One of the basic
assumptions of Dispensationalism or Christian Zionism is the belief that you
must bless Israel. It is beyond question in their worldview. Even many other
evangelicals hold this view as well, as
noted in this article. For many of these Christians this is not a case of simply
applying the Biblical principles of extending mercy, grace and blessing to all
peoples in reasonable ways, which is basic Christianity, it is more than that,
especially for Dispensationalists. For them it is a particular idea directed at
a particular people in a particular way. For some Christian Zionists, or
Dispensationalists, it even borders on superstition. Some are actually afraid
to hear a bad word spoken about the nation of Israel, because they believe this
will turn God’s wrath towards you, or at least risk this. This can even include
for some of them hearing what the Bible itself says about these topics, though
to be fair not all Christian Zionists are in this camp.
We all know
the verse that they take to make this claim, Genesis 12:3,
“12
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your
father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a
great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will
be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you
I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed”
(emphasis added).
There are three
things we should note about this verse: God said these words. He does not
mention the nation of Israel in this passage. And this is a promise for Abram,
the man, which we see fulfilled in his days.
Now, before
my Christian Zionist friends freak out, let me note that I agree with you that
this promise is reiterated to his son Isaac, and to Jacob, and is fulfilled in
the people of true Israel in some way. The question is how. There is no
question that God was making Abram a vehicle of blessing for all peoples. But
how does the Bible itself handle this theme? Should we say, “I stand with
Israel” and leave it at that, which plenty of Christians do?
There are many
different ways to address this scripturally, but I want to focus in on a few
passages in 2 Chronicles which completely undermine many of the claims made by
Christian Zionists about this verse from Genesis. These passages show us
conclusively that the Bible itself does not teach that you are mandated to
bless Israel in the way that Christian Zionists often claim, nor does it teach
that standing with Israel is a given.
Let’s begin
by looking at a what 2 Chronicles says about alliances. I have written in detail
about how God
forbade Israel from making alliances with other nations.[1] This is not a minor theme
in the Bible but is consistently taught, and even picked up in the New
Testament and applied to believers who are commanded not to be unequally yoked.
God’s people are supposed to look him for protection, not others. Those who look
to God are the ones who were blessed,
“2
And Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God. 3 He took
away the foreign altars and the high places and broke down the pillars and cut
down the Asherim 4 and commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their
fathers, and to keep the law and the commandment. 5 He also took out of all the
cities of Judah the high places and the incense altars. And the kingdom had
rest under him. 6 He built fortified cities in Judah, for the land had rest. He
had no war in those years, for the Lord gave him peace. 7 And he said to Judah,
“Let us build these cities and surround them with walls and towers, gates and
bars. The land is still ours, because we have sought the Lord our God. We have
sought him, and he has given us peace on every side.” So they built and
prospered” (2 Chron. 141-7).
Asa
faithfully followed God and was granted peace. Some Christians like to argue
that the reason Israel never finds peace in their region is simply because
their neighbours are all filled with hate. While some of this is true, the fact
is that God is the giver and taker of peace. Also, God never had any
intention of letting someone control the land of Canaan without doing it in his
will. Leviticus makes it clear that God sees the land as his, “23 The land
shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers
and sojourners with me” (Lev. 25:23). Therefore, for anyone to claim it and
reject God at the same time is to rebel against God and this is going to bring
troubles.
God makes
this even more clear to Asa one chapter later through one of his prophets,
“1
The Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded, 2 and he went out to meet
Asa and said to him, “Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: The Lord is
with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but
if you forsake him, he will forsake you. 3 For a long time Israel was without
the true God, and without a teaching priest and without law, 4 but when in
their distress they turned to the Lord, the God of Israel, and sought him, he
was found by them. 5 In those times there was no peace to him who went out
or to him who came in, for great disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of
the lands. 6 They were broken in pieces. Nation was crushed by nation and city
by city, for God troubled them with every sort of distress. 7 But you, take
courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded”” (2
Chron. 15:2-7, emphasis added).
God promised
those that sought to claim the land under the name of Israel that if they did
not obey him there would be no peace. This passage makes that so explicit and
so clear, I am not sure how anyone could refute it, “5 In those times there was
no peace to him who went out or to him who came in, for great disturbances
afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands. 6 They were broken in pieces.
Nation was crushed by nation and city by city, for God troubled them with every
sort of distress.” This leaves us no room for error, God is plainly saying that
he will not allow peace in the land of Canaan if he is not being honoured and
acknowledged by its inhabitants.
I do not
believe the modern nation of Israel is the same one as the one in the Bible for
a variety of reasons, I have made this clear in previous posts. But those who
seek to claim it under God’s name will face God’s standards. Remember God judged
the Amorites before the Israelites for the very same sins. To claim to be
Israel and live like the Amorites will not bring blessing. How can it?
God always
wanted Israel to look to God alone and live as he wanted them to live. He keeps
driving this message home.
“7
At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him,
“Because you relied on the king of Syria, and did not rely on the Lord your
God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped you. 8 Were not the Ethiopians
and the Libyans a huge army with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet because
you relied on the Lord, he gave them into your hand. 9 For the eyes of the Lord
run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those
whose heart is blameless toward him. You have done foolishly in this, for from
now on you will have wars” (2 Chronicles 16:7-9).
Again, God
promises that he will not give peace in the land to those who reject him. Asa
did not respond well to this message, he punished the prophet who brought it
(v.10). God’s people often do not respond well to this message, but God
continues to remind them to look only to him. If you really believe the country
that calls itself Israel is the people of God (which is not possible for anyone
to claim who denies Jesus), then you hurt them by encouraging them to look to
America, or any other nation for peace. God calls those who claim his name to
look to him alone. He states it directly again and again in this series of
chapters in Chronicles and the rest of the Bible.
It should not
shock us that modern Christians often ignore this teaching, because even
faithful kings of Judah made this error. Jehosophat even allied himself, through
family, to Ahab’s house,
“18
Now Jehoshaphat had great riches and honor, and he made a marriage alliance
with Ahab. 2 After some years he went down to Ahab in Samaria. And Ahab killed
an abundance of sheep and oxen for him and for the people who were with him,
and induced him to go up against Ramoth-gilead. 3 Ahab king of Israel said to
Jehoshaphat king of Judah, “Will you go with me to Ramoth-gilead?” He answered
him, “I am as you are, my people as your people. We will be with you in the war””
(2 Chron. 18:1-3).
Ahab was
Jehosophat’s faither in law. Despite all his wickedness the good king of Judah
still allied with him. Why did he do this? The Bible does not say. But he would
not be the only godly man in history to ally himself with powers that were actively
opposing God. Remember Ahab was the epitome of the bad king of Israel. He was
more wicked than any who came before and probably more than most who came after.
Yet this is the kingdom of Israel, the actual kingdom of Israel in the Bible,
so surely God blesses the king of Judah for seeking to bless Israel? Genesis
12 in action right?
Well no, the
opposite happens in fact. Jehosophat goes to war with Ahab, and it does not go
well. After this God sent a prophet to Jehosophat and this is what he says,
“19
Jehoshaphat the king of Judah returned in safety to his house in Jerusalem. 2
But Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him and said to King
Jehoshaphat, “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord?
Because of this, wrath has gone out against you from the Lord. 3 Nevertheless,
some good is found in you, for you destroyed the Asheroth out of the land, and
have set your heart to seek God”” (2 Chron. 19:1-3).
God actually
judges Jehosophat for allying with Ahab. This was a military alliance, and God
was not for it. Jehosophat should have been aware of this because he was there
when the prophet Michaiah challenges Ahab in 2 Chronicles 18. This verse alone,
2 Chronicles 19:2, should destroy the Christian Zionist reading of Genesis 12
once and for all, “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord?
Because of this, wrath has gone out against you from the Lord.” To say I stand
with unbelieving Israel is literally rebuked in the Bible. Literally. And I am
not using literally in the metaphorical sense. Jehosophat was rebuked for
standing with Israel, the biblical Israel. It is right there in black and
white, you cannot ally with them in their efforts, because they are rejecting
God. Do not be unequally yoked in other words. This is where Paul gets this
idea, from passages like this.
But it was
not just military alliances. God judges Jehosophat for allying with Ahab and
Israel economically as well,
“35
After this Jehoshaphat king of Judah joined with Ahaziah king of Israel, who
acted wickedly. 36 He joined him in building ships to go to Tarshish, and they
built the ships in Ezion-geber. 37 Then Eliezer the son of Dodavahu of Mareshah
prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, “Because you have joined with Ahaziah,
the Lord will destroy what you have made.” And the ships were wrecked and were
not able to go to Tarshish” (2 Chron. 20:35-37).
Jehosophat
blessed Israel, at least twice, and was punished for it by God. Punished for it!
This is because simply standing with those who reject God is not really blessing
them or obeying God. In fact, it is an absolute subversion of the way the Bible
uses that concept to say that this is blessing someone. Not only that, it was
not in their nature of being a nation or in their flesh that Israel carried this
blessing, it was in their faithfulness to God and their witness to him in which
it was extended into this world. Hence, when Israel is rejecting God it is more
wicked to stand with them than to rebuke them. As is the case with every single
other entity or person. This is equally true for all nations, all peoples. But
the Bible says it explicitly about Israel in the Bible.
Two more
passages drive this consistent theme home. Jehoram the son of Jehosophat commits
the exact same sin of his father by uniting himself to Ahab’s house in
marriage,
“6
And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done,
for the daughter of Ahab was his wife. And he did what was evil in the sight of
the Lord. 7 Yet the Lord was not willing to destroy the house of David, because
of the covenant that he had made with David, and since he had promised to give
a lamp to him and to his sons forever” (2 Chron. 21:6-7).
God was not
pleased with this sin, but he was also merciful towards the kingdom of Judah
because of his promise to David that his son would be on the throne forever,
which we know was ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:1-4). However,
things did not end well for Jehoram. God stirred up enemies to invade the
kingdom and prophesied that he would die by a cruel and horrible bow disease (2
Chron. 21:11-15). Which happened, as God’s word is always fulfilled.
Jehoram’s son,
Ahaziah, made the same mistake, again, by marrying into Ahab’s family line. So,
God punished him, as well,
“7
But it was ordained by God that the downfall of Ahaziah should come about
through his going to visit Joram. For when he came there, he went out with
Jehoram to meet Jehu the son of Nimshi, whom the Lord had anointed to destroy
the house of Ahab. 8 And when Jehu was executing judgment on the house of Ahab,
he met the princes of Judah and the sons of Ahaziah's brothers, who attended
Ahaziah, and he killed them. 9 He searched for Ahaziah, and he was captured
while hiding in Samaria, and he was brought to Jehu and put to death. They
buried him, for they said, “He is the grandson of Jehoshaphat, who sought the
Lord with all his heart.” And the house of Ahaziah had no one able to rule the
kingdom” (2 Chron. 22:7-9).
In this
passage Ahaziah the king of Judah actually gets punished when he goes to visit
Joram the king of Israel. Both the king of Israel and the King of Judah were destroyed
by the king of Syria. How many times in one series of passages does God have to
rebuke the Dispensationalist or Christian Zionist reading of Genesis 12:3 for
people to understand that God does not want nor expect believers to “stand with
Israel.” He wants us to stand with him and with those who submit to him in
faith. You may even be bringing judgement down on yourself when you are doing
this. It certainly should not surprise us that the United States is in such
disrepair, because it has allied itself intricately with Israel since at least
the 1950’s and it has lurched from disaster to disaster since then.
Therefore, we
can say forccertain that Genesis 12:3 cannot and does not mean that we should
align ourselves with the country called Israel, just by virtue of their nationhood. Even if it were the actual
nation from the Bible we should not do this, until they repented. God does not
want his people aligning with unbelieving nations, even those with the name of
father of the twelve tribes. We have seen in previous articles that this
principle is applied more broadly as well.
So, does this
mean it is wrong to bless Israel is any way? Well, not if you do it like the
Apostles. We see a great application of God’s promise to Abraham being
fulfilled in the preaching of Peter. He begins his sermon in Acts 3 by saying
this,
“12
And when Peter saw it he addressed the people: “Men of Israel, why do you
wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety
we have made him walk? 13 The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered
over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him”
(Acts 3:12-13).
God connects
his message to the heritage of God’s work through Abraham and then exhorts the
men of Israel to repent and turn to God. And then he finishes like this,
“25
You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your
fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of
the earth be blessed.’ 26 God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you
first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness” (Acts
3:25-26).
There it is,
he explicitly connects the promise of blessing in Abraham to the preaching of
the gospel. Peter wants to bless the men of Israel by telling them to repent
and turn to Jesus, “to bless you by turning every one of you from your
wickedness.” The best thing about this reading is that it fits exactly with the
way this concept was applied in the Old Testament and comes from the mouths of
the Apostles itself. To stand with Israel when it is rejecting God is to be
unequally yoked, it is outright wrong. But to warn them to turn to Jesus is to
point them towards blessing. This was the goal of God’s blessing to Abraham all
along to teach all the nations, including Israel, to turn from sin to
righteousness. That is how the Bible understands this idea.
If you want
to bless Israel then that is how you do it, by preaching the gospel and
pointing them to Jesus. To say you should ally with unbelieving Israel or say “I
stand with Israel” is neither biblical nor righteous and would not be even if
it was the Israel of the Bible. You do not need to listen to those who say you
will incur God’s wrath because you refuse to take sides in an ungodly Middle Eastern
conflict. In fact, you are standing in the very same position that God’s prophets
reflected in the 2 Chronicles passages we examined. Wanting both sides to
repent is the biblical position. There is simply no biblical justification for
the Dispensationalist or Christian Zionist reading.
But this does
not mean we cannot be agents of blessing to the nation called Israel, we just
have to do it the right way, the Apostle’s way. We can pray for them to repent,
just as we can for any other people. We bring Abraham’s blessing into this
world by imitating Christ and pointing people to him, just as the Apostles did.
List of
References
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