Top 10 Myths About Israel

Myth #1

The Jews are God’s Chosen People

Truth: All those allegiant to Jesus are God’s Chosen People

Strictly speaking, the statement is true, but it comes with important caveats. Judaism welcomes converts, so in principle, anyone may join the covenant community and can “force” God to “choose” them. In that sense, being Jewish is ultimately a matter of religious commitment rather than birth. Yet Judaism also holds that the child of a Jewish parent is Jewish by default—even if that child never practices the faith—so ancestry can play a role. Therefore, the boundaries for what Judaism considers Jewish are somewhat blurry. Thankfully, the Bible makes things much clearer for Christians.

Paul explains it simply in his letter to the Galatians that it was never following the rules of Judaism (the Law of Moses) that made one an heir to the promises made to Abraham.

So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
Galatians 3:6-9

Paul, speaking of his fellow Jews, says that “all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse” (Galatians 3:10). The author of Hebrews claims that the old Hebrew covenant that the Jews were under has been fulfilled (completed) and there is a new better covenant in Christ (Hebrews 8:6-7). So in a major sense, technically speaking, there is no covenant with God for those outside of Christ to be under! The Bible says that the old covenant has “disappeared” (Hebrews 8:13).

Jesus himself said that, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6). When Jesus spoke to some Jews who would employ violence to achieve their desires, he said that their father is not Abraham, as they claim (John 8:39), but rather their father is the devil (John 8:44). He says that they do not belong to God (John 8:47) because they do not follow God. Paul says, “Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children.” (Romans 9:6-7).

So then what about the promises made to Abraham? Isn’t his offspring heir to the promises of the land and being chosen?

Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ.

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith… There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Galatians 3:15-16, 26-29

Paul says that the promises of being God’s chosen people come only through Jesus. It is through Jesus that anyone can claim to be the seed of Abraham, and thus, a Jew.

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)—remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.
Ephesians 2:11-21

Jesus is the center of it all; he has destroyed the distinctions that come with ancestry. The only thing that matters now is allegiance to Jesus. There is now only one new humanity. Paul says, “For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:3).

Israel is the vine (Psalm 80:8-16, Isaiah 5:1-7, Jeremiah 2:21, Ezekiel 15:2-6), but who is Israel? It is Jesus Christ (Hosea 11:1, Matthew 2:15, John 15:1-8). The letter to the Romans tells us that anyone who allies themself with Jesus is grafted into the vine (which is Israel, which is Jesus), but anyone who doesn’t stand with Jesus is broken off the vine (Romans 11:17-24).

So, who are God’s chosen people? The true Jews: those who are allegiant to Jesus Christ.

You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
1 Peter 2:9-10

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Myth #2

God Gave the Land of Israel to the Jews Forever

Truth: The promise was never eternal.

In Genesis, we can read how God promised the land of Canaan to a people.

Raise your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever.
Genesis 13:14-15

It’s important to note that this gift was given to Abraham and his offspring, not only the Jews, who did not exist at the time. Abraham had a son named Issac (who would later be renamed Israel), a son named Ishmael, and six other sons with a woman named Keturah after Sarah’s death (Genesis 25:1-4). These are all Abraham’s offspring, but for the sake of the argument, we will focus on Israel’s 12 sons, one of whom was Judah, from whom the term “Jew” comes.

The English word “forever” seems to indicate some sort of eternity, but the Hebrew word “ôlām” used in Genesis doesn’t mean that. The Hebrew word ôlām is elastic, describing any span whose end is not in view; it can, and often does, conclude. The most respected Hebrew lexicon defines ôlām as either a “long time, duration,” or “a long time back.”[note]Ludwig Koehler et al., in The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994–2000), 798–799.[/note]

Some examples are how a bond-servant “shall serve ôlām” (Exodus 21:6; Deuteronomy 15:17), but service ends at the servant’s death. Jonah describes being in the belly of the fish ôlām (forever), yet he was vomited out after three days (Jonah 2:6). In Exodus it is said that Aaron’s sons will have a priesthood ôlām (Exodus 40:15), but the priesthood ceased completely with the destruction of the second temple in AD 70 (Hebrews 7:11-18). God tells Solomon that his name will be on the temple ôlām (1 Kings 9:3), but that first temple was destroyed by the Babylonians. God says that because the Hebrews didn’t listen to him, the Babylonians will utterly destroy them, making them a ôlām disgrace (Jeremiah 25:9) and make the land an ôlām waste (Jeremiah 25:12), yet 70 years later the Jews are restored to the land. These are just a small handful of countless times the word ôlām isn’t used to mean forever in an “eternity” sense, but rather in the sense of a long time.

The Greek translation of the Old Testament, written before the time of Jesus, translates the word to “aiōn,” which is the ordinary Greek word for “age.” This tells us, at the very least, that the Jewish translators of the Scriptures did not view the land promise as lasting for eternity. This, of course, makes total sense if you take into account the times recorded in the Old Testament where the land is taken away.

The land promise is repeatedly described as covenantal and therefore conditional, not absolute. After the Hebrews occupied Canaan, Scripture expressly declares that the promise had already been fulfilled (Joshua 21:43-45; 1 Kings 4:21). Yet the Hebrew people’s ongoing right to stay in the land depended on obedience (Deuteronomy 28; Leviticus 18:24-28). Prophets warned that persistent injustice and idolatry would forfeit the gift (Jeremiah 7:3-8; Amos 2:6-8), and exile proved the point (2 Kings 17; 25). God even bluntly declares that the land doesn’t belong to the Hebrews when he says, “The land is mine; you are but aliens and tenants with me.” (Leviticus 25:23).

While Genesis certainly emphasizes God’s initiative in the land covenant, the same covenant includes ongoing obligations: Abraham must “keep my covenant” by practicing circumcision and walking “blameless” before God (Genesis 17:1, 9-14). The land promise is explicitly tied to living within God’s covenant. For Christians, we understand that the old covenant has been replaced by the new (Hebrews 7:18-22; 9:15; 10:9-18; 12:24).

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Myth #3

The Modern State of Israel Fulfills Prophecy

Truth: The Bible has no prophecies about recreating something that Jesus has fulfilled.

There is a particular sect of Christians called Dispensationalists that reinterpret a few verses in the Old Testament to mean that a national Israel is supposed to be reestablished, and that in 1948, that prophecy was fulfilled. The passages cited by them are Isaiah 66 and Ezekiel 36-37, which speak of restoration after exile. The problem is, any scholar or theologian of any reputation knows that these passages are about how Israel was restored to the land after the Babylonian exile.

The only problem is that the Jewish people only saw a partial fulfillment of that return from exile until the first century. Scholars agree that Ezekiel 36 looks forward to the New Covenant that is inaugurated by Jesus. Paul’s apostolic authority confirms that regarding Jesus, “in him every one of God’s promises is a ‘Yes.'” (2 Corinthians 1:20). Look at how Paul applies Ezekiel’s promise of a new Spirit-indwelt heart to the multicultural Church.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
Ezekiel 36:26-27

 

You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
2 Corinthians 3:3

The restoration of God’s people was fulfilled in Jesus, as are all the promises. Peter proclaims that the resurrection of Jesus brought about “the restoration of all things” (Acts 3:18-21), which includes the fulfilment of God’s Kingdom. This Kingdom is the fulfilment of everything that the old Israel tried to be and failed. In Christ, the nation of God holds its victory and restoration.

Some will cite Jesus’ prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem (fulfilled in AD 70) as evidence that there must be a Jewish presence in Jerusalem again someday.

When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those inside the city must leave it, and those out in the country must not enter it; for these are days of vengeance, as a fulfillment of all that is written. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress on the earth and wrath against this people; they will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken away as captives among all nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the nations, until the times of the nations are fulfilled.
Luke 21:20-24

This phrase, “until the times of the nations are fulfilled,” is interpreted to mean that Jerusalem will be under Gentile control until 1967, when Israel invaded and took control. But interpreting this phrase to mean that the old physical Jerusalem will be restored ignores the rest of the New Testament’s teachings on what the true Israel is, what the true Jerusalem is, and what the true Temple is.

What this interpretation also fails to do, is look at the parallel accounts in Matthew and Mark, which include a different phrasing: “if the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.” (Matthew 24:22. Mark 13:20). Both of these parallel accounts speak of God limiting the duration of Jerusalem destruction. All three of them never mention Jerusalem’s restoration.

The New Testament never looks to a future restoration of a worldly political entity; instead, it sees the ingathering of Jews and Gentiles into one body as the true regathering (John 11:51-52; Ephesians 2:11-22). The restoration of God’s nation has already been fulfilled in Jesus. Just because a nation was created in the 1940s that is named “Israel” doesn’t mean, according to the New Testament, that it has anything to do with the ancient Israel of the Bible.

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Myth #4

Christians Must Bless Israel or Incur God’s Curse

Truth: The blessings and curses have been fulfilled in Jesus.

The idea that those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed comes from one passage in the book of Genesis.

Yahweh said to Abram, “Go out from your land and from your relatives, and from the house of your father, to the land that I will show you. And I will make you a great people, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great. And you will be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and those who curse you I will curse. And all families of the earth will be blessed in you.”
Genesis 12:1-3

You’ll notice that the passage doesn’t say anything about Israel. The passage speaks of God blessing Abram (before he was named Abraham), who was an Arab from the region of modern-day Iraq. The passage says that God will bless Abram and that he will be a blessing, that God will bless those who bless Abram and will curse those who curse Abram. No mention of Israel. Now, if we want to extend this beyond what is written, to include all of Abram’s descendants, then we would say that this blessing also applies to his eight sons: Isaac,  Ishmael, Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. God said, “As for Ishmael, I have heard you; I will bless him and make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous; he shall be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.” (Genesis 17:20). So the blessing God had given Abram was extended to Ismael and his offspring as well.

God promised to bless Abraham so that he could be a blessing to all the families of the earth. Throughout the biblical narrative, we see that this didn’t happen until we get to Jesus. You see, the whole entire point of this passage is that God protects the instrument through which he intends to reach the nations. According to Paul,  the Abrahamic blessing of Genesis is fulfilled in Christ, whom he defines as the “true seed of Abraham” (Galatians 3:16).

Just as Abraham “believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” so, you see, those who believe [in Jesus] are the descendants of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you.” For this reason, those who believe [in Jesus] are blessed with Abraham who believed.
Galatians 3:6-9

We can see that the Abrahamic blessing aims outward, beyond ancient Israel, towards global redemption. The text never instructs outsiders to court Abram’s favour; it tells Abram that God will manage the opposition while Abram obeys his call. While none within the nation of Israel ever followed Abraham’s call, the promised universal blessing did come to fulfilment with the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. This is why Scripture says that, “If you are in Christ, you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:29).

To insist that the promise attaches to the modern nation-state named Israel bypasses the very Christological reading that the apostolic authority gives. Since Jesus is now the true Israel (John 15:1), all those who bless him will be blessed, and all those who curse him will be cursed. But—Paul writes, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). In other words, the climactic covenant curse has already fallen—on Jesus. Through Christ’s saving work on the cross, all can come to him and share in the Abrahamic blessing.

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Myth #5

Jerusalem Must Remain Under Jewish Control

Truth: Jerusalem has been replaced with a New Jerusalem that has no geographic boundaries.

It is sometimes thought that Jerusalem is the center of future prophetic events, but a careful reading of the New Testament exposes this to be false. The emphasis on Jerusalem as sacred geography, while important for the ancient Israelites, is relocated by Jesus.

When Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well, she says, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. …a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.” (John 4:19-21, 23).

Paul contrasts “present Jerusalem,” enslaved under the law, with the “Jerusalem above,” mother of the free (Galatians 4:25-26). Within Jerusalem was the most holy of spots, the temple. But Jesus redefines the temple as his own body (John 2:19-22). The book of Acts says, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.” (Acts 17:24). Those who are in Jesus Christ have, by extension, become the Temple, therefore, the old temple is gone, never to return because it has been replaced (1 Corinthians 3:16-17).

The author of Hebrews says that those who come to Jesus “have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.” (Hebrews 12:22). This passage reframes Jerusalem not as a geographical place, but as a spiritual reality centered around Jesus and the new covenant.

It is no wonder, then, that the Biblical future hope is not a reclaimed physical Jerusalem in the Middle East, but a New Jerusalem that descends from heaven.

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
Revelation 21:1–2

The geographic center of the Christian faith isn’t in Palestine, but a renewed Earth, where Jesus reigns and rules as Lord over all.

Jesus gave his final farewell to the old physical Jerusalem as he was carrying his cross to his death.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’
Luke 13:34-35

Jesus was prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem, because they did not know what would bring them peace, they rushed headlong into their own destruction by provoking the Romans (Luke 19:41-44).

Some Zionists claim that Jesus is making a promise that Jerusalem will once again be filled with Jews and that they will acknowledge Jesus as Lord. Rather, what Jesus is doing is making a form of conditional promise: If anyone repents and receives “the one who comes in the name of the Lord” with blessing rather than animosity, then they will recognize and experience salvation.

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Myth #6

All Jews Will Be Saved

Truth: Like any other people group, not all Jews will be saved.

I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”
Romans 11:25-27

Notice here that the passage does not say “all Jews will be saved,” rather, it says “in this way all Israel will be saved.” The “in this way” part is essential because Paul just spent several chapters trying to explain that “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.” (Romans 11:2). Ethnic Israel didn’t live up to God’s plans for it, but those who lived by allegiance to God’s way did.

It is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all Israelites truly belong to Israel, and not all of Abraham’s children are his true descendants; but “It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants.
Romans 9:6-8

Paul calls those who live by faithfulness to God “objects of mercy,” “including us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles” (Romans 9:24). You see, Paul is addressing the issue that we see in the prophets, specifically in Isaiah, “the Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression.” (Isaiah 59:20). Who is the Redeemer (Jesus) coming to? Who is he saving? The ones who turn from their transgression and turn to God. So does this group include those descended from Abraham who don’t turn to Jesus and continue in their transgression and unbelief? No. What Paul is saying is that all of Israel was given this promise, but it’s only those who believe that receive it. Remember, Paul said, “This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants.” This is one of the major points of Romans: there is an ethnic group called Israel that descended from Isaac. They are Israel by blood. But from among that group, there is a true Israel—those who have believed God by faith, the elect of God.

Israel contains both Jew and Gentile (Galatians 3:28-29). Not all Jews are part of the true Israel, as “some branches have been broken off,” and some Gentiles are because they “have been grafted in” (Romans 11:17).

After Paul has specified and essentially redefined Israel (not all who are descended from Israel are Israel), he assures his listeners that “in this way all Israel will be saved.” He isn’t saying that “far off in the future, 2,000 years from now, all the Jews will be saved.” He is saying that the true Israel, those who live in faithful allegiance to Jesus Christ, will be saved. Paul says that “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:29). All of Israel has, can, and will be saved because true Israel are those in Jesus Christ.

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Myth #7

Israel/Palestine is the Holy Land

Truth: The land is no longer unique and holds no special purpose.

The word “holy” means set apart. The land of Canaan/Judeha/Palestine, that some call Israel, was once holy. The land was the land promised to the Hebrew people, set apart (holy) so they could fulfil their mission to be a blessing to the nations. As chronicled in the Old Testament, the ancient Israelites failed spectacularly at this and were exiled out of the land and into Babylon. After 70 years, they returned to the land, but never again as its ruler. In the first century, Jesus, the Messiah, came to set the Jewish people free from the old ways but was largely  rejected.

Even in the Old Testament, the land of Canaan was never the end goal. Abraham himself “was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10), and Psalm 24 opens with the sweeping affirmation that “the earth is Yahweh’s, and everything in it.” Already, the land was a signpost pointing beyond itself.

Jesus makes it clear that, through him, the holy place would be expanded. When the Samaritan woman presses him about the correct holy site, he answers that the hour is coming when worship will be”neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem” but “in spirit and truth” (John 4:21-24). By relocating holiness from geography to relationship, he was taking the holy out of the holy land. In the Beatitudes, Jesus quotes Psalm 37:11, “the meek shall inheret the land,” but he expands it when he claims, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5). Jesus does not restrict the inheritance to Palestine; he universalizes it to the whole world. Look how Paul completely reinterprets the ancient Scriptures:

For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith.
Romans 4:13

That promise, Paul argues, is now secured “through the righteousness of faith,” so that those who belong to Christ—Jew and Gentile—are Abraham’s offspring and heirs (Romans 4:16-17;  Galatians 3:28-29). This is confirmed by the author of Hebrews when he claims that the Jews don’t need to seek the land anymore:

All these people [the Israelites] were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.
Hebrews 11:13-16, 22

According to Scripture it is those in Christ who have finally come to the heavenly Jerusalem, a city which covers the entire earth. Revelation envisions this reality in its vivid imagery when it describes a massive cubed city, called “New Jerusalem,” descends out of the sky so that God can fill the whole world with his presence (Revelation 21:1-3). In Christian theology, the “wholly land” has been superseded—not despised, but fulfilled—by the universal scope of Christ’s redeeming work. The true inheritance is no longer a strip of land, but the whole earth—given not to any one ethnicity, but to all those allegiant to Jesus (Matthew 5:5; John 14:6). There is no longer one piece of land that is “set apart.”

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Myth #8

Christian Zionism Is Historic Christian Orthodoxy

Truth: It is a recent invention that is foreign to the historical Church.

For almost nineteen centuries, the mainstream church—East and West, Catholic and Protestant—read Israel’s land promises as finding their final meaning in Christ and his multi-ethnic people. Early Church fathers identified those in Christ as Israel. Justin Martyr said, “For we are the true spiritual Israel” (Dialogue with Trypho, Ch. 11). Augustine said, “The Church is the true Israel of God” (City of God, Book 20). The great Reformers repeated the theme, seeing the “holy land” as a foretaste of the renewed creation rather than real estate ever needing to be deeded back to an ethnic people. Creeds, councils, and classic catechisms agreed that the Old Testament story reached its climax at Pentecost, not in a future geopolitical colonization.

The idea that the Jews must return to Palestine as a prophetic requirement didn’t become a thought in anyone’s mind until the nineteenth century. It was John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), founder of the Plymouth Brethren, who systematized the notion. Darby’s new framework—later called dispensationalism—drew a hard line between “the Jews” and “the church,” and read every Old Testament land text as a (now) unfulfilled real-estate contract. This scheme was a sharp break from classical covenant theology, which had always treated the two peoples as one olive tree grafted together in Christ (Romans 11:17-24).

Darby’s views might have faded out into obscurity had they not been popularized in the United States by the Scofield Reference Bible (1909). Often considered the first study Bible, it was written by the lawyer Cyrus I. Scofield. Scofield. This new Bible was one of the first of its kind by having footnotes on almost every page, printed right next to the biblical text, helping readers understand the scriptures. Conveniently for the Zionist cause, these footnotes taught generations of evangelicals that supporting a Jewish national homeland was virtually a Christian duty. But who was this lawyer who authored the footnotes?

Scofield was a dubious character with a criminal history, who embezzled money, was forced to resign from politics, had a severe drinking problem, served six months in jail for forgery even after his conversion to Christianity, and abandoned his wife and daughters. Even though he claimed to have a Doctorate in Divinity, it has since proved false. The Scofield Reference Bible became the best-selling Bible of all time, but one has to wonder why.

Joseph M. Canfield’s polemical biography The Incredible Scofield and His Book argues that a massively wealthy American lawyer and prominent Zionist, Samuel Untermyer, sponsored Scofield into the elite Lotos Club and quietly paid the bills for his European research trips and New-York living expenses. The Lotos Club is one of the oldest literary-and-arts clubs in the United States. The club functioned as a kind of cultural salon for New York’s power-brokers. Lotos membership conferred prestige, opened purse-strings, and provided a discreet stage on which political and cultural alliances were brokered—exactly the kind of environment in which a project like the Scofield Reference Bible might find influential friends and funding.

It was through those Zionist-funded trips to Europe that Scofield became connected with the Oxford University Press. The Oxford University Press published the book, but many historians wonder why they would have risked a study Bible by an unaccredited pastor unless he had powerful backers. The book experienced unusually rapid global distribution, and Bible colleges ensured that every young pastor-to-be left with one in hand.

After World War II, the American consciousness flipped from victory parades to a kind of nervous dread—nukes, the Holocaust, the Iron Curtain, and all the gloom associated with it seeped into the church: instead of believing that Christ’s saving work would keep improving the world, a lot of Protestants latched onto premillennial “it’s-going-to-get-worse” theology. With Scofield’s handy Bible notes laying out history like a countdown clock, when the brand-new State of Israel popped onto the map in 1948 (just as Scofield had said the Jews would return to the land), prophecy conferences, radio preachers, and later bestsellers like The Late Great Planet Earth (and then later the “Left Behind” series) treated current events as evidence that we were living in the last days. By the mid-twentieth century, “Christian Zionism” had become a fixture in American fundamentalism, even though it had no standing in Christian history; the church fathers, medieval scholastics, Reformers, or even the early evangelicals of the Great Awakening, and appeared in none of the great confessions (Apostles’ Creed, Nicene, Westminster, Augsburg, Trent, or the Orthodox catechisms).

In short, Christian Zionism is a modern, dispensational innovation rather than an article of historic Christian orthodoxy. It redefines the relationship between Israel and the church, assigns eschatological significance to a modern nation-state, and departs from the spiritual-Christological reading of Scripture that dominated Christian thought from the second century through the Reformation. Today, it has woven itself deep into the American political landscape, seemingly shaping much of the nation’s foreign policy.

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Myth #9

Modern Jews are the same as the Jews from the Bible

Truth: Modern Judaism is very different from the religion of the ancient Israelites.

Many evangelicals assume today’s Jews stand in an unbroken line with the covenant community of Moses and David. Scripture—and history—tell a more complicated story. Jesus himself warned that bloodline alone was no passport to God (John 8:39-44), and within one generation, Rome’s legions erased the very institutions that had defined Jewish life: temple, sacrifices, priestly records. What rose from those ashes was resilient, but it was not the same covenant order described in Leviticus or sung about in the Psalms.

We must remember that Jesus came as the Messiah to the Jewish people in the 1st century but was largely rejected. Those who followed him became known as Christians, while Judaism continued to exist. During his ministry, Jesus gave a very chilling teaching in John 8:31-59 where he claimed that any Jew who doesn’t follow his teachings is not a child of God, but rather a child of the devil.

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

 

They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”

 

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.”

 

“Abraham is our father,” they answered.

 

“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father.”

 

“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”

 

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”
John 8:31-47

Jesus plainly says that any Jew who is not his disciple belongs to the devil, who is their father, and that they do not belong to God. Jesus was not anti-Semitic; he was just clearly explaining that Jews have to follow the Messiah to remain in a relationship with God the Father.

Jesus marked the end of the Old Covenant and the beginning of the New Covenant. The Law of Moses, which defined the Old Covenantal conditions, was merely a shadow of what was to come with Jesus (Colossians 2:17, Hebrews 10:1). The Law is now set aside, as it is “weak” and “useless” compared to Jesus (Hebrews 7:18-19). The Law of the Old Covenant has been “abolished” because Jesus has expanded his people to anyone who follows him:

For he himself [Jesus] is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances…
Ephesians 2:14-15 (ESV)

When the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the temple along with it in 70 AD, the old way of God had finally come to a complete end. No longer could Judaism be followed in the way it was for hundreds of years.

The temple and its sacrificial system were ended. The priestly genealogical records were lost. The ethnic Jews were scattered.

This was all by design. Jesus and his followers are now the temple (John 2:19-21, Matthew 12:6, Revelation 21:22, 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, Ephesians 2:19-22, 1 Peter 2:4-5, 1 Corinthians 6:19, 2 Corinthians 6:16). Jesus and his followers are now the priests (Hebrews 4:14-16, 7:23-28; 1 Peter 2:5, 2:9; Revelation 1:6, 5:9-10, 20:6; Hebrews 13:15, Romans 12:1). Jesus and his followers are now the children of Abraham (Matthew 1:1, 3:9; Galatians 3:16, 3:7, 3:29; Romans 4:11-16, 9:6-8; Luke 19:9).

Despite Jesus showing the way forward to continue in a relationship with the Father, Judaism continued to be its own religion and started to change and morph drastically, starting in the second century. Where the Judaism of the time of Jesus was centered around the Scriptures found in the Torah, Prophets, and writings found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint, the new form of Judaism would become centered around the “Oral Law” passed down by the Rabbis (said to be given at Sinai, but not written down until over a thousand years later).  This new authority was written down and is called the Mishnah and the Babylonian Talmud. To Jews, these writings hold greater authority because they dictate how the Torah should be interpreted.

The author of Revelation coins a rather harsh term for Jews who have rejected the Messiah, calling them “a synagogue of Satan” (Revelation 2:9, 3:9). Revelation says that they call themselves Jews but are not and are lying. Since no one can come to the Father except through Jesus (John 14:6), from a Christian theological perspective, we can deduce that any religion other than Christianity is not able to commune with the one true God. According to Jesus, rejecting him severs the relationship with the Father (John 8:42, 47). This leaves us to wonder which god receives their prayers. What or who has influenced modern Judaism after their connection to God had been lost by rejecting Jesus?

Modern Judaism is heavily influenced by medieval Kabbalists who spoke of ten divine emanations, migrating souls, cosmic “sparks,” and the Shekhinah—God’s feminine, nurturing presence who longs to reunite with her heavenly partner. They taught that each knot of the tefillin and each beat of a swaying body repairs a fracture in the universe. Judaism in its current form would be almost unrecognizable to the temple priests of Jesus’ day.

Shockingly, the Bible says that those who deny that Jesus is the messiah are the “antichrist.”

Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; everyone who confesses the Son has the Father also.
1 John 2:22-23

Since no one who denies the Son has the Father, we know that those outside of Jesus are not communing with the true God.

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Myth #10

Modern Israel is the same as the Israel from the Bible

Truth: The modern nation-state called Israel has no connection to the Biblical Israel.

Throughout the Old Testament, the people of Israel are described as a vine that is planted in the promised land (Isaiah 5:1-7, 27:2-6; Psalm 80:9; Ezekiel 15:1-8, 17:1-10, 19:10-14; Jeremiah 2:21, 5:10, 12:11). A psalmist, lamenting the fall of Jerusalem and their life in exile, writes:

You transplanted a vine from Egypt;
you drove out the nations and planted it.
You cleared the ground for it,
and it took root and filled the land.
Psalm 80:8-9

Hosea makes the analogy explicit: “Israel is a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit” (Hosea 10:1 ESV). Isaiah says, “The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in.” (Isaiah 5:7). The common metaphor is that the land is the vineyard, and the people of Israel are the vines. Jesus, quite aware of these popular analogies, takes this imagery and, by his authority, presents a dramatic shift (John 15:1-12).

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
John 15:5, 2, 6

God’s vineyard, the land of Israel, now only has one vine: Jesus. Let’s be clear about this shocking subversion—Jesus is taking Israel’s place as the vine. Now no one can claim to be planted as vines in the land, they cannot be rooted in the vineyard, unless they are first grafted into Jesus (John 15:2, 4). He says that any branches that attempt to live in the land, the vineyard, which refuse to be attached to him will be cast out and burned (John 15:6). This means that first-century Jews who didn’t follow Jesus were about to be cut off from Israel, meaning, anyone in the land who denies Jesus has no right to the land.

There is only one true vine, and that is Jesus Christ (John 15:1). Paul also references this change that Jesus made to the analogy when talking about how the Jews had been cut off from the vine: “Branches were broken off so that [you] could be grafted in. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by allegiance. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.” (Romans 11:19-21). Jesus is now the only way to the Father and the only way to the inheritance of the land (John 14:6).

Take a look at how God describes Israel in the Old Testament:

Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
Exodus 19:5-6

Now, take a look at how Christians are described in the New Testament:

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
1 Peter 2:9

This is hugely significant. Because Jesus is now Israel (Exodus 4:22, Hosea 11:1, Matthew 2:15), his Gentile children are part of Israel (Romans 11:19-21). Where once lineage defined who was Israel, now, because of Jesus, who is the true vine, anyone who is in Christ is in Israel. Likewise, anyone who is not in Christ is not in Israel. Paul affirms this in Galatians 6:16, by calling Christ-followers “Israel.”

Now, this makes total sense: If Jesus was indeed Israel’s true Messiah (as Christians believe), then it follows that anyone who doesn’t align themselves with the Messiah would no longer be part of God’s community. This isn’t about race. All are welcome in God’s Kingdom, including those who now follow after false religions. Paul says, “if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again… how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!” (Romans 11:23-24).

The modern nation-state named Israel was formed through a colonial political movement that resulted in decades of massive bloodshed, ethnic cleansing, rape and pillaging. It shares a name with the people of the Old Testament, but that is all it has in common. Jesus has refined the definition of what is truly “Israel,” and so, if he is our authority, then we must allow that to define our reality.

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In Christ, God’s promises are fulfilled and extended to all people. No longer are God’s people defined by geography, ethnicity, or temple rituals, but by allegiance to Jesus. As Christians, our theology must be shaped by the gospel of the Kingdom—not by political ideology or nationalist sentiment. Let us hold fast to the truth that in Christ, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, but one new humanity.