Christianity and Israel

[barnz]

Does Israel still have significance to Christians other than the history that it brings which led to Christ? I ask because I will attend this one conference in DC next weekend about "Why Christians Should Support Israel." This event is purely for political reasons, but they will try to connect spiritual things to it as well. What do you guys think?

[ClubV12]

It has no signifcance in my opinion. Many christians and politicians strongly support Israel based on some "mythical" spiritual belief. Particularly in regards to some future application of prophecy. Or just because they AREN'T Muslim/Islam in an area that IS. Others may see it as an island of sanity within the insanity of the region. Some support Israel because of the "raw deal" concerning it's persecution, the underdog theory.

The only reason, in my opinion, it deserves support is for it's possible political value in stabilizing the region. In the same sense Jordon or Egypt or any other given country also needs support.

It's "spiritual significance" is nothing more than an area that will be exploited during the last day events. The LAND has a place in God establishing the New City WELL AFTER the 2nd coming. Which has nothing to do with the citizens of Israel anymore than it has to do with the citizens of Australia.

[Lysimachus]

When you have a chance Alex, you might want to check out the following articles I've written on Israel:

The Romans 11 Problem Concerning "All Israel"

The Israel of God and the False Charge of "Replacement Theology"

Antitypical Fulfillment of Old Testament Typology Concerning Ancient Israel - Conditional Types of Unconditional Antitypes

Earliest Church Fathers believed Israel was Realized in the Church

Enjoy!

[skyblue888]

Israel today is composed of all who look to Christ and trust wholly in the merits of His sacrifice for their acceptance with God and for the gift of the Holy Spirit which brings all other blessings in its train.

sky

[skyblue888]

It has no signifcance in my opinion. Many christians and politicians strongly support Israel based on some "mythical" spiritual belief. Particularly in regards to some future application of prophecy. Or just because they AREN'T Muslim/Islam in an area that IS. Others may see it as an island of sanity within the insanity of the region. Some support Israel because of the "raw deal" concerning it's persecution, the underdog theory.

The only reason, in my opinion, it deserves support is for it's possible political value in stabilizing the region. In the same sense Jordon or Egypt or any other given country also needs support.

It's "spiritual significance" is nothing more than an area that will be exploited during the last day events. The LAND has a place in God establishing the New City WELL AFTER the 2nd coming. Which has nothing to do with the citizens of Israel anymore than it has to do with the citizens of Australia.

Excellent.

sky :)

[Lysimachus]

It is highly doubtful that God is concerned over a piece of real-estate in the Middle East. The strawman state of Israel was erected by Zionist conspirators working for the Vatican--to create a "pawn" in the game to accomplish her NWO agendas. Spiritually speaking, Israel's borders have been extended to the whole world, with the New Jerusalem as the capital of the saints.

In the Old Testament, you had Literal Babylon juxtaposed to Literal Israel.

In Revelation, you have Spiritual Babylon juxtaposed to Spiritual Israel.

Otherwise, if it is Spiritual Babylon juxtaposed to Literal Israel, this would reveal a glaring inconsistency.

[Igakusei]

So Adventists don't really see any significance to modern-day Israel, but most other mainline Protestant churches do.

For example: http://www.gotquestions.org/end-times-Israel.html

I'm no expert on this, but in my limited experience it seems to be closely associated with groups that believe in the rapture.

I don't know who is organizing your conference, but I wouldn't be surprised if that sort of theology weighs heavily into it.

[barnz]

Thanks everybody. The conference is actually called the Values Voter Summit and it is mainly about the Republican candidates for President. However, during the day, there is a seminar (along with a lot of others) given by several people, including the group Christians United for Israel. I just want to go to that one to see what they say.

Thanks again for the resources everybody, they probably won't have time for questions I might have, and if they do, the whole room would probably boo me for questioning today's Israel.

[Lysimachus]

So Adventists don't really see any significance to modern-day Israel, but most other mainline Protestant churches do.

For example: http://www.gotquestions.org/end-times-Israel.html

I'm no expert on this, but in my limited experience it seems to be closely associated with groups that believe in the rapture.

I don't know who is organizing your conference, but I wouldn't be surprised if that sort of theology weighs heavily into it.

Correct. It's called "Dispensationalism". It began around 1850, when Protestantism shifted over from Historicism to Futurism.

Prior to this, the well-established and accepted teaching of historic Protestant Reformation teaching was that Israel was realized in the Church.

Essentially, placing prophetic significance in the Middle East is "linked", or somehow intrinsically connected, to Jesuit teachings that find their origins in Cardinals Francisco Ribera, Robert Bellarmine, and Manuel de Lacunza in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.

When you have some time, read the following online book. It will blow you away:

Prophetic Toolchest for Dismantling the Dispensational Delusion

[skyblue888]

It is highly doubtful that God is concerned over a piece of real-estate in the Middle East. The strawman state of Israel was erected by Zionist conspirators working for the Vatican--to create a "pawn" in the game to accomplish her NWO agendas. Spiritually speaking, Israel's borders have been extended to the whole world, with the New Jerusalem as the capital of the saints.

In the Old Testament, you had Literal Babylon juxtaposed to Literal Israel.

In Revelation, you have Spiritual Babylon juxtaposed to Spiritual Israel.

Otherwise, if it is Spiritual Babylon juxtaposed to Literal Israel, this would reveal a glaring inconsistency.

Well said too.

sky :)

[miz3]

Today Israel is important not because of any spiritual mumbo jumbo but because of its close ties to the United States in regard to:

1. Judeo-Christian cultural values that have developed out of Western Civilization.

2. Israel is the only "stable" entity in the region.

3. Israel and the United States share many friends and share also many enemies. We share many Geo-Political goals.

4. Israel and the United States are both internally "democratic" in their forms of political governance. (the United States is a Republic in governmental and political form but Republics are a part of the family of what we humans view as "democracies").

The current United States administration has done great damage to American-Israeli relations. In doing this they either demonstrate their hostility to Judeo-Christian values and/or their great ignorance. This hostility is not an irrelevant issue. It will have great consequences for the US for years to come (none of which are good or positive). In doing this the current US administration has demonstrated its hatred of and its desire to destroy the Judeo-Christian values that have made the United States the great nation that it has been. (I am not saying we are perfect but the US has been way ahead of anything that has ever existed in the history of mankind since the fall of Adam).

This is vital to SDA because we have enjoyed and have also greatly flourished as a people because of this great Country, the United States of America. Without the great latitude of Freedom upon which this marvelous Country (the USA) was founded SDA could never have even started much less flourish as we have. SDA owe a great deal to the USA.

Unfortunately, many SDA (especially on both coasts) have joined the enemies of US Freedom in the name so-called "inclusive love" mumbo jumbo. Such "inclusive love" (also known by the term "politically correct", and its usage of the words "compassion", "leveling the playing field", "righting past wrongs", "removing the .....ceiling", etc.) mumbo jumbo is nothing more than disguised satanic pagan values intended to remove the Freedom and the values of our ingenious United States Constitution. These same satanic forces of heathen values have successfully removed the Christian values from the public square in the name of a non-existent first amendment principle of separation of church and state. When the Christian values are thus effectively removed from the public square they immediately replaced by the heathen godless values in the public square.

Like I said all too often SDA have been willing and able abetters of this process. Thus, in doing this they actually aid in bring on the "persecution" by the heathen of our Christian values and our Freedom to worship and live according to those Christian values. These values were formed in our founding by Christian men and women.

This is why this subject is vital and important to SDA. It is certainly not trivial.

[Lysimachus]

Virtually everything you say Miz3 is always flavored with "anti-SDA" sentiments. So much so, that it gets nauseating, and well, pretty downright irritating.

If you have a problem with the SDA people's faults, I'm not stopping you. So long as you don't connect your anti-SDA rhetoric to true, historic SDA philosophy. I notice you tend to disqualify the beliefs of Churches based on the people, but not based on their beliefs on their own merits.

You like to talk down on the SDA Church a lot, but never once are any of your posts tinctured with any positive sentiments toward vindicating true Adventism.

If you want to try and help the SDA Church see their misbehavior, no one is stopping you. Reformation is vital in any religious institution. But when it ends up evolving from "helping them see their misbehavior or wrong attitude to making them change their official doctrinal positions", this is where you've crossed the line!

It reveals that you're really not concerned about the SDA Church and its problems. Your real concern is centered on attacking its historic landmarks, whom the Holy Spirit revealed to Ellen White in vision as solid. This is dangerous, and well, dare I say, perilous thinking on your behalf.

Your approach toward helping SDA's is on a wrong premise. And not until you get on the right premise will you be able to have any say in helping this organization.

[miz3]

Virtually everything you say Miz3 is always flavored with "anti-SDA" sentiments. So much so, that it gets nauseating, and well, pretty downright irritating.

If you have a problem with the SDA people's faults, I'm not stopping you. So long as you don't connect your anti-SDA rhetoric to true, historic SDA philosophy. I notice you tend to disqualify the beliefs of Churches based on the people, but not based on their beliefs on their own merits.

You like to talk down on the SDA Church a lot, but never once are any of your posts tinctured with any positive sentiments toward vindicating true Adventism.

If you want to try and help the SDA Church see their misbehavior, no one is stopping you. Reformation is vital in any religious institution. But when it ends up evolving from "helping them see their misbehavior or wrong attitude to making them change their official doctrinal positions", this is where you've crossed the line!

It reveals that you're really not concerned about the SDA Church and its problems. Your real concern is centered on attacking its historic landmarks, whom the Holy Spirit revealed to Ellen White in vision as solid. This is dangerous, and well, dare I say, perilous thinking on your behalf.

Your approach toward helping SDA's is on a wrong premise. And not until you get on the right premise will you be able to have any say in helping this organization.

I never ever said that SDA were always "antiAmerican values". Maybe you have a point in that I should have stated when SDA became "antiAmerican".

The SDA Church made its major change in this area during the second half of the twentieth century on to this present day.

Before the twentieth century SDA were extremely thankful for the Freedom of this God made Country the USA. They supported the culture in all areas with great enthusiasm. SDA would do well to return to those days in regard to the spiritual, cultural, and political nature of our beautiful God made Nation.

[Lysimachus]

I think it's more than SDA. Everyone you run into is hating their own country more and more as our nation is going to pots.

I don't find much comfort in dwelling on "America's freedoms" as much as I used to. Why so? The evidence all around us that America is losing her freedoms, not to mention that prophecy predicts this nation will speak as a dragon. WE are on the verge of this happening. There is nothing we can do about it. It is prophecy, and prophecy is sure.

I don't know about you Miz3, but I'm not really all that excited about celebrating a dragon-speaking nation.

We can be thankful for the freedoms we still do have, and did have. But it's time to brace ourselves, because we will soon lose the small freedoms we have left.

[barnz]

Thank you for all of the added resources everyone, this will be very informative.

To Miz3, I appreciate your input and I am sure I will be hearing much of the same reasoning at the conference. However, I am looking for biblical and spiritual reasoning on the relationship between the state of Israel and Christianity. Your first post was mainly political reasoning, and you said that the state of Israel is not important because of anything spiritual, but if you do find anything as to why Christians should support the state of Israel because of scriptural reasoning, I would be happy to hear it and perhaps we could have a discussion about that here.

[ClubV12]

Alex, I'm sure and others would be interested to know, get an idea, of what the folks at the meetings are thinking. I suspect it is mostly spiritual BUT expressed in political terms. Politicians are so good at that kind of talk. No way a high level politician is going to support Israel on "spiritual terms", in PUBLIC, but you can bet thats the primary concept behind it.

You might have to read between the lines and asked some pointed guestions in the lobby to get a real feel for it.

[miz3]

Thank you for all of the added resources everyone, this will be very informative.

To Miz3, I appreciate your input and I am sure I will be hearing much of the same reasoning at the conference. However, I am looking for biblical and spiritual reasoning on the relationship between the state of Israel and Christianity. Your first post was mainly political reasoning, and you said that the state of Israel is not important because of anything spiritual, but if you do find anything as to why Christians should support the state of Israel because of scriptural reasoning, I would be happy to hear it and perhaps we could have a discussion about that here.

Would be very interested in what you find out at the Conference. Please give us a report when you return from the Conference.

[Ron Amnsn]

Does Israel still have significance to Christians other than the history that it brings which led to Christ?

That depends on whether the Christians still value what God values. It also depends on what you mean by "Israel".

The term "Israel" can refer to:

• The current country called the State of Israel, which is largely a secular political entity.
• The geographical land area chosen by God and given to the Israelites as an inheritance.
• The man named Israel, also known as Jacob.
• The nation or people group who are descended from the man Israel. This is the group to whom belong the covenants and promises. (Romans 9:3,4) Some individuals have been cut-off and some other individuals have been grafted-in.
• The historical northern kingdom of Israel made up of 10 tribes divided from Judah.
• The historical united nation of Israel consisting of all 12 tribes.
• A so-called "spiritual Israel" that is separate from the descendants of Jacob. This imaginary entity is prevalent in the traditions of the church, but is not found in Scripture. Virtually all who claim to be part of this group exhibit no Israelite characteristics or behaviors.

God is a covenant keeper. He is still faithful to the covenants and promises given to Abraham, Jacob and the Israelites.

[skyblue888]

It always amazes me as to why this is even debated. The Lord has already settled the matter. "If you are Christ's you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise." "He is a Jew who 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." Gal.3:24; Rom.2:28,29.

Today, anyone wishing to support the "Israel" of God need not look to the Middle East but to spiritual Israel, those who look to Christ and by faith appropriate His merits to themselves that they may be clothed with the robe of His righteousness which is made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God.

sky

[Guest]

Amen!

[Ron Amnsn]

It always amazes me as to why this is even debated. The Lord has already settled the matter.

[Gerr]

[*]A so-called "spiritual Israel" that is separate from the descendants of Jacob. This imaginary entity is prevalent in the traditions of the church, but is not found in Scripture. Virtually all who claim to be part of this group exhibit no Israelite characteristics or behaviors.

ESV | ‎Heb 3:18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? ‎19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

ESV | ‎Ro 2:28 For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. ‎29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

ESV | ‎Ro 9:27 And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,

[Ron Amnsn]

ESV | Heb 3:18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

[doug yowell]

Correct. It's called "Dispensationalism". It began around 1850, when Protestantism shifted over from Historicism to Futurism.

Prior to this, the well-established and accepted teaching of historic Protestant Reformation teaching was that Israel was realized in the Church.

Essentially, placing prophetic significance in the Middle East is "linked", or somehow intrinsically connected, to Jesuit teachings that find their origins in Cardinals Francisco Ribera, Robert Bellarmine, and Manuel de Lacunza in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.

Modern dispensationalism finds it roots in the 1840's/1850's writings of John Darby, an English (Plymouth Brethern?)clergyman who first publically preached it. Don't know whether he actually was influenced by the writings of the Jesuits. Darby's influence was later popularized by C.I. Schofield and his Bible commentary,E.W. Bullinger's Companion Bible, and others.Dispensationalism was still relatively unknown until Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth was published in the late,great,1960's. Today it controls the thinking of about 90%+ of evangelical eschatology. It is still rejected by Catholicism, and virtually all of the Reform churches.

[doug yowell]

Today Israel is important not because of any spiritual mumbo jumbo but because of its close ties to the United States in regard to:

1. Judeo-Christian cultural values that have developed out of Western Civilization.

2. Israel is the only "stable" entity in the region.

3. Israel and the United States share many friends and share also many enemies. We share many Geo-Political goals.

4. Israel and the United States are both internally "democratic" in their forms of political governance. (the United States is a Republic in governmental and political form but Republics are a part of the family of what we humans view as "democracies").

The current United States administration has done great damage to American-Israeli relations. In doing this they either demonstrate their hostility to Judeo-Christian values and/or their great ignorance. This hostility is not an irrelevant issue. It will have great consequences for the US for years to come (none of which are good or positive). In doing this the current US administration has demonstrated its hatred of and its desire to destroy the Judeo-Christian values that have made the United States the great nation that it has been. (I am not saying we are perfect but the US has been way ahead of anything that has ever existed in the history of mankind since the fall of Adam).

This is vital to SDA because we have enjoyed and have also greatly flourished as a people because of this great Country, the United States of America. Without the great latitude of Freedom upon which this marvelous Country (the USA) was founded SDA could never have even started much less flourish as we have. SDA owe a great deal to the USA.

Unfortunately, many SDA (especially on both coasts) have joined the enemies of US Freedom in the name so-called "inclusive love" mumbo jumbo. Such "inclusive love" (also known by the term "politically correct", and its usage of the words "compassion", "leveling the playing field", "righting past wrongs", "removing the .....ceiling", etc.) mumbo jumbo is nothing more than disguised satanic pagan values intended to remove the Freedom and the values of our ingenious United States Constitution. These same satanic forces of heathen values have successfully removed the Christian values from the public square in the name of a non-existent first amendment principle of separation of church and state. When the Christian values are thus effectively removed from the public square they immediately replaced by the heathen godless values in the public square.

Like I said all too often SDA have been willing and able abetters of this process. Thus, in doing this they actually aid in bring on the "persecution" by the heathen of our Christian values and our Freedom to worship and live according to those Christian values. These values were formed in our founding by Christian men and women.

This is why this subject is vital and important to SDA. It is certainly not trivial.

While I whole hearted agree with most of what you've said here,miz, I think you've left out one apect that is pertinent to SDA's. While some SDA's have embraced the inclusive/compassionate standard in suppport of the progressive way of viewing politics, others have embraced the "if it's attached to religion it must be from Rome" viewpoint.THis also gives support to an anti-anything evangelical take on politics. As an example the religious liberty dept.has for many years accused conservative U.S. presidents of framing their Arab/Israeli foreign policies on their evangelical eschatology/pressure from the religious right,ect...In fact there are,as you have shown, many good political,moral, and practical reasons to support Israel apart from any prophetic utterances.