Whose Promised Land? (5^th edition), by Colin Chapman.

Synopsis of chapter 6b – Other Biblical Themes: Is There Any Word From The Lord?

6.6 Suffering injustice

Both Jews and Arabs know the meaning of the word ‘injustice’:

‘The Jews look back to the Dispersion, the ghettos, the pogroms, and the Holocaust. The Arabs look back to their oppression under the Turks, the broken promises of the Western powers, the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the traumatic defeat of 1967, and the continuing occupation.’

Isaiah 59:15–18 – God will one day punish the perpetrators of injustice.

Isaiah 42:1–4 – ‘The servant of the Lord’ play a special role in bringing justice to the nations.

Isaiah 53:7–9 – But he does so, not by force, but through suffering injustice himself.

Isaiah 53:4–6 – ‘By accepting injustice and bearing undeserved suffering, he is in some mysterious way bearing the suffering and guilt of the whole people.’

Could this picture of the Suffering Servant have anything to say about situations where it is not going to be possible for everyone to feel that complete justice has been achieved?

Denys Baly:

‘Whatever we do now will be unjust to somebody. If we confirm the Israeli immigrants in their homes, we shall be unjust to the Arab refugees, whose homes they once were, and who desperately long to return to them. If, however, we insist that justice shall be done to the Arabs, we shall be unjust to the Israeli immigrants, who cannot be held responsible for an exodus which took place before they set foot in the country… There are those on every side, it is true, who demand that justice be done to them and never mind about the others. But it is not this that “justice” means.’

There may be situations in which it is right for people to accept that evil will never be perfectly overcome, but they recognise that they cannot live for ever with anger, resentment and a desire for revenge.

Those in whom Christ dwells will be willing to demand justice for others while accepting injustice themselves.

6.7 Rethinking and repentance through disaster

The effect of the Holocaust on the Jews and the effect of the founding of the state of Israel on the Palestinians are, in some ways, incomparable.  Yet they are two intertwined tragedies.

The book of Lamentations sheds light on how a people responds to national disaster:

(a) Rather than pouring out anger on his enemies, the prophet asks ‘Why?’ of God, Lam 2:14; 4:13.  He acknowledges that people are reaping to consequences of the sins of previous generations, Lam 5:7.  God had done what he said he would do, if they didn’t repent, Lam 2:17.

(b) There is a difference between deserved suffering and undeserved suffering.  With the former, the people are to acknowledge their guilt, and submit to the heavy hand of punishment, knowing that God disciplines out of love.  Suffering can then be faced with hopefulness.  See Lam 3:19-42.

Various Jewish theological responses to the Holocaust:

(a) To exercise spiritual freedom by acceptance and worship.

(b) To attempt to explain it in terms of divine punishment for Jewish sin, or in terms of God’s redemptive purposes, or as part of ‘the birth pangs of the Messiah’.

(c) To understand it as the culmination of persecution by Christians.  Rabbi Norman Solomon: before the war, 90% of Germans were regular church-goers.  Hitler at first used overtly Christian language to denounce Jews and Judaism.

Naim Ateek, a Palestinian Christian priest: Palestinians have often minimised the horror of the Holocaust.  They need to understand its significance, and accept that it provides the only justification for the creation of the Jewish state in Palestine:

‘The Palestinians, as hosts, have to come to accept giving the Jews the best part of Palestine (western Palestine), not because they had any right to it, not because of the Balfour Declaration, and not even because of anti-Semitism, but because of the Holocaust.’

Ateek argues for mutual understanding and peaceful co-existence: ‘There is room for both of us here.’

Ari Shavit (Israeli Jewish journalist): the expulsion of thousands of Palestinian Arabs from Lydda in 1948 prompts sadness, but not shame or remorse.  It was essential for the success of the Zionist cause.

Benny Morris: agrees that the expulsion (‘transfer’) of many Arabs was necessary.  ‘There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing.’

6.8 Jew and Gentile in the Old Testament

What does it mean to be Jewish?

Walter Brueggemann cites Mark Braverman as saying that the conviction about being God’s chosen people lies at the heart of Jewish self-identity and at the heart of the conflict.  A radical revision is required.

Jewish socio-political exceptionalism goes back to God’s promises to Abraham and his descendants, Deut 7:6.

Six strands of ‘God’s chosen people’ in the Old Testament:

1. ‘The call and election of Abraham and his descendants are understood in the context of God’s concern for the whole human race….’
2. ‘Election involves a special responsibility to follow God’s ways in obedience…’ (Lev 11:45; Deut 7:1-4)
3. ‘Because the idea of election is so easily misunderstood, it is constantly being challenged and clarified…’ (Amos 3:2, 11; 9:7)
4. ‘From time to time a number of non-Jews are included within the people…’ (Ex 2:15-22; Josh 2:1 – 6:25; Ruth 1:16)
5. ‘There were times when more exclusive views prevailed…’ (Ezra 9:1f; 10:10f;
6. ‘The prophets sometimes look forward to a time when the strict separation between Jew and Gentile will be broken down…’ (Isa 19:23–25; 56:1-8)

How does all this relate to Jewish self-identity today? –

‘Is the Zionist dream, therefore, closer to Ezra’s idea of ‘the holy race’ or to Isaiah’s vision of a people that welcomes ‘foreigners who join themselves to the Lord’?’

Is the State of Israel in any sense a fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham and his descendant?  Or is it more of a step backwards than a step forwards?  Is Christian Zionism a contradiction of the ethnic universalism of the gospel?

I.F. Stone, an American Jewish journalist, writing in 1967:

‘Israel is creating a kind of moral schizophrenia in World Jewry. In the outside world the welfare of Jewry depends on the maintenance of secular, non-racial pluralistic societies. In Israel, Jewry finds itself defending a society in which mixed marriages cannot be legalized, in which non-Jews have a lesser status than Jews and in which the ideal is racial and exclusionist.’

Stone adds that:

‘despite Zionist ideology, that the periods of greatest Jewish accomplishment have been associated with pluralistic civilization in their time of expansion and tolerance: in the Hellenistic period, in the Arab civilization of North Africa and Spain, and in Western Europe and America.’

6.9 Jew and Gentile after Jesus the Messiah

In the 1^st century AD, the distinction between Jews and Gentiles became even more pronounced.

Jewish men pray daily: ‘‘thank you that you have not made me a Gentile’.

The writers of the New Testament, however, insist that in Christ the barrier between Jew and Gentile is broken down (1 Pet 2:9; Eph 2:14–20; 3:6; Ga; 3:26-29).

This does not mean that all distinctions are dissolved, but rather that all differences are transcended.

N.T. Wright: in Christ, Israel is transformed from being an ethnic people to being a worldwide family.

Jesus is Israel.  Wright: he sums up Israel’s vocation and destiny in himself’.  Dodd: the resurrection of Christ is the resurrection of Israel of which the prophets spoke.

Romans 9-11 – The Jews are (still) ‘loved on account of the patriarchs’ (11:28–29). Those who reject Jesus as Messiah, however, forfeit the blessings of the covenant, 11:20.  But those blessings are still open to them, 9:1–5.  God has not rejected them, Rom 11:1, for his gift and calling are irrevocable, 11:29.  There will come a time when ‘all Israel will be saved, 11:26.  When they believe in Jesus as Messiah, they are ‘grafted back into their own olive tree’, 11:23–24.

Matthew 28:19–20 (see also John 12:32–33): Jesus’ disciples are sent to make disciples of all nations (i.e. all Gentiles).  Gentile believers are thus grafted into the people of God and inherit all the blessings of the covenant, Rom 11:13-24.  Title that are applied to Israel in the Old Testament are now applied to Jewish and Gentile believers collectively, 1 Pet 2:9f.

The church is not ‘the new Israel’.  The church does not replace Israel in God’s purposes.  Rather, the church (i.e. Jewish and Gentile believers together) constitute ‘the renewed Israel’.

There is no hint in the New Testament that Jewish believers in Jesus Christ anticipated the formation of a Jewish state.

There may be persuasive historical, political, and psychological arguments to justify the creation of a Jewish state.  But the New Testament provides no theological basis for this.

6.10 The condemnation of anti-Semitism

Christianity has been anti-Semitic throughout most of its history.

The fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 and collapse of the Jewish revolt in AD 135 prompted the Apostolic Fathers to interpret these events as divine rejection: Israel had forfeited her rights as the people of God and had been replaced by the Church, the ‘true Israel’.

But this does not mean that Christianity is inherently anti-Semitic.  This is clear from Rom 9-11.  To summarise Paul’s argument:

‘‘Do not assume that since the majority of the Jewish people have now rejected their Messiah, this will always be the case. The refusal of the Jews to recognize Jesus has meant that the gospel has spread all over the Gentile world. So think what kind of a future we can look forward to when the full number of Jewish and gentile believers are brought into the kingdom! Do not forget your own Jewish roots! And do not write off the Jews! The people of God will always include both gentiles and Jews!’’

What of Rom 11:26 – ‘and so all Israel will be saved’?  Paul argues that:

• ‘Physical descent from Abraham is no guarantee of a right relationship with God’, Rom 9:6f’ cf. Rom 2:25, 28f.
• ‘God has not rejected the people of Israel’, Rom 9:4f; 11:1f, 28f.
• ‘There are consequences for unbelief’, Rom 11:12, 20f, 25.
• ‘And so all Israel shall be saved’. Believing Jews are joined by believing Gentiles to make up ‘all Israel’.

So Paul, in Rom 9-11, is very far from encouraging anti-Semitism.  In fact, it should have furnished the church with the best antidote for the evils of the Third Reich.

6.11 The possibility of reconciliation

It is difficult to think of co-existence of Jews and Arabs, still less of reconciliation.

Some of the preconditions might be:

• Attempting to understand the experience of the other.
• Putting aside the thirst for revenge.
• A desire for reconciliation.
• Face-to-face meeting.
• Being willing to admit our faults.
• Being willing to forgive the other party.
• Allowing the other party to claims the same things that we desire: identity, security and independence.
• Considering the need for a mediator.

Stop thinking of the other as a monster!

What would a distinctively Christian approach to reconciliation look like? –

• Loving our enemies, Mt 5:43-45.
• Keeping our relationships – with God and with others – connected, Mt 5:23f.
• Meeting face to face, Gen 33:10.
• Being willing to forgive the other, Eph 4:32.
• ‘Turning the other cheek’, Mt 5:39.

Three examples of Christian thinking about reconciliation:

Naim Ateek, a Palestinian priest who was evicted from his home in 1948:

‘Keep struggling against hate and resentment…Never stop trying to live the commandment of love and forgiveness…Never stop trying to live the commandment of love and forgiveness.’

Musalaha (‘reconciliation’ in Arabic) ‘a faith-based organization that teaches, trains and facilitates reconciliation mainly between Israelis and Palestinians from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds, and also international groups, based on biblical principles of reconciliation’.

Kenneth Bailey tells a story that explores what can happen when a person strives for justice for the other person and not merely himself or herself.  Belief in the resurrection of Jesus makes such reconciliation possible.

6.12 Conclusions

A passion for the truth.  Be informed!

The problem of prejudice.  Beware of one-sidedness!

The demands of the law.  If Jews are to appeal to God’s promises to Abraham, they must also submit to God’s law.

The prophetic concern for justice.  Hear their passion for justice, and heed their warning!

God’s judgment in history.  Individuals and nations will reap what they have sown.

Suffering injustice.  Sometimes, complete justice is impossible.  Like our Lord, we may have to learn to live with a degree of injustice.

Rethinking and repentance through disaster.  Let disaster, if it occurs, prompt deep thought and heartfelt repentance.

Jew and Gentile in the Old Testament.  The ethnic universalism of the prophets challenges Zionist assumptions.

Jew and Gentile after Jesus the Messiah.  In Jesus, the dividing wall between Jewish believers and Gentile believers has been broken down.

The condemnation of anti-Semitism.  The is no place for supercessionism, or the pride that can arise from it.

The possibility of reconciliation.  The message and example of Jesus points to the possibility a distinctively Christian approach to reconciliation.