Tuesday, December 4, 2012

What About Israel?

Thanks to Scot McKnight’s ever-interesting Jesus Creed blog, I found an article by Pastor Jonathan Martin with the intriguing title, “On Israel, the Church, and the Politics of Jesus.” I’d not heard of Pastor Martin before, but I follow McKnight’s blog regularly. It’s certainly one of the livelier, and more diverse, blogs from any seminary perfessor  professor of an evangelical tilt.

What caught me about Pastor Martin’s post is his starting point:  “the relationship of the Church to Israel.” Pastor Martin goes on to write about how most evangelicals view the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and says:

“Anything less than a ringing endorsement of all Israeli policies is seen as an affront to the living God.  This position is largely determined by eschatological convictions (beliefs about the end of the world), in which Israel (as a modern nation-state) exists as a fulfillment of prophecy.”

He then follows that with a thoughtful and short essay (well, long for a blog post) countering this idea. It’s balanced and worth reading and, let me add, Martin is a Pentecostal pastor. He comes from a tradition that, for the most part, agrees with the “ringing endorsement.” He gives good reason why he himself doesn’t.

I’ve been wondering for myself about Israel (the nation-state) and the Church. I’m no longer satisfied with the idea that everything Israel does is right and justifiable and approved by God, and must be approved by the Church. What I see in the New Testament is a God who has begun with one man and his descendants but who now calls all nations his. Maybe I can sum this up with the statement:  What nation has God not called to himself? The whole of the New Testament shows this, starting with the Day of Pentecost, when Jewish disciples began proclaiming the glory of God in the languages of the nations. The Book of Acts begins in Jerusalem and ends in Rome, the heart of the Gentile world (and hated conqueror of Judea). Paul’s final words to the Jews of Rome scolded them for rejecting God’s salvation, telling them:  “God’s salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!” (Acts 28:28).

There are nuances here, but the main point is this:  How can we interpret the New Testament as saying that a modern state holds a special privilege before God—whether that state is Israel, the US, Russia or whatever state you live in? The issue of Israel as the people of God is not the same thing as the issue of Israel as a state.

Israel as a nation has the right to exist and to defend its borders from legitimate enemies; all nations have that right, so far as I can see in the New Testament. That doesn’t mean that everything Israel does is right. And pointing this out doesn’t make us heretics.

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