Jewish brethren. Here is no mere token
confession. Here is Pauls acknowledgment that the unbelieving Jew
has present authenticity with regard to the full meaning of Jewishness.
He clearly upholds this vital truth, not merely for the cause of secular
convenience, but rather his bona fide identification as a fellow Israelite
with the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the
temple service, and the promises (Rom. 9:4). This is not the language
of superceded Judaism.
20
Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, p. 485.
360 Israel in need of the prodigal Gentiles love
Chapter Twelve
ISRAEL in need of
the prodigal Gentiles love
T HE parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32 is part of an

illustrative trilogy that is based upon Jesus Christs confrontation
with complaining Pharisees and scribes. These self-righteous Jewish
zealots, having audited Jesus social lifestyle and teaching, began to
grumble, saying, This man welcomes sinners and eats with them!
(Luke 15:1-2). As a result there follows, in response, three parables
that all depict the Son of Gods compassionate interest in the saving of
the lost, they being represented by the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and
the Lost Sons. Obviously Jesus is not only justifying his ministry, but
also indicating that both the leaders of Israel, as well as his disciples,
should have the same merciful attitude. Therefore the interpretation of
these three parables should be based upon this one underlying theme.
When the parable of the Prodigal Son is considered, though it is really
concerned with two lost sons, two main approaches have been
followed. First, there is simply the representation of Gods fatherly
love for a wayward member of His human family. Here is portrayed an
earthly fathers gracious longing for the return of His rebellious son, as
well as his largeness of heart in being quick to forgive in the face of
genuine repentance. But especially is noted the fathers eager desire to
joyously celebrate such an authentic instance of conversion. By way of
contrast, the elder brother represents that hard heartedness which self-
righteousness engenders. He is lacking in Gods tender concern and
readiness to forgive. Second, there is the more intriguing understanding
of the prodigal son representing the Gentiles who sin with open
abandon and the elder brother depicting the Jews indignation that
flagrant, persistent decadence should receive such an abundance of
grace while they have been impeccably righteous. This latter view is
sympathetically considered by Archbishop Trench in his classic
volume, Notes on the Parables of Our Lord, in which he provides a
significant concluding application.
[W]e Gentiles must not forget that at the end of the present dispensation all
will be reversed, and that we shall be in danger of playing the part of the
elder brother, and shall do so if we grudge at the largeness of the grace
Israel in need of the prodigal Gentiles love 361
bestowed upon the Jew, who is now feeding upon husks, far away from his
Fathers house.1
How appropriate is this comment in terms of the attitude of many

conservative evangelicals today, especially of Reformed convictions,
toward the ethnic Jew and national Israel. The disposition of the elder
brother was not only one of contempt for his close relative in the flesh,
but also he was of the opinion that his brother was beyond redemption
and thus permanently cast aside from his fathers home. Certainly the
Jews of Jesus time were of this opinion with regard to the Gentiles.
But how strange it is that today so many Gentile Christians, and hardly
any Jewish Christians, are of the opinion that now it is the Jews that are
beyond redemption and forever cast aside by the Father in His heaven.
On the part of some Gentile Christians, their attitude toward ethnic
Jews and national Israel is literally disgraceful. Like the elder brother,
they are void of grace and full of condemnation toward their kinsmen
in a spiritual sense (Gal. 3:29), even to the degree where their
theological anti-Judaism is in danger of becoming ethnic. Some
literature in this realm is, to say the least, offensive and utterly
unchristian. Especially refer to Chapter Two, Chapter Three and
Chapter Four. Others, less animated and vociferous in this regard, are
nevertheless indifferent. There is no compassionate interest in the
plight of the Jews, no inward sympathy for their historic tribulations,
no admittance of widespread complicity on the part of Christianity with
regard to these sufferings, no special interest in Jewish missions, but
only a resignation that the judgment of God is rightly having its course.
THE ADMONITION OF PAUL TOWARD THE GENTILES

IN ROMANS 11:17-21, 31
In Romans 11 as a whole, certainly the main thrust of the Apostles

instruction concerning Israel is toward the Gentiles. Now it is also clear
that the Gentile uncultivated olive branches have been graciously
grafted into the rich root of the cultivated olive tree at the expense of
disobedient Israels temporal severance. Consequently the Gentile
Christians are exhorted that they do not brag because they are better
off than the cultivated branches that are presently scattered, that is the
unbelieving Jews as Diaspora. There is no place here for pride or
arrogance because [natural Jewish] branches were broken off by
unbelief, . . . so that I [as a Gentile Chistian] might be grafted in, vs.
1
Richard Chenevix Trench, Notes on the Parables of Our Lord, p. 152.
19-20.2 Commentators generally agree that here the Gentiles are
encouraged to be compassionate toward the Jews while dispersed,
notwithstanding their entrenched unbelief. So while in v. 30 the Gentile
unbeliever has received gospel mercy at the expense of national
Israels unbelief, now in v. 31 the Gentile Christian is to show gospel
mercy to unbelieving national Israel. However, the context of vs. 17-21
suggests that not only evangelistic proclamation toward the Jew is
involved, but also a distinctive, comprehensive loving attitude.
Consider that while 15:26-27 calls for material support for the poor
among the saints in Jerusalem out of a sense of spiritual indebtedness,
surely this also suggests the related compassionate interest that Gentile
Christians should spontaneously reflect toward the unbelieving Jew in
his universal plight. In other words, while Jewish evangelism is to be
of primary concern for the Christian, yet it is not to be at the neglect of
social and material support.
However is it possible for such compassionate concern to be
constrained by means of doctrine that regards Jewishness and national
Judaism as pass? In other words, if a Christians eschatology leads
him to believe that Israel has been divinely, eternally disenfranchised,
then is it possible for such teaching to engender a distinctive loving
interest in the plight of the Jewish people as they presently exist? In
this regard, history sadly witnesses to the fact that, in general, Gentile
Christians have responded with shameful disdain that has included
contempt, arrogant aloofness and even militant opposition. And
furthermore, the roots of this disregard for the mandate of Romans
11:17-21, 31 have proved to be decidedly doctrinal. For contemporary
proof of this assertion, refer to Appendix D: Melanie Phillips on
Replacement Theology. Here this columnist for the London Daily Mail
reports of opposition to Israel being motivated by anti-Semitism that is
deeply rooted in Christian replacement theology rather than economic
and cultural factors. This is no mere isolated instance of eschatology
effecting an unethical response, as the influence of Augustine so well
illustrates.
2
According to Moo, these Gentile believers were apparently convinced that
they belonged to a new people of God that had simply replaced Israel. . . . It
is the egotism of Gentile Christians who present Gods manifold plan as
having the salvation of themselves as its focus that Paul wishes to expose
and criticize. Romans, p. 704-5. Murray similarly views Paul as
admonishing the Gentiles since, [a] streak of contempt for the Jew may
also be detected. Romans, II, p. 87.
THE THEOLOGICAL ANTI-JUDAIC DILEMMA CONCERNING
NOMINAL REGARD FOR THE JEWS
Once again, let us make a point of clarification. With regard to

theological anti-Judaism we mean that understanding of the present
New Testament age in which the Christian Church is now alleged to
have superceded or replaced the Old Testament people of God. As a
result it is asserted that covenantally, in the sight of God, there is now
no such person as a Jew or Hebrew with distinctive national and
territorial identity. This is true for many Christian writers who, while
giving token recognition of the Jew in contemporary society, as with
Chapman and Sizer, nevertheless censure and lambaste any who
identify contemporary Israel with the biblical nation. Alternative
expressions of transference or absorbtion concerning Israels lost
national status still result in the same end result of Jewish nullification.
According to this anti-Judaic Augustinian perspective, although there
are presently several million Jews in Israel, and for practical
purposes they are designated as Jews as such, and we converse with
them and witness to them in America and the United Kingdom, in
theological reality and according to the New Testament revelation,
their racial claim has no present or prospective heavenly validity.
Rather the Christian Church has inherited this past Jewish legacy in a
shadowy sense only, using as it were appropriated terminology, so as
consequently to become the spiritual New Israel. As a result every
believer in Jesus as the Christ, of whatever nationality, is a spiritual
Jew. The people of Christ throughout the world, void of ethnic
distinctions, have become His new nation which, in inheriting the
whole earth as the fulfilled Land, is the truly ecumenical kingdom of
God. Yet how do the proponents of this supercessionist agenda respond
toward the modern Jew who, in all honesty, is offended at this denial of
his Jewishness? It is rarely with the spirit of Pauls exhortation in
Romans 11:18-20, 31.
The Directional Challenge to anti-Judaism in Romans 11
Such is the force of this locus classicus passage with regard to the
future of the Israel that many modern commentators increasingly have
come to the opinion that Romans 11:26 does indeed refer to a future
conversion of the Jews on a national, or at least a climactic,
multitudinous scale.3 Yet others of Reformed convictions have
3
So Barrett, Hodge, Moo, Morris, Murray, Schreiner, etc.
believed that the salvation of Israel here is merely the cumulative
saving of a Jewish remnant over many centuries, though this
interpretation has not gained a broad following.4 In this regard, there
has also been a turning from Calvins understanding of both saved Jew
and Gentile within the church being designated as the all Israel [that]
will be saved. Refer to Chapter Ten: Israel - and a Romans 11
Synthesis for more detailed exegesis of this whole matter. Yet having
said this, at the same time many sense a dilemma that is not so readily
clarified. With regard to Reformed convictions, there is often no
indication as to whether this future en masse conversion of Jews,
revealed in Romans 11, will incorporate divinely acknowledged
individual, national and territorial Jewishness. However denial in this
regard is often intimated. Hence there is especial reluctance to admit
that such an awakening will be nationally allied to the inhabitation of
the Land of Israel. One senses that some scholars, their doctrine
excluding the divine recognition of national and territorial Israel in the
present or future Christian era, nevertheless sense being
eschatologically driven in this direction through arousal of the plain
meaning of the text of Romans 11. They sense that the tendency of this
truth is to lead, as it were down a slippery slope, toward an
acknowledgment of a distinct national and territorial destiny for Israel
that is inevitably related to much that the Old Testament has
specifically promised. Consequently, while some attempt to allow a
degree of temporary, vague corporateness in a future conversion of the
Jews, whatever this term may mean, nevertheless they put the brakes
on when national and territorial identity seems to appear on the horizon
as an inevitable consequence. And this restraint, we suggest, leads to
some difficulty in witnessing to the Jew in a spontaneous sense. The
reason is that while a future climactic conversion of the Jews is
anticipated, yet there is obfuscation with regard to affirming any
specific eschatological future for the converted Jew, other than vague
incorporation into the people of God. And the Jew who knows his Old
Testament well cannot be blamed for making reference to the prophets
at this juncture. Having accepted the plain fulfillment of the numerous
messianic prophecies, he then enquires as to why he ought not
similarly accept the plain and obvious meaning of passages such as
Ezekiel 36-37 and Zechariah 14. However Horatius Bonar has well
responded to this enquiry on pages 198-199, 225.
4
So Bavinck, Berkhoff, Hendriksen, Hoekema, etc., especially according to
a Dutch Reformed lineage.
The Romans 11 Dynamic for Witnessing to the Jew
For the classic, theologically anti-Judaic Christian, that is he who

places great store in his allegiance to Augustinianism with regard to the
Jew, there is a significant problem which he especially has to face in
the light of Romans 11. He is ready to confess his responsibility for
proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah, even to those who mistakenly claim
divine national identification as a Jew. After all, the exuberance and
priority of Paul in this regard is hard to avoid as a model for
contemporary Christians. Hence he will even declare that surely God
has His people amongst unbelieving Judaism, and in designating them
as the remnant of Romans 11:5, then explain that for this reason there
must be evangelism directed toward the Jews. So Ambrose and
Chrysostom and Luther were of a similar opinion. However in
allowing the identification of resultant new converts as Jewish
Christians in a nominal sense, he will be quick to deny them divine
national and territorial recognition. In fact, if pressed, he will confess
that this new Jewish Christian really has no distinctive Jewishness
whatsoever, at least in connection with divine Old Testament terms.
In other words, this modern Augustinian will speak of these converted
Jews in an individual, token sense, but disallow historic Jewish
corporate identity. Within himself he will also believe that the non-
Christian Jew has in fact no real Jewishness, even in a carnal sense.
Privately he believes that God has abandoned Judaism so as never
again to revive it. He is convinced that the contemporary Jew is
deceived, being a racial anachronism, but for witnessing purposes, and
at a strictly secular or social level, he ought to be addressed as a Jew.
However, with this attitude in mind, the question then arises as to what
degree he really has a distinct passion for Jewish missions, even as was
the case with Paul (Rom. 9:1-5; 10:1-2), who continued to identify
himself, quite unambiguously, as an Israelite (Acts 21:39; 22:3;
Rom.11:1; II Cor. 11:22)? In fact, when it comes to a history of
distinctive Jewish missions over the last two hundred years, it stands
out most plainly that agency after agency has always doctrinally
presupposed ongoing and eschatological Jewish national, territorial
identity according to Gods covenant faithfulness. But where has there
been a similar burgeoning of evangelistic outreach toward the Jews
based upon that contrasting Augustinian doctrine which upholds
Jewishness as a mere shadow that has been superceded by the
substance of Christianity? And which of these missionary scenarios
more closely mirrors the missionary priority of Paul? Of course there
may be the response by the Augustinian Christian that while he is
second to none in concern for evangelistic outreach, yet he believes it
should be non-discriminatory, so to speak, that is to both Jew and
Gentile without distinction. Yet we would enquire what explanation
then is to be given for the fact that Pauls evangelistic thrust, Gentilic
by divine vocation, nevertheless was always prioritized in terms of
being to the Jew first (Rom. 1:16; 2:9-10)?
As a representation of this problem with regard to formal expressions
of interest in Jewish evangelism, first consider the comments of
Professor Marten Woudstra of Calvin Theological Seminary who, in
upholding continuity with regard to Israel and the subsequent Christian
church, makes a number of comments that are quite representative of
Augustinian, supercessionist eschatology at this point while at the same
time they reflect an essential detachment from divinely acknowledged,
contemporary Jewishness. In consideration of Romans 11:25-26, he
concludes that,
the apostles emphasis is not upon some later point in time when there will
be a reversal in the hardening in part of the Jews. Rather, the emphasis is
upon the word so or thus, in this way. All Israel [the accumulating
remnant] will be saved in the way of the bringing in of the fullness of the
Gentiles. . . . As the fullness of the Gentiles is brought in and until this is
finished, so, in this manner, all Israel [an accumulating remnant] will be
saved. . . . There will be one body of the redeemed, Christs flock, known
to him by name and distinguished from those who are not his sheep. . . .
The saving of all Israel is still going on, for the fullness of the Gentiles is
also still being brought in. But at all events some of the Jews who are now
hardened in part will be grafted into the one olive tree. They will not form a
separate program or a separate entity next to the church.
The question whether it is more proper to speak of a replacement of the
Jews by the Christian church or of an extension (continuation) of the OT
people of God into that of the NT church is variously answered. . . . What
should be stated clearly, however, is that the idea of the church replacing
Israel is not to be understood as a form of advanced anti-Semitism, as is
done by some.5
There seems to be an underlying concern in the final comment here

that betrays an inherent weakness of the doctrine being proposed. It
could never be said that Pauls teaching in Romans concerning Israel
might be misunderstood as having an anti-Judaic tone. Quite to the
5
Marten H. Woudstra, Israel and the Church: A Case for Continuity,
Continuity and Discontinuity, ed. John S. Feinberg, pp. 236-237.
contrary. Of course what Woudstra fails to make clear is the status of
the unbelieving Jew in the present time; one suspects it is not the
covenantal regard of Romans 11:28 that inevitably calls for national
and territorial recognition, even in unbelief. This being the case, any
talk concerning Jews is simply with regard to a convenient term that
in fact has no divine specificity or authentication. Certainly here the
Jew, having become converted, loses all of his Jewishness. Yet at the
end of this explanation, we then read of Woudstra making a plea for
Jewish evangelism. The church-and-Israel question presents all
evangelicals, regardless of where they stand with respect to any of the
above questions, with the challenge to preach the gospel to the Jews.6
But is this expression driven according to the same pro-Judaic passion
of Paul, or a cool acknowledgment of the broad need of Jews and
Gentiles to hear the gospel? What exactly, eschatologically is
Woudstras meaning of Jew here? It would seem to have certain
evangelistic implications. Would not his approach suggest that in
witnessing to Jews, it is a most vital matter as to whether we tell them
of the good news that they, in becoming a Christian, will lose their
distinct Jewish identity, or whether we direct them to the King of the
Jews as the hope of Israel (Acts 28:20). We suggest that the former
approach will not gain much of a hearing, to say the least. However the
latter method, far more akin to the eagerness of Paul in his missionary
visits to innumerable synagogues, is much more likely to result in a
respectful audience.
THE ANALOGY CONCERNING FAMILY INTEREST IN THE UNBELIEVING JEW
It is common for the Augustinian Christian to critically respond that

the pro-Judaic Christian aligns himself with those who, in their carnal
Zionist zeal, neglect evangelism due to a preoccupation with purely
political machinations and prophetic speculation. After all the Jew, in
rejecting Christ, is, according to that same Christ, consigned to certain
judgment. It was indeed Jesus who solemnly declared that unless you
believe that I am [the Son of God], you will die in your sins (John
8:24). To this we would thoroughly agree. So the Jew has to be warned
concerning the grave danger that confronts his soul, and with this no
evangelistic outreach worthy of the qualifying title of Jewish would
disagree. But how do we fulfill the burden of this responsibility for
Jewish missions? Is it with the constraint of gratitude for the legacy
6
Ibid.
that the Jew represents (Rom. 9:4-5)? Is it with appreciation that the
Savior is fully Jewish? Is it with respect for the truth that the Christian
Bible is almost totally Jewish? Or is it with a more dispassionate
attitude that includes Jewishness as a temporary accommodating
appendage within ones theology, that at the same time denies the
existence of national Judaism and simply anticipates the inclusion of
some Jews into the people of God as an accumulating remnant?
By way of illustration, suppose as a Christian we have unbelieving
loved ones and family members who we have witnessed to on
numerous occasions. Our soul aches with concern for a mother or
father or sister or brother who, with stubborn unbelief, does not
hesitate to scoff at our faith that is caricatured as a religious crutch!
Such reproach within the family circle may persist for many years. Do
we likewise believe in this situation that such relatives will die in their
sins if they believe not that Jesus Christ is their Savior? Yes we do
believe this with both love and fear. But how do we continue to relate
to these beloved relatives? After such a long time of rejection, is it with
eventual abandonment since these kin have become so hard hearted?
Having prayed for them, do we then eventually give up on them before
Gods throne of grace? No, not for a moment. Such a limitation to our
patience is unthinkable when we contemplate Gods great forbearance
toward us. While we have life in our bodies, we will continue to hope
and pray for our loved ones, and at the same time take every
opportunity to reflect graciousness through life and lip in the face of
unremitting hard-heartedness. It is the fact that we are related through
the flesh to our loved ones that constrains us to persevere with renewed
effort, endeavoring to commend Christ by a godly lifestyle, even while
our verbal witness continues to be spurned. In the same vein then ought
we not also lovingly persevere in witnessing to the Jewish people, our
relatives through saving faith in the God of Abraham?
However, to take the analogy further, is our overall witness to our
unsaved loved ones strictly in the realm of literature distribution,
conversation about the Bible, and invitations to hear the gospel
preached? Surely not! There is also enjoyable social intercourse,
sharing on a host of topics, genuine interest in family problems, and a
readiness to offer practical help whenever a problem merely looms on
the horizon. This being the case, then how is it that some convey the
idea that to help the Jew is strictly to expose him to the gospel while
any other more secular assistance is to be discarded as carnal, even
inappropriate Zionism? Surely such an attitude is to be thoroughly
condemned. Therefore the Christian will be concerned for the Jew in
matters individual, national, and territorial. Yes, he will be, like Paul,
enthusiastically pro-Judaic, ever supportive of the cause of Israel, its
great failings and carnality notwithstanding.
In the same vein we never give up on our earthly relatives according to
the flesh, their failings and carnality notwithstanding. Being of the
same blood, our undying love for them constrains us to persist; the
thought of abandonment never crosses out mind. Hence this being true,
then what ought to be our attitude toward the Jew to whom, through
faith in Christ, we are also related according to the flesh (Gal. 3:29)?
Surely it ought to be with the same loving persistence. And this same
undying concern is precisely what Paul seems to have in mind in
Romans 11:18-20, 31 with regard to the proper attitude of Gentile
Christians toward unbelieving Jews. Of course if there is no such thing
as a Jew today, then there can be no such relationship in the flesh,
and thus no resultant merciful interest after the manner of Paul.
However the fact that the Apostle exhorts us to have this loving family
regard is surely further proof that this ethnic status is not null and void.
Rather, it will eventually blossom into a full number of unimagined
proportions for the glory of God (Rom. 11:12, 33-36).
THE ANALOGY CONCERNING RUTH AND ORPAH
In Dan Grubers significant volume The Church and The Jews, he

makes a very telling application from the Book of Ruth in the Old
Testament concerning the contrasting attitudes of Ruth and Orpah that
illustrate how a Gentile should respond toward the Jews.
Orpah [a Gentile Moabitess] was a loving daughter-in-law, but she ended
up staying with her own people. Ruth [a Gentile Moabitess] saw something
that Orpah did not see. What did Ruth see in Naomi [a Jewish
Bethlehemite]? Naomi had left the land of Israel with her husband and two
sons because there was a famine in the land. They went to Moab, and
Naomis husband died there. Her two sons married Moabite women, but
died soon after that.
In Naomis words, the hand of the Lord has gone forth against me (Ruth
1:13). When Naomi returned to Bethlehem, the women said, Is this
Naomi? And she said to them, Do not call me Naomi [pleasant]; call me
Mara [bitter], for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out
full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi,
since the Lord has witnessed against me and the Almighty has afflicted
me? (Ruth 1:19-21).
It was obvious that the Lord was against Naomi. Just like it was obvious
that the Lord was against Job. Just like it was obvious that the Lord was
against Paul when the viper bit him, shortly after he had escaped from a
shipwreck (Acts 28:4). Just like it has been obvious that the Lord is against
the Jewish people. Such things are obvious, but they are not true.
Despite what people thought, God was not against Naomi, Job, or Paul.
Despite what people think, God is not against the Jewish people. God
intends to do something more wonderful for all Israel than what He did for
Naomi, Job, or Paul. Though His hand may sometimes be against His first-
born son, His heart never is.
Naomi is a type of the Jewish people. She was bereaved, bitter, and angry
at God. She had no hope. In that condition, she came back to her own land.
Ruth saw that, but she saw something more. There was something that she
had seen in her mother-in-law and in her own husband, that was more
precious to her than life. She saw something invisible that Orpah could not
see.
But Ruth said [to Naomi], Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from
following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will
lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God (Ruth
1:16). Ruth said, I will be joined to the Jewish people, and I will serve the
God of Israel. She knew that He, and He alone, is the only God. She made
that choice before she ever met Boaz.
Ruth made the same choice that Abraham made. She left her family, her
people, and her land behind. She lost her life in order to find it. Orpah said
good-bye to Naomi and then went to reclaim her old life. She found her life
in order to lose it. Naomis Gentile daughter-in-law, Ruth, was to be the
means of her greatest blessing. God planned it that way. Ruth embraced the
Jewish people, and God blessed her eternally.
What did Cornelius see? He was a military man, and Rome ruled over
Jerusalem. Jerusalem itself, as a city of the first-century world, could not
compare to the glory that was Rome. Cornelius was assigned to a
backward, troublesome, superstitious province and people. At least that was
the Roman view. They believed that Rome had better ways, more might,
and greater gods. What did Cornelius see in Israel that is described in the
gospels? He saw everything. He saw the corruption, the legalism, the
brutality, and the hypocrisy. But he also saw the invisible hand of God, the
only God, upon His people Israel.
Cornelius made a choice which would have made him the laughingstock of
all his family, friends, and neighbors back home. He started to pray to the
God of Israel, and he started to give his money to help the Jewish people.
He made that choice before he ever met Peter. And the angel said, Your
prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before God (Acts 10:4).
Cornelius embraced the Jewish people, and God blessed him eternally.
Now faith is . . . the conviction of things not seen (Heb. 11:1). Gentiles
who are believers need to look at the Jewish people and see the invisible.
They need to choose as Ruth and Cornelius did: Your people will be my
people; your God will be my God.7
THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF ESCHATOLOGICAL JEWISHNESS
From the outset of this defense of a pro-Judaic eschatology, let it be

understood that the mere justification of a distinctive prophetic cause
has not been the main purpose. To be sure the repudiation of
theological anti-Judaism has been vigorous. Nevertheless the singular
intent has been the vindication of the cause of the Jewish people
according to the mind of God even as has been portrayed in the whole
of Scripture. Certainly the perspective upheld here might be broadly
identified as premillennial. Nevertheless, if necessary, let such a title
perish. But this being said, never let perish the biblical indications of
Gods sovereign grace that will supremely triumph in the salvation of
Israel as a nation through the mediation of its Messiah, Jesus, the Son
of God, and His consummate reign from Jerusalem. Israels original
election was according to the purest grace, and so will be the climactic
salvation of national Israel unto holiness as Gods people.
However, it continues to remain true in a sizeable part of Reformed
Christianity that an eschatological perspective on Israel often results in
anti-Judaism of varying shades, even if more kindly defined as
theological rather than racial, and progressive rather than the
replacement variety. The reality is that some who confess faith in the
doctrines of grace or historic Calvinism have acted both neglectfully
and shamefully with regard to their consideration of and association
with Jews, the present nation of Israel and even Jewish Christians.
Some notable examples have already been cited. And discussion with
those of this persuasion usually indicates that such belief is doctrinally
driven. It has already been acknowledged that history certainly is
strewn with moving exceptions in this regard. Even so, over the
centuries, they remain just that, exceptions as distinct from the
overwhelming general rule. For this reason, indications of belief in
national Israels everlasting disenfranchisement are not difficult to
discern, and those of Jewish extraction find it easy to notice this
attitude which, as has been related to this writer, does not commend
Christ.
7
Dan Gruber, The Church and The Jews, pp. 401-402.
Following the visit of Andrew Bonar, Robert Murray MCheyne,
Alexander Keith, and Alexander Black to Palestine in 1839 under the
auspices of the Church of Scotland, a full account of this investigative
journey, concerned with missionary outreach to the Jews, was
published with the title, A Narrative of a Visit to the Holy Land. Of
particular significance are the following extracts that indicate the
deplorable attitude of Christians toward Jews in Jerusalem at that
time.
On another occasion, passing by the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the
monks mistaking him [a Mr. Nicolayson, a Christian resident in Jerusalem
dressed in an eastern manner] for a Jew, rushed out upon him, and pursued
him through the streets, into a house where he took refuge, threatening to
kill him, unless he kissed a picture of the Virgin, in a New Testament which
they held out to him. This he did, and saved his life.
The professing Christians here [in the Holy Land]Greeks, Armenians,
and Roman Catholicsare even more bitter enemies to Jews than
Mahometans; so that in time of danger, a Jew would betake himself to the
house of a Turk for refuge, in preference to that of a Christian. How little
have these Christians the mind of Christ!8
How shameful this is, not only because of the way this behavior is so
antithetical to that of the Apostle Paul, but supremely because of the
way in which Jesus Christ is unnecessarily blasphemed before His
brethren in the flesh. The Narrative goes on to describe that, when the
Jews recognized the more genuine loving interest of the delegation
from Scotland, there was a contrasting response of desire for cordial
fellowship. It also needs to be pointed out that the eschatological
doctrine of this delegation, in the main, recognized the ongoing
national and territorial status of the Jews at that time, notwithstanding
their unbelief. Their eschatology was decidedly not Augustinian.
As was stated in the introduction of this volume, in the field of
eschatology there are matters of relatively lesser significance that
concern the antichrist, the great tribulation, the rapture, etc., and then
this transcendently important issue of the place of Israel in the Bible,
and especially the New Testament. With regard to this vital matter of
national Israels present existence or nonexistence, history plainly
leads us to an unavoidable conclusion. It is that profound ethical and
most practical consequences are involved, even issues of life and death.
8
Andrew A. Bonar and Robert Murray MCheyne, A Narrative of a Mission
of Inquiry to the Jews from the Church of Scotland, pp. 146-147, 149.
It is for this reason, amongst other lesser matters, that this author has
felt compelled not only to make such a vital distinction at this point in
the field of what is really important in eschatology, but also vigorously
defend that doctrine which tends to rectify such an appalling anti-
Judaic heritage. Here we are not dealing with an eschatological
refinement concerning which we can agree to disagree. If the Christian
Church in general, over the centuries, had followed Pauls exhortation
in Romans 11:17-24, 31, it is not unreasonable to conceive that the
tragic treatment of the Jews during the twentieth century that resulted
in human ashes might have been replaced with the fruit of a great
harvest of Jewish souls saved, having been provoked to jealousy (Rom.
11:11), to the glory of God (Rom. 11:36).
Wake, harp of Zion, wake again,

Upon thine ancient hill,
On Jordans long deserted plain,
By Kedrons lowly rill.
The hymn shall yet in Zion swell
That sounds Messiahs praise,
And Thy loved name, Immanuel!
As once in ancient days.
For Israel yet shall own her King,
For her salvation waits,
And hill and dale shall sweetly sing
With praise in all her gates.
Hasten, O Lord, these promised days,
When Israel shall rejoice;
And Jew and Gentile join in praise,
With one united voice.
James Edmeston, 1846
In conclusion, we would return to a most vital matter in the current

debate over the future destiny of national Israel. It is the question of
tone or attitude with regard to the Jewish people. Sadly it needs to
be pointed out that much of the literature which continues in the
Augustinian eschatological tradition is fatally flawed at this most vital
juncture. Refer to Chapter Four: Israel - and Christian anti-Judaism in
the UK. This anti-Judaic genre resounds with an unsavory character
that most Jewish Christians and unbelieving Jews will quickly identify.
And this being the case, then there is indicated a most basic defect with
the whole system that is represented. On the other hand, consider the
subsequent brief article by Horatius Bonar which throbs and breathes
with a gospel generated, loving regard for the Jewish people that
speaks for itself as being essentially Pauline. If this chord does not
resonate in the biblical Christian, then without apology it is maintained
that the fundamental, doctrinal, eschatological root here is unsound.
Whereas it is also maintained that it is the right theological,
eschatological root which produces from Bonar such a sweet resonance
that both the Jewish Christian and the Gentile Christian will delight in
and spontaneously reflect upon.
AN EXHORTATION OF HORATIUS BONAR,

THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF CHRISTIANS AS REGARDS THE JEWS.
The complete contrast between a holy God and fallen man has been
abundantly and fearfully displayed in all ages. The false religions which
have cursed the world under the forms of heathenism and
Mohammedanism, and those miserable perversions of true religion,
Rabbinism among the Jews, and Roman Catholicism among Christians,
have served to present man as the moral opposite of God in all of His holi-
ness. The result has been that man has magnified and adored those things
which God has ever depreciated and forbidden, while he has undervalued
and despised whatever Jehovah has testified to and highly commended.
The gospel, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, wins man back into
sympathy with God. Thus it is the power of God unto salvation. It endows
the mind with God-like tastes, and fills the heart with holy aspirations and
desires. But this work is not wrought all at once. It admits of degrees, and is
capable of continual increase. Our sympathy with God will be in proportion
to the light which we obtain, and our honest use of that light. Many
Christians fail in important duties because they have not studied the whole
of Gods statute-book. Their minds are but partially illuminated, and so
their hearts are not found in all Gods ways of service, nor in all Gods
thoughts of coming glory.
There was a time when there was much religion in our beloved land [of
Scotland], much zeal for Gods truth and glory, though there was no
concern for the millions of the heathen who were living without God and
without hope in the world. The people ate the fat and drank the sweet, but
they sent no portion to the perishing. Go out into the highways and along
the hedges [Luke 14:23], Preach the gospel to all creation [Mark 16:15],
had become obsolete commands to the professing Churches which were the
offspring of the Reformation. But this state of things greatly changed about
fifty years ago. The Church awoke from her slumber, went forth on her
mission, and as of old, the Lord worked with his servants, and confirmed
His Word with signs following. This was a step in the right direction with
regard to heartfelt obedience toward the Savior; for we should imitate him
not only in love of truth, mercy, and holiness, but also in zeal for spreading
them, and in intense longing for the salvation of souls.
But while the noble missionaries went forth on their noble commission to
the nations sitting in darkness, in the highway of those nations through
which they passed, and even close by where they labored, lay the poor
neglected Jew, torn and bleeding at every pore, trodden down and despised,
a proverb and a byword. And who cared for him? These despised ones
were taken up on the lips of talkers and treated as infamous by the people
(Ezek. 36:3). Man called the scattered and peeled nation an outcast,
saying, It is Zion; no one cares for her (Jer. 30:17). But God has not
rejected his people whom He foreknew [Rom. 11:2]; he still has wondrous
thoughts of lingering love toward them, and it became a sight well-pleasing
in his eyes when, in the spirit of the Samaritan, the Church directed her
steps towards the plundered and wounded traveler, and sought to pour oil
and wine into his bleeding wounds. Surely those missionary agencies
which seek the spiritual and eternal welfare of the scattered and long-
injured children of Abraham richly deserve the name of Good Samaritan
Societies; and surely all Christians who now observe these efforts would
do well to give heed to the application which the Great Teacher and Pattern
of Love makes of his own beautiful parable, Go thou and do likewise.
Yes, Christian; if you would be in full sympathy with God, you must not
only trust the cross, love holiness, and send the gospel to the heathen; but
you must love the Jew, pity and pray for the Jew, and be willing to lay out
personal investment and energy so as to send the good tidings that Jesus of
Nazareth came into the world to save sinners [I Tim. 1:15], to the Jew, to
whom he came preaching peace [Acts 10:36].
With a view of awakening a proper attitude in this regard, and inducing a
right course of action towards the lost sheep of the house of Israel, let the
reader look earnestly at the scene presented before him by their history and
present condition; and then look up to that redeeming Lord who was of the
seed of Abraham according to the flesh, and ask, with reference to them,
Lord! what will You have me to do?
The people of Israel present a most interesting subject for contemplation,
and a large sphere for labor. Do you want an important theme to think
upon? Here it is. Do you want a field in which to work? Behold it here.
Surely no one who thinks on the past history of the Jews, or their present
condition or future destiny, can complain of lack of interest in the subject
before them. In the Jews we see a people by whom the Bible was written,
and to whom, either as history or prophecy, a large part of it refers. These
are the fathers, the prophets, and the types; from them came the Savior and
his apostles. The lovers of antiquity, the admirers of the marvelous, the
seekers after wonders, may all come here and not fear disappointment. Here
there is much revealed that is most valuable; and two things, above all
others in importance, may be learned by studying the history and
prophecies of this wonderful nation; these are, the knowledge of God, and
of ourselves. Yes, the Divine character and the human heart may be both
traced in the past, the present, and the future of the Jew.
To know God is the great pinnacle of theology, for it is life eternal to
know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent (John
17:3). The person and character of Christ makes the grandest discovery of
God. Next to Him who is the brightness of Gods glory, and the express
image of his person [Heb. 1:3], the salvation and history of the Church, or
of sinners saved by the wondrous grace of a Triune God, affords the noblest
subject for study, and the best facilities for acquaintance with God. If called
upon to mention the next field for studying God, we should name the
Jewish nation. Here God has written out his glorious name. In this people
we see every divine perfection in act and operation. Omnipotence raised
them up at first. Then countless multitudes sprang from a dead stock.
Wisdom watched over, led, and guided them unerringly. Faithfulness
fulfilled every promise uttered by the lip of Truth. Goodness established
them in a noble land, gave them holy laws, divine and instructive
institutions, sent among them prophets to teach and priests to minister.
Holiness warned, cautioned, and exhorted them, and when they rebelliously
spurned the gentle tones of love, how long did Patience bear with them;
how often did God return and have mercy on them! When they had sinned
till there was no more remedy [II Chron. 36:16], when they had
consummated the rebellions of fifteen hundred years by that unparalleled
deed of blood, the murder of the Son of God, then, after some yet further
lingerings and invitations of insulted Mercy, did awful Justice arise, bare
his arm for the battle, and strike down the terrible and crushing blows.
Now, in what state do we behold them? Even as they have been for the last
eighteen hundred years, like a burnt mountain on the plains of Time,
scorched and splintered by the lightnings of divine wrath. As one
tremblingly sings:
Salted with fire, they seem to show
How spirits lost in endless woe
May undecaying live.
Yes! still preserved in all their woe, still unconsumed by all these penal
fires! Preserved! And for what? Let a thousand glorious prophecies answer!
That burnt mountain shall yet be clothed with lovely foliage; down its sides
shall streams of living water gush; and the nation that now witnesses to the
truth, justice, and power of God, shall sing till the ends of the earth shall
hear and echo back the song, Who is a God like You, who pardons
iniquity, and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His
possession? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in
unchanging love (Mic. 7:18). Then shall the Lord be glorified in Israel,
and all his attributes displayed in full-orbed glory, when he shall call her
Hephzibah, and her land Beulah [Isa. 62:4]. What a glorious Jehovah is
the LORD God of Israel! With what awe, what love, what fear, what hope,
should this character, as exhibited towards Israel, inspire us!
And the poet sang truly, who, looking at Israel and their history said
Here in a glass our hearts may see
How fickle and how false they be!
The reader need not be reminded of the use which the apostle makes of
their history in I Corinthians 10:1-13, and Hebrew 3 and 4, and Romans 11.
We can only quote some of his solemn applications. Now these things
happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction,
upon whom the ends of the ages have come [I Cor. 10:11]. Take care,
brethren, that there not be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls
away from the living God [Heb. 3:12]. [T]hey were broken off because of
their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear
[Rom. 11:20].
How great, then, are our obligations to a nation, from whose history we
learn so much of God, and so much of ourselves! They encourage us to
hope in God, they warn us against tempting him. Their very failure is for
our profit; through their fall, salvation has come to us [Rom. 11:11]. We
have been made partakers of their spiritual things [Rom. 15:27] and have
been grafted into the good olive tree [Rom. 11:17], from which, for a
time, they are broken off. Surely we are responsible, as regards the Jew, to
a very large amount. Have we felt this? Have we so acted as to show that,
like the apostle, we feel that we are debtors? [Rom. 15:27]. Do our
prayers on their behalf prove this? Are they not too much forgotten, both in
public and private, by many of Gods people? Although something has
been done, yet, if we consider the present sad and oppressed condition of
Israel, especially in Russia, if we think anything of their anguish of soul,
and cruel bondage, we must feel that we are verily guilty concerning our
brethren. Israels past we cannot remedy; their future, as a nation, is with
God, and is safe in his omnipotent and faithful hands; but let men say or
think as they will, their present is with us; God in a measure casts it upon
us, and calls upon us to care for their souls. He will not interfere during this
dispensation in any miraculous way, but he will work by the means which
he has put in our hands, and will be pleased if these means are used
diligently in faith, and with prayer.
Israel has been a long time neglected, persecuted, and grievously wronged.
Let us go, like Jeremiah, and sit down with them amidst their ruins, and in a
sympathetic spirit tell them of the Restorer of Israelthe Almighty
Repairer of the great breachthe true Antitype of their own Zerubbabel,
who can yet build them up an holy temple, an habitation of God through
the Spirit [Eph. 2:21-22]. While we mourn over their great griefs, their
mighty wrongs, and their yet mightier sins, let us gently tell them of the
Man of sorrows, who is the all-sufficient consolation of Israel [Luke
2:25]. We carry Gods own message, prepared by the hand of mercy for the
heart of the miserable, and which can, by the blessing of the Holy Spirit,
win its way through a mountain of stone and a heart of stubbornly resolute
hardness. Go, Christian, to thy wandering and fugitive brother, tell him of
Blood which speaks better than the blood of Abel [Heb. 12:24]Blood
which can cleanse even those who have gone in the way of Cain [Jude
11]. Go, in the spirit of Paul, with our hearts desire and prayer to God, that
Israel may be saved [Rom. 10:1]. Go, praying in the Holy Spirit [Jude
20]; and you will give no heed to those who say that it is of no use
preaching the gospel to the Jew. It is of use; facts abundantly prove it; God
has owned his own word, and is still blessing his servants. Many of the
sons of Israel have been turned to the Lord their God [Luke 1:16]; several
of them are now the ministers of Christ to the Gentiles or to their own
countrymen; and how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news
of good things! But how will they preach unless they are sent? [Rom.
10:15]; and to send them, means are required; and surely all pardoned
Gentile sinners should aid according to their ability in furnishing these
means. Who, then, is willing to consecrate his service this day unto the
Lord? To liberality, prayer must be added. When messengers are sent,
fervent supplications must be offered continually for them, that God would
give his word free course, and greatly glorify it. Surely we should stir up
ourselves to take hold of Gods name, and cry out for the arm of the Lord
to awake, as in the days of old, the generations of long ago [Isa. 51:9]. We
should pray earnestly for Israels final restoration, even for her national
glory and spiritual salvation. In so doing we pray for the blessedness of the
earth, and the life of the world, which God is pleased to conjointly
establish. But believing that God has at the present time a remnant
according to Gods gracious choice [Rom. 11:5], we should give, pray,
and labor, if by any means we may save some [Rom. 11:14]. Nor should
we forget to lay the letter of their complaint before the Lord, as regards the
oppression of man. Who can think of 2,300,000 Jews under the iron despot-
ism of Russia, without feeling their hearts moved to cry for God to come to
their help against the mighty, and to work deliverance for the oppressed?
Their future! Ah! There is a dark cloud resting over the years that are fast
hastening on; but beyond, what brightness! what glory! and both prompt us
to prayer. Prophecy tells us of a faithful praying remnant during the coming
troubles, and reveals, beyond the fiery trials, a nation born in one day
[Isa. 66:8], and that nation the perfection of beauty [Ps. 50:2], the praise
of the earth [Jer. 33:9], dew from the Lord [Mic. 5:7], life from the
dead [Rom. 11:15]; and all their faithfulness in trial, and their national
glory, may be Gods answer to the prayers of those who find pleasure in
the stones of Zion, and feel pity for her dust [Ps. 102:14].
Compassion for Israel must be of great pleasure to God. To feel and to
manifest this, is to be like Him whose first words on the cross of agony
were a prayer for the Jews, and whose final words on earth, just before he
went to glory, were a command respecting them. With Father, forgive
them; for they do not know what they are doing [Luke 23:34], and
Beginning at Jerusalem [Acts 1:8], ever resounding in our ears, we surely
cannot be indifferent to the spiritual welfare of a people so useful to
ourselves, so dear to God, and with whose future blessedness the full
salvation of a ruined world is connected. Oh, that the salvation of Israel
would come out of Zion! [Ps. 14:7]. Soon may the day dawn when Israel,
brought through her great tribulation, shall as the priestly nation breathe
forth the acceptable prayer, God be gracious to us, and bless us; and cause
his face to shine upon us; that Your way may be known on earth, Your
salvation among all nations. God bless us, that all the ends of the earth may
fear him (Ps. 67:1-2, 7).9
From whence comes this compassionate concern that Bonar so

earnestly and yet so warmly commends? Surely it is inevitably born of
a distinct eschatological perspective. Missionary interest in the Jew has
never blossomed forth from the roots of theological disparagement,
cool, token confession of interest notwithstanding. Love for the
heritage of the Jew, past, present and future cannot erupt from a well
that is declared to be dry and sealed with the notice of a divine,
irreversible embargo. Rather this indomitable regard for the people of
Israel, so Pauline, while all too well aware of the present parched status
of the Jew, is yet convinced of the gospel principle, on a broader scale,
that He who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion
until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1:6). So God, having begun a good
work with the promised seed of Abraham, will certainly complete what
He has covenanted. He may have changed a fruitful land into a salt
waste, because of the wickedness of those who dwell in it;
nevertheless, He [the LORD] changes a wilderness into a pool of water
and a dry land into springs of water; and there He makes the hungry to
dwell (Ps. 107:33-36). So God has promised Israel concerning the
faint-hearted: Be strong; do not fear! Here is your God; vengeance is
coming. Gods retribution is coming; He will save you. Then the eyes
of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then
the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will sing for
joy, for water will gush in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; . . .
and the ransomed of the LORD will return and come to Zion with
singing, crowned with unending joy. Joy and gladness will overtake
[them], and sorrow and sighing will flee (Is. 35:4-6, 10).
9
Horatius Bonar, The Responsibilities of Christians as Regards the Jews,
The Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, October, 1855, pp. 347-352. The style
of the text here has been somewhat updated. B.E.H.
The Future of Israel and Jonathan Edwards 381
APPENDICES
382
Appendix A
The Future of Israel and

Jonathan Edwards
J ONATHAN EDWARDS (1703-58), is arguably the most significant and

influential evangelical Christian in the history of the United States.
He is frequently identified with a sober Puritan image that
characterized Massachusetts during the eighteenth century. Although a
leading figure throughout the Great Awakening of that period, his most
notable writings have tended to identify him as a Calvinist theologian/
philosopher, though certainly not in any mere academic or detached
sense. On the one hand his Freedom of the Will is a most profound
study of a much debated vital point of doctrine; on the other hand his
Religious Affections penetrates to the very heart of experiential
Christianity.
However, the more recent and comprehensive publication of Edwards
writings by Yale University Press has provided an expanded vision of
what this man of God regarded to be of some importance. Notably,
among many other matters, Edwards was a decided millennialist,
somewhat following a revival of interest in this aspect of biblical
eschatology that erupted in England during the middle of the
seventeenth century. Stephen J. Stein, as the editor of the Yale Edition,
Volume 5, Apocalyptic Writings, explains:
[T]he millennium remained a matter of consuming private interest for him.
. . . During the millennium kings will be like the judges who ruled ancient
Israel before the monarchy was establisheda form of government that
pleased God greatly. . . . In that glorious day, Edwards conjectured, a
variety of forms of government may prevail, but none shall be contrary to
true liberty. . . . The geography of the millennium, another issue that
divided commentators, attract-ted his exegetical attention. Edwards found
scriptural warrant for placing the land of Canaan at the center of the coming
kingdom of Christ. . . . In like manner, he speculated that the return of the
Jews to their homeland is inevitable because of the promises of land made
to them have been only partially fulfilled. God intends the Jews to be a
visible monument of his grace and power. The return to their traditional
home-land, how-ever, was premised by Edwards upon a con-version of the
384 The Future of Israel and Jonathan Edwards
Jews to Christianity. . . . [Then] Canaan will be the spiritual center of the

coming kingdom, and Israel will again be a truly distinct nation.1
To be more specific, Edwards was a post-millennialist, and although

this perspective differs somewhat from the premillennialism that this
volume upholds, nevertheless with regard to the issue of Israel and the
millennium, we find ourselves largely in happy agreement with his
attitude and expectations concerning the Jews and the land of Israel.2
And of course it ought to go without saying that Edwards was not
remotely a dispensationalist! More specifically he believed that
authentic Christian expansion through evangelism would effectively
sweep the world to such an extent that a largely Christianized,
millennial world would result. Only then, at such a triumphant world
climax, would Jesus Christ return in universally acknowledged glory.
Stein further explains the historic setting of Edwards prophetic
optimism as follows:
Since the Reformation, God has reversed the fortunes of the church by
pouring out the vials of wrath upon his enemies. The memory of
persecution and martyrdom will fade in the future as the knowledge of
divinity spreads, injustices are rectified, the saints and martyrs vindicated,
and men stimulated to greater holiness during the millennium. The
promised triumph of the saints is the hope and encouragement of the church
on earth.3
And who among us, if living in America during the eighteenth century,
could avoid the encouraging force of circumstances in the world at that
time, especially with regard to the stimulus of revival and the effective
expansion of evangelical missionary endeavors. On the other hand, if
1
Stephen J. Stein, editor, Introduction, Jonathan Edwards, Works,
Apocalyptic Writings, V. 8, pp. 17-19.
2
It is interesting to note that at the urging of many for a Second American
Bible and Prophetic Conference (premillennial) in Chicago, 1886, follow-
ing the immensely successful First Conference (premillennial) in New
York, 1878, the organizing secretary, Rev. George C. Needham commented
that: Many of postmillennial faith ratified the call, and were present at
every session as interested listeners. Prophetic Studies of the Internalional
Prophetic Conference, p. 1. Specifically, classic postmillennialism is in
mind here, and not the more recent revisionist, reconstructionist variety. Of
course nonmillennialists would sense relatively little affinity in such a
setting.
3
Stein, Edwards, Works, Apocalyptic Writings, V. 8, p. 11.
Edwards were alive today, most likely he would write with a more
disturbing perspective in mind. However, our focus being chiefly on
his regard for the Jews and Israel, now let us consider several
significant excerpts from Edwards writings. The first is taken from
his, A History of the Work of Redemption, posthumously published in
1773. Edwards concludes that as the millennium is inaugurated,
following the overthrow of the Mohammedan kingdom,
Jewish infidelity shall then be overthrown. However obstinate they have
now been for above seventeen hundred years in their rejecting Christ, and
instances of conversion of any of that nation have been so very rare ever
since the destruction of Jerusalem, but they have against the plain teachings
of their own prophets continued to approve of the cruelty of their
forefathers in crucifying [Christ]; yet when this day comes the thick veil
that blinds their eyes shall be removed (II Cor. 3:16), and divine grace shall
melt and renew their hard hearts, And they shall look on him 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] (Zech. 12:10, etc.). And then shall all Israel be saved [Rom.
11:26]. The Jews in all their dispersions shall cast away their old infidelity,
and shall wonderfully have their hearts changed, and abhor themselves for
their past unbelief and obstinacy; and shall flow together to the blessed
Jesus, penitently, humbly, and joyfully owning him as their glorious king
and only savior, and shall with all their hearts as with one heart and voice
declare his praises unto other nations [Isa. 66:20; Jer. 50:4].
Nothing is more certainly foretold than this national conversion of the Jews
is in the eleventh chapter of Romans. And there are also many passages of
the Old Testament that cannot be interpreted in any other sense, that I
cannot now stand to mention. Besides the prophecies of the calling of the
Jews, we have a remarkable seal of the fulfillment of this great event in
providence by a thing that is a kind of continual miracle, viz. the preserving
them a distinct [nation] when in such a dispersed condition for above
sixteen hundred years. The world affords nothing else like ita remark-
able hand of providence. When they shall be called, then shall that ancient
people that were alone Gods people for so long a time be Gods people
again, never to be rejected more, one fold with the Gentiles; and then also
shall the remains of the ten tribes wherever they are, and though they have
been rejected much longer than [the Jews], be brought in with their
brethren, the Jews. The prophecies of Hosea especially seem to hold this
forth, and that in the future glorious times of the church both Judah and
Ephraim, or Judah and the ten tribes, shall be brought in together, and shall
be united as one people as they formerly were under David and Solomon
(Hos. 1:11), and so in the last chapter of Hosea, and other parts of his
prophecy.
Though we dont know the time in which this conversion of the nation of
Israel will come to pass, yet this much we may determine by Scripture, that
it will [be] before [the] glory of the Gentile part of the church shall be fully
accomplished, because it is said that their coming in shall be life from the
dead to the Gentiles (Rom. 11:12, 15) [Now if the fall of them be the riches
of the world . . . how much more their fullness? . . . For if the casting away
of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be,
but life from the dead?].4
It is already obvious that for Edwards, the conversion of ethnic Israel is

related to the nations promised return to the land of Israel. This man of
acknowledged, profound spirituality, is wholly at rest with such a
substantial triumph; to charge him with carnality would be absurd.
Further, while Israel and the church comprise the people of God, yet
there is national distinction within this unity, as Galatians 3:28 well
illustrates. Hence, let us now consider Edwards more detailed
description of the millennial economy, both with regard to geography
and the diversity within unity that will incorporate Jews and Gentiles.
That the land of Israel has distinct eschatological importance is
indicated by Edwards consideration of its strategic location.
[T]he land of Canaan is the most advantageously posited of any spot of
ground on the face [of the earth], to be the place from whence the truth
should shine forth, and true religion spread around into all parts of the
world. There are three continents of the earth: the old continent, America
and Terra Australis. This land is right in the center of the old and principle
continent, between Europe, Asia and Africa, but most in Asia, because it is
abundantly the largest. And [it is] lying at the end of the Mediterranean
Sea, which opens the way from Canaan directly to America, and having the
Red Sea and Persian Gulf touching its borders as much as the
Mediterranean, according to Exodus 23:31 and other places, opening the
way straight to Terra Australis, the third continent. . . .
That God did take care of the situation of his people Israel, upon their
account, for the advantage of spreading the truth and diffusing the
influences of religion, I think is evident from Deuteronomy 32:8-9, and
from Acts 17:26-27 and from Habakkuk 3:6. . . .
And it is the more evident, that the Jews will return to their own land again,
because they never have yet possessed one quarter of that land, which was
so often promised them, from the Red Sea to the river Euphrates (Exod.
23:31; Gen. 15:18; Deut. 11:24; Josh. 1:4). Indeed, it was partly fulfilled in
4
Jonathan Edwards, Works, A History of the Work of Redemption, V. 9, pp.
469-70
Solomons time, when he governed all within those bounds for a short time;
but so short, that it is not to be thought that this is all the fulfillment of the
promise that is to be. And besides, that was not a fulfillment of the promise,
because they did not possess it, though they made the nations of it
tributary.5
Hence both the Jew in the land of Israel and the Gentile in surrounding
regions shall enjoy distinct yet harmonious relations.
We are not to suppose but that when the nation of the Jews are converted,
other Christians will be as much Gods Israel as they, and will have in
every respect the same privileges. Neither can we suppose, that their church
will have any manner of superiority over other parts of Christs church, any
otherwise than as that part of the church will be more glorious. Religion
and learning will be there at the highest; more excellent books will be there
written, etc. Without doubt, they will return to their own land; because
when their unbelief ceases, their dispersion, the dreadful and signal
punishment of their unbelief, will cease too. As they have continued
hitherto, with one consent, to dishonor Christ by rejecting the gospel, so
shall they meet together to honor him, by openly professing of it with one
mouth, and practice it with one heart and one soul, together lamenting their
obstinacy, as it is said they shall (Zech. 12:11-12), and together praising
God for his grace in enlightening them. And as they have hitherto
continued a distinct nation, that they might continue a visible monument of
his displeasure, for their rejecting and crucifying their Messiah, so after
their conversion will they still be a distinct nation, that they may be a
visible monument of Gods wonderful grace and power in their calling and
conversion. But we cannot suppose they will remain a distinct nation, any
more than the primitive Jewish Christians, if they continue dispersed
among other nations.
But yet, we are not to imagine that the old walls of separation will be set up
again. But all nations will be as free to come to Judea, or to dwell in
Jerusalem, as into any other city or country, and may have the same
privilege there as they themselves. For they shall look upon all the world to
be their brethren, as much as the Christians in Boston and the Christians in
other parts of New England look on each other as brethren.6
However, according to Edwards postmillennial expectations, the

definitive biblical account of this future state in Revelation 20 will be
accomplished gradually, and not in an apocalyptic fashion.
5
Edwards, Works, Apocalyptic Writings, V. 8, pp. 133-34.
6
Ibid., pp. 135.
The ruin of the popish interest is but a small part of what is requisite, in
order to introduce and settle such a state of things, as the world is
represented as being in, in that millennium that is described in Revelation
20, wherein Satans visible kingdom is everywhere totally extirpated, and a
perfect end put to all heresies, delusions and false religions whatsoever,
through the whole earth, and Satan thence-forward deceives the nations no
more [v. 3], and has no place anywhere but in hell. This is the sabbatism
of the world; when all shall be in a holy rest, when the wolf shall dwell
with the lamb, and there shall be nothing to hurt or offend, and there shall
be abundance of peace, and the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the
Lord as the waters covers the seas [Isa. 11:9], and Gods people shall
dwell in quiet resting places. There is not the least reason to think, that all
this will be brought to pass as it were in one stroke, or that from the present
lamentable state of things, there should be brought about and completed the
destruction of the Church of Rome, the entire extirpation of all infidelity,
heresies, superstitions and schisms, through all Christendom, and the
conversion of all the Jews, and the full enlightening and con-version of all
Mahometan and heathen nations, through the whole earth, on every side of
the globe, and from the north to the south pole, and the full settlement of all
in the pure Christian faith and order, all as it were in the issue of one great
battle, and by means of the victory of the church in one great conflict with
her enemies . . . If the Spirit of God should be immediately poured out, and
that great work of Gods power and grace should now begin, which in its
progress and issue should complete this glorious effect; there must be an
amazing and unparalleled progress of the work and manifestation of divine
power to bring so much to pass, by the year 2000.7
As earlier indicated, surely if it was possible now for Edwards to

survey this present turbulent, unspeakably wicked world in the year
2006, how likely it is that, while his basic expectations concerning the
Jews and the land of Israel would indicate little fundamental change,
yet his optimistic gradualism would be discarded. In its place there
would be optimistic hope in Gods apocalyptic intervention, that is the
great day of their wrath, the wrath of God the Father and His Son,
the Lamb (Rev. 6:12-17), and the subsequent establishment of new
heavens and a new earth, in which dwells righteousness (II Pet. 3:12).
7
Ibid., pp. 410-11.
The Future of Israel and J. C. Ryle 389
Appendix B
The Future of Israel and J. C. Ryle
J OHN CHARLES RYLE (1816-1900), the first Bishop of Liverpool,

was, according to C. H. Spurgeons consideration of that period,
the best man in the Church of England. Born near Macclesfield,
Cheshire County, there remains today, at the church of St. Michael and
All Angels, a memorial plaque rightly describing him as, A Man of
Granite, with the Heart of a Little Child. Anticipating a wealthy
inheritance, the bankruptcy of his father was a crushing blow for this
young man. Having been well educated at Eton and completing studies
at Oxford, thoughts of entering Parliament were abandoned upon
Ryles conversion in 1837. As a result he was ordained as a minister of
the Church of England in 1841, becoming a bishop in 1880. His whole
ministry was marked by a singular devotion to the evangelical
reformed faith, especially as confessed in the Thirty-nine Articles of
Religion of the Anglican Church. His vigorous, uncompromising, and
yet kindly manner lives on in the books and tracts he authored that, to
this day, have gone through numerous reprints.
In 1867 a collection of sermons by Ryle was published under the title,
Coming Events and Present Duties, in which his clear yet carefully
stated premillennial convictions were expressed. As with Horatius
Bonar in his volume Prophetical Landmarks, which work Ryle highly
recommends, here the dominant subject similarly concerns Israel. With
regard to his understanding of the future of the Hebrew people, as well
as the regathering of the Jews to the promised land, the following
excerpts plainly express Ryles firm convictions in this regard.
By way of introduction, Ryle sets forth his prophetic creed in eleven
sections, several of which follow.
6. I believe that after our Lord Jesus Christ comes again, the earth shall be
renewed, and the curse removed; the devil shall be bound, the godly shall
be rewarded, the wicked shall be punished; and that before He comes there
shall be neither resurrection, judgment, not millennium, and that not till
after He comes shall the earth be filled with the knowledge of the glory of
the Lord (Acts 3:21; Isa. 25:6-9; I Thess. 4:14-18; Rev. 20:1; etc.).
7. I believe that the Jews shall ultimately be gathered again as a separate
nation, restored to their own land, and converted to the faith of Christ,
390 The Future of Israel and J. C. Ryle
after going through great tribulation (Jer. 30:10-11; 31:10; Rom. 11:25-26;
Dan. 12:1; Zech. 13:8-9).
8. I believe that the literal sense of the Old Testament prophecies has been
far too much neglected by the Churches, and is far too much neglected at
the present day, and that under the mistaken system of spiritualizing and
accom-modating Bible language, Christians have too often completely
missed its meaning (Luke 24:25-26).1
WATCH!
In the first chapter titled Watch, Ryle expounds upon Matthew 25:1-
13, but especially the example of the five wise virgins who were awake
in eager expectation of the coming of the Bridegroom. Here is what is
to be anticipated:
The plain truth of Scripture I believe to be as follows. When the number of
the elect is accomplished, Christ will come again to this world with power
and great glory. He will raise His saints, and gather them to himself. He
will punish with fearful judgments all who are found His enemies, and
reward with glorious rewards all His believing people. He will take to
Himself His great power and reign, and establish an universal kingdom.
He will gather the scattered tribes of Israel, and place them once more in
their own land. As He came the first time in person, so He will come the
second time in person. As He went away from earth visibly, so He will
return visibly. As He literally rode upon an ass, was literally sold for thirty
pieces of silver, had His hands and feet literally pierced, was numbered
literally with the transgressors and had lots literally cast upon His raiment,
and all that Scripture might be fulfilled so also will He come, literally set
up a kingdom and literally reign over the earth, because the very same
Scripture has said it shall be so (Acts 1:11; 3:19-21; Ps. 102:16; Zech.
14:5; Isa. 24:23; Jer. 30:3, 18; Dan. 7:13-14).2
OCCUPY TILL I COME
The next chapter, Occupy Till I Come deals with a most vital matter.
There continue to be those who speak out of one side of their mouth in
declaring that God has finished with any national identity regarding
Israel, especially concerning the promised land, while from the other
side of their mouth they express some necessity for the Jews, being
1
J. C. Ryle, Are You Ready For The End Of Time? pp. 8-9. This is simply a
retitled reprint of Coming Events and Present Duties.
2
Ibid., pp. 22-24.
vaguely defined, to hear the gospel. Some believe a remnant of the
Jews will be saved through the centuries, while others expect the
conversion of a large number of them toward the end of this age;
though in either case, Jewish identity will be lost since this will be an
engrafting within Christendom that completes the people of the God,
the church, also known as the new supplanting Israel. To this Ryle
responds, concerning Luke 19:11-13, where the twelve disciples erron-
eously thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.
I believe we have fallen into an error parallel with that of our Jewish
brethren, an error less fatal in its consequences than theirs, but an error far
more inexcusable, because we have had more light. If the Jew thought too
exclusively of Christ reigning, has not the Gentile thought to exclusively
of Christ suffering? If the Jew could see nothing in Old Testament
prophecy but Christs exaltation and final power, has not the Gentile often
seen nothing but Christs humiliation and the preaching of the gospel? If
the Jew dwelt too much on Christs second advent, has not the Gentile
dwelt too exclusively on the first? If the Jew ignored the cross, has not the
Gentile ignored the crown? I believe there can be but one answer to these
questions. I believe that we Gentiles till lately have been very guilty
concerning a large portion of Gods truth. I believe that we have cherished
an arbitrary, reckless habit of interpreting first advent texts literally, and
second advent texts spiritually. I believe we have not rightly understood
all that the prophets have spoken about the second personal advent of
Christ, any more than the Jews did about the first. And because we have
done this, I say that we should speak of such mistakes as that referred to in
our text with much tenderness and compassion.
Reader, I earnestly invite your special attention to the point on which I am
now dwelling. I know not what your opinions may be about the fulfillment
of the prophetical parts of Scripture. I approach the subject with fear and
trembling, lest I should hurt the feelings of any dear brother in the Lord.
But I ask you in all affection to examine your own views about prophecy. I
entreat you to consider calmly whether your opinions about Christs
second advent and kingdom are as sound and scriptural as those of His
first disciples. I entreat you to take heed, lest insensibly you commit as
great an error about Christs second coming and glory as they did about
Christs first coming and cross.
I beseech you not to dismiss the subject which I now press upon your
attention, as a matter of curious speculation, and one of no practical
importance. Believe me, it effects the whole question between yourself
and the unconverted Jew. I warn you that, unless you interpret the
prophetical portion of the Old Testament in the simple literal meaning of
its words, you will find it no easy matter to carry on an argument with an
unconverted Jew.
You would probably tell the Jew that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah
promised in the Old Testament Scriptures. To those Scriptures you would
refer him to for proof. You would show him Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, Daniel
9:26, Micah 5:2, Zechariah 9:9 and 11:13. You would tell him that in Jesus
of Nazareth those Scriptures were literally fulfilled. You would urge upon
him that he ought to believe these Scriptures, and receive Christ as the
Messiah. All this is very good. So far you would do well.
But suppose the Jew asks you if you take all the prophecies of the Old
Testament in their simple literal meaning. Suppose he asks you if you
believe in a literal personal advent of Messiah to reign over the earth in
glory, a literal restoration of Judah and Israel to Palestine, a literal
rebuilding and restoration of Zion and Jerusalem. Suppose the unconverted
Jew puts these questions to you, what answer are you prepared to make?
Will you dare to tell him that Old Testament prophecies of this kind are
not to be taken in their plain literal sense? Will you dare to tell him that the
words Zion, Jerusalem, Jacob, Judah, Ephraim, Israel, do not mean what
they seem to mean, but mean the Church of Christ? Will you dare to tell
him that the glorious kingdom and future blessedness of Zion, so often
dwelt upon in prophecy, mean nothing more than the gradual
Christianizing of the world by missionaries and gospel preaching? Will
you dare to tell him that you think it carnal to expect a literal rebuilding
of Jerusalem, carnal to expect a literal coming of Messiah to reign? Oh,
reader, if you are a man of this mind, take care what you are doing! I say
again, take care.
Do you not see that you are putting a weapon in the hand of the
unconverted Jew, which he will probably use with irresistible power? Do
you not see that you are cutting the ground from under your own feet, and
supplying the Jew with a strong argument for not believing your own
interpretation of Scripture? Do you not see that the Jew will reply, that it is
carnal to tell him that the Messiah has come literally to suffer, if you tell
him that it is carnal to expect Messiah will come literally to reign? Do
you not see that the Jew will tell you, that it is far more carnal in you to
believe that Messiah could come into a world as a despised, crucified Man
of sorrows, than it is in him to believe that He will come into the world as
a glorious King? Beyond doubt he will do so, and you will find no answer
to give.
Reader, I commend these things to your serious attention. I entreat you to
throw aside all prejudice, and to view the subject I am dwelling upon with
calm and dispassionate thought. I beseech you to take up anew the
prophetical Scriptures, and to pray that you may not err in interpreting
their meaning. Read them in the light of those two great polestars, the first
and second advents of Jesus Christ. Bind up with the first advent the
rejection of the Jews, the calling of the Gentiles, the preaching of the
gospel as a witness to the world and gathering out of the election of grace.
Bind up with the second advent the restoration of the Jews, the pouring out
of judgments on unbelieving Christians, the conversion of the world and
the establishment of Christs kingdom upon earth. Do this and you will see
a meaning and fullness in prophecy which perhaps you have never yet
discovered.
I am quite aware that many good men do not see the subject of unfulfilled
prophecy as I do. I am painfully sensible that I seem presumptuous in
differing from them. But I dare not refuse anything which appears to me
plainly written in Scripture. I consider the best of men are not infallible. I
think we should remember that we must reject Protestant traditions which
are not according to the Bible, as much as the traditions of the Church of
Rome.
I believe it is high time for the Church of Christ to awake out of its sleep
about Old Testament prophecy. From the time of the old fathers, Jerome
and Origen, down to the present day, men have gone on in a pernicious
habit of spiritualizing the words of the Prophets, until their true meaning
has been well nigh buried. It is high time to lay aside traditional methods
of interpretation, and to give up our blind obedience to the opinions of
such writers as Poole, Henry, Scott and Clarke, upon unfulfilled prophecy.
It is high time to fall back on the good old principle that Scripture
generally means what it seems to mean, and to beware of that semi-
skeptical argument, Such and such an interpretation cannot be correct,
because it seems to us carnal!
It is high time for Christians to interpret unfulfilled prophecy by the light
of prophecies already fulfilled. The curses of the Jews were brought to
pass literally: so also will be the blessings. The scattering was literal: so
also will be the gathering. The pulling down of Zion was literal: so also
will be the building up. The rejection of Israel was literal: so also will be
the restoration.3
SCATTERED ISRAEL TO BE GATHERED
The chapter titled Scattered Israel to be Gathered, is based upon

Jeremiah 31:10, Here the Word of the LORD, O ye nations, and
declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will
gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock. Ryle
maintains that the Gentiles are addressed here concerning their duty to
makes known Gods will with regard to the nation of Israel. In
particular this means the inevitable future restoration of the Jews to the
land, following a prolonged scattering, that far exceeds in wonder the
return that immediately followed the Babylonian captivity. To this end,
3
Ibid., pp. 46-49.
Ryle vigorously upholds a consistent meaning with regard to the term

Israel being a reference to the nation.
For many centuries there has prevailed in the Churches of Christ a strange,
and to my mind, an unwarrantable mode of dealing with this word
Israel. It has been interpreted in many passages of the Psalms and
Prophets, as if it meant nothing more than Christian believers. Have
promises been held out to Israel? Men have been told continually that they
are addressed to Gentile saints. Have glorious things been described as laid
up in store for Israel? Men have been incessantly told that they describe
the victories and triumphs of the gospel in Christian churches. The proofs
of these things are too many to require quotation. No man can read the
immense majority of commentaries and popular hymns without seeing this
system of interpretation to which I now refer.4 Against that system I have
long protested, and I hope I shall always protest as long as I live.
I do not deny that Israel was a peculiar typical people, and that Gods
relations to Israel were meant to be a type of His relations to His believing
people all over the world.
I would have it most distinctly understood that Gods dealings with
individual Jews and Gentiles are precisely one and the same. Without
repentance, faith in Christ and holiness of heart, no individual Jew or
Gentile shall ever be saved.
What I protest against is, the habit of allegorizing plain sayings of the
Word of God concerning the future history of the nation of Israel, and
explaining away the fullness of their contents in order to accommodate
them to the Gentile Church. I believe the habit to be unwarranted by
anything in Scripture, and to draw after it a long train of evil
consequences.
Where, I would venture to ask, in the whole New Testament, shall we find
any plain authority for applying the word Israel to anyone but the nation
of Israel? On the contrary, I observe that when the Apostle Paul quotes
Old Testament prophecies about the privileges of the Gentiles in gospel
times, he is careful to quote texts which specifically mention the
Gentiles by name. The fifteenth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans is a
striking illustration of what I mean. We are often told in the New
Testament that, under the gospel, believing Gentiles are fellow heirs and
partakers of the same hope with believing Jews (Eph. 3:6). But that
believing Gentiles may be called Israelites, I cannot see anywhere at all.5
4
It hardly needs mentioning that these volumes are almost exclusively
Gentile in authorship. B.E.H.
5
Ryle, Are You Ready, pp. 107-108.
Concerning the future of national Israel, Ryle is quite emphatic about
the eventual return of the Hebrew people to the promised land. He
provides supportive quotes from ten of the prophets (Isa. 11:11-12; Jer.
30:3, 11; Ezek. 37:21; Hos. 1:11; 3:4-5; Joel 3:20; Amos 9:14-15;
Obad. 1:17; Mic. 4:6-7; Zeph. 3:14-20; Zech. 10:6-10), and explains:
Reader, however great the difficulties surrounding many parts of unfilled
prophecy, two points appear to my own mind to stand out as plainly as if
written by a sunbeam. One of these points is the second personal advent of
our Lord Jesus Christ before the Millennium. The other of these events is
the future literal gathering of the Jewish nation, and their restoration to
their own land. I tell no man that these two truths are essential to salvation,
and that he cannot be saved except he sees them with my eyes. But I tell
any man that these truths appear to me distinctly set down in holy
Scripture and that the denial of them is as astonishing and
incomprehensible to my own mind as the denial of the divinity of Christ.6
In relation to this matter of Israels return to the land, a further

qualification is made.
I might show you by scriptural evidence that the Jews will probably first
be gathered in an unconverted state, though humbled, and will afterwards
be taught to look to Him whom they have pierced [Zech. 12:10-14],
through much tribulation.7
AND SO ALL ISRAEL SHALL BE SAVED
The crucial text of Romans 11:26 is understood in a manner consistent

with the explanation of the meaning of Israel, as earlier defined,
being plainly a reference to the nation identified with Judaism.
To a plain man, untrammeled by traditional interpretation, the words of
this prophecy appear very simple.
Israel shall be saved: that means the Jewish nation and people. It cannot
possibly mean the Gentiles, because they are mentioned in the verse which
directly precedes our text, in direct contrast to the Jews. Blindness in part
is happened to Israel, until; the fullness of the Gentiles be come in (Rom.
11:25).
All Israel: that means the whole people or nation of the Jews. It cannot
possibly mean a small elect remnant. In this very chapter the Israelitish
nation and the election out of Israel are mentioned in contradistinction to
6
Ibid., pp. 112-115.
7
Ibid., p. 115.
one another. Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the
election hath obtained it; and rest were blinded (Rom. 11:7).8
Hence, notwithstanding centuries of oppression under the just

displeasure of God, and at the same time unparalleled preservation
unlike any other racial group, yet,
the history of Israel then has not yet come to an end. There is another
wonderful chapter yet to be unfolded to mankind. The Scripture tells us
expressly that a time is coming when the position of Israel may be entirely
changed, and they shall be once more restored to the favor of God.9
Then follows reference to several supporting passages of Scripture

(Zech. 12:10; 13:1; II Cor. 3:16). However special mention is made
concerning Ezekiel 36:24-38. In this regard Ryle comments:
Once more I remind you that this wonderful passage primarily belongs to
the JEWS. No doubt the Church of Christ may secondarily make spiritual
use of it. But let us never forget that the Holy Ghost first caused it to be
written concerning Israel.
But time would fail me, if I attempted to quote all the passages of
Scripture in which the future history of Israel is revealed. Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Micah, Zephaniah, Zechariah all
declare the same thing. All predict, with more or less particularity, that in
the end of this dispensation the Jews are to be restored to their own land
and to the favor of God. I lay no claim to infallibility in the interpretation
of Scripture in this matter. I am well aware that many excellent Christians
cannot see the subject as I do. I can only say, that to my eyes, the future
salvation of Israel as a people, their return to Palestine and their national
conversion to God, appear as clearly and plainly revealed as any prophecy
in Gods Word.
But I freely confess that these are deep things. Enough for you and me to
know that Israel shall be restored to their own land, and shall be converted
and saved, without entering too minutely into particulars. Let me close this
branch of my subject with the Apostles words: O the depth of the riches
both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His
judgments, and His ways past finding out (Rom. 11:33).10
However, for Ryle, such a perspective concerning Gods ongoing

regard for national Israel brings with it a responsibility toward this
8
Ibid., pp. 145-46.
9
Ibid., p. 151.
10
Ibid., p. 152-54.
distinctive people. From Israel came our Bible, the first preaching of
the Bible, the mother of Jesus and her Son. Although the Jews
presently remain in unbelief concerning their messiah, Jesus Christ,
even so it should be incumbent upon Gentiles that they do all they can
to show kindness and thoughtfulness toward their spiritual benefactors.
[W]e may all pay our debts indirectly by striving to remove stumbling-
blocks which now lie between the Jews and Christianity. It is a sorrowful
confession to make, but it must be made, that nothing perhaps so hardens
Israel in unbelief as the sins and inconsistencies of professing Christians.
The name of Christ is too often blasphemed among Jews, by reason of the
conduct of many who call themselves Christians. We repel Israel from the
door of life, and disgust them by our behavior. Idolatry among Roman
Catholics, skepticism among Protestants, neglect of the Old Testament,
contempt for the doctrine of the atonement, shameless Sabbath breaking,
widespread immorality, all these things, we may depend upon it, have a
deep effect on the Jews. They have eyes and they can see. The name of
Christ is discredited and dishonored among them by the practice of those
who have been baptized in Christs name. The more boldly and decidedly
all true Christians set their faces against the things I have just named, and
wash their hands of any complicity with them, the more likely are they to
find their efforts to promote Christianity among the Jews prosperous and
successful.11
More directly, Ryle concludes with the following recommendations

concerning this vital subject of the destiny of Israel in Scripture.
1. Take up the subject because of the important position which it occupies
in Scripture. Cultivate the habit of reading prophecy with a single eye to
the literal meaning of its proper names. Cast aside the old traditional idea
that Jacob, and Israel, and Judah, and Jerusalem, and Zion must always
mean the Gentile Church, and that predictions about the second Advent are
to be taken spiritually, and first Advent predictions literally. Be just, and
honest, and fair. If you expect the Jews to take the 53rd of Isaiah literally,
be sure you take the 54th and 60th and 62nd literally also. The Protestant
Reformers were not perfect. On no point, I venture to say, were they so
much in the wrong as in the interpretation of Old Testament prophecy.
Even our venerable Authorized Version of the Bible has many tables of
contents which are sadly calculated to mislead, in the prophetical books.
When the Revised Version comes out, I trust we shall see a great
improvement in this respect.
2. In the next place, take up the Jewish subject because of the times in
which we live. That man must be blind indeed who does not observe how
11
Ibid., p. 157.
much the attention of politicians and statesmen in these days is

concentrating on the countries around Palestine. The strange position of
things in Egypt, the formation of the Suez Canal, the occupation of
Cyprus, the project of the Euphrates railway, the drying up of the Turkish
empire, the trigonometrical survey of Palestine, what curious phenomena
these are!12 What do they mean? What is going to happen next? He that
believeth will not make haste. I will not pretend to decide. But I think I
hear the voice of God saying, Remember the Jews, look to Jerusalem.
3. In the next place, take up the Jewish subject because of the special
blessing which seems to be given to those who care for Israel. I challenge
anyone to deny that few ministers of Christ have been so useful of late
years and made a greater mark on the world than the following well-
known men, Charles Simeon, Edward Bickersteth, Haldane Stewart, Dr.
Marsh, Robert MCheyne and, though last not least, Hugh McNeile. They
were men of very different gifts and minds; but they had one common
feature in their religion. They loved the cause of the Jews. In them was the
promise fulfilled. They shall prosper that love thee (Ps. 122:6).
4. In the next place, take up the Jewish subject because of its close
connection with the second Advent of Christ and the close of this
dispensation. Is it not written, When the LORD shall build up Zion, He
shall appear in His glory? (Ps. 102:16). If the casting away of Israel be
the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life
from the dead? (Rom. 11:15). The words which the angel Gabriel
addressed to the Virgin Mary have never yet been fulfilled: He shall reign
over the house of Jacob forever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end
(Luke 1:33).
5. Last of all, let us annually support that great and good institution, the
Jews Society, by our money and our prayers. Our money will be
bestowed on an old and faithful servant of Christ, which does Christs
work in Christs own way. Our prayers are well bestowed if given for a
cause which is so near our Masters heart. The time is short. The night of
the world is drawing near. If ever there is a nation born in a day, that
nation will be Israel. Let us pray for that blessed consummation, and give
habitually as if we really believed the words, All Israel shall be saved.13
12
Granted that the Turkish empire has not dried up, yet Ryle well
anticipates the significant role of Britain that leads to the Jews possession
of their own land. Refer to, David L. Larsen, Jews, Gentiles and the
Church, pp. 135-221. B.E.H.
13
Ibid., pp. 157-159.
Gods dealing with Israel grace or law? 399
Appendix C
Gods Pre-eminent Dealing with Israel

Is it of Grace or Law?
by
Samuel Hinds Wilkinson
I T is usual for those writers, who declare that God has irrevocably
abandoned national Israel, to propose that the basis of this divine
disenfranchisement was the disobedience of the Hebrew people
concerning the terms of the Mosaic covenant. One such author is Philip
Mauro who, at times derisively, in his The Hope of Israel, maintains
that, from this national destruction [of Israel] by the Romans [in 70
A.D.] there was to be no recovery.1
A published response to this ardent upholder of replacement theology
was by Samuel Hinds Wilkinson, late director of the Mildmay Mission
to the Jews, England, his volume being titled The Israel Promises and
their Fulfilment.2 From this we quote Chapter XV titled Grace and the
Rainbow, which presents a most moving apologia for the sovereignty
of grace toward national Israel, even as the church of Jesus Christ has
likewise been the recipient.3
The root of the solemn consideration raised by Mr. Philip Mauros

book, in and by which he challenges the assurance to Gods chosen
people Israel of a national restoration, conversion and beneficent
mission, will be exposed if we ask the question: Did Law precede
Grace of Grace precede Law?
1
Philip Mauro, The Hope of Israel, p. 57.
2
Samuel Hinds Wilkinson, The Israel Promises and Their Fulfillment, 195
pp.
3
Ibid., pp. 115-120.
400 Gods dealing with Israel grace or law?
This is indeed a vital question: for indisputably the original promises to

Abraham, recorded in Genesis 12, were given unconditionally. No one
was bound by those promises but the One Who made them. No terms
were imposed. No mediator was present (Gal. 3:20). Whatever those
promises were, whatever kind of fulfillment they required, those
promises and that Covenant which ratified them, in particular the grant
of a specific territory as an everlasting possession, were unconditional
and undeserved.4 We are told that Israel was not thus chosen for Divine
love and favor because they were more numerous than other peoples:
for they were the fewest of all peoples (Deut. 7:7-8): nor was the
territory granted to them because of their righteousness, for they were
a stiff-necked people (Deut. 9:4-6). And this unconditional Covenant
and all that it included and involved antedated the Covenant of the law
by 430 years. And the legal Covenant which was four hundred and
thirty years after, cannot disannul it, that it should make the promise of
none effect (Gal. 3:17).
But Mr. Mauro says:
Deuteronomy 4:1. Here is a summary of the Covenant. They were to
hearken always to Gods statutes and judgments: and upon that express
condition, they were to go in and possess the land. Every blessing
mentioned in this book is made to depend upon that same condition.5
Then in that case, Mr. Mauro, the original Covenant of grace could be
disannulled by the terms of the legal Covenant, made 430 years after.
In that case, temporary deprivation of privilege or delay in its
realization connotes absolute and final cancellation of a Divine
promise. In that case, the Scriptures you quote (Deut. 4:1, 15-24, 26-
30) are of private or individual or isolated (idias) interpretation [cf. II
Pet. 1:20], and not to be understood as in harmony with the whole body
of prophetic Scripture. In that case, the law was not added because of
transgressions till (archi) the seed should come to whom the promise
was made [Gal. 3:19]; but it was introduced to impose new terms and
conditions by means of which promises already freely given and
confirmed might be annulled and superceded.
4
This is even more certainly established in Genesis 15:1-21 where the
Abrahamic covenant is signified by Gods unilateral cutting of animals in
half so that He alone might pass between them while Abraham was deep in
sleep. For this reason, God declares that Abraham will know for certain
that the Covenant is sure, vs. 13-16. B.E.H.
5
Mauro, Hope of Israel, p. 42.
Then did Law precede Grace; or Grace precede Law? And another
question arises. Does Grace survive Law or Law outlast Grace? Our
reading of Scripture in its entirety enables us to reply without
hesitation or qualification. Grace was anterior to Law, Grace is
superior to Law, Grace will outlast all legal enactments and all
covenants based upon them.
Let us ask a few questions. Was not the Church, was not every member
of it, whose standing is on the ground of grace alone, chosen in Christ
Jesus before the foundation of the world? Were not the tables of the
law shut within the ark and placed in the Holiest apartment of all in the
temple of God and made thus to rest beneath the mercy seat? Is not
judgment Gods strange work? Does He not delight in mercy? Where
sin abounds, does not grace much more abound? Does He forsake
Israel for a small moment, will He not gather Israel with great mercies?
If He hides His face in a little wrath for a moment on account of
broken law, will He not have mercy with everlasting kindness on the
same people who have been the subjects of His wrath? When God
saved His people Israel over and over again from oppressive enemies
was it not because He remembered His covenant with Abraham, with
Isaac and with Jacob (Exod. 2:24; cf. Ps. 115:8, 42; 116:45; &c.)?
Was He in such cases remembering the broken and unrenewable
Covenant of Sinai or the everlasting covenant of grace made with
Abraham 430 years earlier? If the law, even to the believer, was a
schoolmaster, having done his work, to be for ever intruding? When
faith is come are we longer under a schoolmaster? Is Israel as a nation
always to be unbelieving? Is the New Covenant not to be made with
the same people as were under the Old Covenant (Jer. 31:31-34)? And
if so, does it not guarantee individual and national repentance, faith and
regeneration to the same people?6 And if the legal Covenant of Sinai
could not disannul the promises and Covenant made to and with
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, can it do so now or ever? Can grace be tied
by conditions? Can out-and-out gifts be withdrawn? Can God repent of
gifts or calling or grants or promises, unconditionally made? Is not God
6
It is simply astonishing, indeed it tends toward incredulity, that those who
so fervently proclaim the sovereignty of God in this realm with regard to
New Covenant conversion that results in newness of life and entrance into
the Church, should so adamantly deny this sovereignty of grace to the
nation of Gods Old Covenant people. In other words, there is sovereignty
in Calvinism reserved for the Church, but only conditionalism in
Arminianism for Israel! B.E.H.
402 Gods dealing with Israel grace or law?
able to graft Israel again into its own olive tree? Shall they not be
grafted in, if they abide not in unbelief? Will the time limit of Israels
blindness never be reached and passed?
But Mr. Philip Mauro, quoting Dr. Charles W. Rankin, maintains that:
This dispensation of promise ended when Israel rashly accepted the
law (Exod. 19:8).7 And quoting Deuteronomy 28:63-64 (which
passage runs): And it shall come to pass that as the Lord rejoiced over
you to do good and to multiply you: so the Lord will rejoice over you
to destroy you and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked
from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. And the Lord shall
scatter thee among all people from the one end of the earth even unto
the other, Mr. Mauro says: This, according to this prophecy was to
be the end of their history as a nation.8
Frankly, is not this a defamation of the Divine Character?
Unintentional defamation no doubt, for it is Mr. Mauros interpretation
of Scripture (which he is personally entitled to) which causes him to
divert the clear promises of God from the parties to whom they were
given and to confine them to a new constitution. But defamation none
the less, for it leaves no scope for grace, no credit for inviolability of
oath, nor for continuity of purpose, nor for overcoming of set-backs
and resistances and failures, no place for pardon, no delight in store for
the Fathers heart when the repentant prodigal returns (Jer. 31:18-20).
Then if Mr. Mauro be right, what is grace and where is it? Better, far
better, is the great vision of John the Divine while in the Isle that is
called Patmos: And immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold a
throne was set in heaven, and One sat on a throne. And He that sat was
to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow
about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald (Rev. 4:2-3).
Are the colors significant? Is the crystalline purple indicative of
enthroned holiness, the red sardine or carnelian of fiery wrath? Surely
then the encircling rainbow, enclosing all with its endless line of
radiant green, speaks of grace and abiding. For was not the first
exhibition of a rainbow the token of Gods first Covenant with all
flesh, between Me and you and every living creature that is with you
for perpetual generations (Gen. 9:12). Was not that Covenant made
7
Mauro, Hope of Israel, p. 52.
8
Ibid., p. 57.
independently of all future human resistance and apostasy and guilt

was not the rainbow the token, of a covenant between Me and the
earth (Gen. 9:13)? Surely the rainbow symbolizes and represents
gracethe grace of benevolent purpose, the grace of changeless
attitude, the grace of persistent long-suffering and patience, the grace
which is endless, all-inclusive, all conquering.9 And if by grace, then
is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace (Rom. 11:6).
I am the Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not
consumed (Mal. 3:6). No other reason but that of changeless grace
could have spared Israel the complete annihilation they deserved. And
shall the original purpose fail, the original declaration be falsified or
even modified, shall works be substituted for grace or any kind of
transference of specific promise take place? Shall not the whole
purpose come to final achievement as with Zerubbabel, who after
gazing on the desolations of Jerusalem, desertion, rubbish, silence,
defilement and ashes, after confronting opposition and apathy, yet saw
in vision and by promise the work of the new temple completed and
the headstone thereof brought forth with shoutings of Grace, grace
unto it (Zech. 4:7).
9
John Gill comments that, the rainbow is of various colors and fitly
expresses the various promises and blessings, in the covenant of grace, and
the various providences, both prosperous and adverse, with respect to soul
and body; and as the rainbow was an emblem of mercy, peace, and
reconciliation in God to man, after he had destroyed the world by a flood,
so the covenant is a covenant of grace and mercy; it springs from it, and is
full of it, and provides for the peace and reconciliation of the people of
God, by the blood of Christ; whence it is called a covenant of peace: and as
the rainbow is a security to the world, and the inhabitants of it, from a
destruction by a flood any more, so the covenant is a security to those who
are interested in it, from eternal destruction, and wrath to come; herein lies
all their salvation, and this is the security of it: to which may be added, that
God calls it my bow, as he often calls the covenant of grace my covenant,
in distinction from man's. John Gill, Expositions on the Bible, Collected
Writings, Ages Software.
404 Melanie Phillips on replacement theology
Appendix D
Melanie Phillips on
Replacement Theology and Anti-Judaism
A NYONE who doubts a cause and effect relationship between

Christian replacement theology and Christian anti-Judaism will
find the following article by Melanie Phillips both illuminating and
distressing. As a British social commentator, her columns have
appeared in the Guardian, Observer, Sunday Times, Daily Mail, and
Spectator. Here we are not dealing merely with a theological, even an
eschatological nuance that readily admits the legitimacy of opposing
opinions, but rather an impending unethical maelstrom of growing
proportions that threatens to transfer shame from the twentieth to the
twenty-first century. Perhaps the most incredible feature of this
movement, which disgraces the Jewish people and thus generates
Christian anti-Judaism, is the claim that its theology is based upon the
person of Jesus Christ, the quintessential Jew. Also refer to this
authors more recent publication titled Londonistan, especially Chapter
Eight, On Their Knees before Terror.
COVER STORY
(The Spectator, England, 16 February, 2002)
CHRISTIANS WHO HATE THE JEWS

by Melanie Phillips
It was one of those sickening moments when an illusion is shattered

and an ominous reality laid bare. I was among a group of Jews and
Christians who met recently to discuss the Churches increasing public
hostility to Israel. The Jews were braced for a difficult encounter. After
all, many British Jews (of whom I am one) are themselves appalled by
the destruction of Palestinian villages, targeted assassinations and other
apparent Israeli overreactions to the Middle East conflict.
But this debate never took place. For the Christians said that the
Churches hostility had nothing to do with Israels behavior towards
Melanie Phillips on replacement theology 405
the Palestinians. This was merely an excuse. The real reason for the
growing antipathy, according to the Christians at that meeting, was the
ancient hatred of Jews rooted deep in Christian theology and now on
widespread display once again.
A doctrine going back to the early Church fathers, suppressed after the
Holocaust, had been revived under the influence of the Middle East
conflict. This doctrine is called replacement theology. In essence, it
says that the Jews have been replaced by the Christians in Gods favor,
and so all Gods promises to the Jews, including the land of Israel,
have been inherited by Christianity.
Some evangelicals, by contrast, are Christian Zionists who
passionately support the state of Israel as the fulfillment of Gods
Biblical promise to the Jews. But to the majority who have absorbed
replacement theology, Zionism is racism and the Jewish state is
illegitimate.
The Jews at the meeting were incredulous and aghast. Surely the
Christians were exaggerating. Surely the Churches dislike of Israel
was rooted instead in the settlements, the occupied territories and
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. But the Christians were adamant. The
hostility to Israel within the Church is rooted in a dislike of the Jews.
Church newspaper editors say that they are intimidated by the
overwhelming hostility to Israel and to the Jews from influential
Christian figures, which makes balanced coverage of the Middle East
impossible. Clerics and lay people alike are saying openly that Israel
should never have been founded at all. One Church source said that
what he was hearing was a throwback to the visceral anti-Judaism of
the Middle Ages.
At this juncture, a distinction is crucial. Criticism of Israels behaviour
is perfectly legitimate. But a number of prominent Christians agree that
a line is being crossed into anti-Jewish hatred. This is manifested by
ascribing to every Israeli action malevolent motives while dismissing
Palestinian terrorism and anti-Jewish diatribes; the belief that Jews
should be denied the right to self-determination and their state
dismantled; the conflation of Zionism and a Jewish conspiracy of
vested interests; and the disproportionate venom of the attacks.
When I hear the Jews used as a term, my blood runs cold and Ive
been hearing this far too often, says Rowan Williams, the Archbishop
of Wales and a contender for the see of Canterbury. Whenever I print

anything sympathetic to Israel, I get deluged with complaints that I am
Zionist and racist, says Colin Blakely, the editor of the Church of
England Newspaper.
Andrew White, canon of Coventry cathedral and the Archbishop of
Canterburys representative in the Middle East, is heavily engaged in
trying to promote dialogue and peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
He says of attitudes in the Church, These go beyond legitimate
criticism of Israel into hatred of the Jews. I get hate mail calling me a
Jew-lover and saying my work is evil.
The reason, he says, is that Palestinian Christian revisionism has
revived replacement theology. This doctrine was key in fanning the
flames of the Holocaust, which could not have happened without 2,000
years of anti-Jewish polemic, he says. After the Holocaust the Vatican
officially buried the doctrine, the current Pope affirming the integrity
of the Jewish people and recognizing the state of Israel. But, according
to Andrew White, the doctrine is still vibrant within Roman Catholic
and Anglican pews. Almost all the Churches hold to replacement
theology, he says.
The catalyst for its re-emergence has been the attempt by Arab
Christians to reinterpret Scripture in order to delegitimize the Jews
claim to the land of Israel. This has had a powerful effect upon the
Churches which, through humanitarian work among the Palestinians by
agencies such as Christian Aid, have been profoundly influenced by
two clerics in particular.
The first is the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, Riah Abu El-Assal, a
Palestinian who is intemperate in his attacks on Israel. We interviewed
Bishop Riah after some terrorist outrage in Israel, says Colin Blakely,
and his line was that it was all the fault of the Jews. I was astounded.
The bishop also has an astounding interpretation of the Old Testament.
Last December, he claimed of Palestinian Christians, We are the true
Israel . . . no one can deny me the right to inherit the promises, and
after all the promises were first given to Abraham and Abraham is
never spoken of in the Bible as a Jew. . . . He is the father of the
faithful.
The second cleric, Father Naim Ateek, is more subtle and highly
influential. Although he says that he has come to accept Israels
existence, his brand of radical liberation theology undermines it by

attempting to sever the special link between God and the Jews.
In a lecture last year Andrew White observed that Palestinian politics
and Christian theology had become inextricably intertwined. The
Palestinians were viewed as oppressed and the Church had to fight
their oppressor. Who is the oppressor? The state of Israel. Who is
Israel? The Jews. It is they therefore who must be put under pressure so
that the oppressed may one day be set free to enter their Promised
Land which is being denied to them.
This view, said Andrew White, had now influenced not only whole
denominations but also the majority of Christian pilgrimage companies
and many of the major mission and Christian aid organizations. One
such outfit, he said, had sent every UK bishop a significant document
outlining Israels oppression of the Palestinians, accusing Israel of
ethnic cleansing and of systematically Judaising Jerusalem.
David Ison, canon of Exeter cathedral, took a party of pilgrims to the
Holy Land in 2000 at the start of the current intifada. They had a
Palestinian guide, visited only Christian sites in Arab east Jerusalem
and the West Bank, and talked to virtually no Jews. The Old
Testament is a horrifying picture of genocide committed in Gods
name, he avers. And genocide is now being waged in a long, slow
way by Zionists against the Palestinians.
Asked what he made of Yasser Arafats rejection of the offers made by
Israel at Camp David and Tabah, he said that he knew nothing about
that. Indeed, he said, he knew nothing about Israel beyond what he had
read in a book by an advocate of replacement theology, with which he
agreed, and what he had been told by the Palestinians on the
pilgrimage.
The Bishop of Guildford [John Gladwin, now of Chelmsford], who is
consistently hostile to Israel, shares the view that the Jews have no
particular claim to the Promised Land. Christianity and Islam, he says,
can lay equal claim. And although he says that Israels existence is a
reality that must be accepted, his ideal is very different. A separate
Palestinian state would be merely a first step.
Ultimately, one shared land is the vision one would want to pursue,
although its unlikely that this will come about. As for the Churches
hostility to Israel, his reply is chilling: The problem is that all the
power lies with the Israeli state. So by implication, Israel would merit
sympathy for its casualties only if it had no power to defend itself.
The Bishop of Guildford, who chairs Christian Aid, says that he
particularly admires Bishop Riah and Naim Ateek. He also warmly
endorses a parish priest in his diocese, Stephen Sizer, vicar of Christ
Church, Virginia Water.
Sizer is a leading crusader against Christian Zionism. He believes that
Gods promises to the Jews have been inherited by Christianity,
including the land of Israel. A return to Jewish nationalism, he has
written, would seem incompatible with this New Testament
perspective of the international community of Jesus.
He acknowledges that Israel has the right to exist since it was
established by a United Nations resolution. But he also says that it is
fundamentally an apartheid state because it is based on race and
even worse than South Africa (this, despite the fact that Israeli Arabs
have the vote, are members of the Knesset and one is even a supreme
court judge).
He therefore hopes that Israel will go the same way as South Africa
under apartheid and be brought to an end internally by the rising up of
the people. So, despite saying that he supports Israels existence, he
appears to want the Jewish state to be singled out for a fate afforded to
no other democracy properly constituted under international law.
But perhaps this is not surprising given his attitude towards Jews. The
covenant between Jews and God, he states, was conditional on their
respect for human rights. The reason they were expelled from the land
was that they were more interested in money and power and treated the
poor and aliens with contempt. Todays Jews, it appears, are no better.
In the United States, politicians dare not criticize Israel because half
the funding for both the Democrats and the Republicans comes from
Jewish sources.
A number of authoritative Christian figures are extremely concerned
by the elision between criticism of Israel and dislike of the Jews.
Rowan Williams says that after a website of the Church in Wales
attracted inflammatory language about Jews, and a meeting in Cardiff
about Israel provoked similar anti-Jewish rhetoric, he was forced to
introduce some balancing material about the Middle East into his
Church periodicals.
Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, the director of the Institute for the Study of Islam
and Christianity, has been addressing Christian groups up and down
the country on the implications of 11 September. When he suggests
that there is a problem with aspects of Islam, he provokes uproar. His
audiences blame Israel for Muslim anger; they want to abandon the
Jewish state as a dead part of Scripture and support justice for the
Palestinians instead. What disturbs me at the moment is the very
deeply rooted anti-Semitism latent in Britain and the West, he says. I
simply hadnt realized how deep within the English psyche is this fear
of the power and influence of the Jews.
Since 11 September, he says, the Palestinian issue has had a major
distorting impact on the whole of the Christian world. Those who
blame Israel for everything dont realize that for Islam the very
existence of Israel is a problem. Even a Palestinian state would not be
sufficient. Israel may be behaving illegally in a number of areas, but
she is under attack. But white liberal Christians find it deeply offensive
not to blame Israel for injustice.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, has spoken out against
replacement theology. But unlike the Roman Catholics, the Anglicans
have never been forced to confront their Churchs role in the Holocaust
and their attitude towards the Jews.
Carey, say Church sources, is now in an invidious position. Under
pressure to make an accommodation with the Muslims, he is also
hemmed in by some highly placed enemies of Israel within the Church
and is reluctant to pick a fight with the establishment view.
Nevertheless, there are many decent Christians who dont hold this
view. The network of councils of Christians and Jews is going strong.
Archbishop Williams preached in Cardiffs synagogue last weekend.
Christians who voice these concerns are prepared to risk opprobrium or
worse.
But for the Jews, caught between the Islamists blood libels on one side
and Christian replacement theology on the other, Britain is suddenly a
colder place.
410 An annotated bibliography
Appendix E
An Annotated Bibliography on
Jewish-Christian Relations in Church History
U NFORTUNATELY, a high proportion of conservative evangelical

Christians, including those of a Calvinist persuasion, are unaware
of the historic roots underlying the eschatological concept of the
Christian church, as the new people of God, that has superceded the
nation of Israel, and ethnic Jews in particular. This concept of
dismissal or transference, in which God has supposedly forever
disenfranchised national Israel, indeed Judaism as a whole, is better
known as replacement or supercessionist theology. The revelation from
church history of the outworking of this doctrine is one which Gentile
Christians will find painful to digest, notwithstanding its undeniable
truth. Unless they are prepared to read of this shameful legacy, the
agony of these centuries, it will be difficult for headway to be made in
dealing with doctrinal anti-Semitism as it manifests itself today
amongst Christians who profess a serious biblical faith.
The following annotated bibliography is offered as an introduction for
those who will not retreat from the truth, concerning resultant Christian
behavior, for the purpose of retaining their doctrinal system. Time and
time again this writer has met sincere Christians who simply were
ignorant of the following testimony. It matters not whether these
historic accounts are Jewish, Roman Catholic, evangelical or secular.
The conclusions in general are consistently in agreement,
notwithstanding a variety of backgrounds and distinctive perspectives.
Baron, David. The Shepherd Of Israel and His Scattered Flock.
London: Morgan and Scott, 1910. This author, born in a strict orthodox
Jewish home in Russia, converted to Christianity and founded the
Hebrew Christian Testimony to Israel, based in London, England. His
commentary on Zechariah is acknowledged as a classic. Here is an
exposition of Psalm 80, of which vs. 4-7 are seen as a summary
description of Jewish travail during this Christian dispensation. Thus
pp. 25-79 present a parallel and discerning panorama of this same
period according to the actual events of Jewish history as they merge
with Christian church history.
An annotated bibliography 411
Brown, Michael L. Our Hands are Stained with Blood: The Tragic
Story of the Church and the Jewish People. Shippensburg, PA:
Destiny Image Publishers, 1992. While written in a popular and
animated style, this Hebrew Christian provides extensive
documentation, including a most comprehensive Bibliographical
Supplement, that demands consultation. Consider:
It is a fundamental tenet of the Koran that both Israel and the Church failed.
Moses was a prophet. Jesus was a prophet. But Muhammad was the seal of
the prophets, the messenger of the final revelation. The Jews are not the
people of Godthey failed! The Christians are not the people of God
they failed! It is the Muslims who are the people of God. Of course this is
preposterous. But, in the event that you are still uncertain about the calling
of Israel, consider this simple truth: If God could forsake Israel, in spite of
His unconditional, everlasting promises, then He could forsake the Church!
If God could replace Israel, in spite of His unconditional, everlasting
promises, then He could replace the Church! So, if you hold to a theology
that says, God has forsaken physical Israel, or The Church has replaced
Israel, you had better be extremely careful. Maybe the Koran is right!1
Also refer to this authors three volumes on Answering Jewish

Objections to Jesus, recommended by Moishe Rosen of Jews for Jesus.
Volume One deals with general and historical objections. Volume Two
deals with theological objections. Volume Three deals with objections
to Messianic prophecy.
Callan, Terrance. Forgetting the Root, the Emergence of Christianity
from Judaism. Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1986. As the title
suggests, Romans 11:13, 17-24 describes the birth of Gentile
Christianity and the Apostle Pauls warning that this engrafting of wild
olive branches into the rich root of the olive tree should not lead to
arrogance. This author concludes that:
The liberal Gentile Christians forgot that they had been grafted into the root
of Judaism. This forgetfulness is strikingly illustrated by a comment made
by Clement of Alexandria (dies c. 215). . . . [He] interprets Romans 11:17
as a reference to the grafting of converts to Christianity into the Word. . . .
Clements interpretation of the cultivated olive tree as the Word, and the
wild olive tree as including Jews who need to be grafted into the Word,
reverses Pauls use of the metaphor and shows to what extent the Jewish
roots of Christianity have been forgotten. This is precisely what Paul was
1
Michael L. Brown, Our Hands are Stained with Blood: The Tragic Story of
the Church and the Jewish People, pp. 125-126.
trying to prevent by using the image. . . . To have retained this positive

appreciation of Israel might have prevented much Christian anti-Semitism
in the past; to retrieve it for our time might put relations between Christians
and Jews on a much better foundation than otherwise supports them.2
Carroll, James. Constantines Sword. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,

2001. A former Roman Catholic priest of the Paulist order, Carrolls
traumatic discovery of the substantial anti-Semitic legacy of the
Roman Catholic Church led him to delve into this matter with great
thoroughness while employing a style that constantly interacts with the
churnings of his soul. Although many of his biblical comments stem
from liberal presuppositions, yet this revelation of the unending abuse
of Jews over the centuries by professing Christians is a tragic yet
necessary record. Consider the significance of the following analysis.
If the death camps [of Nazi Europe] are causally linked through two
millennia to mistakes made by the first generation of Christiansand I
believe they arecan they still not be acknowledged as mistakes? What
difference does it make whether two years have passed or two thousand if
the causal link can be made? . . . Paul knew nothing of supercessionism. He
remained a Jew. Indeed, his faith in Jesus was, to him, a way of being more
Jewish than ever. . . . For Christians, the dramatic and unexpected
conversion of Constantine was a proof of the Churchs proclamation, but
the change of fortune it led to was proof of even more. The creation of the
Christian state, Neusner says, claiming to carry forward the ancient
Israelite state, and to appeal to its precedents, brought to a critical stage the
long-term Christian claim that Christians formed the new Israel.3 . . . The
gradual closing of the imperial vice on Judaismfrom Constantines edict
in 315 making it a crime for Jews to proselytize to the edict almost a
century later making it a crime punishable by deathwas driven by the real
2
Terrance Callan, Forgetting the Root, the Emergence of Christianity from
Judaism, pp.107-108.
3
Jacob Neusner, Judaism and Christianity, p.58. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
makes a significant and related comment concerning the Puritans: [W]ere
they not too much influenced by the analogy of the Old Testament and of
Israel? Here, it seems to me, was the source of the trouble, that they would
persist in taking the analogy of Israel in the Old Testament and applying it
to England. Was not that the real error? In the Old Testament and under
that Dispensation of the State (of Israel) was the church (Acts 7:38), but the
State of England in the sixteenth was not the church. In the Old Testament
the two were one and identical. But surely in the New Testament we have
the exact opposite. The church consists of the called out ones, not the total
State. The Puritans: Their Origins And Successors, pp. 64-65.
problem that Jewish dissent from Christian claims made overcoming

paganism far more difficult. . . . The basis of Luthers anti-Judaism, as the
historian Heiko Oberman sums it up [see this volume referenced below],
was the conviction that ever since Christs appearance on earth, the Jews
have had no more future as Jews.4
Cohn-Sherbok, Dan. The Crucified Jew: Twenty Centuries of

Christian Ant-Semitism. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1997. A
professor of Jewish theology at the University of Kent, Canterbury,
England, this author provides a readable yet scholarly account of
Judaism suffering under centuries of Christian despite.
For twenty centuries, then, Jews have suffered at the hands of anti-Semites.
The injustices and pogroms inflicted on the Jewish community have been to
a large degree the result of Christian contempt. Anti-Jewish attitudes in the
history of the Church were not accidentalrather they were the direct
consequence of Christian teaching about Judaism and the Jewish nation. . . .
Anti-Semitism has thus been a constant feature of the history of
Christendom. As we reach the end of the second millennium of this era, it is
vital that both Christians and Jews affirm that they are heirs of a fearful
tradition. . . . [O]nly then will Christians and Jews fully appreciate the
promise in the Psalmists words: [Psalm 133:1-3].5
Also refer to this authors Holocaust Theology: A Reader, New York:

New York University Press, 2002. The contributions to this volume
include the writings of authors Stephen Davis, Edward Flannery,
Graham Keith, Franklin Littell, Jacob Neusner, and David Rausch who
are referenced in this annotated bibliography. More recently this author
has published AntiSemitism: A History, Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton
Publishing, 2002, concerning which Cohn-Sherbock writes: In an
earlier study, The Crucified Jew, I focused on the Christian roots of
anti-Semitism. The aim of this volume is to answer this question by
surveying the history of anti-Semitism from a more global
perspective.6
Diprose, Ronald E. Israel and the Church. Waynesboro, GA:
Authentic Media, 2000. This doctoral thesis presented to the
Evangelische Theologische Faculteit, Louvain, Belgium, is a patristic
4
James Carroll, Constantines Sword, pp. 102-103, 142, 176-177, 368.
5
Dan Cohn-Sherbok, The Crucified Jew: Twenty Centuries of Christian Ant-
Semitism, pp. 240-241.
6
Dan Cohn-Sherbok, AntiSemitism: A History, p. vii.
and exegetical study of the origin and effects of replacement theology.

Following careful analysis, the author declares:
It is a fact of history that the Augustinian concept of a Christian theocracy
is closely linked with the anti-Semitic attitudes of the medieval church and
unbelievably harsh treatment of the Jewish people. Thus it is not surprising
that the traditional claim of Christendom to embody the promised messianic
kingdom is an embarrassment to Christians involved in dialogue with
Jewish people.7
The exegetical highlight may well be the study on pages 14-27 of

Israels uniqueness according to Gods election in Romans 9-11,
especially 11:28, which is referenced in more detail in Chapter Eleven:
Israel as Gods Beloved Enemy. The major concluding principles are:
Failure to reflect seriously on Israel in light of all the relevant biblical data
has serious consequences for the entire enterprise of Christian theology. It
was the neglect of relevant biblical data concerning the place of Israel in
Gods plan which permitted replacement theology to develop during the
early centuries of the Christian era. Once replacement theology became a
presupposition of theological reflection, it required that much of the Old
Testament be interpreted allegorically. This involved the loss of the
Hebrew world view and influenced the direction of theological reflection in
areas such as ecclesiology and eschatology.
Christian theology must be based on sound hermeneutical principles which
presuppose the Churchs essential relationship with Israel. These include
taking into account the whole of the biblical Canon, taking seriously the
Jewishness of Jesus and of much of the New Testament, recognizing the
institutional distinctions between Israel and the Church, avoiding gratuitous
allegorization of Scripture, and giving normative value to what the New
Testament teaches concerning both the first and second advents of Christ.8
Ellison, Stanley A. Who Owns The Land? Portland: Multnomah, 1991.

From a conservative evangelical perspective, here is one of the better
assessments of the biblical, historical, and political issues that arise
from the ongoing tensions which are endemic concerning the Middle
East. While supportive of the biblical grounds of Israels present and
future claims upon the land, yet it is not without reasonable
consideration of opposing opinions and the opponents of Israel. He
concludes:
7
Ronald E. Diprose, Israel and the Church, p. 168.
8
Ibid., pp. 171-172.
Israels basic need today is not peace with the Arabs; it is peace with God.
The national turmoil and heartache of both clans is spiritual in nature rather
than merely racial. Israels deepest need is not economic, political, or
military, but one she yet firmly resistsa historic tryst with her covenant
Lord, similar to that of Jacob returning from exile [Gen. 32-33]. That
meeting will do what no military victory could accomplishinaugurate
permanent peace with good will toward all.9
Flannery, Edward H. The Anguish of the Jews. New York:

Macmillan, 1965. Another Roman Catholic priest, Flannerys loyalty
to the Church of Rome notwithstanding, provides a helpful overview of
the relationship between Christianity and Judaism over the centuries.
He commences:
This book received its first impetus from a personal experience. One
evening several years ago, I walked north on Park Avenue in New York
City in the company of a young Jewish couple. Behind us shone the huge
illuminated cross the Grand Central Building displays each year at
Christmas time. Glancing over her shoulder, the young ladyordinarily
well disposed toward Christiansdeclared: That cross makes me shudder.
It is like an evil presence. This disturbing comment evoked many
questions in me, not least of which was: How did the cross, the supreme
symbol of universal love, become a sign of fear, or evil for this young
Jewess? It soon became clear that her fearful reaction to it was the fruit of a
knowledge which she, but not I, hada knowledge of the immense
suffering undergone by her people at the hands of Christians for many
centuries. It was my first introduction to the problem of anti-Semitism.
Later discussions of the incident with both Jewish and Christian friends led
me to a further discovery. Jews generally are acutely aware of the history of
anti-Semitism, simply because it comprises so large a portion of Jewish
history. Christians, on the contrary, even highly educated ones, are all but
totally ignorant of itexcept for contemporary developments. They are
ignorant of it for the simple reason that anti-Semitism does not appear in
their history books. Histories of the Middle Agesand even of the
Crusadescan be found in which the word Jew does not appear, and
there are Catholic dictionaries and encyclopedias in which the term anti-
Semitism is not listed. There seems to be only one conclusion: The pages
Jews have memorized have been torn from our histories of the Christian
era. In a sense, this book is a contribution toward the reinsertion of those
pages.10
9
Stanley A. Ellison, Who Owns The Land? p. 186.
10
Edward H. Flannery, The Anguish of the Jews, p. xi.
Gager, John G. The Origins Of Anti-Semitism. New York: Oxford

University Press, 1983. This scholarly work proposes that anti-
Semitism surged following the birth of Christianity, principally
because of conflict amongst Christians with the result that the
opponents of Judaism triumphed. Thus modern anti-Semitism is not a
uniquely modern phenomenon; it is not paganism in a modern dress or
that pagan anti-Semitism which influenced early Christianity. Further
Paul was totally outside the mainstream of early Christian anti-
Judaism. He viewed Christ as the fulfillment of Gods promise to
redeem the Gentiles. In Pauls thinking, Christ represents neither an
abrogation of Gods covenant with Israel nor the replacement of Jews
by Christians as the chosen people of God.
Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. Hitlers Willing Executioners. New York:
Random House, 1997. This Harvard University professor brings to the
public the fruits of his acclaimed doctoral dissertation. In simple terms,
with regard to responsibility for the Holocaust, Germans in general
were culpable, especially in the light of exposed myths such as
supposed ignorance and reluctance. However while German
nationalism, that mushroomed from the nineteenth century onward,
was the distinctive incubator for eliminationist antisemitism of the
twentieth century, the antecedents of this historic atrocity streamed
forward from the early centuries of Christianity.
European antisemitism is a corollary of Christianity. From the earliest days
of Christianitys consolidation of its hold over the Roman Empire, its
leaders preached against the Jews, employing explicit, powerfully worded,
emotionally charged condemnations. . . . From the time of John
Chrysostom until the modern period, the attitudes and treatment of Jews in
the Christian world underwent frequent adjustment, as did Christian
doctrine and practice. Yet while all the changes in Christians theology and
practice were taking place, the underlying belief in the divinity of Jesus
remained firm. So too was anti-Semitism. . . . The medieval European
hatred of Jews was so intense and so divorced from reality that all
calamities in society could be and were attributed to the Jews malfeasance.
The Jews stood for everything that was awry, so that the reflexive reaction
to a natural or social ill was to look to its supposed Jewish sources. Martin
Luthers anti-Semitism was ferocious and influential enough to have earned
him a place in the pantheon of anti-Semites. This did not matter to the
Church that Luther was fighting, for the Church denounced him and his
followers as heretics and Jews.
The ubiquitous anti-Semitism that existed in 1800 and in 1850 became, if
anything, more intense and certainly more deadly as the century was
drawing to a close, as Germany became more economically and

technologically advanced. . . . By the end of the nineteenth century, the
view that the Jews posed extreme danger to Germany and that the source of
their perniciousness was immutable, namely their race, and the
consequential belief that the Jews had to be eliminated from Germany were
extremely widespread in German society. The tendency to consider and
propose the most radical form of eliminationthat is, exterminationwas
already strong and had been given much voice. . . . The fact was that as the
1920s and then the Nazi takeover approached, the German people were
more dangerously oriented towards Jews than they had been during any
other time since the dawn of modernity.11
Gorday, Peter. Principles Of Patristic Exegesis: Romans 9-11 in

Origen, John Chrysostom, and Augustine. New York: E. Mellen Press,
c1983. How did these three influential church fathers understand the
most important passage in the New Testament concerning the
relationship between Christianity and Judaism? Insofar as disregard for
national Israel in the Christian dispensation is concerned, there was
unanimity of opinion.
Concerning Origen we read:
Origens summary statement [in his exegesis of Romans] is . . . through
the whole text of the epistle . . . the Apostle has taught how the highest
religion has been transferred from the Jews to the Gentiles, from
circumcision to faith, from the letter to the spirit, from shadow to truth,
from carnal observance to spiritual observance. . . . The letter of the Old
Testament text is always for Origen pointing in some way to its spirit, i.e.
the specifically Christian transformation of the Old Testament content. This
may take the form of a Christological application or of a refining in some
way of the ethical and inner-spiritual horizon of the text by means of a New
Testament reference. Along the way a fair amount of anti-Jewish polemic
takes place as Origen reflects on the relation of the church and the
synagogue.12
Concerning Chrysostom we read:

The event of Christ and the New Covenant for the Gentiles have divested
the Jews as a people of any special standing before God. But finally it is the
unbelief of the Jews and their rejection of Christ that constitute their
11
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitlers Willing Executioners, pp. 49, 51, 53, 72,
74, 79
12
Peter Gorday, Principles Of Patristic Exegesis: Romans 9-11 in Origen,
John Chrysostom, and Augustine, pp. 91, 100.,
supreme offense; for these there is no forgiveness, only the hope that God
in his providential mercy will one day move their hearts to conversion.
Thus Chrysostom finds consistent denunciation of the Jews in chapters 2, 3,
4 and 9-11 of Romans, as he senses in Pauls polemic a fundamental
critique of the privileges and prerogatives of Judaism. This perspective on
the Jews is held consistently throughout Chrysostoms writings, and down
to the present day has been one of his best known and most ignominious
characteristics. He frequently polemicized against Judaizing and freely
encouraged repressive measures against the synagogues.13
Concerning Augustine we read:

[In Romans 11] some Jews have believed in Christ, and they are the
remnant of the natural olive and fulfillment of the divine promises to
historical Israel. . . . The Israel that will ultimately be saved are the
predestined elect, drawn into a unity out of Jews and Gentiles. . . . Judaism
is simply relegated to the latter [non-elect] category, and its status in
salvation-history assigned to the pre-Christian past.14
Grosser, E and Halperin, Edwin. The Causes And Effects Of

Antisemitism: The Dimensions Of Prejudice. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel
Press, 1979. This is a systematic accounting of 1900 years of anti-
Semitic attitudes and practices, with a preface by Franklin H. Littell.
The authors declared purpose is to increase awareness and
understanding of anti-Semitisms historical magnitude and continuity,
and its deep infection of the Western World. The method involved the
concise listing, in chronological order, of anti-Semitic incidents. There
is also a compilation, analysis and synthesis of the causes and theories
of anti-Semitism that are apparent from the catalogue.
The extent of anti-Semitism in Western history has never, to say the least,
been common knowledge. And today there is a tendency to assume that the
problem of Jewish security and the attitudes of Jews toward their survival
grow from the experience of the Holocaust alone. The actions of the Nazis
and their collaborators are of such a scale and horror as to obscure the long
history of anti-Semitism. Often lost in appraisals of anti-Semitism is the
fact that the underlying spirit of the Holocaust is almost 2,000 years old.
The genocide carried out by a civilized and cultured nation in the mid-
13
Ibid., pp. 129-130.
14
Ibid., pp. 171, 333.
twentieth century was an extreme manifestation of this spirit, but not an

isolated one.15
Gruber, Dan. The Church and The Jews: The Biblical Relationship.
Hagerstown: Serenity Books, 1997. This is a most significant book that
is highly commended as seminal by Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. The unveiling
from history concerning how the Christian church has mistreated Israel
is comprehensive and compelling. Particularly enlightening is the
comfortable relationship that existed between the historian Eusebius
and the Emperor Constantine by means of which state sanctioned anti-
Judaism came to the fore. Significant is the proposal that God made the
New Covenant with the house of Judah and the house of Israel. Hence
the Church does not have its own covenant with God. The Bible does
not mention any covenant that God has made with the Church, though,
according to Romans 11, the Church is incorporated into the New
Covenant that God made with Israel. The author concludes that:
The greatest obstacle to the salvation of the Jewish people is the Church
designed by men. The greatest means of bringing salvation to the Jewish
people is the church designed by God. Paul warned the Gentile believers
not to be arrogant towards the Jewish people, nor ignorant of Gods
faithfulness to them. Yet it is this very arrogance that generally
characterizes the Churchs traditional theology and behavior.16
Hay, Malcolm. Thy Brothers Blood. New York: Hart Publishing,

1975. This Catholic historian is especially commended by Walter
Kaufmann for his intellectual honesty. This concerns the authors
unveiling of the dishonesty of great religious figures, that is their
disdainful regard for and mistreatment of the Jews over the centuries of
church history. For example:
The violence of the language used by St. John Chrysostom in his homilies
against the Jews has never been exceeded by any preacher whose sermons
have been recorded. Allowances must, no doubt, be made for the custom of
the times, for passionate zeal, and for the fear that some tender shoots of
Christian faith might be chilled by too much contact with Jews. But no
amount of allowance can alter the fact that these homilies filled the minds
of Christian congregations with a hatred which was transmitted to their
children, and to their childrens children, for many generations. These
homilies, moreover, were used for centuries, in schools and in seminaries
15
E. Grosser and Edwin Halperin, The Causes And Effects Of Anti-semitism:
The Dimensions Of Prejudice, p. 3.
16
Dan Gruber, The Church and The Jews: The Biblical Relationship, p. 324.
where priests were taught to preach, with St. John Chrysostom as their
modelwhere priests were taught to hate, with St. John Chrysostom as
their model.17
Heer, Friedrich. Gods First Love: Christians and Jews over Two
Thousand Years. London: Phoenix Giant, 1970. As a professor at the
University of Vienna, the author explains that this book, by an
Austrian Catholic, is dedicated to the Jewish, Christian and non-
Christian victims of the Austrian Catholic, Adolf Hitler. In raising the
question of the positive guilt of Christianity in fostering anti-Semitism
throughout its history, Heer shows that the concepts of Jew-hating and
Jew-killing were based on Christian theology, taught by the most
eminent fathers of the church.
Keith, Graham. Hated Without A Cause? A Survey of Anti-Semitism.
Carlisle, Cumbria: Paternoster Press, 1997. Here is a serious study of
Israel in relation to the Christian Church written by a conservative
evangelical whose outlook has a British touch. Showing less animated
disturbance than some concerning the fruit of supercessionism, special
emphasis is given to Lutheras well as the Reformation and its legacy.
Thus most churches have acknowledged that Christians bear some
responsibility for anti-Semitism.18 Also consider the reference to
eminent Christians like John Chrysostom or Martin Luther, whose
piety is unquestioned and whose opposition to the Jews clearly derived
from their piety.19 Supportive of John Murrays exegesis on Romans
11, a future national blessing upon Israel is to be expected, though not
necessarily on the eve of Jesus Christs second coming. The issue of
the return to and repossession the land of Israel from a biblical
perspective is skirted, except when, quite erroneously according to
history, it is in the main identified with Zionism, dispensationalism and
the uncritical support of Americans. However the concluding comment
is most appropriate:
Clearly it is as difficult today as at any time for the Gentile churches to hold
in balance the two elements of Pauls perspective in Romans 11:28. Yet,
they must strive to do so. If they forget that the Jewish people are beloved
of God and their election is irrevocable, inevitably they will slip into anti-
Semitic attitudes and practices. On the other side of the coin, to ignore the
17
Malcolm Hay, Thy Brothers Blood, p. 27.
18
Graham Keith, Hated Without A Cause? A Survey of Anti-Semitism, p. 279.
19
Ibid., p. 268.
reality of Jewish unbelief and the fact that it makes them enemies of God
means that the Jewish people will be deprived of the greatest service the
Gentile Christians can give themthe testimony to Jesus of Nazareth as the
Savior of Israel.20
Even so, the spirit of gospel communication is not recognized by the

Jews as attractive or convincing when tainted by theological anti-
Judaism.
Larsen, David. Jews, Gentiles and the Church: A New Perspective on
History and Prophecy. Grand Rapids: Discovery House, 1955. The
author, a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, is
unabashedly pro-semitic and provides us with a very readable yet
comprehensive record of the relationship between Israel and Judaism
over the past two millennia. As such, it is one of the best introductions
to this subject. Larsen comments that,
the displacement theory by which Israel is totally and finally replaced by
the church in the plan and purpose of God . . . may lurch dangerously
toward anti-Semitism. Any careless implication that the Jews are
superfluous or unrelated to the divine scheme of things is dangerous.21
Lindsey, Hal. The Everlasting Hatred: The Roots of Jihad. Murieta:

Oracle House Publishing, 2002. As a prolific and popular writer and
commentator on eschatology from a dispensational perspective, this
volume is especially relevant. The easy reading style does not cloud an
enlightening expos of the contemporary conflict between Jews and
Muslims that reaches back over 4000 years and yet is presently
attaining white-heat proportions. The following extract gets to the heart
of the matter and at the same time calls upon the western world,
especially Christians in particular, to wake up to the imminent threat
that such tensions present.
Mohammad believed the Muslim is in a perpetual state of Jihadholy
warwith all countries in the Dar al-harb sphere. The true follower
believes that Allah has willed for Muslims to establish Islamic ways over
the whole worldeither by conversion or sword.
Islam believes this doctrine is especially applicable to the Middle East,
which they claim as the center of their world. They contend that any land
captured and held by Muslim forces in the past is sacred. But their myths
20
Ibid., p. 283.
21
David Larsen, Jews, Gentiles and the Church: A New Perspective on
History and Prophecy, pp. 84-85.
built around Jerusalem and Palestine make it second only to Mecca and
Medina as a most holy place.
A remnant of Jews has always continued to dwell in Jerusalem and
Palestine in spite of the dangers and difficulties. But when Jews began to
return in growing numbers at the end of the nineteenth century, it caused
Muslims great alarm.
When the Jews declared sovereignty in Palestine in 1948, it was considered
Al Nabkaa catastrophe. Their continuing presence is viewed as the
ultimate blasphemy to Islam, a desecration of the Third Holiest Place in
Islam, and an insult to Allah that must be cleansed.
Israels victories over the armies of Allah in five wars have placed the
Koran in jeopardy, for it promises the forces of Islam victory in holy
wars. Devout Muslims fervently believe this is something that must be
rectified. Nothing can remove this insult to Allah but a final military defeat
of Israel.
Land is looked upon by Islam differently than by other religions. Once
Islamic culture is established in an area, it is considered danctified to Allah.
It becomes Dar al-Islamthe land of peace. When an invader takes it
away, Muslims are obligated to take it back for Allah, no matter what the
sacrifice.
This is why Muslim forces fought European Crusaders for three centuries
over the Holy Land. But now the Jew has invaded. Islamics ancient
enmity toward them has made this an intolerable insult. They point to Israel
as a cancer in the heart of Islam that must be removed.
Western civilization just does not understand this basic Islamic thinking.
Western media particularly dont have a clue as to what motivates the
Muslimor what strategies he will use to fulfill his duty to Allah. This
why they swallow Muslim propaganda hook, line and sinker. As we will
see, the Modern Arab myths spun about legitimate rights of the Palestinian
refugees and Israels occupation of Palestinian territory are based upon
monstrous distortions of history.
As Mohammad said, War is deception. He set the example for
negotiating peace with an enemy until you are strong enough to annihilate
him. It is called the Quraysh Model. This was the ten-year peace treaty
Mohammad signed with the Quraysh tribe of Mecca, which within a year
he broke by destroying them. This is how he conquered Mecca and made it
the holiest site in Islamthrough treachery.22
22
Hal Jindsey, The Everlasting Hatred, pp. 129-130.
Littell, Franklin. The Crucifixion of the Jews. New York: Harper,

1975. This United Methodist Church minister, ecumenicist, former
professor at Temple University, Holocaust scholar, and friend of Israel,
could not be ranked as a conservative evangelical. Nevertheless this
volume is a vigorous polemic that calls Gentile Christians to honestly
face the shameful legacy of theological anti-Semitism which cannot be
divorced from the fact of the Holocaust. Further, he writes that:
The cornerstone of Christian anti-Semitism is the superceding or
displacement myth, which already rings with the genocidal note. This is the
myth that the mission of the Jewish people was finished with the coming of
Jesus Christ, that the old Israel was written off with the appearance of
the new Israel. To teach that a peoples mission in Gods providence is
finished, that they have been relegated to the limbo of history, has
murderous implications which murderers will in time spell out. The murder
of six million Jews by baptized Christians, from whom membership in good
standing was not (and has not yet been) withdrawn, raises the most insistent
question about the credibility of Christianity. The existence of a restored
Israel, proof positive that the Jewish people is not annihilated, assimilated,
or otherwise withering away, is substantial refutation of the traditional
myth about their end in the historic process. And this is precisely why Israel
is a challenge, a crisis for much contemporary Christian theology.23
Mussner, Franz. Tractate On The Jews: The Significance of Judaism

for Christian Faith. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984. This Roman
Catholic New Testament scholar and theologian confesses that,
regarding his relationship to Judaism, he was no different from the vast
majority of Christian scholars, namely, filled with undisturbed
prejudices against Judaism. Then, with Vatican II and its aftermath, he
underwent a metanoia [repentance] and ventured forth on the rereading
of the Scriptures with new eyes as far as Judaism is concerned.
Tractates against the Jews were written in the time of the church fathers,
and the anti-Jewish spirit of these tractates has its effect even in our own
times; thus, as the churches undertake a comprehensive rethinking of their
relationship to Judaism, it is appropriate and timely for us to produce a
tractate for the Jews. . . . Behind this book lies a learning process of many
years, a true changing of the mind, and I would like to invite the reader to
enter into this learning process and to think newly and differently about
Israel, the elder brother and the root of the Church.24
23
Franklin Little, The Crucifixion of the Jews, p. 2.
24
Franz Mussner, Tractate On The Jews: The Significance of Judaism for
Christian Faith, p. xi.
Concerning the interpretation of Romans 11:26, national Israel will not

attain salvation by means of a mass conversion that precedes the
parousia (appearing, coming) of Jesus Christ.
The parousia Christ saves all Israel without a preceding conversion of
the Jews to the gospel. God saves Israel by a special path which likewise
rests upon the principle of grace (sola gratia) and thereby maintains the
divinity of God, his choice, his call, and his promises to the fathers and
his decision which is independent of all human ways and speculation. It
is the victory of the free grace of God which will save all Israel. . . . It is not
the Gentile peoples who have been converted to the gospel that will save
all Israelan absolutely unbiblical thoughtbut God alone. The
hardening and saving of Israel correspond to one another.25
Oberman, Heiko. The Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Age of

Renaissance and Reformation. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, c1984.
This recognized work is by a former professor at Harvard University
and the University of Tbingen, West Germany. In focusing on the
founders of modern Europe, Reuchlin, Erasmus, Luther, and Calvin, he
concludes that their achievements, at best ambiguous in contemporary
Jewish eyes, did little however, to make the sixteenth century anything
more for the Jews than a bleak extension of the dark Middles Ages.
Hence, the roots of anti-Semitism were laid long before the
Reformation.
[H]atred of the Jews was not an invention of the sixteenth century. It was
an inherited assumption. Far from acquitting the age of Renaissance and
Reformation, we should recognize that this same age which so consciously
scrutinized the medieval traditions simultaneously passed on, with new
strength, whatever withstood the test of inspection. This is what stamps the
character of the age and determines its significance for the modern era.26
Parkes, James. The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue: A

Study in the Origins of Antisemitism. New York: Athaneum, 1969. This
Ph.D. thesis submitted to Oxford University by a Church of England
clergyman, is an exhaustive study of the first eight centuries of the
Christian era with regard to the roots of anti-Semitism. Convinced that
the hostility of the Roman world to the Jew offers no explanation of the
creation and survival of this scourge, the author became persuaded that
25
Ibid., pp. 33-34.
26
Heiko Oberman, The Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Age of Renaissance and
Reformation, p. xi.
it was in the conflict of the Church with the Synagogue that the real
roots of the problem lay. His conclusions include:
In the passage of the eight centuries reviewed in the previous chapters of
this book we have seen the laying of the foundations of modern anti-
Semitism. At times the ancient legislation itself has an appallingly modern
ring in its very phraseology. With Leo and Charlemagne the curtain rings
down upon the first act. The second act takes us up to the Reformation: the
third act is still upon the stage. But it is an act of the same play, and can be
explained only in the light of what has preceded it. Our interpretation of the
first act is, therefore, no academic question, but the means by which we can
understand what is passing before our eyes. . . . At the end of the [first]
century the leadership of the Church was already passing into Gentile
hands. Gentile congregations were powerful and numerous. Any
compromise on the ceremonial law had been completely rejected. . . . The
hardening of Judaism is a result, not a cause, of the separation. But whether
through the influence of Paul, or, more likely, through the
misunderstanding of him by Gentile successors, the issue had gone much
deeper, and the entirety of the religious conceptions of Judaism as
proclaimed in the Old Testament was reject as superceded by the Church.27
A companion volume is Parkes Whose Land? A History of the Peoples

of Palestine. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1971. For a
consideration of anti-Semitism as it relates to the past one hundred and
fifty years, refer to this authors. Antisemitism, Chicago: Quadrangle
Books, 1969.
Peters, Joan. From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab
Jewish Conflict over Palestine. London: JKAP Publications, 1993.
Differing claims amidst conflict between Arabs and Jews call for a
studied response. Historian and journalist Joan Peters has provided
such a book that both the Christian Century and National Review
acknowledge as providing unrivaled clarifying thoroughness. Fierce
criticism of this book by Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein has
not greatly subtracted from the essential challenge that it presents to
Palestinian claims, which Alan Dershowitz cautiously references.
Phillips, Melanie. Londonistan. New York: Encounter Books, 2006.
As a columnist for the Londons Daily Mail, this author lays bare the
threat that resurgent Islam presents to the United Kingdom. However
special focus is brought upon London as the hub of Moslem
27
James Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue: A Study in
the Origins of Antisemitism, pp. 371, 373,
extremism. From here we learn how Britain sleepwalks toward cultural

oblivion by means of multicultural paralysis. Even Christian leaders, in
buying into replacement theology, aid the advance of Islam while at the
same time expressing support for anti-Judaism and anti-Zionism. This
book is an excellent supplement to Bat Yeors Eurabia.
Porter, Stanley E and Pearson, Brook W. R., eds., Christian-Jewish
Relations through the Centuries. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,
2000. The first two chapters are of particular significance. Chapter One
is, Root Causes of the Jewish-Christian Rift from Jesus to Justin, by
Craig A. Evans, pp. 20-35. The supreme reason concerns the stumbling
block that the suffering Christian Messiah presented to Judaism that
had more triumphal expectations. Chapter Two is, Ancient
Understanding of the Christian-Jewish Split, by Stanley E. Porter and
Brook W. R. Pearson, pp. 36-51. The supreme reason here concerns
supercessionism which, although not upheld by the Jerusalem church,
yet flourished through the growth of Gentile Christianity, and
especially the founding stimulation of Paul.
Rausch, David A. Fundamentalist-Evangelicals and Anti-Semitism.
Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1993. Here is a conservative
evangelical historian whose writings dispel numerous fallacies
concerning the mischaracterization of fundamentalist-evangelicals,
especially in America. In particular, a premillennial eschatology and its
sympathy for national Israel and secular Zionism, has frequently come
under fire, such as from amillennialists with a tendency for theological
anti-Semitism.
In spite of scholarly perceptions to the contrary, the prophetically minded
fundamentalist-evangelical has been (and currently is) a firm supporter of
the Jewish state. And, in an age when anti-Zionism is often
indistinguishable from ant-Semitism, this fact is crucial to our study. As we
have seen throughout this study, the fundamentalist-evangelical was long a
supporter of Jewish restoration to the Holy Land and, to this day, has
received ridicule and scorn from other Christians for pro-Israel views. In
spite of numerous liberal and conservative Christian cries to the contrary,
this Christian Zionism has been a positive factor in combating any ant-
Semitism within the fundamentalist-evangelical community.28
Also refer to this authors A Legacy Of Hatred: Why Christians Must

Not Forget the Holocaust. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1990.
28
Rausch, David A. Fundamentalist-Evangelicals and Anti-Semitism, p. 206.
Remaud, Michel, Israel, Servant Of God. London: T & T Clark, 2003.

Here is yet another Catholic, indebted to Franz Mussner, who
challenges the established supercessionism of centuries while
attempting to better reconcile the present reality of elect Israel and the
Church, especially in the light of the Vatican II declaration, Nostra
Aetate. Consider:
[I]t is well known that the [Roman Catholic] Church calls herself the New
Israel, and it is regrettable that Vatican II itself made use of this
expression. Now traditional in theology but nowhere to be found in the
New Testament, it gives the impression that the Church has taken the place
of Israel, so that from the theological point of view Israel no longer exists.
Such a simplistic position, pushed to extremes, contradicts more balanced
texts found in the New Testament (Rom. 9-11; Eph. 2-3). . . . Of all the
theological documents promulgated by the Second Vatican Council, only
the text on the Jews [Nostra Aetate] is without a single reference to any of
the teachings of the Church, whether patristic, conciliar or pontifical. As is
usual for all the declarations of the Magisterium, documents of Vatican II
include references to former tradition. . . . The text on the Jews is the sole
exception to this rule in that it refers exclusively to Scripture. . . . To study
the horrendous history of anti-Semitism, overwhelming for us, is to
perceive that nowhere did the Jews suffer more than within the Christian
world. No theology of history can spare itself from deep reflection on this
fact. 29
Sachar, Howard M. A History of Israel, from the Rise of Zionism to

Our Time. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979. This is an outstanding
work. Especially relevant is Chapter IX, Britain Repudiates The
Jewish National Home. Sachar is also the author of A History of the
Jews in America, Israel and Europe, and editor of The Rise of Israel: A
Documentary History (39 vols.). He serves as Professor of Modern
History at George Washington University, is a consultant and lecturer
on Middle Eastern affairs for numerous governmental bodies, and
lectures widely in the United States and abroad.
Siker, Jeffrey S. Disinheriting The Jews. Louisville: Westminster/John
Knox Press, c1991. This revision of a doctoral thesis presented to
Princeton Theological Seminary, was originally titled: Disinheriting
the Jews: The Use of Abraham in Early Christian Controversy with
Judaism from Paul Through Justin Martyr. This is a work of
recognized authority. The authors conclusion is that,
29
Michel Remaud, Israel, Servant Of God, pp. 5-6, 19, 36-37.
the various uses of Abraham from Paul through Justin Martyr show a shift
in focus from Gentile inclusion to Jewish exclusion. However: Was this
move theologically necessary or defensible? . . . Does Gentile inclusion in
Gods promises necessitate Jewish exclusion? Justin Martyr, Marcion,
Heracleon, Barnabas, and Ignatius apparently did equate Gentile inclusion
with Jewish exclusion. . . . Only Paul seems clearly to have had problems
with such an equation, in fact rejecting it implicitly in Romans 4 and
explicitly in Romans 9-11. . . . Paul did not equate Jewish rejection of the
gospel with Gods rejection of the Jews. Nor would he allow such an
equation to be inferred. Rather, Jewish rejection of the gospel served Gods
purpose of Gentile inclusion within the gospel. The Jews became enemies
of the gospel so that Gentiles might be included within the gospel. Thus the
Gentiles were saved by their enemies. This situation is the utter paradox
and mystery of the gospel for Paul. . . . For Paul, non-Christian Jews
continue to be included within Gods promises simply because of Gods
covenant faithfulness to Abraham and other patriarchs. . . . Paul would not
affirm the theological doctrine that became entrenched among later
generations of Christians, namely, that Gentile inclusion necessitates
Jewish exclusion.30
Telchin, Stan. Abandoned: What is Gods Will for the Jewish People
and the Church? Grand Rapids: Chosen Books, 1997. This Hebrew
Christian, in a simple and very readable style, deals with Romans 11,
Church history, the Holocaust, and a host of matters that relate to a
contemporary appreciation of Jews at a basic level, and especially the
need to witness appropriately to them of their Messiah. The concluding
chapter is most practical in that it provides specific directions
concerning, What Does the Church Need to Do?
Vlach, Michael J. The Church as a Replacement of Israel: An
Analysis of Supersessionism. This doctoral dissertation was presented
to Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, North Carolina.
Included are assessments of Justin Martyr, Origen, Augustine, Thomas
Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Immanuel Kant, Friederich
Schliermacher, and Karl Barth. While
supercessionism has been the majority view of the Christian church from
the second century A.D. through the nineteenth century A.D., . . . this work
will conclude that the Scriptures do not support the view that the New
30
Jeffrey S. Siker, Disinheriting The Jews, pp. 195-197.
Testament church is the new Israel that has forever superceded national
Israel as the people of God.31
White, Derek C. Replacement Theology, Its Origin, History, And

Theology. Teddington, Middlesex: Christian Friends of Israel, 1997.
This booklet of only 30 pages is an excellent introduction to and
summary of the nature and role of replacement theology in church
history.
One of the greatest tragedies to befall the Church was the severance from
her Jewish roots, a rift which has been a cause of many heresies, of
monasticism and departures from Biblical truth and lifestyle. The very
descent of the Western Church into the dark middle agesthe period of
intellectual and spiritual darkness in Europe from the fifth to the (possibly)
fifteenth centurieswas almost certainly the result of this separation, not
the least as a divine judgment on the Church for the anti-Semitism which
was part of this severance.32
Williamson, Clark M. Has God Rejected His People? Nashville:

Abingdon, 1982. Designed as an introduction to the history of the
relationship between Judaism and Christianity, this author is an
excellent resource even though he evidences little allegiance to
conservative evangelical presuppositions. Concerning the roots of anti-
Semitism that pervaded Hitlers Germany, the author concludes:
All the literature one reads on the final solution leaves the clear impression
that the pervasiveness of classical Christian anti-Jewish theology was a
significant factor in the success of Hitlers program. Where it did not
directly contribute to support for Hitlers policiesand it often didit
created an apathy toward Jews that was equally decisive in permitting the
Holocaust. The great majority of the German people did not actively
support or actively oppose Hitler: they were merely indifferent.33
Wilson, Marvin R. Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the

Christian Faith. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2000. Here is an
excellent corrective to the widespread ignorance that pervades
Christendom concerning its Jewish heritage. Especially refer to
31
Vlach, Michael J. The Church as a Replacement of Israel: An Analysis of
Supersessionism, Ph.D. diss., Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary,
May 2004, pp. xv-xvi.
32
Derek C. White, Replacement Theology, Its Origin, History, and Theology,
p. 2.
33
Clark M. Williamson, Has God Rejected His People? p. 134.
Chapter Six, The Jewish Revolts and the Parting of the Way, Chapter
Seven, A History of Contempt: Anti-Semitism and the Church, and
Chapter Ten, Where the Church Went Wrong. The author concludes:
Though the break between Synagogue and Church had now essentially
been made, he struggle between the two was far from over. A triumphalist
and arrogant Church, largely Gentile in makeup, would now become more
and more de-Judaizedsevered from its Jewish roots. This de-Judaizing
developed into a history of anti-Judaism, a travesty which has extended
from the second century to the present day. . . . We must emphasize in
conclusion that the Holocaust did not happen in a vacuum. Though it was
devised in a country with an enviable reputation for brilliant culture and
intellectual sophistication, the seeds of anti-Semitism had been planted
much earlier. The Holocaust represents the tragic culmination of anti-
Jewish attitudes and practices which had been allowed to manifest
themselveslargely uncheckedin or nearby the Church for nearly two
thousand years. Perhaps the most important reason the Holocaust happened
is that the Church had forgotten its Jewish roots.34
Wistrich, Robert S. Antisemitism, The Longest Hatred. New York:

Pantheon Books, 1991. This is a companion volume to the excellent
Thames Television video production The Longest Hatred, 150 minutes,
also released in 1991. With the encouragement of Simon Wiesenthal,
Wistrich has provided a broad, scholarly sweep of anti-Semitism from
a Jewish perspective that is approvingly referenced in Graham Keiths
Hated Without A Cause? Of particular interest is Part 1, From the
Cross to the Swastika. Consider the following:
[Augustine was ] the immensely influential North African Church Father
who lived at the end of the fourth century AD. His teachings had a
dogmatic importance of the first order for the policy of the Popes and
secular Christian rulers of the Middles Ages with regard to the Jews. They
served to underline that the Church had become the new chosen people,
replacing the old Israel which had betrayed the true message of God
which it should, of course, have been the first to acknowledge. St.
Augustine even likened the Jewish people to Cain, the first criminal
recorded in biblical history, who had murdered his own brother and merited
death but instead had been condemned to wander unhappily ever after. The
Torah is the mark of Cain of the deicide people who have misinterpreted
their own Scriptures and continue to live in blindness and error. The Jews
might deserve to be eradicated for their crime, but St. Augustine prefers
34
Wilson, Marvin R. Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian
Faith. Grand Rapids, pp. 84, 101.
that they be preserved as witnesses to Christian truth until the end of

time, when they will turn to Christ at the Last Judgment.
The canonical legislation of the Church would fully institutionalize by the
thirteenth century the reprobate status of the Jew and the doctrine of
Servitus Judaeorum (the perpetual servitude of the Jews). The Jews had to
be subordinate to Christians, they could exercise no position of authority
and Christian society had to be rigidly protected from contamination
through living, eating or engaging in sexual relations with them. The Fourth
Lateran Council (1215) codified this will to segregate the Jews by requiring
them to wear distinguishing dressa conical hat in the Germanic lands and
a Jew badge (usually a yellow disc sewn into the clothing, whose color
symbolized Judas betrayal of Christ for gold pieces) in Latin countries.
The effects of the badge were to make Jews more visible and vulnerable to
attack, reducing their ability to travel freely.
The German Reformation under Luthers guidance, therefore led in a very
unfavorable direction for the Jews, when compared with parallel
developments in English, Dutch or Swiss Protestantism. The seed of hatred
sown by Luther would reach its horrible climax in the Third Reich, when
German Protestants showed themselves to be particularly receptive to Nazi
anti-Semitism.35.
Yee, Tet-Lim N. Jews, Gentiles and Ethnic Reconciliation: Pauls

Jewish Identity and Ephesians. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005. This revised doctoral thesis presented to Durham
University, with Professor James Dunn as advisor, provides a detailed
study of Ephesians 2:1-22 from the new perspective which, along
with E. P. Sanders and N. T. Wright, reconsiders the epistles of Paul
through the distinctive focus of first century Judaism. To begin with,
his study leads to the conclusion [t]hat the thought world of our author
is characteristically Jewish, and that the author represents the
Gentiles from the perspective of a Jew and is at heart a (Christian)
Jew,36 This leads to detailed exegesis of Ephesians 2 and resultant
conclusions that the historic Reformed hermeneutic needs to seriously
consider. For instance:
We will simply fail to grasp the import of Ephesians 2:14-18 unless we
appreciate that the author wrote those encomiasic statements [declarations
35
Wistrich, Robert S. Antisemitism, The Longest Hatred, pp. 18-19, 25-26,
42.
36
Yee, Tet-Lim N. Jews, Gentiles and Ethnic Reconciliation: Pauls Jewish
Identity and Ephesians, pp. 68-70.
of obsessive interest in oneness] about Christ to be set in comparison with

the small-mindedness of certain Jews or Judaism.
The author of Ephesians does not abandon Judaism in favor of Gentile
Christianity. There is also no concrete evidence for Gentile triumphalism
over ethnic Israel in Ephesians (contra Kseman, Martin, Roetzel and
others). Rather, the authors language is of a renewed and expanded
Israel/holy ones in which a Gentile Christianity cannot understand itself
except in terms of the category of Israel and of Israels blessing.
One of the unfortunate features in the Christian history of interpretation is
that Ephesians has often been taken as a pretext for the view that the
Church has parted company with Israel (e.g., Schnackenburg, Lincoln, et
al.).
It may be fairly claimed that the Christianity represented by the author of
Ephesians is a movement of renewal breaking through the boundaries
within one Judaism (not all) of the first century which is marked
characteristically by covenantal ethnocentrism. That being said, it would be
wrong to suggest that Ephesians represents the abandonment of Judaism in
favor of Greek triumphalism over ethnic Israel. Rather, we should speak of
a Jewish messianic inclusivistic movement which transcends covenantal
ethnocentrism: the Messiah Jesus, who is portrayed as a peace-maker in
Ephesians, has come to preach peace to the far off and the near. He has
surmounted the social distance between Jew and Gentile so that both can
gain access to the God of Israel in a common spirit.37
The last paragraph here well represents the essential thrust of Judeo-
centric eschatology.
Yeor, Bat. Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis. Madison: Fairleigh
Dickinson University Press, 2005. The Arabic word dhimmi refers to
a non-Moslem who is under harsh terms of subjection within a Moselm
society. Particularly since the defeat of the combined Arab military by
Israel during the 1967 Six Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War,
the Moslem states, especially those with substantial petroleum
resources, have focused upon a different strategy. The exchange of
European technology, both economic and military, for Middle Eastern
oil, has come with the added price of recognition of the Palestinian
Liberation Organizations territorial claims as well as an anti-American
and anti-Israel and Anti-Christian and anti-Western agenda. Hence, for
over thirty years, European capitulation to these demands has resulted
in Eurabia: The Land of Dhimmitude, that is the gradual subjection
of Europe in general to spreading Moslem influence without
37
Ibid., pp. 217, 221-222, 228.
idealogical capitulation to the West in return, as well as increasing anti-

Judaism. In parallel with this intended penetration of western society,
there has also come about an increase in the influence of strident
Christian anti-Judaic supercessionism as represented by Anglican
Stephen Sizer and Islamophile literature represented by Anglican
Bishop Kenneth Cragg. Here is essential reading for those who would
better understand the present Moslem resurgence along with, especially
in Europe, the increase in anti-Judaism.

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1

Do not be arrogant toward the branches

The God of Abraham praise, Who reigns enthroned above;

Ann, Moishe, David, Ron, Carolyn, Kay, Eddie,

1 Israel and Christian anti-Judaism in contrast 19

Charles Haddon Spurgeon 31

2 Israel and centuries of Christian anti-Judaism 35

The Early Church to 135 AD 37

The Patristic Period 39

The Medieval Period 43

The 16th century Reformation Period 48

The 17th century Puritan Period 50

The 18th century Evangelical Period 52

The 19th century Gentile Missionary Period 53

The 20-21st century Jewish Missionary Period 56

3 Israel and Christian anti-Judaism in the US 59

An Open Letter to Evangelicals 91

Law precedes Grace 111

Heaven without Earth 121

Unity without Diversity 123

Anti-Judaic Tone 125

5 Israel and Christian encounter with Zionism 133

The foundation of Zionism 134

The exile of Zionism 136

The birth of Zionism 147

The British encouragement of Zionism 152

The British discouragement of Zionism 158

The Recovery of the State of Israel 162

Christian sympathy with Zionism 173

6 Israel and Christian anti-Judaism hermeneutics in history 178

Reformed connection with Roman Catholocism 178

Judeo-centric millennialism to the Reformation 182

Judeo-centric millennialism beyond the Reformation 183

Reformed development with Fairbairn, Bavinck and Vos 193

7 Israel and Christian anti-Judaism hermeneutics 215

The hermeneutic of George Eldon Ladd 216

The instructive example of Hebrews 220

A Christocentic hermeneutic that is misguided 229

A Christocentic hermeneutic for Hebrew scripture 233

8 Israel and the harmony of spiritual materiality 241

The fall of spirituality and materiality 242

The spirituality of materiality in the Old Testament 244

The spirituality of materiality in the New Testament 246

The influence of Greek Philosophy upon the church 249

The redemption of spirituality and materiality 252

The tension between spirituality, materiality, and

The redemption of Israels fallen spiritual materiality 259

9 Israel as heir of the land through Abraham 263

The land in the Old Testament 266

The land in the New Testament 269

The land and Patrick Fairbairn 280

The land and W. D. Davies 284

The land and David E. Holwerda 285

The land and the Heavenly Jerusalem 290

10 Israel and a Romans 11 Synthesis 296

Romans 11:1-32 298

Galatians 6:16 307

Ephesians 2:11-22 314

Philippians 3:2-3 321

I Peter 2:9-10 333