ONE ISRAEL TOO MANY

Written by Chris Bloom, posted by Lora Bloom

There seems to be a great deal of confusion about the modern State of Israel, especially among people who should know better.

Let me say from the beginning that modern Israel is not the same as biblical Israel. To avoid mixing the two up I'll refer to the modern one as the State of Israel, its actual full name.

Part of the confusion stems from the name.. If a nation has the same name as one from the Bible, it's assumed to be the same thing.. Confusion also arises from religion. Ancient and the modern State of Israel were both founded on Judaism, though the ancient Kingdom of Israel was based on the Law of Moses, and the State of Israel seems to have been based on the Holocaust and an ethnic understanding o Judaism.

Some people, including Pope Francis I and Billy Graham, have said that people of Jewish descent don't need to be evangelized, that just being a Jew is good enough. This would have come as a surprise to Jesus,specifically said that he was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. If that was true 2000 years ago, how much more is it true now that the State of Israel is ostensibly Jewish but many of its people are at least functionally atheist?

If God wouldn't put up with a nation he founded on his own word and promise, why would he put up with one the British founded on a dispensational understanding of Scripture? In what can they be his chosen people if they deny his coming, or even his very existence?

Descent from Abraham isn't enough; Jesus said that God was able to raise up children of Abraham from the stones if he wanted. Keeping the law isn't enough; it was the Apostle Paul who told us that if keeping the law could save us, there would have been no need for Christ to die.

The simple fact is that being a Jew isn't good enough.

This doesn't mean that I'm "against Israel". I don't own a fish, but that doesn't mean that I'm somehow against fish. They just aren't something I think about much. In the same way, the fact that a nation calls itself Israel doesn't make it a Christian duty to give it money. If we really believed that it was God's chosen nation we wouldn't spend so much defending it. We'd trust God to defend it instead.

The identification of the State of Israel with biblical Israel is based on bad theology, and has nothing to do with either the Bible or the world around us. What's worse is that this bad theology is being perpetuated by people who don't even believe it. There are many people whose outlook is entirely secular who just want to make sure American money is kept flowing into the State of Israel.

If you want to support the State of Israel, then do so. I'm by no means trying to dissuade you from that. Just don't let anyone guilt you into it by saying it's the duty of every Christian or some such nonsense. It just isn't true 

[LC Bloom could be taken out by the Mossad for this. He's from Blirmimgham, Blalabama (that should slow 'em down) and can be reached at lechroom@icoud.com. He also writes for Built for Glory, and has written for COBRASAURUS!!!!!]