Posted on 06/08/2014 10:22:57 AM PDT by wmfights
Perspectives concerning supersessionism have been seriously affected by two twentieth-century developments—the Holocaust and the establishment of the modern state of Israel. These events have pushed questions and issues concerning Israel and the church to the forefront of Christian theology.[1]
More than any other event, the Holocaust has been the most significant factor in the church’s reevaluation of supersessionism. According to Irvin J. Borowsky, “Within Christendom since the time of Hitler, there has existed a widespread reaction of shock and soul-searching concerning the Holocaust.”[2] Peter Ochs asserts that Christian reflections on the Jews and Judaism after the Holocaust “have generated theological questions of fundamental significance.”[3]
These questions include: (1) “What are Christians to make of the persistence of the Jewish people?”; (2) “Is the Church the new Israel?”; (3) “What of Israel’s sins?”; and (4) “What of Israel’s land and state?”[4] The answers to these questions in recent years indicate a reaction against supersessionism. Clark M. Williamson states, “Post-Shoah [Destruction] theology” among contemporary theologians “criticizes the church’s supersessionist ideology toward Jews and Judaism.”[5]
The establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 has also raised questions concerningIsrael and the doctrine of supersessionism. Herman Ridderbos lists some of them:
The existence of Israel once again becomes a bone of contention, this time in a theoretical and theological sense. Do the misery and suffering of Israel in the past and in the present prove that God’s doom has rested and will rest upon her, as has been alleged time and again in so-called Christian theology? Or is Israel’s lasting existence and, in a way, her invincibility, God’s finger in history, that Israel is the object of His special providence (providential specialissima) and the proof of her glorious future, the future that has been beheld and foretold by Israel’s own seers and prophets?[6]
Commenting on the events of the Holocaust and the establishment of the Jewish state, R. Kendall Soulen states, “Under the new conditions created by these events, Christian churches have begun to consider anew their relation to the God of Israel and the Israel of God in the light of the Scriptures and the gospel about Jesus.”[7] This includes a “revisiting [of] the teaching of supersessionism after nearly two thousand years.”[8]
[1] “Since the tragic events of the Shoah and the birth of the modern State of Israel on May 14, 1948, the interest shown in God’s ancient people has been widespread and sustained.” Ronald E. Diprose, Israel in the Development of Christian Thought (Rome: Istituto Biblico Evangelico Italiano, 2000), 1.
[2] Irvin J. Borowsky, “Foreward,” in Jews and Christians, 11. According to Peter Ochs, “Christian theologies of Judaism have been stimulated, instructed, or chastened by the memory of the Holocaust – the Shoah (‘Destruction, Desolation’).” Peter Ochs, “Judaism and Christian Theology,” in The Modern Theologians, ed. David F. Ford (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1997), 607. Boesel says, “Overcoming the tradition of supersessionism constitutes the heart of what is commonly understood as responsible Christian response to the Holocaust.” Christopher Jon Boesel, “Respecting Difference, Risking Proclamation: Faith, Responsibility and the Tragic Dimensions of Overcoming Supersessionism” (Ph.D. diss., Emory University, 2002), 11.
[3] Ochs, 607.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Clark M. Williamson, A Guest in the House of Israel (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1993), 7.
[6] Herman N. Ridderbos, “The Future of Israel,” in Prophecy in the Making: Messages Prepared forJerusalem Conference on Biblical Prophecy, ed. Carl F. H. Henry (Carol Stream, IL: Creation, 1971), 316.
[7] R. Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), x.
[8] Ibid.
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Jews vote (if they may on this forum) for the latter. Here is an interesting audio class, for those inclined to study the...opposition(?) on the prophesies of the (Jewish) Bible and the miracles that have maintained our tiny minority among the nations— the sheep among the wolves, to borrow an analogy.
http://www.simpletoremember.com/media/a/rabbi-berger-7-wonders-jewish-history/
Would anyone think that Jews in Israel would give a damn about this kind of nonsense?
Yes.
Maybe Israel is the new “Church”, and always was.
The events in the article throws a monkey wrench into the machine of supersessionism...
That, with the world positioning against Israel coupled with the Vatican in hot pursuit of the Throne of David in Jerusalem ought to wake anyone up who takes the bible seriously...
Kind of :
“At a gala dinner in New York in 1980, Prime Minister Begin bestowed upon Falwell a medal named for Vladimir Jobotinsky, the right-wing Zionist leader. In 1981, when Israel bombed the nuclear reactor in Iraq, Begin immediately called Jerry Falwell for support”.http://iraqwar.org/fundamentalists.htm
BTW, I didn’t read the substance of the article, just googled Begin and Falwell to answer your question.
Maybe Israel’s work was done the second Christ gave up His ghost on the cross of our salvation, and Israel is behind the curve because it fails to recognize Christ’s Divinity.
Well, you got me. Though I was coming at it more from an OT perspective, which admittedly, in context does seem a bit selfish.
I’ll try to do better. Thanks.
Amen Brother!
We see these things right in front of us and yet people don't think it's real.
Read Romans 11 and you will see why they are “behind the curve”.
Au contraire. Christ fulfilled the Old Covenant and instituted the New Covenant. In Christ, Israel consists of all believers.
"28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave[g] nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise." Gal 3:28-29.
"For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And whosoever shall follow this rule, peace on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God." - (Galatians 6:15-16)
The Israel of the OT prefigures the Israel of the NT. Mana kept the old Israelite's bodies alive, the bread of the NT, Christ's Flesh, keeps the new Israelite's souls alive. The old Israelites had a temple made with hands, the new Israelites in Christ have a temple made without hands, built in three days. The old Israelites were the 12 tribes of Israel, the new Israelites are all those, Jew and gentile, who are in Christ. The old Israelites were given the Jerusalem of the promises land, the new Israelites are given the heavenly Jerusalem of Christ's kingdom which is not of this earth. The old Israelites will one day be accept Christ en masse, and will be fully within the New Covenant, as are the new Israelites.
As a Christian, I am an Israelite of the New Covenant. I am of Zion, of the new Jerusalem.
And one note, "The Bible is...written by Israel"" is a statement which requires correction. The Bible is written by God Himself, not Israel.
As a Christian, I am an Israelite of the New Covenant. I am of Zion, of the new Jerusalem.
For you have not come to what may be touched....
Links that may come in handy, later in the thread:
I’m sure the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 caused those who don’t understand prophesy and the place of Israel in God’s plan some serious angst. If not it should have.
Ezekiel 36
16 The word of the Lord came to me: 17 “Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their deeds. Their ways before me were like the uncleanness of a woman in her menstrual impurity. 18 So I poured out my wrath upon them for the blood that they had shed in the land, for the idols with which they had defiled it. 19 I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries. In accordance with their ways and their deeds I judged them. 20 But when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned my holy name, in that people said of them, ‘These are the people of the Lord, and yet they had to go out of his land.’ 21 But I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations to which they came.
22 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. 24 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. ***DOES MAN, JEW OR GENTILE GET SAVED ANY OTHER WAY? THIS IS JN 3)*** 28 You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. 29 And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. 30 I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. 31 Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. 32 It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord God; let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel.
33 “Thus says the Lord God: On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be rebuilt. 34 And the land that was desolate shall be tilled, instead of being the desolation that it was in the sight of all who passed by. 35 And they will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden, and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited.’ 36 Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I am the Lord; I have rebuilt the ruined places and replanted that which was desolate. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it.
37 “Thus says the Lord God: This also I will let the house of Israel ask me to do for them: to increase their people like a flock. 38 Like the flock for sacrifices, like the flock at Jerusalem during her appointed feasts, so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”
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