The war taking place in Gaza is one that has captured the attention of the world with many persons supporting either Israel or Palestine. The common narrative that we are told is that there is a religious-irreligious divide that mirrors the political divide between the left wing and right wing. The story often goes that those who oppose Israel and support Palestine use Marxist talking points and have no regard for God, religion or the Bible. While those who do the opposite are Bible-believing Christians who unequivocally support Israel, because they are “God’s chosen people”. I however would like to throw spoke in the wheel right here and show why in no way should Christians show support for the murderous actions of the Zionist state and I will do so not from the viewpoint of a secularist but rather from a Biblical standpoint.
Let’s start from the same place where Israel’s defenders like to start, with the story of Abraham in Genesis 12, it is said that God appeared to him and promised him, the land of Caanan. This promise was later repeated to his grandson Jacob (also called Israel) in Genesis 35. This in the minds of Christian Zionists is enough to justify supporting the modern State of Israel. I however, in my reading of scripture take a contrary view. We must recall the story states that Jacob had 12 sons who founded the 12 tribes of Israel. According to 1 Kings 12, the nation was split into 2 separate kingdoms, one called Samaria and the other called Judah. Later scriptures also tell us both were eventually overthrown by Assyria and by Babylon. That should have been the end of the Israelites right? Not quite yet. The Biblical stories of Ezra and Nehemiah indicated that the people of Judah (i.e. the Jews) later returned to the promised land. But what of the people of Samaria? Did they ever return? I think we will find the answer to that question written plain in the New Testament.
Some say that the tribes of the Northern kingdom are all gone (the so called 10 lost tribes) and that the Samaritans are not descended from Abraham but came from somewhere else. Those who make that claim would do well to look at John 4:12 where Jesus met a Samaritan woman who explicitly states that the Samaritans are descended from Jacob, they are not foreign invaders, they are simply a different group of Semites who are not Jews but from one of the other tribes of Israel. It should also be noted that by the time of Jesus, the Jews had taken the name Israel to refer explicitly to themselves only and exclude the Samaritans.
What does the Samaritans have to do with all this? Now think about it, the Samaritans were Semites who the Jews refused to acknowledge as their kith and kin because they had taken different customs. Does that sound familiar? Do we know of any other Semitic group that the Jewish state is also keen to disregard? Sounds like the Palestinians doesn’t it? And for those who still doubt it, the reports are there from several archeological studies to prove that the Palestinians come from the same gene pool as the ancient people who lived in the land i.e. the tribes of Israel. Some would have us accept the alternate explanation put forward that the Palestinians are actually descended from another group called the Philistines, a heathen people who Ancient Israel was commanded by God to wipe out, and hence what Israel is doing now is a fulfilment of this command. However, the explanation that equates Palestine with Philistine cannot be true because the Philistines already went extinct centuries ago according to scripture (Jeremiah 47:4) .
The question then becomes, how comes Philistine sound so similar to Palestine? The answer is simple; it was the Romans who renamed the country after they took it over. The Jews revolted against Roman rule and were dispersed after 70 A.D, the Samaritans however were less resistant to the Romans and as such when the Holy Land (inclusive of Judea, Galilee, Idumea and Samaria) was renamed Palestine, the people who remained there became Palestinians. So for those who ask “where were the Palestinians in the Bible?”, there is your answer, they are the same ones that used to be called the Samaritans, the same ones who split from the Jews to form a separate kingdom after Solomon’s time. Therefore, the Palestinians are every bit descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who have every bit of right to be in that land according to the promise of Genesis 12 .
But Israel are “God’s chosen people” some Christians (not all) will protest, “special in God’s sight above all nations, chosen to fulfill God’s purpose”. What is that purpose that Israel was to fulfill? Most of them cannot tell you. But anyone who actually studies the word for themselves (instead of relying on their preachers) will know that the purpose for which God established ancient Israel was to bring Jesus into the world. But as the 4 gospels tell us plainly, the Jews did not accept the Messiah instead they did everything they could to destroy him and after his resurrection, they tried to destroy the early church. It is for this reason why God made it plain that Jews are no more special than the rest of us gentiles (Galatians 3:28) but instead all are equal in Christ. Therefore, the Jewish state had no special status any longer because through Jesus Christ, our holy mother, the Church is the one object on earth upon which God has bestowed in any special sense his supreme regard.
Quite frankly, I am not even certain what Zionist Christians find appealing about the modern Jewish state? It is plainly not the same country as the one we read about in the Bible. It is not the Mosaic theocracy established by God, this new Israel claims to be a modern democracy, one set up exclusively for the benefit of European descended Jews. It was founded by Ashkenazi Jews who had vague ancestral connections to Judea but were religiously atheist, who only chose the name Israel to merely piggyback on the memory of an ancient civilization in order to justify their false legitimacy. How can anyone claim to be a follower of Christ and yet believe that a people who are adamant about their rejection of the Messiah could be God’s chosen people? Yes, it is true, the Bible does say that Jesus was born and lived among the Jews but John 1: 11 tells that “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” Furthermore, The Lord was crystal clear in Luke 10:16 that anyone who rejects the Messiah also rejects God the Father. The modern state of Israel is of the same stock of people as those who shouted “crucify him” and “give us Barabbas”. Let us not be deceived, the religion of the present Jewish state is the same as the religion of the Pharisees, a religion that Jesus explicitly rejected (Mark 7:13). Therefore, anyone who calls themself Christian and supports the Zionist state is supporting the very system that plotted to kill Christ and persecute the apostles.
With that said, for those who still insist on backing Israel, it would be easier to find a secular based reasoning than a religious one. I don’t imagine that the same God who told us “thou shall not kill” (Ex 20:13) and “thou shall not steal” (Ex 20:15) would be very pleased with the Zionists doing these things especially given that they are taking his name in vain (Ex 20: 7) as justification for their crimes. Nothing gives Israel any right to do this, the Palestinians have every right to that land because they too are Jacob’s seed descended from the Northern kingdom after the split, the fact that they have converted to Islam does not change their genetics. Nor can any Christian claim that the Jewish religion is not more righteous than the Islamic one because ultimately both faiths reject the divinity of Christ which as Christians we should see as central and supreme above all else. Let us get rid of this myth of the Judeo-Christian, there is no such thing. It is very simple, there is Judaism (or more accurately Talmudism) and there is Christianity, one is with Christ and the other is anti-Christ. Therefore, I end where I begin, there is zero religious or Biblical justification for what Israel is doing now, as such Bible believing Christians cannot and should not ever blindly stand with Israel.
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