Anti-Israel protests have peppered college campuses in the U.S. and abroad in recent weeks, catching the attention of onlookers around the globe. Directly defying university rules, defacing property, and inciting outbursts of baseless violence against Jews, many encampments have been removed by force, police arresting students, faculty, and outside agitators. With the small-scale invasion of Rafah just hours ago, the spotlight continues to shine on Israel.
My recent writings on this topic have spawned a number of curious questions and insightful conversations with various readers, especially in light of the protests. It’s an encouragement to my heart to see this hunger for the Word of God and people’s curiosity as they circulate around these events.
In my previous piece I explained that I believe standing with Israel as a Christian means pursuing a covenantal connection with the Jewish people. But the general aim of the conversations I’m involved in now has inspired me to write a follow-up piece to address some secondary questions that have arisen:
- What does standing with Israel in a covenantal relationship accomplish?
- What is the biblical reason for it?
- If we glue ourselves to God’s purposes in the Jewish people, what message does that send and to whom?
I believe these are incredibly perceptive and timely questions to ask in light of current events because they lead us right to the answer summarized in scripture.
To stand in covenantal connection to Israel and the Jewish people reveals the wisdom of God to the powers of darkness.
It’s a simple enough statement to make, but what exactly does that mean? The powers of darkness, evil spiritual beings, Satan, demons–these are not categories modern readers tend to have a solid grasp on. We’re all familiar with the generic battle between good and evil or perhaps view Satan as God’s arch-rival (and our own). But for the biblical authors, the powers of darkness are a well-developed, iconic, reckoning force opposing the Creator God in the heavenly realm and orchestrating rebellion to Him on the land.
Thankfully, our favorite Jewish apostle, Paul, writes extensively on “the powers,” and his logic in his letter to the Ephesians explains the mystery brilliantly:
In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of the Messiah…This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs to the promise together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Messiah Jesus….
Ephesians 3:4-6
For Paul, the mystery of the Messiah is that Gentile believers from the nations are being knit together with Israel, grafted into God’s multi-ethnic covenant family. This is the bulk of what I unpacked in the previous post, but Paul goes further with it here. He explains that when Jew and non-Jew are united as one, the multifaceted wisdom of God is on full display on the stage of the cosmos:
His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Ephesians 3:9-10
For many years I totally glossed over this the intense implications of this verse. I understood “the church” to refer to Christians, of course. But the context reveals plainly that Paul isn’t talking about Christians at all!
For him, the church means the united covenant family comprised of both Jews and Gentiles. Paul sees “the church” as a multi-ethnic family stemming from the root of the Jewish people and led by the Messiah of Israel himself. Further, he shares how the two becoming “one new man” is God’s plan for demonstrating His unfathomable wisdom to His enemies. Just as man and woman become “one flesh” in marriage, Paul claims that in the Messiah, rival humans who have been in opposition to each other, join together. Instead of hostility and friction, tension and division, ruling and subjugation, fighting and violence, the two who were once at odds become one, giving themselves up for the other, inviting the spirit of God to dwell in their midst.
Ephesians is all about the idea that in Christ everything is coming together. But for many years, I read this letter with an eye only towards Christians. That Christians needed to unite in brotherly love for one another within churches and communities. While that is certainly true and a valid outworking of a healthy church, the core meaning of this passage is implies that the body of Christ will only reach its fullness when Jews and non-Jews join together as one family. It’s an incredible picture of everyone united in loyal love, worshiping Yahweh and exalting His chosen One, Jesus, Yeshua the Messiah of Israel.
Obviously, we stand a very long way from this picture today. It’s hard enough to imagine this kind of thing happening in faith communities in the West, let alone en mass in someplace like Israel or the Middle East. But the way Paul sees it, when believers from the nations (be it in the Middle East or elsewhere) join themselves in covenantal loyalty to God’s chosen people, it accomplishes more than just love and respect. It shows up the powers of darkness! As Jew and Gentile join together in love and honor for God and each other, their almost unfathomable union reveals to the heavenly rulers the power of God and the authority of His Messiah.
By the end of his letter, Paul is careful to point out that humans, as awful as we can become, are not the enemy. The real enemy are the spiritual powers animating rebellion against God:
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground…Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace….
Ephesians 6:12-14
When we stand with Israel in the full armor of God, firm in covenantal loyalty to His beloved people, we move beyond just being sympathetic to the Jews, politically-charged Zionism, or affirming what the Bible says about Israel.
Our covenantal devotion to Israel is the catalyst for unveiling the wisdom of God’s redemptive plan for all creation.
We reveal to the enemies of God the mystery of what God is doing through the Messiah of Israel: reversing the long-held, deeply rooted, generational animosity and uniting humans in love as we bear the image we were created to reflect.
A few times in the Revelation, John mentions of the fate of “those who hold to the testimony of Jesus,” and they can be hard verses to swallow. At first glance, it can seem as though “the testimony of Jesus” simply means people who have trusted in him as personal Lord and Savior. But near the end of the book, the testimony of Jesus is specifically defined by an angel for John and us:
The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy…”
Revelation 19:10
For a long time I sat puzzled by this verse. “What prophecy is it talking about?” I wondered. But I now believe John doesn’t need to elaborate for his readers because the prophecy in question is the story of the whole Bible. It’s the truth that God will come through for all humanity through His messianic promise to His covenant people, Israel, in order to bless all families of the earth.
As I have said before, believers do not have to accept this message. It is fairly easy to write God’s promises to and election of Israel out of story. We can say modern Israel and today’s Jews are not the same as the biblical Israel, or that we Christians are the true Israel, dismissing any form of Israeli-centric, messianic-centric, Jewish-centric theology as meritless. We can choose to ignore the warnings of our Lord at the beginning of Revelation, losing the love for our brother, forgetting from where we have fallen, clinging to the reputation that we are alive in Christ and letting what remains of the promises to our Jewish brothers die off. We can bear witness to some other testimony that we remake in our own image.
But if we claim to hold to the testimony of Jesus, then I believe we are challenged to respond to the spirit of the story pounding on every page of the scriptures. We’ve hitched our wagons to the Jewish Messiah and His covenantal, enduring, age-to-age, blood-bought love for the land of Israel and the Jewish people. And when we stand in covenantal commitment to these people, God’s victory is on full display to His enemies and to His Bride. We say to the powers of darkness “I believe in God’s plan to redeem humanity. I believe I bear the image of my creator, and as such, I refused to turn on other image bearers. I’m riding on the coattails of the blessing God promised to Abraham, and I will exalt the Messiah by clinging to that promise. I’ll be a delivering ally for my friend and my enemy because the risen Jewish Messiah is the delivering ally for me. I believe in His role, His wisdom and nothing you can throw at me will ever separate me from the love of the Father. Oh darkness, where is your victory? Oh powers, where is your sting?“
In his provocative book,The Passover King, author Travis Snow writes,
It will be the Church, and the broader Messianic Jewish community, that will help Israel understand the signs of the times, and prepare her for the days of her salvation. Israel will not be saved in…a vacuum. This will happen through the crucible of suffering and through the prophetic ministry of believers…Many of the nations of the world, and even many who identify as Christians, will completely turn against [Israel]. People in each of these groups will find it far more expedient and comfortable (politically, economically, socially, etc.) to side with those who are antagonistic to Israel….Nevertheless, it is still our responsibility to help the Body of Messiah develop a more Biblically well-rounded perspective on how God’s purposes for Israel will play out in the days to come.”
Travis M. Snow, The Passover King, pp. 122-123
The hostility for the land of Israel and the Jewish people we see all around us today is revealing the face of evil through people who have aligned themselves with the powers of darkness, evidenced by unimaginable horror and coldhearted hatred.
But that does not have to be their story. And it does not have to be ours. When we stand in the loyal love of our God, knit into His chosen people and announcing the hope that He is working through them, we become the gospel. We become beacons of light, shining forever like the stars, brilliantly bearing witness to the testimony of the slain Lamb of God. This is the good news of the kingdom. This is the revelation of God’s wisdom.
When Christians say, “I am saved because I hope in what Jesus has done first for the Jewish people,” the Lamb is revealed.
When Muslims say, “I recognize the God of Israel as the Most High God, and I proclaim that He has blessed my Jewish brother and that there is blessing for me too,” the Lamb is revealed.
When Jews say, “We trust in the God of our fathers. Blessed the One who comes in the Name of Yahweh,” the Lamb is revealed.
When rival people of every tribe, nation, and background lay down their long-held, deeply-rooted, generational animosity and contempt in covenantal love for one another, that’s when Messiah is revealed, victorious and exalted, crushing the head of darkness and ushering all creation into the everlasting light of His glorious blessing.
“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 13:35
Two Precious Stones 