The devil is Laughing

 

The rights of Eastern European Jews to reconquer the land of Canaan is a fascinating discussion. There is no biblical right, as the Old Covenant is finished. There is no moral right, because taking land by conquest has been condemned by universal acceptance of modern nations. But there is a might makes right position that you can assert. By that I mean that they can take it by right of conquest and if no one can take it from them it is theirs. Though our world does not endorse such actions anymore, this still happens today from time to time. And often other nations will condemn this, but not actually seek to police it happening in any meaningful ways (unless of course Russia does it).

Simple minds think that many of us oppose this conquest of Canaan because of anti this or anti that. Or because of Augustine or some other Church father. But the real reason is because we deeply understand the Bible and what the land represented and who it was for. The land is a picture of our heavenly home, it was always a shadow. not the fulfilment. To make it a fulfilment is actually really sad, just look at the constant state of war required to hold even part of it. But even in the Old Covenant the land was never just for the Jews, or Judah. Only a small part of it was, it was given to the 12 sons of Jacob, the 12 tribes, of which Judah was only one.  

Judah had no more right to Simeon or Dan’s or Reuben’s land than anyone else. When Ahab offered to buy Naboth’s land, Naboth rejected the offer, because he saw it as sinful to give his inheritance to someone not of his family. Both Naboth and Ahab were Israelites, but neither had the right to the other’s land. Hence Judah, at most, and only if you still believe the Old Covenant is still in effect in some way, only has a right to tiny bit of the land. The rest belongs to the other tribes. Who are not gone.

In the days of Hoshea king of Israel the Israelites were carried off into exile, but not very far away. We read in 2 Kings 17, “6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.” So, the king of Assyria resettled the people of Israel in Syria. These people did not disappear. They mixed with the people of Syria, and the surrounding peoples.

You get the significance of this right? The descendants of these people live among the peoples we today call Syrian, Lebanese, Iraqi and more. They are mixed with the peoples and no longer practice the religion of the Bible. But the same is true of the Eastern European Jews who have sought to conquer Canaan again. They are mixed with the European peoples they lived amongst, after migrating from Babylon in the early medieval era. And they do not worship the God of the Bible or follow the religion of the Bible. They practice, if they do practice, the faith of the Pharisees, or Rabbinical Judaism, which our own Lord said was not of God (Mark. 7:1-13). Hence, how can one say they are the rightful heirs of the promises to Abraham, when they reject the very Lord Abraham believed in?

So, take this all in. This means on both sides of this fight in the Middle East there are not only physical descendants of Abraham, but physical descendants of Jacob. DNA studies have confirmed this as well. There are people who think they are Arabs, who are actually descendants of Jacob, or ancient Israel. Just as there are many people who think they are European and then find out that they are actually Jewish. This happens all the time. In other words, physical descendants of Jacob are fighting against each other, with Gentiles on both sides, for a small block of land, that is the not the real inheritance of Abraham anyway,

“13 For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression” (Rom. 4;13-15).

The real inheritance of God’s people is the new heaven and new earth, which is the real promised land, and it is only for those who believe in God, as Abraham did.

You’re not being biblical in supporting a claim for Eastern European Jews to conquer the whole land. You are actually leading them and their enemies astray by encouraging them to fight over a block of land that was supposed to point all of them, and us, to Jesus in whom all people’s can hope for salvation. It is a tragic misreading of the Bible, that no one who has read it should make.

The devil is laughing. Because the longer this conflict goes on the more people die in God’s name and end up going to hell. This is an incredible tragedy, and the devil has many Christians to thank for making this tragedy possible.