What is the State of Israel?

[Abd_Yesua_alMasih]

Even if we did accept for a moment the teachings of certain dispensationalist groups towards the nation of Israel - my question is: what constitutes the State of Israel? Is the modern state that likes to call itself by the title of Israel really a biblical 'Israel' which could even fulfill prophecies?

I would first of all like note than there are many Orthodox Jews who do not consider Israel to be legitimate. Infact that is why you have Jewish groups trying to kill Ariel Sharon etc... and bring about a new Jewish State.

Just because this nation accepts the title of Israel does that automatically mean it is a continuation of 'biblical Israel'?

Throughout history we see a pattern. God told the Israelites to follow his commandments and they will stay on in the land. The Israelites would break the covenant and would be exiled/punished etc... and they would then REPENT and turn back to God 'in sack cloth and ashes'. God would then restore the nation of Israel and there would be peace.

We see in AD70 God's punishment against the Jewish state and the diaspora which took them around the known world. So far there has been no mass repentance, not return to the Lord... etc... Infact there are few Jews who are even religious in their own orthodox sense. They have not repented and their return from exile has been man made - and men secular Jews take pride in this so my religious studies lecturer says.

I was actually reading last year a dispensationalist book on Israel that could not help but conclude that while the agree with mainstream dispensationalists in a lot of ways they can not see how modern Israel could actually be in anyway related to the historical Israel - it is a secular, unrepentant society and if anything in a worse that than before when God exiled them.

 

[ReformedWretch]

it is a secular, unrepentant society and if anything in a worse that than before when God exiled them.

I've made that argument for a while, Dispensationalists ONLY response to this is to call me an anti-semite.

 

[Abd_Yesua_alMasih]

You could almost sum up the question as what gave David Ben-Gurion and other Jewish leaders the authority to recreate the state of Israel?

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

On a purely political basis, given the worldwide persecution of the Jews through the 20th century, I understand and emphathize with their desire to have a nation of their own. To the extent that they or Christian Zionists see themselves as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecies, I think they are deeply mistaken and have no Scriptural warrant to see themselves as Biblical Israel.

 

[Robin]

Originally posted by Abd_Yesua_alMasih
You could almost sum up the question as what gave David Ben-Gurion and other Jewish leaders the authority to recreate the state of Israel?

Fraser,

God's grace allowed Israel to restore a national presense in the world in the last century. While this is true - and is amazingly merciful on God's part - it has little to do with Scriptures' prophecies about "Israel" because Christ is the True Israel - and a part from a remnant that Paul says will be restored in the "new society" God is gathering unto Himself ---we should try to focus upon Christ. It is no small matter that national Israel rejected Christ and then suffered His covenant curses upon them (Matt 23.) An interesting & curious thing Christ says to them seems to infer that the Jews must confess Christ before He comes.

Matt. 23:
37"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! See, your house is left to you desolate. 39For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

And Adam --- as for your continual suffering from the cowardly, ad hominum attacks from the Dispensationalists ---- if you can, calmly sit down with them and have them read Matthew 23 (start to finish/in context) and sensibly ask them "was Jesus anti-semitic?" There are seven curses to deal with in that chapter - Christ is God's "Prophet" pronouncing YHWH's judgment on them. (The office of prophet is actually a legal prosecutor-type role.) Hold their feet to the fire on that one...it's not a little thing.

At least, that's my

R.

PS. As for the question of Israel becoming a nation as a fulfillment to prophecy --- THAT was ALREADY fulfilled during the reign of Solomon (1 Kings 8:1-11.) From then on, Israel commited spiritual adultery -- violated the sanctions of the Covenant, failed and came under its curse. There is NO way that the former promises (fulfilled with Solomon) for a land are owed them now. They blew it!

[Edited on 2-20-2005 by Robin]

 

[andreas]

*** my question is: what constitutes the State of Israel? Is the modern state that likes to call itself by the title of Israel really a biblical 'Israel' which could even fulfill prophecies?***

28" For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God."Romans 2.

andreas.

 

[Abd_Yesua_alMasih]

I guess my point is that even dispensationalists with their interpretation of scripture can not prove Israel is 'Israel' from their own prophecies. Many of these dispensationalists vote and support moves that assume Israel is the Biblical fulfillment of prophecy and that it is 'God's State' - yet even if you accept their reading of scripture modern Israel can not be this state.

Does this make sense? Would it rationally work in a debate (with some working on it?)

 

[TimV]

The modern state of Israel has as it's official name Medinat Yisra'el. It means basically "the Jewish people".

I'm not sure what you are asking or getting at or wondering. This is an ethno-state like so many others. Why should there be any significance it it? The Armenians have been in existance as long or longer than Jews, and have at times not had a state. They recently got one. The same can be said of large numbers of other peoples, like the Persians, Chinese, Greeks, etc.. and may well be the case for others shortly like the Basques, Assyrians and Welsh.

The current state of Israel is the place where the Jews of the Bible have achieved self determination in an area where they historically have had a presence, like the others I named above. They may lose it again, or may, like the Iranians, stay there for another 2500 years.

 

[Abd_Yesua_alMasih]

You are right, politicaly etc... I have to agree that Israel is a 'Jewish' state. What I am disputing is whether even if dispensationalist theory is correct there is still nothing biblically superior about the modern state of Israel than other nations. It is Israel only by name - Andreas has already pointed out:
Romans 2:28&29
"For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God."

 

[Authorised]

Denial.

 

[SolaScriptura]

God's grace allowed Israel to restore a national presense in the world in the last century.

Agreed. Acts 17:26. The problem is that many evangelicals think that there is a special significance to the restoration of Israel as a national entity. They sometimes point to Israel's (admittedly) amazing success in the Six Day War as irrefutable proof of God's blessing. They hemm and haww when I start going down my list of other startling military victories that have occured in human history. (Heck, even the American's defeat of the British troops in the Revolution is pretty much an amazing miracle: that the French fleet just happened to show up to prevent the British fleet from allowing picking up Cornwallis' army and sailing around behind the Americans...)

 

[tcalbrecht]

Originally posted by TimV
The modern state of Israel has as it's official name Medinat Yisra'el. It means basically "the Jewish people". ...

It means "the State of Israel".

Originally posted by TimV

The current state of Israel is the place where the Jews of the Bible have achieved self determination in an area where they historically have had a presence, like the others I named above. They may lose it again, or may, like the Iranians, stay there for another 2500 years.

How does one demonstrate that modern Israel is home to "the Jews of the Bible"?

 

[tcalbrecht]

Originally posted by Robin
God's grace allowed Israel to restore a national presense in the world in the last century. ...

[Edited on 2-20-2005 by Robin]

Doesn't this statement concede too much to dispensationalists? By using the term "restore" you admit some connection between modern Israel and something that has gone before (biblical Israel??).

The reality is that there is no such connection, thus modern Israel is no restoration of anything.

It is a purely political entity carved out by the nations of the world to deal with a problem in an unbiblical fashion. Those nations that had significant propulations that professed Jesus Christ alienated Jews within their borders, rather than treating them as "aliens and strangers" in biblical terms. In places like Germany and Russia they were harrassed and killed and forced into their own "homeland".

In those lands were Jews have been treated somewhat reasonably (e.g., the US) Jews have tended to stay put, recognizing the benefits of a truly free society.

[Edited on 2-21-2005 by tcalbrecht]

 

[Robin]

Originally posted by tcalbrecht

Originally posted by Robin
God's grace allowed Israel to restore a national presense in the world in the last century. ...

[Edited on 2-20-2005 by Robin]

Doesn't this statement concede too much to dispensationalists? By using the term "restore" you admit some connection between modern Israel and something that has gone before (biblical Israel??).
[Edited on 2-21-2005 by tcalbrecht]

We have nothing to fear from granting this fact to the Dispensational camp. IF - we have the skills to demonstrate from Scripture, the horrendous errors Dispensationalism commits: confusing Christ with the Antichrist (Daniel 7); reinstating temple ritual when Christ's own work obliterates it - thus, turning the Gospel into the Law (which is Satan's modus operandi.)

It is ironic that Dispensationalism upholds the theology of the Pharisees - who condemned Christ for His different doctrine: (His Kingdom was NOT of this earth.) Besides, everybody forgets that national Israel received the fulfillment of the promise of a land during Solomon (1 Kings 8). The important thing is, the promise was conditional - Israel failed and violated the convenant - and have since then, been bearing the curses of that Covenant YHWH made with them (Ex. 22; 1 Kings 8.) Get it? They blew it - so legally speaking - God does not OWE them! We must keep knowledge of the Covenant intact to even discuss these issues. God only relates to man via Covenant, btw.

In fact, after Genesis 3:15 - the rest of the Old Testament is about national Israel F A I L I N G to keep God's Covenant. That's why Christ had to come - He was the "Israel" Who could and did suceed in keeping God's Covenant (10 Commandments.) This is why Christ is the True Israel - the Second Adam - the Mediator of a New Covenant (Gal. 3.)

Witnessing tip: read-through the book of Hebrews and have a Dispie account to it. Keep it in context though.


R.

 

[tcalbrecht]

Originally posted by Robin

Originally posted by tcalbrecht

Originally posted by Robin
God's grace allowed Israel to restore a national presense in the world in the last century. ...

[Edited on 2-20-2005 by Robin]

Doesn't this statement concede too much to dispensationalists? By using the term "restore" you admit some connection between modern Israel and something that has gone before (biblical Israel??).
[Edited on 2-21-2005 by tcalbrecht]

We have nothing to fear from granting this fact to the Dispensational camp. ...

But that is the issue at hand, whether the modern state of Israel is in fact any restortion of something that went before. I don't believe there is any way to show that it is. I believe to suggest it is in fact a restoration is to argue as the dispensationalists do.

 

[Robin]

You're missing something, I think, Tom....

The Dispensational claim that the 20th Century "restoration" of Israel is THE "restoration" in Scripture - is based upon a geographical fact - NOT Scriptures explanation of WHAT the restoration will BE LIKE. (Romans 9-11.) Their claim is utterly confused and disconnected from the whole counsel of the Biblical Text.

If we allow claims to be substantiated by verses yanked out of context - bearing no accurate resemblence to what Scripture M E A N S - by what it says - then we fall victim to any claim - any denomination or cult will voice. The Mormons and JW's do the same thing.

It's hard spade-work - but, trust me - it CAN be proved from a responsible study of the Text (by anyone with a 3rd grade reading level) that though we have witnessed a phyisical, geographical event where people (descended from peoples located in the land called Israel) have indeed returned to their land of origin-embraced their historic culture, and identify themselves as Israelites - that fact has nothing whatsoever to do with Paul's explanation in Romans unless they demonstrate that they are indeed, regenerate souls trusting (alone) in The Christ of Scripture (as taught by the Apostles.)

By the way - we are to TEST everything with Scripture - bowing to its authority. I don't care if a flying saucer landed-popped the hatch and informed all of us - we were really descendents from another planet - such an extraordinary event wouldn't impress me. Scripture has a precise design to it - and Dispensational views are rife with twisting and turning the plain reading of the Text.

Take a look at "A Case for Amillennielism" by Kim Riddlebarger - which is the soundest treatise on this subject.

Please stop interpreting Scripture through the lens of current events, OK? That's exactly what Dispensationalists do! Mature Christians are to let Scripture interpret Scripture! (I know it's not as eXcItiNg but is sure is safer!)

Blessings,


R.

 

[Scott]

The Israel of the Middle East is not the Israel of the Bible.

 

[tcalbrecht]

Originally posted by Robin

Please stop interpreting Scripture through the lens of current events, OK? That's exactly what Dispensationalists do! Mature Christians are to let Scripture interpret Scripture! (I know it's not as eXcItiNg but is sure is safer!)

Blessings,


R.

Robin,

You and I must not be connecting on some level.

You made the following claim: "God's grace allowed Israel to restore a national presense in the world in the last century."

Perhaps you misspoke, or I misunderstood.

I took issue with your use of the word "restore" since modern Israel is not a restoration of anything. "Restore" is a word used by dispensationalists to describe modern Israel. There is no biblical evidence of such a restoration.

I am not the one interpreting the Bible through the lens of current events. In fact I deny that modern events are any direct fulfillment of any specific biblical prophecy.

Let me say it again, modern Israel is not a "restoration" of anything, biblically speaking.

Whether believing "Israel" will be restored to the physical land of Abraham in the future is a matter of some dispute among Reformed folks. I'm somewhat undecided at the moment.

 

[tcalbrecht]

Originally posted by Scott
The Israel of the Middle East is not the Israel of the Bible.

 

[Robin]

Ahhh...I see your point Tom and Tom....

I still say we must recognize that the so-called "restoration" really IS a restoration of a racial-historic people, descended from those in a certain geographical area. There is a real cultural, human legacy there -a real geneology. They are Jews and Israelites in the racial sense.

Clarifying this point does make a good springboard to explain the Bibles' fine distinctions about the matter. I don't know about you guys - but most Dispensationalists I talk with barely have a clue as to what the Bible says. (They don't study it except to find their own pet agendas.) One friend excitedly told me that she just found out Passover (she's studying Jewish festivals w/ a Rabbi at her evangelical megachurch) is actually connected to the Lord's Supper - and because of things like this, evangelicals must embrace the OT ceremonies and customs to "return to their Jewish roots." This terrible theology comes out of Christian self-imposed ignorance of the Scriptures. Her church is pushing towards Christian Zionism - which I think (but could be wrong) is poised to take the Dispie camp by wild-fire.

I vote we lose word-games and/or "take back" words opposers to the Scriptures exploit to use as their buzz words.

Such ad hominum tags put on us: anti-semitic ; restoration; replacement theology, etc. should not be feared or tolerated. These are language games. We must do as 2 Corinthians 10:5 says. I think Calvin wouldn't stand for this - he would call their "argument" a non-argument, unworthy of an answer. Paul says to avoid such arguments (Titus 3:9.)

These encounters are better spent on education of the Scriptures...

At least that's the way I see it.



Robin

 

[WrittenFromUtopia]

It's simple to know that the Israel of the middle east is not the Israel of the Bible; They are all atheists.

 

[tcalbrecht]

Originally posted by Robin
Ahhh...I see your point Tom and Tom....

I still say we must recognize that the so-called "restoration" really IS a restoration of a racial-historic people, descended from those in a certain geographical area. There is a real cultural, human legacy there -a real geneology. They are Jews and Israelites in the racial sense.

I'm not trying to drag this out, but your comment highlights the problem I have with the whole future Israel issue.

(Were this a dispensationalist board I would probably be charged with anti-semitism for the following comment.)

How can you demonstrate definitively that the "Jews" living in the middle east today are racially descended from Abraham?

Do you just take their word for it? After all, many of these people have emigrated to Israel from distant lands. It's been centuries since they have been in the land (if they ever were in the land). There are no authentic records. There has been intermarriage, proselytization, and other events that have tended to undermine the authenticity of anyone's claim to being a physical descendent of Abraham.

So the problem I have is this, without any other information does a 21th century secular Jew living in NYC who decides to emigrate to Israel count as a racial descendent of Abraham as part of the "restoration"?

I think that absent this definite information any discussion of a "restoration" at any level is premature.

 

[Scott]

"It's simple to know that the Israel of the middle east is not the Israel of the Bible; They are all atheists."

Yes, the government is expressly secualr and nonreligious. It does not appeal to the covenant. Even if it did, that covenant has gone.

 

[TimV]

"How can you demonstrate definitively that the "Jews" living in the middle east today are racially descended from Abraham?"

I follow physical anthropology as a hobby, and the scientific concensus is that they are, but with the caveat that with Azkhenazi Jews there has been an average of 5 percent outbreeding every century.

 

[tcalbrecht]

Originally posted by TimV
"How can you demonstrate definitively that the "Jews" living in the middle east today are racially descended from Abraham?"

I follow physical anthropology as a hobby, and the scientific concensus is that they are, but with the caveat that with Azkhenazi Jews there has been an average of 5 percent outbreeding every century.

Are we speaking of some statistically significant majority, or are we speaking of a specific individual on the street?

Science is interested in the former, not the latter.

It is virtually impossible for individual Jews to authenticate their claim to Abrahamic descent.

However, keep in mind it is dispensationalism that focuses on racial descent. The Bible does not. People were included in Israel by way of covenant not physical lineage. Circumcision, not birth, was the sign of inclusion. Abraham circumcised his sons and "every male among the men of Abraham's house". Anyone who was circumcised, regardless of racial descent, could eat of the passover.

Now the old covenant is no longer in effect. The new covenant in Christ's blood has made one, new people from both Jew and gentile. We do not divide men racially for religious purposes.

Modern Judaism is not the inheritor of the covenant of God. Modern Judaism is a non-trinitarian cult that was established in direct reaction to the spread of the Christian religion, the true Judaism of the Bible. Biblical Judaism has always been trinitarian. Abraham was a trinitarian. Moses was a trinitarian. Modern Judaism is not the faith of Abraham and Moses.

So what are we really to make of all these prophecies, mainly OT, concerning promises to the "children of Abraham"? Are we correct to interpret them as applying to events thousands of years removed from when they were given? Or are we to understand them as applying to God's new covenant people, the church, the sons of Abraham by virture of their faith in the Seed, Jesus Christ?

I think the conclusion that they apply to events thousands of years removed to a racial people is decidely dispensational. I think the covenant view sees them as being fulfilled in the true Seed, Jesus Christ, and His children.

"For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. ... Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all." (Rom. 4:13,16)

 

[TimV]

"Are we speaking of some statistically significant majority, or are we speaking of a specific individual on the street?

Science is interested in the former, not the latter."

From the context it is obviously the former.

If you want, you can start a new thread, or continue on this one, and I can add to the statement. It will have much to with comparisons with Caucasian and Sephardic Jewish gene groups.
Best

 

[tcalbrecht]

Originally posted by TimV
If you want, you can start a new thread, or continue on this one, and I can add to the statement. It will have much to with comparisons with Caucasian and Sephardic Jewish gene groups.
Best

Such matters are, in my opinion, theologically uninteresting. I would prefer to see a biblical argument as to why such things are significant.

A dispensationalist might argue that such things matter since they believe 2/3 of the Jews in Israel will be killed during the "great tribulation". Or they might make the "mark of the beast" out to be some kind of genetic detector.

 

[TimV]

Tom, you wrote

""How can you demonstrate definitively that the "Jews" living in the middle east today are racially descended from Abraham?""

I answered you, and then you wrote

"Such matters are, in my opinion, theologically uninteresting. I would prefer to see a biblical argument as to why such things are significant."

Then why did you ask? I went out of my way to say that it wasn't Biblically significant, so why would you want me to argue in favor?

 

[tcalbrecht]

Originally posted by TimV
Tom, you wrote

""How can you demonstrate definitively that the "Jews" living in the middle east today are racially descended from Abraham?""

I answered you, and then you wrote

"Such matters are, in my opinion, theologically uninteresting. I would prefer to see a biblical argument as to why such things are significant."

Then why did you ask? I went out of my way to say that it wasn't Biblically significant, so why would you want me to argue in favor?

Recall that my original question was in response to Robin's comment, "They are Jews and Israelites in the racial sense." I asked the question to highlight the impossibility of drawing such an conlusion (as the rest of my comments in that message attest).

So you were the one who brought up the matter of genetics and anthropology.

It's obvious from my comments that I do not consider race an issue wrt the inhabitants of modern Israel.

You also made the comment, "The current state of Israel is the place where the Jews of the Bible have achieved self determination ...".

The phrase "Jews of the bible" is a theological issue. That sounds to me as if you consider the inhabitants of modern Israel to be "Biblically significant". I do not consider modern Jews by and large to be "Jews of the Bible".

 

[TimV]

'The phrase "Jews of the bible" is a theological issue. That sounds to me as if you consider the inhabitants of modern Israel to be "Biblically significant". I do not consider modern Jews by and large to be "Jews of the Bible". "

They are both issues, historically and theologically. The Armenians and Persians and Assyrians of the Bible are the same people as the modern peoples bearing those names, as are the Jews. There is also a spiritual side, which has nothing to do with the historical side.