Getting Rid of Israel

By Mal Couch Ph.d Th.D.

The present crisis. At times it seems as if the entire world is turning against the Jewish people who live in Israel. But they have been here before, on many occasions in which it appeared no one cared if the nation survived or not. Make no mistake, the present turmoil in Iraq ultimately has to do with Israel, and it has to do with the support of America for the perpetuity of that nation and its present population, whose grandparents began coming back to the land around 1920 and on.

Added to Israel's present problems with her Arab neighbors, there is now sounding forth a crescendo of "Christians" who are saying that the Church has replaced Israel in God's favor. This phenomenon is called Replacement Theology! And it is gaining ground from many who traditionally have stood beside the Jewish people and supported their prophesied right to exist. What does Replacement Theology have to do with past history? Is Replacement Theology really something new, or can it be shown to be an ongoing anti-Semitism that has echoes from misguided ancient Christian thinkers?

History speaks. Many of the Church Fathers were guilty of seeing the Jews permanently falling out of favor with the Lord. Christ certainly became a troubling divide between Christians and Jews, but the thought that God was forever through with the Jews gained grounds as the Church expanded in influence. Origen (185-254) was one of the first to teach that the Old Testament promises to Israel were fulfilled in the Church. He did this by allegorizing, or "spiritualizing" certain prophecies. Origen's allegorical interpretation, including his views on Old Testament prophecy, gained wide acceptance among many theologians of his day.

1. For Origen, the fate of the Jews meant nothing to him. They lost their national existence, not because God could not protect them, but because God justly punished them.

2. After the Church was protected by Constantine, and began to flourish in power and influence, the scattered Jewish people were treated as outcasts and wanderers. The Church called itself the Kingdom that had replaced the Jews as God's chosen race. In his excellent book on the Middle Ages entitled The Pursuit of the Millennium, Norman Cohn points out how many misguided Gentiles thought the Jews worshipped Satan in their synagogues, and even called him "the father of the Jews." Some Church leaders tried to isolate the Jews. At one Church Council (Lateran, 1215), it was ruled that Jews should be debarred from all civil and military functions.

3. Some clerics taught that when the Millennium began, both the Antichrist and the Jews would be annihilated. To a large degree, such thinking came out of a distinct form of historic Replacement Theology. Its ugly head is again rising from the ashes of the sad state-of affairs of misguided thinking of so many in Christendom.

Israel wrong again! Recent writings have picked up this Replacement drumbeat. For example, O. Palmer Robertson (The Israel of God, Philadelphia: P&R Publishers, 2000) denies that God's covenant with Abraham about someday again inheriting the land is still valid. He asks, "Do they have a legitimate claim to the land of the Bible?"

4. He inflames the issue by saying that other people have occupied the land, and, that certain Christians are now saying, "By whatever means necessary, the land must be cleared so that it can be possessed by the Jews."

5. The rest of Robertson's book continues to disavow the Jews' present right to be in the land. This is a growing shout that has little understanding of Israel's place in Scripture, much less, of her great influence in the world. I agree with David Horowitz who writes, "The 'Jewish problem' is just another name for the fact that Jews are the most universally hated and persecuted ethnic group in history."

6. Presbyterian Louis A. DeCaro writes, "The removal of the divine kingdom from Old Covenant Israel left that nation without covenant standing."

7. And, "Today's Zionist Israel is purely the work of man for man and does not relate to covenant and p r o p h e t i c promises."

8. Decaro adds, "We further believe that Israel's wars waged today against the Arabs are not in harmony with the prophetic tradition."

9. While DeCaro says that the nation of Israel today has the right to defend itself, he adds that what is happening in the Holy Land is totally a political issue and has nothing to do with the many promises of old found in the Old Testament.

There are thousands of Christians who in no way hold to this position. They are Evangelical Christians who have a restorative view about the Jewish people and their return to the "Beautiful Land" (Dan. 11:16, 41). They do not call for cruelty or mistreatment of Palestinians, nor do they believe the Arabs should be violently expelled from the Holy Land, but they see from the Old Testament a divine right, a Messianic hope for Eratz Israel, that will bring about the only possibility the world will ever have for peace. While there may be a theological tension on many issues, these "restorative" Christians burn with support and love for the Jewish people and for the protection of the inhabitants of the Land.

I am one of these Christians who deeply love Israel. My fascination with the promises to the people of the covenant is exemplified in that I have made twenty-three trips to the Holy Land. I was a reporter on the frontlines during the Yom Kippur War and almost lost my life in some of the combat. I have wept over the Jews and with them at military funerals. I have been on artillery outposts while the guns fired, flew in IDF helicopters, and sailed on patrols in the Mediterranean Sea. I have looked in the faces of young soldiers horribly disfigured in combat, joined Jewish archaeologists digging in ancient ruins, cried at Mt. Scopus where dozens of nurses and doctors had died in the Wars of Independence by Arab guns. As a Christian who has witnessed the good and the bad in the Land of Israel, I would never dare believe that Christianity has replaced the specific hopes given to the Jewish people. Israel is not a footnote to history; instead history revolves around the fortunes of the children of Israel and the Promised Land!

I cannot help but be reminded of the words of the Lord as spoken to Jeremiah the prophet (Jer. 31:35-37): If you can get rid of God's laws of the sun, moon, and stars, "Then the offspring of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me forever. ... If the heavens above be measured, ... then I will also cast off the offspring of Israel."

Unfortunately, the floodwaters of Replacement Theology have joined with the chorus of those mentioned by Jeremiah who hate Israel. They say, Israel is "an outcast, 'It is [only] Zion; no one cares for her'" (30:17). We who are Restorative Christians say to the Jewish people, "Restrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded, ... there is hope for your future" (31:16-17).

25 Mar 2007