Today’s news headlines, popular podcasts, and social media discussions are dominated with questions about the modern nation-state of Israel and land disputes in the Middle East. Who owns the land, sometimes called the “holy land”? I am not going to wade into Middle Eastern geopolitics here, but I do want to provide clarity about the way Christians should think about the so-called “holy land” and related issues.
To be blunt, outside of obvious historical interest, there is nothing special about the “holy land.” In fact, Christians should not call that strip of real estate in the Middle East the “holy land” today. God is not present there in any special way. Christ is present in a special way “where two or three are gathered in my name” (Matthew 18:20)一which means he is present in a special way when his faithful people gather to hear his Word proclaimed and celebrate his communion meal. The “holy land” is wherever the faithful church gathers because the church is a holy people.
To look at this issue properly, we need some theological and historical background.
Jesus pronounced judgment on unbelieving Israel in AD 30, and, as he prophesied, the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed within a generation, in AD 70 (Mark 13). Just as God sent the Assyrians to destroy northern Israel in 722 BC, just as he sent the Babylonians to destroy the southern kingdom of Judah (and the temple) in 586 BC, so Jesus would dispatch the Romans in AD 70 to bring judgment on Israel and finally destroy the entire old creation order. Each time, an apostate Jewish/Israelite nation was judged for their rejection of God’s Word; God used Gentile peoples as his instruments of wrath against his own people. But the judgment that fell in AD 70 was definitive:
“Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation” (Matthew 23:31-36).
Abel was the first martyr in the Old Testament; according to the Hebrew arrangement of books, Zechariah was the last martyr of the Old Testament. Judgment has been building for generations; it would fall on that generation then living when Jesus spoke these words. AD 70 had a kind of finality that 722 BC and 585 BC did not.
This means the generation from AD 30 to 70 was living in a transitional period. From AD 30 to 70, there were two temples and two priesthoods一the old covenant temple structure in Jerusalem with its Levitical priesthood, on the one hand, and the new covenant temple of the church with Christians as a priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices, on the other hand. Much of the New Testament is a contest of temples. Where is God’s true presence now found?
The Roman demolition of the temple structure in Jerusalem in AD 70 left just one temple standing一the church (Ephesians 2:11ff, 1 Peter 2:4ff). The destruction of the temple was the vindication of Christ and Christians. The Jews had put Jesus to death. The Jews were the main instigators of early Christian persecution. Jesus said in Matthew 23:38 he was leaving their temple desolate一the glory was leaving that temple for good, not to return. The glory of God now dwells in the midst of the Christian assembly when they gather for worship. Jesus took vengeance on the Jews in AD 70, proving they had been broken out of the covenant and the believing Gentiles had been grafted in (along with believing Jews who remained in the covenant).
To state that the Jews killed Jesus is simply an historical fact. In his sermon at Pentecost, Peter (obviously a Jew) tells the Jews (“men of Israel”) gathered for the feast, “you have taken [Jesus] by lawless hands, have crucified [him], and put [him] to death” (Acts 2:22ff). Of course, the Gentile Romans were also involved一the conspiracy against Jesus is a Jew/Gentile affair with leadership from both people groups, representing all of humanity, “taking counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed” (Psalm 2:2). The Jewish leaders tried to kill Jesus at least eight times before they finally succeeded. It only happened when the Romans got involved. But the historical event of the cross cannot be separated from its theological meaning. At a deeper level, it is our sin一your sin, my sin, the sin of the world一that nailed Jesus to the cross. That’s why we sing on Good Friday,
Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee!
’Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee;
I crucified thee.
Every Christian knows this is true. Historically speaking, Jews were the “Christ killers.” But theologically speaking, we are all “Christ killers.”
But not even that goes far enough in unpacking the heart of the crucifixion. Jesus was not nailed to the tree against his will. If he wanted to escape the crucifixion, he could have. Jesus was not a helpless victim. Jesus’ life was not taken from him; he laid it down of his own accord, in love for us and in fulfillment of his mission. In a strange twist, God had always planned for his own people to reject his Son, because Israel’s rejection of the Messiah whom God sent them would bring about the salvation of the world through the death of that same Messiah.
Judgment fell on the Jews and Jerusalem in AD 70 not simply because they rejected Jesus, but because they rejected the second witness一the Holy Spirit一after Pentecost. On the basis of this double witness, they were judged guilty and worthy of wrath. Jesus’ parables stress that the judgment that would fall upon that generation of Jews was richly deserved, and came only after God’s longsuffering patience toward them as a people. In the parable of the tenants, Jesus tells the Jews “the kingdom will be taken from you and given to a people producing its fruits,” but this happens only after the Jews have rejected a long string of the master’s servants and then finally his son (Matthew 21:33-45). The parable of the wedding feast concludes with the king growing angry so “he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city,” but that happens only after multiple invitations to the king’s son’s wedding have been sent out and rejected (Matthew 22:1-14).
Unbelieving Jews are now a Messianic people with no Messiah. They are a temple people with no temple. They are priestly people with no priesthood to minister on their behalf and no sacrifices to offer. Their official genealogical records were mainly kept in the temple, so when the temple was destroyed those records were destroyed too一a fitting sign that tracing their genealogies back to Abraham could not save them. God does promise that they will be grafted back into the covenant tree on a scale commensurate with their earlier rejection; they will be converted to Christ and brought into the church, the new Israel. In the meantime, Paul says they are enemies of the gospel. Their large scale conversion will only happen after the fullness of the Gentiles are brought in and enjoy such manifest covenantal and civilizational blessing (see Deuteronomy 28) that it provokes unbelieving Jews to jealousy. The last shall be first and the first shall be last一the first to enter into covenant with God in the old world (Israel) will be the last to come into into the new covenant. Romans 11 makes all of this plain.
The true children of Abraham are, and always have been, those who trust in God’s Messiah. To be Abraham’s child, you must share in Abraham’s messianic faith. Abraham looked ahead to Jesus’ day and rejoiced. His children today look back on the Messiah, crucified and raised, and rejoice. Gentiles are the prodigals who have been brought into the Father’s party. Someday, our elder brother Israel will join us (see Luke 15).
The questions, “Who is the true Israel? Who are Abraham’s children?” dominate the pages of the New Testament. In places like Romans 4 and 9-11, Galatians 3, and Ephesians 2, Paul identifies the true Israel/Abrahamic family by faith in Jesus as Messiah. God has not stopped working through family lines (see Peter’s claim that the covenant promise still includes children in Acts 2 and the practice of household baptism throughout Acts), but faith is the defining feature of the people of God and always has been. “So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham” (Galatians 3:9).
To spell this out further: Abraham’s family obviously included bloodlines, but it was never just about bloodlines. Israel always had porous boundaries; outsiders could be brought in and insiders could be put out (see the grafting and pruning principle in Romans 11). When Abraham became the first Israelite (to speak anachronistically), he circumcised all the men in his household, most of whom were not blood relatives (Genesis 14:14, 17:12). When the Israelites left Egypt, they did so with a mixed multitude一Gentiles living in Egypt who, witnessing the God of Israel defeat the gods of Egypt, chose to be loyal to the God of Israel (Exodus 12:38). That mixed multitude was incorporated into Israel during the forty year period of wilderness wandering一foreshadowing a similar weaving together of Jew and Gentile into a new Israel between AD 30 and 70. To further illustrate: In the Old Testament, we repeatedly find Jew/Gentile interethnic marriages that are not inter-religious marriages, such as Judah marrying the Canaanite woman Shuah (Genesis 38:2), Joseph marrying an Egyptian woman Asenath (Genesis 41:45), Moses marrying an Ethiopian woman (Numbers 12:1), Salmon marrying the Canaanite woman Rahab (Matthew 1:5), and Ruth, the Moabitess, marrying Boaz (Ruth 4). Those last two examples are particularly significant since Rahab and Ruth become ancestresses of Jesus. Fittingly, Jesus was a mudblood一he had both Jewish and Gentile blood in his veins because he came to save both Jews and Gentiles through the shedding of his blood.
The Old Testament prophets made clear to the Jews that mere descent from Abraham was not enough to secure right standing before God. They had to trust God’s promise and obey his Word. Jewish descent did not automatically guarantee salvation; to think it did was the height of covenant presumption. They were a privileged people, to be sure, but those privileges brought responsibilities to live faithfully and fulfill the mission God gave them. This theme reaches a crescendo with John the Baptist who took a fire and brimstone approach in his preaching to the Jews:
“Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 3:7-10).
Two things especially stand out in John’s message: First, wrath is coming upon Israel because they have refused to repent. Jesus will pick up on that theme in his preaching as well. The axe is already set to cut down the Jews in judgment if they continue to presume upon Abrahamic descent apart from faithful Abraham-like obedience. Second, if God can make stones into children of Abraham, surely he can make Gentiles into sons of Abraham. John is anticipating what is to come一Jewish branches being cut out of the covenant tree and Gentile “wild” branches being grafted in (Romans 11).
The destruction of the temple in AD 70 signaled the end of the old creation and old covenant. In the old world, the Jew/Gentile distinction was elemental. In the new covenant, the only distinction that ultimately matters is Christian/non-Christian. Jesus is the dividing line that runs through the human race一those who trust him for salvation are his new humanity and new Israel. Those who reject him belong to Satan, as Jesus told the Pharisees in John 8.
It is a total misconception to think of modern Judaism as the “religion of the Old Testament,” with the implication that God now has two religions and two peoples一a people who continue in the religion of the Old Testament and another people, mainly Gentiles, who have the religion of the New Testament. Old Testament religion ended in AD 70 and can never be reinstituted. The redemptive-historical narrative only moves in one direction. Those who were true believers under the old covenant system entered into the new because they recognized Jesus as the fulfillment of their religion and the covenant promises. Those Jews who did not move into the new covenant lost their system and their status. The old covenant order was demolished in AD 70; it would be impossible to go back to it because God will never again dwell in a house made by human hands. He dwells in his church-temple, in the hearts of his people who trust in the Messiah he sent. Judaism today is nothing more than another false religion. Old Testament religion finds its fulfillment and completion in Jesus and the church. If the Old Testament is a story in search of an ending, that ending is not found in Rabbinic Judaism or the Talmud; that ending is found in Jesus and his church.
To put it another way, the Old Testament is a Christian book. When Christians claim the Old Testament as their own, they are not taking something from the Jews that isn’t really theirs; rather, Christians are claiming what is rightfully theirs as the people who believe in the One who fulfilled the Old Testament Scriptures. Jesus made it plain in Luke 24 that the entire Old Testament一the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms一all bore witness to him. A right reading of the Old Testament Scriptures leads straight to Jesus. The Old Testament was a shadow of the good things to come in God’s Messiah. Now that he has arrived, the old covenant scaffolding has fallen away so the true temple-people of God can be manifested. Jesus’ coming made the entire old covenant order obsolete (Hebrews 8:13).
The end of the old world means Jews as Jews no longer possess any special covenant standing with God as they did in the old world. The whole reason for setting apart Abraham’s lineage in the old world was to bring the promised Messiah into the world. Salvation is of the Jews. But now that the Messiah has come, old covenant Israel’s purpose is complete. They continue to exist as a people, but they no longer have the special status given to them in the old order. Likewise, with the old covenant temple, the Levitical priesthood, the animal sacrifices, the ceremonial washings/cleanness laws, the Passover, the seventh day Sabbath, the promised land/holy land, and so on一the entire old covenant order was typological, designed to foreshadow the coming Messiah. Jesus did not destroy the law, but fulfilled it, and in fulfilling it, he transformed it. The temple is transformed into Jesus and his church. The old covenant sacrificial liturgy is fulfilled in Jesus’ sacrificial death and the church’s sacrifice of praise. The seventh day Sabbath has been transformed into the Lord’s Day at the beginning of the week because we no longer anticipate the coming day of rest and refreshment; that day has arrived. The Levitical priesthood has morphed into the priesthood of all believers, the priesthood of the baptized. All the old covenant ceremonial washings and anointings are fulfilled in Christian baptism. The meaning of Passover and the other old covenant feasts have all been taken up into the Eucharist. And so on. The New Testament makes all of this plain. It appropriates old covenant language and categories, but applies them in a new way. Thus, the church is not old covenant Israel’s replacement (as is sometimes said), but old covenant Israel’s completion and fulfillment一a new Israel, in continuity with the old but transfigured in Jesus’ death and resurrection.
The fact that Jews as Jews possess no special covenant relationship with God anymore also means that Jews are not under any special curse. The curses of Israel’s broken covenant fell on them in AD 70, and were exhausted there. To illustrate: prior to AD 70 when Paul went into a city, he would preach to the Jews first, then the Gentiles. After AD 70, Christians are under no such obligation. We evangelize indiscriminately, without going to Jews first. Again, the only line through the human race that matters this side of AD 70 is the Christian/non-Christian division.
Perhaps most significantly, the promised land, from the perspective of the new covenant, is now seen to have been only a first installment on a global inheritance. Abraham was promised the world (Romans 4:13). EVERY family and nation will be blessed with Abraham’s blessing over the course of history. As the kingdom grows to fill the earth (as promised in passages like Isaiah 11 and Daniel 2), Abraham receives what God promised him. Or to be more to the point, Christ receives what he purchased with his blood and what his Father promised him as an inheritance (John 3:16, Psalm 2:8). The whole world belongs to Jesus. He has all authority in heaven and earth. Jesus is King and Savior of the nations. He has won the victory on the cross and in his resurrection, and now the implications of his victory are being worked out, slowly but inexorably, like a mustard seed growing into the largest tree in the garden. The new Israel will fill the whole earth. The entire world will become the “holy land.”
Israel’s conquest of the land of Canaan with a sword of iron was also typological. In the new covenant, the church conquers not only one small piece of land but the entire earth with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Acts is the new covenant book of Joshua. Just as the book of Joshua records the Israelites fighting to take hold of their inheritance, so Acts records the beginnings of the church’s conquest of the nations, as she brings the gospel to all peoples. Joshua conquered by killing; the church conquers by converting and saving. Joshua had his mandate to destroy the Canaanites to claim the promised territory; the church has her mandate in the Great Commission, to claim the territory of all nations for the Greater Joshua. Evangelism isn’t just new covenant holy war一it is holy war transformed and fitted for the new age.
Jesus is Israel and Israel’s God. He is the God-man, fulfilling the plan of salvation God promised to Abraham. In him, and only in him, all families and nations will be blessed with the forgiveness of sins through his shed blood and with new life through his Holy Spirit. Jesus is the true son of Abraham一and also the true Son of God. As son of Abraham, he is fully human, and thus can act on behalf of humans. As Son of God, he can do for us what we could never do for ourselves. Jesus, as the God-man, does God’s part, keeping his promise to bring salvation, and does our part, dying in our place, taking the wrath we deserve because of our sin.
Those who trust in Jesus are united to him by faith. This is why Paul constantly uses “in Christ” language in his letters. In Christ, all that belongs to him is given to us. We have his righteous standing before the Father. We share in his resurrection life even now (with bodily resurrection to come at the last day). We are members of God’s covenant family, his adopted and reborn children. We have access to the heavenly sanctuary, the heavenly Most Holy Place, in prayer, so we can come before his throne of grace and get help in our times of need. Ultimately, we will share in his glory. Everything the old covenant Jews longed for is now ours in Christ. They can have these blessing too一but they must turn to Jesus to find them.
To put it another way, just as many Israelites were Gentilized after the exile, and again after AD 70, getting absorbed into the Gentile nations (e.g., the “ten lost tribes;” see also Genesis 48:19), so when Gentiles trust in Christ, they get Israelitized. They become true Jews, members of the true Israel. Gentile believers get plugged into Israel’s story. The patriarchs of Genesis become “our fathers” (1 Corinthians 10:1). The New Testament acknowledges that not all who claim to be Jews are Jews; not all who are Israel are Israel. The true Israel is found in union with the ultimate Israelite, the true Jew, the Lord Jesus Christ. If Jews want what God promised them under the old covenant they must turn to the One their ancestors crucified. Until they do so, they remain outside the kingdom party, they remain broken-out branches, they remain disinherited sons; they remain the divorced bride. The kingdom was taken from unbelieving Jews and given to a people who would bear its fruit. Unbelieving Jews are no longer under the Moasic/Deuteronomic curse (Deuteronomy 27)一that was exhausted in AD 70一but they remain under the Adamic curse, like the rest of unbelieving humanity, until and unless they repent (Romans 5:12ff).
Jesus said that if you reject him, you reject the Father who sent him. Jews who rejected Jesus rejected their God. Religiously observant Jews today do not worship the God of the Old Testament, nor do they worship the same God as Christians. Yes, it is tragic that the people of Abraham rejected Abraham’s God even as they rejected Abraham’s Seed. But that will not be the end of their story.
Jesus and Jesus alone is the way, the truth, and the life. Salvation is found in him alone. Jesus died for the sins of his people. Jesus rose again to give his people victory over death. Jesus has crushed the head of the Satanic serpent. Jesus purchased the nations. Jesus’ kingdom will grow to fill the earth. Followers of Jesus constitute the true people of God, a new Israel and a new humanity.
This is Christianity 101. This is the teaching of the historic church. This is the story of the gospel, the story that defines the purpose of creation and history, the story that defines our lives.
One final, concluding geo-political postscript. I said at the beginning I would not get into the geo-political questions, but here I will make one final point that ties what I have said above to the central political question of the moment.
American evangelicals like Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz have pointed to Genesis 12:3, where God says to Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you,” to justify our nation’s foreign policy towards the modern nation-state of Israel. I do not doubt the faith, good will, or sincerity of men like Cruz and Huckabee. But their view that we must maintain a “most favored nation” relationship with the Israeli government for biblical reasons is a theological novelty (based on Dispensationalism, which traces only as far back as the nineteenth century) that cannot be sustained exegetically. There may or may not be good reasons to have the modern nation-state of Israel as a special ally一those are practical and prudential questions that have to be gauged based on America’s interests as a nation, the same way we would with any other government. On the one hand, Israel is the only democracy in the region and shares some cultural commonalities with us; on the other hand, it is a secular, pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ state that is not exactly hospitable to Christians and has a vested interest in getting America into wars on her behalf. Does Israel have too much influence over American politics? Probably一but that could be said of China, Big Pharma and a lot of other lobbying groups. Would things get measurably worse in the Middle East if we withdrew from the region into more of an isolationist stance? That’s likely, though experts would have to project how the contingencies would play out. The pros and cons of the American/Israeli alliance have to be weighed according to a variety of complex factors.
But my point here is this: The modern nation-state of Israel is NOT the people in view in Genesis 12:3. Cruz and Huckabee, however sincere, are sincerely wrong. Again, Paul answers the “who are Abraham’s children?” question in Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians by pointing to Christ and those who trust in him. Period. No remainder. Unbelieving Jews are not children of Abraham in the sense that matters一and certainly not in the Genesis 12:3 sense. Unbelieving Jews have been broken out of Abraham’s family tree as covenant breakers. There is nothing “special” theologically or biblically about the nation-state of Israel as she exists today. Blessing the Israeli government or unbelieving Jews as a people today is not going to bring some blessing from God upon America. That’s a completely wrongheaded way to see it.
And so this is how I would urge modern American policy-makers to look at it: If we as Americans want the blessing of Genesis 12:3 for our own people, we need to be much more ecclesiocentric, and explicitly so. We must bless the Christian church, starting with the church in our own land. This means recognizing the church as the body and bride of Christ. This means recognizing the central role the church played in the rise of Western Civilization and in early American history, and seeking to recover that prominence. This means giving the church a place of honor, making sure she has cultural and social space to fulfill her mission and heeding her faithful proclamation of the Word. This means recognizing that the church as the church has real authority in the world so her sacramental and disciplinary actions carry weight. It means protecting Christians gathered for worship from hostile mobs that would disrupt her sacrifice of praise. On the world stage, it means using American political leverage to support and protect the church in places where Christians are especially vulnerable一like China, North Korea, and, yes, in the Middle East, where everyone focuses on the conflict between Israel and her Muslim neighbors, even as ancient Christian communities there are largely ignored, marginalized, and attacked. If America wants God’s blessing we must be a blessing to the global Christian community. We must protect the church from beastly tyrannical governments that seek to devour her. Almost 400 million Christians in the world today face high levels of persecution. The American government has the power to end that persecution in an instant if we so desired. Why don’t we? God said to Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you”一so an America that blesses Christ, the true seed of Abraham, and his people will be blessed. I pray for a day when American policy, foreign and domestic, reflects that truth.