I just finished reading “Whose Land? Whose Promise?
By Gary Burge. Here are some random thoughts:
I agree with Burge that “Israel is a good country. At their
very deepest level, Israelis fear annihilation—a fear rooted in centuries of
dreadful experiences in the Western world, culminating in the holocaust” (ix).
I agree with Burge that “As a Christian I recognize the
ancestral connection between Jews today and Abraham, Moses and David” (xi).
I agree with Burge when he writes that “By comparison with
other states in the Middle East, Israel is an exemplar of moderation, civility
and freedom” (144).
I agree with Burge when he writes that the son of Hafez
Assad (Bashar) “now leads the country and is in the midst of a desperate civil
war which by mid-2013 had killed 90,000 people. Israel has not participated in
this sort of wholesale massacre” (144).
I agree with Burge that “We want to be pro-Israel,
pro-Palestine, and Pro-Jesus.” But Burge spends 300 pages condemning Israel with
only a tiny smattering of commendation. Other than what I’ve quoted above, he
says relatively little about the atrocities committed by Israel’s enemies.
One significant area of disagreement I have with Burge is
the idea the land promises God made to Israel were conditional based on their
faithfulness. This is partially true—God did threaten to remove them from the
land for unfaithfulness—and then actually did so. But contrary to Burge, that
did not nullify the promises—and it certainly did not give the land to anyone
else! The Torah and prophets all said that God would bring the Jews back into
the land. Even when Assyrians, Babylonians, Romans or Muslims occupied the
land, the land did not belong to them. According to the Torah and Prophets, the
land belongs to God who gave it to the Jews as a permanent possession.
My second area of disagreement is the idea that the uniting
of believing Jews and Gentiles into one body in Christ, somehow nullifies land
promises or transfers those promises to the church. Take, for example, Paul’s
Olive Tree illustration in Romans 11 in which believing Gentiles are “grafted
in” to the promises given to Abraham through our relationship to Christ. That
does not nullify God’s promises. That just explains how believing Gentiles
inherit those promises too! To use Paul’s illustration, we (believing Gentiles)
are wild olive branches grafted into a Jewish olive tree as joint heirs of the
promises.
A third area of disagreement is the idea that all of the Old
Testament promises, including the land promises, are somehow spiritually
fulfilled in Jesus. Burge approvingly quotes Karl Barth as saying, “all
prophecy is now fulfilled in Jesus…” (206). Of course some things are
“fulfilled” in Jesus. For example, Jesus is the true Passover lamb and Jesus is
the true Temple. But I utterly fail to see how land promises were fulfilled in
Jesus. For example, in Genesis 12:7 when God tells Abraham, “To your offspring I
will give this land,” how is that “spiritually fulfilled in Christ? The
supercessionist argument seems to be that “God promised to give the land to
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel) as a permanent possession, but later says, “I’m
not really going to keep that promise after all. Let’s just say it was “spiritually” fulfilled
in Jesus!” What does that even mean?
Fourth, although Burge denies holding to replacement
theology, his arguments are the same ones used by those who hold those to
replacement theology, i.e. the idea that God is through with Israel and that
the church has replaced Israel. But in Romans 11:1-2 Paul writes, “I ask then:
Did God reject his people? By no means!...God did not reject his people whom he
foreknew.” Supercessionists (replacement theology) argue that God’s people here
are the church but the context of the previous verses make abundantly clear
that Paul is talking about unbelieving Jews of whom he says, later in the
chapter, that “God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable” (Romans 11:28-30).
Fifth, Burge writes, “While the
media presented Arafat as walking away from Barak’s generous offers—offers that
were never placed in writing—the PLO negotiators found the Israeli proposals
impossible to accept. For example, they planned to divide up the Palestinians
into four cantons, each separated by Israeli land (the northern West Bank, the
central West Bank, the southern West Bank, and Gaza. The Arabs would not have
control over their own water, borders, or air space” (55).
Of course we’ve seen what happened
when Israel did give control over to Gaza. The result was the free election of
a terrorist (Hamas) government, the smuggling in of weapons to be used against Israel,
and the firing of literally thousands of rockets against Israel! Alan Dershowitz
tells another side to this story: “The Israelis and the PLO agreed to meet
beginning July 11, 2000, under the auspices of the United States. In the course
of these meetings, which lasted until January 2001, [Ehud] Barak startled the
world by offering the Palestinians nearly all of the territory they were
seeking. By the time the negotiations ended, Barak had accepted Clinton’s even
more generous proposal and was offering the Palestinians ‘between 94 and 96
percent of the West Bank’ and all of the Gaza Strip. In exchange for the 4 to 6
percent that Israel would retain for security purposes, it would cede 1 to 3
percent of its land to the Palestinians…Few, if any, Palestinian people would
remain under Israeli occupation. In addition, Barak offered the Palestinians a
state with Arab Jerusalem as its capital and control over East Jerusalem and
the Arab Quarter of the Old City, as well as the entire Temple Mount…Israel
would retain control over the Western Wall, which has no significance for
Muslims…[Israel would pay] “$30 billion in compensation” [to Arab
refugees]…Yasser Arafat rejected the proposal” (Dershowitz, The Case of
Israel, 109-110). The reality: “Not only have President’s Clinton and
George W. Bush placed all of the blame on Arafat but so have many of Arafat’s
closest advisors” (Dershowitz 117). “Virtually everyone who played any
role in the Camp David-Taba peace process now places the entire blame for its
failure on Arafat’s decision to turn down Barak’s offer. President Clinton, who
was furious at Arafat and had called him a liar, had blamed the failure
completely on Arafat”… “Even some of Arafat’s most trusted advisors and
senior associates are now regretting the decision” (Dershowitz 118).
Sixth, discussing the “Second
Intifada” Burge says it was started when Ariel Sharon entered Temple Mount.
Burge then gives all the statistics of the number of Muslims dead when Israel
attacked. Judging from Burge’s report, you’d think Sharon entered the Dome of
the Rock itself (56-57)! No! He just went up to Temple Mount—like thousands of
visitors do every year. Muslims responded in rioting and yes, many got killed
when Israel put down the riots. Burge doesn’t bother to mention that the riots
were orchestrated by the Palestinians! Palestinian media and imams issued calls
for action in anticipation of Sharon’s visit. Palestinian schools were even
closed and demonstrators were bussed up to Temple Mount! Did Israel overact?
Maybe. Riots are not easy to deal with. But to say Burge’s presentation of what
happened is biased would be putting it lightly.
Seventh, Burge writes, “I am convinced that if the prophets
of the Old Testament were to visit Tel Aviv or Jerusalem today, their words would
be harsh and unremitting” (147). I agree completely! Would those prophets,
therefore, say that Israel has forfeited the right to the land? Absolutely not!
The Jews may be temporarily removed from the land but the land never becomes
someone else’s possession. God may even use other nations like Assyria or
Babylon to execute his judgment in removing Israel. But God will then judge
those nations for doing so! The land never becomes theirs. Christians can, like the
prophets, criticize Israel’s policies but we must do so—like the prophets—out
of love for God and his people Israel, not from the standpoint of enemies. When
we ally ourselves with the likes of Hamas or Hezbollah, we are siding with the
enemies of Israel (and God).
Eighth, Burge spends pages 180-192 basically talking about
how the land was NOT part of the message of the New Testament. This is an
argument from silence and such arguments are often notoriously weak. Second, a
partial reason for the silence may have been to avoid unnecessary conflict with
Rome since Rome could have interpreted references to Israel’s ownership of the
land as fomenting a revolt. Third, and most importantly, the central message of
the New Testament focuses on the expansion of God’s promises to all nations!
Jewish rights to the land were irrelevant to that message—but that doesn’t mean
Israel forfeited those rights. Fourth, nothing in the New Testament denies or
annuls the Old Testament promises to give Israel the land. In fact, Jesus even
seems to affirm that promise in Acts 1:8 (see below):
Ninth, in Burge’s discussion of the book of Acts, Burge
takes Acts 1:8 out of context. In Acts 1:6 the disciples ask, “Lord, are you at
this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” The question is about Old
Testament promises to give the land over to the sovereign control of the Messiah
in the kingdom. Since Burge made such a big deal with an argument from silence
in the New Testament, you’d think he would find it to be significant that Jesus
does NOT say, “You guys have missed the whole point! Those promises God made
about giving the land to Israel as a permanent possession are no longer valid!
They have all been “spiritually” fulfilled in me!”
Unlike Burge, I’m not just arguing from silence. Jesus goes
on to say that it is not for them to know “the times or dates the Father has
set by his own authority.” In other words, it is as if Jesus was saying, “Yes,
the Father will restore the land and kingdom to Israel but it is not for you to
know the time frame in which God will do that. You focus on being my witnesses
to the ends of the earth!”
Tenth, Burge makes much of Stephen’s speech in Acts 7. Burge writes that this “described how the
land of Israel was not the sacred domain of revelation Judaism thought…Stephen
challenges the Jewish assumption that the land is integral to the plan of God”
(194). Please, read the speech yourself. It simply does not say what Burge says
it says! After summarizing Israel’s history all the way back to
Abraham—including repeated Jewish rebellion—Stephen brings his audience up to
Solomon’s construction of the Temple but then cites Isaiah 66:1-2 as saying
that God is not confined to temples made with hands. Saying that God is not
confined to temples made with hands is not nullifying the land promises to
Israel! Stephen concludes his sermon saying that his audience is a rebellious,
“stiff-necked people” just like their ancestors to whom Stephen referred in his
summary. At that point the audience stones him to death—Not because he denied
their right to the land; he said absolutely nothing denying their right to the
land, but because he forcefully called them rebellious “stiff-necked” people
just like their ancestors!
Burge ends the section on Acts by saying, in the second to
last paragraph, that “The territorial limits of Israel/Palestine did not
exhaust God’s agenda for humanity” (195). Of course not! No one says it does!
This is simply a straw man argument. The fact that God’s plan did not exhaust
God’s agenda for humanity simply does not negate all the promises God made to
give Israel the land!
Finally, number eleven: Imagine a book in which someone
writes about the internment of Japanese families in America, and the innocent
victims of the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The book includes statistics
and heart-rending stories of families, including Christian families, affected
by these nightmares. The book does this without mentioning that it was imperial
Japan that was expanding its empire or that it was Japan that attached Pearl
Harbor first. No mention of the gut-wrenching stories of the thousands who died—some
burned to death or drowned--or lost loved ones in Pearl Harbor. Nothing about the
fact that—as wrong as it was—life in a Japanese internment camps in America was
like staying in a Motel 6 compared to the horrendous torture to which Americans
were exposed in Japanese prisoner of war camps.
Now imagine that someone takes issue with such a one-sided
presentation only to be told that we’re not talking about Japan, we’re talking
about America because we hold America to a higher standard! We may indeed hold
America to a higher standard but to tell the story like this would make America
look like the great Satan while Japan comes off looking like innocent victim of
imperialist aggression. But the exact opposite was the case! To tell the story
like this would be to use partial truth to communicate a horrendous lie!
But that is precisely what enemies of Israel do when they
tell only one side of the story. And although Burge does not count himself as
an enemy of Israel, he tells a very one-sided story that is used by the enemies
of Israel. Don’t misunderstand. I am not an advocate of “Israel right or
wrong.” In fact, I’m not at all opposed to friends of Israel who, like the
prophets of the Old Testament, condemn the injustices of Israel—especially
injustices done to our Christian brothers and sisters! But when people leave
the impression that Israel is the Great Satan surrounded by innocent victims,
they should not sound so shocked if others suspect them of anti-Semitism.
