Israel is a hot topic these days with the conflagration in Gaza rising to a crescendo after the October 7 Hamas attack.
Many theories floating around. Did leadership in Israel know it was happening and stand down (hints of 9/11 and Pearl Harbor false flags)? Did they aid and abet the enemy is breaching their security to wreak havoc? Is there a team to root for in this conflict? Is this an indication that the end times are upon us?
All excellent questions, and I have been listening and reading a lot of stuff to put cogent thoughts together, but it is a very complicated situation. Thank God I’m part of the Orthodox church, which has clergy and laity with discernment, historic perspective, and understanding of the Bible and church doctrines and dogma. This gives them an ability to speak with wisdom on topics that seems murky and undecipherable.
Fr. John Whiteford is certainly one of my go to’s for wisdom. He doesn’t disappoint in a homily he delivered to his church in Texas, which was posted to his podcast on November 4.
He gets into the topic of dispensationalism, which is an absolutely crucial piece to the Israel puzzle. Whiteford says that dispensationalism was launched as an idea by John Darby in the mid-1800s. In a nutshell it says that there are two parallel covenants. The Christian covenant where Christ is the Messiah and the Jewish covenant of the old testament. In other words, the Jews don’t have to accept Jesus Christ as their Messiah, and their rejection and ultimate killing of him is justified because they are the chosen people.
This view has not died in obscurity because it’s absurd. It has flourished to this day despite of its incoherency, which is why you see a boatload of evangelical Christians vociferously defending the State of Israel at every turn, no matter what atrocities are perpetrated on Palestinians … no matter how much undue influence Israel has on American politicians (RE: neverending standing ovations whenever an Israeli prime minister utters a word in Congress).
This Chosen People story is the reason for this. And it’s terrifying, because these people then take it further thinking that any support for these zealots in Israel is Biblically justified, and in fact is accelerating the return of Christ.
They’re going to be surprised to learn that when the new temple is erected in Jerusalem that the man sitting in that throne will not be Jesus returned again, but the antiChrist. That, of course, is an entirely different thread to pull at a later time.
Whiteford sums it up nicely: “Bad theology leads to bad actions and people wind up getting hurt.”
He names John Hagee, a protestant pastor in San Antonio, as one of the primary preachers of these falsehoods. Hagee says that there can only be a one-state solution in Israel and the Palestinians can pound sand, because it’s Biblical. He also says that if the United States stops giving Israel unconditional support, it will no longer be blessed by God.
Hearing that type of rhetoric out of Christians, and watching the clips of devout Jews calling Arabs less-than-human, and reading about the terror radical Islamicists perpetrate, it’s hard to argue with those that say religion is full of hate and is the cause of much suffering, and a primary factor in most of the wars in human history.
I don’t totally agree with that, but it’s a fine line. The path is narrow. Any deviation. Any bad theology can lead to ugly outcomes.
Whiteford brings up the Scofield Reference Bible that came out in 1907 as playing a big part in the growth of the dispensationalist view. He says, again, that this is perpetration of bad theology. He quotes verses that are very clear about the Church, and believers in Christ are the new Israel … the “inheritors of the blessing of faithful Abraham.”
He also makes a very interesting point that unconditional support of Israel because of bad theology is bad for Israel, because they would be more inclined to compromise and be reasonable with the Palestinians and the Arab world as a whole, if they weren’t certain the United States would support them no matter what.
Finally, he says that you can’t go to the opposite extreme and hate the Israelis, and Jews, and dispensationalist evangelicals. You can’t look at the atrocities on both sides, declare the perpetrators evil, and justify horrific counter measures. It’s a natural reaction, but “Christians are called to have a supernatural reaction … we cannot hate people.”
In fact, Paul says that in the true end times, many Jews will come to the Christian faith and embrace Christ. That should happen because of us, not despite us. We need to pray for them, and through our words and actions, inspire them to know who Christ is.
Powerful message!
Link: https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/amvon/the_church_and_israel
Transcript (Auto-Generated)
The Church and Israel by Fr. John Whiteford
November 4, 2023
You’re listening to From the Amvon with Fr. John Whiteford, sermons from St. Jonah Orthodox Church in Spring, Texas. Fr. John is a priest in the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia. He’s the author of Sola Scriptura, an Orthodox analysis of the cornerstone of Reformation theology, and the general editor of the St. Innocent Liturgical Calendar. Here he is with today’s lesson.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Bad theology leads to bad actions and people wind up getting hurt. And in some cases, people even wind up getting killed. And in the last couple of weeks, if you’ve been paying attention to the news and listening to what certain Protestants have been saying about it, you’ve seen bad theology in action. We have a pastor in San Antonio by the name of John Hagee, who was talking about what was going on in Israel and Gaza. And he’s a dispensationalist. If you don’t know what a dispensationalist is, no one was a dispensationalist until about 1850 or so. There was some English Baptist preacher, I think his name was John Darby, that started this teaching. And basically they analyzed the Old Testament in a very peculiar way, a way that Christians never had before. And they essentially, to make a long story short, see the old covenant still in force for Jews. In other words, Jews can be saved according to the old covenant, and Christians can be saved according to the new covenant. These are two parallel covenants that are both active at the same time.
And they will take a passage like God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12 where he says, and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee all the families of the earth shall be blessed. And they’ll apply that to the modern state of Israel. As a matter of fact our new Speaker of the House had a tweet in which he changed the wording of this quote and inserted the name Israel there. And the thing is when you hear the name of Israel most evangelicals think that the modern state of Israel and the Israel that they read about in the Bible are the very same thing. But John Hagee was preaching about how for example there’s no two state solution in the Bible. So, that means that the Palestinians just got to like it or lump it, they need to get out of there or submit. But there can only be one state because this is all fulfillment of prophecy. And if the United States doesn’t continue to support Israel regardless of what it does if the United States doesn’t continue to support Israel regardless of what it does then the United States will no longer be blessed.
Again, nobody believed this until about 1850 or so. And in the United States it actually didn’t start catching on until the very late 1800’s and it really was when the Schofield Re reference Bible came out in 1907 and then when World War I happened which caused a lot of people who had a more optimistic view of the future to start taking a more apocalyptic view of the future that that view became the norm. And so evangelicals which previously had no such views as these views now because they’ve heard this all their life and the Scofield Bible was so popular because it had commentary running through the text. It was the first Bible like that since the Geneva Bible in the 1500’s. And King James intentionally decreed that the King James Bible not have that kind of commentary on it because he saw it as sectarian, he wanted a Bible that everybody could use. Well the Scofield Bible promoted a very particular view and it became very popular. But this is not the way Christians have viewed things. Saint Paul makes it very clear in his epistles that the church is the Israel of God. In Galatians chapter three beginning with verse 7 he says, “‘Know ye therefore that they which are of faith the same are the children of Abraham and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith preached before the gospel unto Abraham saying, “‘In thee shall the nations be blessed.’ So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.” So he’s saying those who believe, and in the context it’s very clear he’s talking about those who believe in Christ are the ones that are the inheritors of the blessing of faithful Abraham.
And in chapter six he literally says that the church is the Israel of God. In Romans chapter 11, he’s following up, the book of Romans, you have to understand, was written because in the early church in St. Paul’s time, the problem was is that you had the initial majority of Christians being Jews, but then you had this influx of Gentile converts, and so the question that local churches had to deal with was how are we going to get along with each other? Because the Jews had always been taught under the Old Testament that they couldn’t even eat with a Gentile. Now they’re in church with Gentiles. What are they supposed to do? And so in the Epistle of the Romans, St. Paul goes over a whole bunch of issues related to this. But towards the end of the epistle he starts talking about the fact that most of the physical descendants of Israel had not accepted Christ. And what are we to make of this? Well the first thing he says in Romans chapter 11 is that God hasn’t totally cast off His people. He says, I say then have totally cast off His people. He says, I say then, have God cast away His people? God forbid, for I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away His people which He foreknew. Know ye not that the scripture saith of Elijah, how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets and torn down thine altars, and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.
Even so, then, at this present time also, there is a remnant according to the election of Baal. Even so, then, at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.” So he’s saying there are Jews who embrace the Christian faith. And he was an example of that. So there was a remnant of Jews that were believers. And so the entirety of Israel was not cut off. And we not only have people who were the original Jewish Christians that of course blended with the population, and the Palestinian Christians are undoubtedly descended from these people, at least in part. So if you’re talking about physical descendents of Abraham who are also believers, if anybody gets to inherit the promise of Abraham, it would be them, rather than people who have rejected Christ and are not believers. But there are also Jews that over time have continued to convert to the Christian faith. In our parish we have people of Jewish descent, if you didn’t know that it’s true. Further on in the chapter he uses the image of an olive tree, and he doesn’t talk about there being two olive trees, one for the Jews and one for the Gentiles. He says, for if the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy. And if the root be holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree, boast not against the branches, but if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.”
So what he’s saying to the Gentiles in the church in Rome, that the root of this tree is the Israel that you read about in the Bible. And these unbelieving Jews are like branches that have been cut off from the tree. And you being a wild olive branch are being grafted into this tree. So, don’t boast over the fact that you’re a part of the tree and these branches have been broken off because you are not the root, the root supports you. Thou will say then the branches were broken off that I might be grafted in. Well, and what that means is that’s correct. Because of unbelief, they were broken off and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear, for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God on them which which fell severity but toward thee goodness. If thou continue in his goodness otherwise thou also shall be cut off.” And what he’s alluding to and he makes this argument in a more elaborate way in the area that I skipped over but he’s saying that because you have these unbelieving Jews, the apostles focused more of their efforts on the Gentiles, and so the unbelief of the Jews resulted in the Gentiles being brought into the church in greater numbers.
And so this is all by God’s providence, God not decreeing that these people would be unbelievers, but God using their unbelief and foreknowing knowing their unbelief using that for his own purposes and his glory But he goes on to say that at some point in the road and we don’t know exactly when this will be that all Israel will be saved and They also if they abide not still an unbelief shall be grafted in so So he’s saying these unbelieving Jews, these branches that have been cut off from the olive tree if they abide not still in unbelief, in other words if they begin to believe. And the people of Israel for the most part today, the people of the state of Israel are not believers. And so the idea that somehow they have a special status and if we don’t bless them as a country, that we’re doomed, and we have to not even question anything that they do is just simply not biblical. And I would argue that it’s not even good for Israel, because Israel would be a lot more inclined to compromise and be reasonable with the Palestinians and the Arab world if they didn’t think the United States would back them up when they’re carpet bombing a major population center, and openly saying that they didn’t think the United States would back them up when they’re carpet bombing a major population center and openly saying that they don’t care about the population. You have Israeli politicians saying there are no innocents in Gaza, no innocents.
And ironically that’s the very same logic that Hamas used when they attacked Israel. There are no innocent Israelis, they’re all guilty. Well you know what that’s not true. People are not their government. People only have so much control over their government it’s very limited. And governments can do evil things and yet you can still have innocent people. And particularly when you’re talking about women and children you can’t say there are no innocents. But that’s what they’re saying. And we have people like John Hagee that are going to defend that. They’re going to defend the indefensible because they have bad theology and we cannot go along with that. We need to understand why this is wrong. He goes on to say, for if thou wert cut off of the olive tree which is wild by nature and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more shall these which be the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree? For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits, that blindness in part is happening to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.
And so all Israel shall be saved as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my covenant unto them when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the Gospel they are enemies for your sakes, but as touching the election they are beloved for the Father’s sakes.” Or the patriarch’s sake as who’s talking about there for the gifts and callings of God are without repentance. So, what he’s saying is God is not done with the physical descendants of Israel. Now, when I say that we have these evangelical Protestants that have this bad theology and so therefore they’re supporting indefensible things, what we don’t want to do is go to the opposite extreme and give in to the temptation to start hating people. Because, as I said a couple Sundays ago, both sides can point to atrocities and say, that’s why these people are evil. That’s why we’re justified in doing these extreme things. But that is not the Christian way. It’s an understandably human reaction that when you see atrocities committed against people that you love, that you want to lash out, you want to get even. But Christians are called to have a supernatural reaction, not a natural reaction. We cannot hate people.
And we cannot hate the Jews. We’re told by St. Paul that one day they’re going to all repent and they’re going to embrace Christ. What we don’t want to do is have that happen despite us. We want to we want to open up our hearts and when we see people of different faiths, especially people who are Jewish, we want to understand that they’re not our enemies, they’re potential believers, and undoubtedly either they or their descendants will one day be believers. And so we need to pray for them and try to be the kind of Christians that will inspire them to come to know who Christ is. Amen. From the Amphon, sermons from St. Jonah Orthodox Church in Spring, Texas. Fr. John Whiteford is the priest at St. Jonah’s and the author of Sola Scriptura, published by Conciliar Press. This has been a listener-supported presentation of Ancient Faith Radio.