Christian Zionism: Justifying Apartheid in the Name of God

Dr. Stephen R. Sizer

Similarly, Jews for Jesus perpetuate the dispensational distinction between God's purposes for Israel and that of the Church.

We believe that Israel exists as a covenant people through whom God continues to accomplish His purposes and that the Church is an elect people in accordance with the New Covenant, comprising both Jews and Gentiles who acknowledge Jesus as Messiah and Redeemer. ²⁸

David Brickner affirms the position first propounded by Darby, that the Jews remain 'God's chosen people' while the church is merely 'a parenthesis'²⁹ to God's future plans for the Jews. The implicit assumption is that the Jews continue to enjoy a special covenant relationship with God apart from through Jesus Christ. This contradicts Jesus own clear and unambiguous statements to the contrary.

Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, `We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." (Luke 3:8-9)

You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. (John 5:39-40)

"Abraham is our father," they answered. "If you were Abraham's children," said Jesus, "then you would do the things Abraham did... You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire." (John 8:39, 44)

"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)

For this reason Peter warned his Jewish audience soon after the Day of Pentecost that if they persisted in refusing to recognise Jesus as their Messiah, they would cease to be the laos of God, 'Anyone who does not listen to him (Christ) will be completely cut off from among his people.' (Acts 3:23)

Jesus and the apostles repudiated the notion that the Jews continued to enjoy a special status or relationship apart from belief in Jesus as their Messiah. Christian Zionists fail to recognise that in the Bible, 'chosenness' becomes progressively universalised, the gift of God's grace in Jesus Christ to all who trust in Him, irrespective of their racial origins.

In the New Testament the concept of 'chosenness' is applied to those who have or who will believe in Jesus Christ. It is never used exclusively of the Jewish people, apart from as members of the Church. Jesus Christ is the 'chosen' one. In Romans 11:5 Paul does refer to a 'remnant' of Jews, who like himself are 'chosen by grace' and included in Christ. In the New Testament the term is always used to refer to the Church, the Body of Christ.

In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will. (Ephesians 1:11)

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. (Colossians 3:12)

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, 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)

It is therefore no longer appropriate to designate the Jews as God's 'chosen people' since the term has been invested with new meaning to refer to all who trust in Jesus Christ.

2.3 The Restoration to and Occupation of Eretz Israel
Since Christian Zionists argue that the Jews remain God's chosen people, the promises concerning the land still apply unconditionally and in perpetuity. Therefore Christian Zionists are active in encouraging Jews to 'return' to Zion. The contemporary State of Israel is seen by Christian Zionists as evidence of God's continuing protection and favour toward the Jews.

I believe the modern day state of Israel is a miracle of God and a fulfillment of Bible prophecy. Jesus clearly said that "Jerusalem would be trodden down of the Gentiles until the time of the nations is fulfilled" (Luke 21:24). It has been 50 years since the founding of that state, but only 30 years since Jerusalem came under the control of Jews for the first time since Jesus made that prediction. Could it be that "this generation shall not pass until all these things are fulfilled?"3

That is why CMJ's resource pack includes a section entitled, 'The State of Israel: Why should we support it?'

... in the biblical worldview one cannot actually separate theology and spirituality... one cannot divorce the issue of the people of Israel's relationship with God from their relationship to their delegated sovereignty in the land of Israel... God.. has made it possible for Jewish people everywhere to come and live in a restored Jewish homeland ...it seems to us that God is undoubtedly behind the re-creation of the Jewish State in the modern world. We are called to a support for the State of Israel...31

To Christian Zionists, however, the present borders of Israel are only a fraction of those God intended for the Jews. The geographical extent of 'Eretz Israel', as Arnold Fruchtenbaum explains, is nonnegotiable and covers everything from Egypt to Iraq.

So, then, according to the Scriptures, three promises are made with regard to the land: first, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were all promised the possession of the land; second, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were promised the possession of the land; and third, the boundaries of the promised land extended from the Euphrates River in the north to the River of Egypt in the south. ...At no point in Jewish history have the Jews ever possessed all of the land from the Euphrates in the north to the River of Egypt in the south. Since God cannot lie, these things must yet come to pass. Somehow or other, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob must possess all the land, and second, the descendants of Abraham must settle in all of the promised land.32

At the Third International Christian Zionist Congress held in Jerusalem in February 1996 under the auspices of ICEJ, some 1,500 delegates from over 40 countries unanimously affirmed a proclamation and affirmation of Christian Zionism including the following beliefs,

The Lord in His zealous love for Israel and the Jewish People blesses and curses peoples and judges nations based upon their treatment of the Chosen People of Israel.... According to God's distribution of nations, the Land of Israel has been given to the Jewish People by God as an everlasting possession by an eternal covenant. The Jewish People have the absolute right to possess and dwell in the Land, including Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Golan.33

Anne Dexter explains why present or future negotiations involving a land for peace deal involving the creation of a Palestinian State in Gaza and the West Bank will never appease Zionists.

The question of the ancient boundaries cannot be ignored. It underlies the policies of many Israeli statesmen. It explains why Sinai is always negotiable - it has twice been captured by Israel and returned to Egypt. It is the reason why Jewish settlements on the West Bank and Golan Heights is not just a matter of secure and defensible borders. It is the guiding principles in Israel's interpretation of West Bank autonomy, which insists that whatever the degree of self-determination allowed the people, the land itself belongs to Israel.34

In her view, Palestinian Christians must accept Zionism, and learn to live with it. "Arab Christians are squarely faced with the biblical election of the Jews, and their role throughout history, particularly in the present."35

Christian Zionists therefore invariably oppose the dismantling of the Jewish settlements in the Palestinian Territories. Theodore Beckett, Chairman of the Christian Friends of Israel Community Development Foundation, for example, has initiated an 'adopt-a-settlement' program among evangelical churches. The Jewish town of Ariel, for example, has been adopted by Faith Bible Chapel in nearby Denver. Seventy other Jewish settlements have also apparently been adopted in this way,

...with larger churches adopting larger settlements and smaller churches adopting smaller settlements and giving all a morale boost to show them they are not alone and are loved by many.36

Jews for Jesus go as far as to compare Israel's continued occupation of the Palestinian Territories with the United States claim to Texas.

Many might wish that the Israeli government could feel secure enough to withdraw the settlements on the West Bank. But on the same basis, the United States should seriously consider giving Texas back to Mexico and, indeed, should never have settled it in the first place.37

They also justify the military occupation of the Palestinian Territories on the basis of biblical precedent as well as divine command.

So far as force of arms is concerned, the choice for Israel has been to fight or to be annihilated. It must be remembered that every defensive position entails some violence... We must also remember that war has not always been "wrong." In Moses' time the sons of Jacob did not traipse into the land of Canaan and find a welcoming committee eager to greet them and congratulate them upon their arrival. God commanded that they take Canaan by force. At that point it would have been wrong for them not to do it. There may be some who think that God has learned some new lessons since ancient times, but to our knowledge, God does not change. It is entirely possible that once again he might move Israel to resort to force.38

Christian Zionists fail to recognise that 'meekness' rather than 'chosenness' was always a precondition of remaining in the land, whereas arrogance or oppression were reasons for exile. It is also significant to note the way that Jesus universalises the land promise made in Psalm 37.

But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace. (Psalm 37:11)

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5)

Zionists must also inevitably downplay the repeated warnings of the Hebrew Prophets who insist the land belongs to God and residence there is always conditional. For example,

The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants. (Leviticus 25:23)

Because the Land belongs to God, it cannot be permanently bought or sold. It cannot be permanently given away, let alone stolen or confiscated as has occurred in the Occupied Territories since 1967. The Land is never at the disposal of Israel for its national purposes. Instead it is Israel who are at the disposal of God's purposes. The Jews remain tenants in God's Land. The ethical requirements for occupancy of Canaan were clearly outlined in Leviticus.

Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you. (Leviticus 18:24-28) The prophet Ezekiel amplifies the same warning to those tenants.

Thus says the Lord God of Israel: You shed blood, yet you would keep possession on the land? You rely on your sword, you do abominable things... yet you would keep possession of the land?... I will make the land a desolate waste, and her proud strength will come to an end, and the mountains of Israel will become desolate so that no one will cross them. Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I have made the land a desolate waste because of all the detestable things they have done.' (Ezekiel 33:25-29)

On the basis of such sober warnings is it not more likely that Israel will experience an imminent exile rather than restoration? The tension between evangelicals who seek the implementation of international law and Christian Zionists is no where more clearly polarized than on the issue of the status of Jerusalem

2.4 Jerusalem, The Eternal and Exclusive Jewish Capital
In 1992, the ICEJ sponsored various receptions marking the 25th anniversary of what they referred to as the "Reunification of Jerusalem."39 In 1996 this position was reiterated.

Because of the sovereign purposes of God for the City, Jerusalem must remain undivided, under Israeli sovereignty, open to all peoples, the capitol of Israel only, and all nations should so concur and place their embassies here.40

In 1997 the ICEJ gave support to a full page advert placed in the New York Times entitled, "Christians Call for a United Jerusalem" signed by 10 evangelical leaders including Pat Robertson, chairman of Christian Broadcasting Network and president of the Christian Coalition; Oral Roberts, founder and chancellor of Oral Roberts University; Jerry Falwell, founder of Moral Majority; Ed McAteer, President of the Religious Roundtable; and David Allen Lewis, President of Christians United for Israel.

We, the undersigned Christian spiritual leaders, communicating weekly to more than 100 million Christian Americans, are proud to join together in supporting the continued sovereignty of the State of Israel over the holy city of Jerusalem. We support Israel's efforts to reach reconciliation with its Arab neighbors, but we believe that Jerusalem or any portion of it shall not be negotiable in the peace process. Jerusalem must remain undivided as the eternal capital of the Jewish people.41

Readers were invited to:

Join us in our holy mission to ensure that Jerusalem will remain the undivided, eternal capital of Israel. The battle for Jerusalem has begun, and it is time for believers in Christ to support our Jewish brethren and the State of Israel. The time for unity with the Jewish people is now.42

The New Testament, however, knows nothing of this preoccupation with a nationalistic and materialistic earthly Jerusalem. Instead through faith in Christ we already inhabit the heavenly Jerusalem and look forward to its appearing.

But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. (Hebrews 12:22-23)

But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother (Galatians 4:26)

In Galatians 4 Paul is criticizing the 'Jerusalem-dependency'43 of the legalists who were infecting the Church in Galatia. Galatians 4:27 is a quotation from Isaiah 54:1 which referred to the earthly Jerusalem. Paul now interprets the passage to refer to the home of all who believe in Jesus Christ.44 J.C. De Young writes,

Gal. 4:21 ff represents, perhaps, the sharpest polemic against Jerusalem in the New Testament... Far from being pre-occupied with hopes for a glorification of the earthly Jerusalem, Paul's thought represents a most emphatic repudiation of any eschatological hopes concerning the earthly city.45

Access to heaven no longer has anything to do with the earthly Jerusalem. Jesus had already made this clear to the woman of Samaria.

Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. (John 4:21-23)

At his trial Jesus explained why.

My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place. (John 18:36)

The turning point for the Disciples comes with the resurrection encounters and Pentecost. Until this point they seemed to share the same understanding of the land as other 1st Century Jews. They had looked forward to God's decisive intervention in history which would at last restore political sovereignty to the Jews in Israel. This is reflected in the words of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, who confessed, 'we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.' (Luke 24:21) This idea was clearly still in the minds of the disciples as Jesus when, just before his ascension, they ask, 'Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6). John Calvin comments, 'There are as many mistakes in this question as there are words.'46 Jesus' reply indicates that he has another agenda for his disciples.

It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1:7-8)

Jesus redefines the boundaries of the kingdom of God and thereby the meaning of chosenness. The expansion of the kingdom of God throughout the world requires the exile of the Apostles from the land. They must turn their backs on Jerusalem and their hopes of a materialistic kingdom. They are sent out into the world but never told to return. Subsequent to Pentecost, under the illumination of the Holy Spirit, the Apostles begin to use Old Covenant language concerning the Land in new ways.

So for example, Peter speaks of an inheritance which unlike the Land, '...can never perish, spoil or fade.' (1 Peter 1:4). Paul similarly asserts, 'Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.' (Acts 20:32) There is no evidence that the Apostles believed that the Jewish people still had a divine right to the Land, or that the Jewish possession of the Land would be an important, let alone central aspect of God's future purposes for the world. In the Christological logic of Paul, the Land, like the Law, have now been superseded and are irrelevant to God's redemptive purposes.

The contradiction between the flow of biblical revelation in the New Testament and the Zionist agenda is no where more clearly seen than in the question of the Jewish Temple. This is also the most controversial issue uniting Christian Zionists with the more extreme Jewish Zionists.

2.5 The Rebuilding of the Jewish Temple
Just 500 metres by 300 metres it is according to Hal Lindsey, the most disputed 35 acres on the Planet.'47

I believe the fate of the world will be determined by an ancient feud over 35 acres of land.48

Yisrael Meida explains the significance of the Temple Mount to Jewish Zionists.

It is all a matter of sovereignty. He who controls the Temple Mount, controls Jerusalem. And he who controls Jerusalem, controls the land of Israel.49

Lindsey is representative of many Christian Zionists who are convinced that the Jewish Temple will be rebuilt very soon.

Obstacle or no obstacle, it is certain that the Temple will be rebuilt. Prophecy demands it... With the Jewish nation reborn in the land of Palestine, ancient Jerusalem once again under total Jewish control for the first time in 2600 years, and talk of rebuilding the great Temple, the most important sign of Jesus Christ's soon coming is before us... It is like the key piece of a jigsaw puzzle being found... For all those who trust in Jesus Christ, it is a time of electrifying excitement.50

David Brickner basis his belief on a futurist reading of Daniel 9.

Obviously the Temple has been rebuilt because Daniel tells us this ruler puts an end to sacrifice and sets up some kind of abomination (a loathsome horror that would be anathema to Jewish worship) right inside the Temple in Jerusalem. Ultimately this ruler is destroyed in a final conflagration of enormous proportion.51


While Jews for Jesus insist that they do not endorse the activities of Jewish groups committed to rebuilding the Jewish Temple, they nevertheless provide information on, and direct Internet links to, eight extreme Jewish organisations involved in attempts to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock, rebuild the Jewish Temple and re-institute Temple worship, priesthood and sacrifices. These include the Temple Institute and Temple Mount Faithful.52 Indeed, Zhava Glaser of Jews for Jesus, praises Gershon Salomon, founder of 'The Temple Faithful'.

Very few Jews have the courage to talk about the most important subject in the Jewish religion: that is, the question of the Temple, the high priest, the altar and the place of sacrifice. Gershon Salomon is a man of such courage. This 53-year-old scholar is the founder and head of a group called, "The Temple Faithful." His credentials as an Israeli patriot are impeccable, beginning at age eleven when he was arrested by the British authorities for putting up Zionist posters during their occupation of Israel. He has stood up for what he believes to be true ever since... One must take Salomon seriously. Nine thousand people are on his "Temple Mount Faithful" membership list.53

Speaking at the Jerusalem Christian Zionist Congress in 1998, Salomon insisted,

The mission of the present generation is to liberate the Temple Mount and to remove - I repeat, to remove - the defiling abomination there ... The Jewish people will not be stopped at the gates leading to the Temple Mount ... We will fly our Israeli flag over the Temple Mount, which will be minus its Dome of the Rock and its mosques and will have only our Israeli flag and our Temple. This is what our generation must accomplish.54

Sam Kiley writing in the London Times gives another perspective. He claims Salomon represents the '...almost acceptable face of millennial cults.' In an interview with Kiley, Salomon insisted that the Islamic shrine must be destroyed.

The Israeli Government must do it. We must have a war. There will be many nations against us but God will be our general. I am sure this is a test, that God is expecting us to move the Dome with no fear from other nations. The Messiah will not come by himself, we should bring Him by fighting.55

Such sentiments are shared by many Christian Zionists including James DeLoach, Terry Risenhoover and Doug Kreiger. Organisations such as the International Christian Embassy and Chuck Smith's Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California, have been influential in gathering significant financial and political support for extreme Jewish organisations such as Gush Emunim and the Temple Mount Foundation.56 Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network has also raised funds for Gershon Salomon's Temple Mount Faithful.57

One book, in particular, has galvanized Christian Zionists on this issue, namely, Ready to Rebuild: The Imminent Plan to Rebuild the Last Days Temple, by Thomas Ice and Randall Price.58 John Walvoord offers this endorsement.

A masterpiece presenting all the various views with substantiating evidence... A mine of information for those concerned about prophecy... A solid basis for faith and what can actually be expected in regard to the rebuilding of the Temple... (it) is highly recommended59

The conviction that the Jewish Temple must be rebuilt is, ironically, the Achilles' heel of Christian Zionism for it is inevitably also associated with the reintroduction of the Mosaic sacrificial system. Based on his reading of Daniel 12:11 John Walvoord claims,

Judging by Scriptures, this is precisely what they will do as it would be impossible to cause sacrifices to cease if they were not already in operation. The usual method of dismissing this as something which occurred in A.D. 70 does not provide a reasonable explanation of the text nor account for the fact that the second coming of Christ occurs immediately thereafter.60Scofield in his Reference Bible claimed that the sacrifices mentioned in Ezekiel 43:19, would, however, be only 'memorial' offerings.

The reference to sacrifices is not to be taken literally, in view of the putting away of such offerings, but is rather to be regarded as a presentation of the worship of redeemed Israel, in her own land and in the millennial Temple, using the terms with which the Jews were familiar in Ezekiel's day.62

If this particular reference to sacrifice in Ezekiel 43 need not be taken literally then the ultra-literalist distinction between Israel and the Church collapses, flawed by its own internal inconsistency.63

A literalist hermeneutic precludes the possibility that the sacrifice of a young bullock can be synonymous with a memorial offering consisting of grain and oil.64

However, even if he could do so in some future millennial kingdom, it would be incongruous for Jesus to offer animal sacrifices when he had replaced them, once for all, by the shedding his own blood.

66 Such an interpretation undermines the New Testament insistence that the work of Christ is sufficient, final and complete67

Nevertheless, Zahava Glaser claims 'when God instituted the sacrificial system, it was instituted for all time.'

What flour is to bread, the sacrificial system is to the religion revealed in the Jewish Scriptures. It is not a garnish. It is not a flavoring. It is the very substance out of which the Jewish religion was constructed. We can forever design our own substitutes, but they cannot satisfy our yearnings the way God's own provision can. Though some rabbis might minimize the revealed system of worship and its requirements, can the individual Jew neglect what God says? Can there be a "proper" Judaism without a priesthood, an altar, a sacrifice and a place on earth where God meets the individual?68

Such logic seems at variance with the way in which the New Testament speaks of the place of Temple and sacrifice. In the New Testament the word Temple is mentioned 112 times. Of 66 verses where the word occurs in the Gospels, 58 refer to Herod's Temple. In the other eight verses Jesus compares himself to the Temple, its destruction and his own resurrection.69 The word is also used 25 times in Acts and always of Herod's Temple or a pagan shrine. In the Epistles the word occurs in nine verses. In three it refers to the existing Jewish Temple and once to a pagan shrine.70 In the Book of Revelation the word occurs a further 12 times and in every case refers specifically to the heavenly Temple or to the Lord God Himself71. On the six other occasions where the word appears in the Epistles it describes the individual Christian and corporately the Church as the Body of Christ and dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.72 This is precisely what Jesus predicted in John 4. Worship would soon no longer be confined to the Temple in Jerusalem but become universal 'in spirit and truth'.73 While Jesus warned of the destruction of the Temple, and was known to have done so by his critics, he never promised that it would ever be rebuilt.74

In Hebrews, the author describes the offering of sacrifices between the death of Christ and the destruction of the Temple as an 'illustration' of, and 'copies' of, heavenly realities, a 'reminder of sins' but unable, unlike the finished work of Christ, to take sin away.75 Peter uses the same terminology to describe the way Christians are being made into the new house of God,76 in which Jesus is the 'precious cornerstone'.77 Peter quotes directly from Exodus 19 using the promise made to the Jews but now applies it to the Church.

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

There is in fact not a single verse in the New Testament which promises that a Jewish Temple would be rebuilt, that a 2000 year 'parenthesis' should be placed between references to its desecration and destruction, or indeed that the Temple in Jerusalem would play any part in God's purposes after the cross. Christian Zionists must therefore ignore the way in which the Temple is invested with new meaning in the New Testament and becomes instead an image of the Church.

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's 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 2:19-21)

The movement in the progressive revelation of Scripture is always from the lesser to the greater. It is never reversed. The New Testament repeatedly sees such Old Testament concepts as the Temple, High Priest and sacrifice as 'types' pointing to and fulfilled in Jesus Christ.78 Typology in Scripture never typifies itself, nor is it ever greater than that which it typifies.79 Christians who therefore advocate the rebuilding of the Temple are regressing into a pre-Christian sacrificial system, superseded, made redundant and annulled by the finished work of Jesus Christ. The Temple was only a temporary edifice, a shadow and type anticipating the day when God would dwell with people of all nations through the atoning work of the true Temple, Jesus Christ.80

By insisting on such an arbitrary and dualistic separation between God's purposes for the Jews and those of the Church, Christian Zionists are promoting Old Testament 'shadows' alongside their New Testament 'substance'.81 In doing so they are seeking to revive what is now obsolete. Turning the clock back in redemptive history82 they are Judaizing the Christian faith.83 If religious Jews do indeed rebuild their Temple and re-institute sacrifices it will only confirm their rejection of the atoning work of Jesus Christ. For Christians to support them in the belief that future sacrifices may atone for sin is surely apostasy.84 Several commentators including E.J. Young associate the 'abomination of desolation' and the reference to 'the blood of swine' in Isaiah 66 to the continuation of Temple sacrifices after the death of Christ.85

It is not surprising perhaps that Christian support for Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount, exacerbated by several well publicised attempts to destroy the Dome of the Rock as well as fund Temple Mount organisations, inflames tensions between Jews and Arabs, Christian and Moslem.

2.6 Antipathy Toward Arabs and Palestinians
Christian Zionists, while lovers of Israel, rarely show the same feelings toward Arabs and Palestinians. Anti-Arab prejudices and Orientalist stereotypes are common in their writings.86 Comparisons between Hitler and the Arabs are common.87 Hal Lindsey, the most prolific Christian Zionist writer, insists,

Long ago the psalmist predicted the final mad attempt of the confederated Arab armies to destroy the nation of Israel... The Palestinians are determined to trouble the world until they repossess what they feel is their land. The Arab nations consider it a matter of racial honour to destroy the State of Israel. Islam considers it a sacred mission of religious honour to recapture Old Jerusalem.88

Basilea Schlink, also berates the Palestinian Intifada as 'terrorism... aimed solely at destroying Israel.'89 Franklin Graham, President of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, regrettably made similar unguarded remarks in a recent newspaper interview.

The Arabs will not be happy until every Jew is dead. They hate the State of Israel. They all hate the Jews. God gave the land to the Jews. The Arabs will never accept that.90

Some Christian Zionists are reluctant even to acknowledge the existence of Palestinians as a distinct people. Dave Hunt is typical of those who equate Palestinians with the ancient Philistines, and use the term Palestinian in an entirely pejorative sense.

Central to the Middle East conflict today is the issue of the so-called Palestinian people... Palestinians? There never was a Palestinian people, nation, language, culture, or religion. The claim of descent from a Palestinian people who lived for thousands of years in a land called Palestine is a hoax! That land was Canaan, inhabited by Canaanites, whom God destroyed because of their wickedness. Canaan became the land of Israel given by God to His people. Those who today call themselves Palestinians are Arabs by birth, language, and culture, and are close relatives to Arabs in surrounding countries from whence most of them came, attracted by Israel's prosperity..91

Based on Hunt's logic presumably the same arguments could be used against the right to self determination of citizens of the United States or indeed of several dozen nations founded in the 20th Century. Rob Richards justifies Israel's apartheid regime on the grounds that Palestinians are the biblical equivalent of the 'alien' residents in Eretz Israel, to be respected but not entitled to the same status or equal rights, as the Jews.

Palestinians and Arabs who have made Israel their home come under that biblical word 'alien'.92

Richards ignores the fact that most Palestinians did not 'make their home in Israel'. Those over the age of 50 were living in their own land of Palestine long before the State of Israel was unilaterally imposed upon them in 1948. Brickner similarly uses the term 'sojourner' to describe the status of Palestinians in Eretz Israel 93 while Jews for Jesus defend Israel's denial of Palestinian human rights on the grounds of national security.

For example, although Israel is a signatory of various international human rights documents, it has signed with reservations; namely, it has reserved the right to derogate certain rights in times where national security is threatened.94

While the United Nations is invariably viewed with mistrust, the two nations of America and Israel, like Siamese twins, are perceived to be pitted against an evil world dominated by Islam,95 in which people like Yasser Arafat or Saddam Hussein is seen as contenders for the role of Anti-Christ.96 It is therefore not hard to see why Christian Zionists are pessimistic of, or even oppose, the current peace process. Walter Riggans, for instance, believes the Oslo Peace Accord threatens to legitimise Palestinian claims to Jerusalem and the West Bank.

...many Jewish people are quite devastated, and feel they have been betrayed into the hands of cunning and ruthless Palestinians who are exploiting the accords as a first step towards the elimination of Israel.97

Neil Cohen, vicar of Christ Church, Jerusalem, is equally pessimistic.

Partnership of Jew and Arab is untenable in Israel... we live in an age of political correctness which claims we live in a world where all people have equal rights. I don't agree with that because I don't think it squares with the biblical record... the search for peace in the Middle East, laudable though it is, is a wild goose chase.98

Regrettably such instances of racism which demonise Arabs, regard Palestinians as 'aliens' and denies them the basic right to self determination is difficult to square with the a New Testament ethic. The followers of Jesus Christ are called to be peace makers99, to love their enemies100 and to no longer regard others from a worldly point of view but instead reach out to the widow and orphan, the poor the sick and the stranger, through a ministry of reconciliation.101 Tragically, many Christian Zionists, it seems, are more concerned with fighting wars than building peace.

2.7 Anxious for Armageddon
The 1967 'Six Day War' marked a significant watershed for Christian interest in Israel and Zionism. For example, Jerry Falwell did not begin to speak about modern-day Israel until after Israel's 1967 military victory.

Falwell changed completely. He entered into politics and became an avid supporter of the Zionist State... the stunning Israeli victory made a big impact not only on Falwell, but on a lot of Americans... Remember that in 1967, the United States was mired in the Vietnam war. Many felt a sense of defeat, helplessness and discouragement... Many Americans, including Falwell, turned worshipful glances toward Israel, which they viewed as militarily strong and invincible. They gave their unstinting approval to the Israeli take-over of Arab lands because they perceived this conquest as power and righteousness...102

Most Christian Zionists hold to a pessimistic and deterministic premillennial view of the future. Hal Lindsey is no exception. Without any hesitation or doubt he insists,

'And look what's happening in the Middle East - ground zero in the endtimes events.... This phoney peace deal in the Middle East thus only ensures that eventually there will be a thermonuclear holocaust in the Middle East... This seems to parallel predictions in Revelation and else where almost to a T. Mark my words. It will happen.'103

Let's talk about World War III... We can almost see the handwriting on the wall... Does this sound like a scenario that could happen in the very near future? Perhaps at almost any minute? You bet it does.104

The titles of Lindsey's books are typical of many other Christian Zionist writers in showing an increasingly exaggerated and almost pathological emphasis on the apocalyptic, on death and suffering, especially as the year 2000 approached.105

We are the generation the prophets were talking about. We have witnessed biblical prophecies come true. The birth of Israel. The decline in American power and morality. The rise of Russian and Chinese might. The threat of war in the Middle East. The increase of earthquakes, volcanoes, famine and drought. The Bible foretells the signs that precede Armageddon... We are the generation that will see the end times ...and the return of Jesus.106

Lindsey's last but one book, The Final Battle, includes the following,

Never before, in one book, has there been such a complete and detailed look at the events leading up to 'The Battle of Armageddon.'107

At times Lindsey's description of the suffering inherent in this most terrible scenario of a nuclear holocaust is tasteless if not repulsive.

Man has pretty much exhausted his arsenal. There are few popguns left, but not very much left to pop them. At least four billion people have perished in the first 14 Judgments alone. Now its God's turn.108

I always get a comical mental image when I read this next verse. In my mind's eye, I see this confused, cancer ridden, dull eyed, war-weary soldier. He smokes a giant joint and says, "Let the weak say, I am a mighty man"109

Lindsey, along with people like Jack Van Impe offer graphic maps showing future military movements of American, Russian, Chinese and African armies and naval convoys which they claim will contend with one another in the battle of Armageddon.110 This is perhaps why Jerry Falwell's 'Friendship Tours' to Israel include not only meetings with top Israeli government and military officials but also,

.....On-site tour of modern Israeli battlefields... Official visit to an Israeli defence installation... strategic military positions, plus experience first hand the battle Israel faces as a nation.111

While Christians respectfully disagree in their eschatological interpretation of Scripture, Christian Zionists such as Lindsey, Jeffries and Hunt appear to be more interested in being on the organising committee than the welcoming committee of the Second Coming of Christ. They also have a tendency to intimidate or threaten their critics with divine retribution. As we have already seen Lindsey accuses those who refuse to accept a distinction between God's purposes for the Church and Israel of perpetuating,

...the same error that founded the legacy of contempt for the Jews and ultimately led to the Holocaust of Nazi Germany.112

Brickner also warns those who do not share his particular Zionist perspective that they are fighting against God.

Peril awaits those who presume to say that God is finished with His chosen people: "And in that day I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all peoples. All who lift it shall be slashed, and all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it" (Zechariah 12:3). Woe to anyone who joins those nations to gather against the Jewish people who are now back in the city of David. Just as God judged the nation of Egypt for her ill treatment of His people, so will He judge nations today. Evangelicals who would understand the Middle East must pay close attention to the teaching of Scripture, and take note of the cosmic forces that now do battle in the heavens but will soon do battle on earth. They must choose carefully which side to uphold.113

Brickner specifically singles out EMEU (Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding), founded by John Stott and directed by Don Wagner, for challenging Israel's failure to respect human rights.

There are, however, others who describe themselves as evangelicals who want "middle east understanding"-- when in fact they are merely mouthpieces for anti-Israel propaganda. They allow their politically correct, over-wrought sense of moral outrage over the suffering of Palestinians to dictate their view of Scriptures.114

Basilea Schlink pronounces similar anathemas on those who question Israel's expansionist agenda.

Anyone who disputes Israel's right to the land of Canaan is actually opposing God and his holy covenant with the Patriarchs. He is striving against sacred, inviolable words and promises of God, which He has sworn to keep.115

Such literalist assumptions preclude any possibility of an alternative reading of the Bible, history or a just and lasting outcome to the search for peace in the Middle East. In this brief composite survey we have explored seven basic tenets of Christian Zionism. An ultra-literalist hermeneutic, the belief that the Jews remain God's chosen people, the restoration of Jews to Eretz Israel will continue, Jerusalem will be the eternal and exclusive capital of the Jews, the Temple will be rebuilt, the priesthood consecrated and sacrifices reinstituted. Arabs and Palestinians are seen as the enemies of Israel in what is about to become the battle of Armageddon.

3. Conclusions : A Critique of Christian Zionists
Christian Zionism as a movement was born within British evangelicalism in the 19th Century and has become institutionalised through Dispensationalism into mainstream American evangelicalism in the 20th Century. This paper has sought to demonstrate that while evangelicalism may have given birth to Christian Zionism, it is time to look again at its genetics and re-evaluate whether we are indeed related.

While there is a commitment by organisations such as Jews for Jesus and CMJ to evangelise Jewish people, their solidarity with politicised and non-evangelistic agencies such as Bridges for Peace and the International Christian Embassy has led many evangelicals to equate their faith with Zionism, becoming apologists for the State of Israel itself and thereby, whether intentionally or otherwise complicit in apartheid practices and human rights abuses in the name of God.116 Satirically, Kenneth Cragg summarises the implications of Christian Zionism's ethnic exclusivity.

It is so; God chose the Jews; the land is theirs by divine gift. These dicta cannot be questioned or resisted. They are final. Such verdicts come infallibly from Christian biblicists for whom Israel can do no wrong-thus fortified. But can such positivism, this unquestioning finality, be compatible with the integrity of the Prophets themselves? It certainly cannot square with the open peoplehood under God which is the crux of New Testament faith. Nor can it well be reconciled with the ethical demands central to law and election alike.117

Many Christians in the Middle East similarly regard Christian Zionism as a deviant heresy which is subservient to the political agenda of the State of Israel. They claim it represents a tendency to

...force the Zionist model of theocratic and ethnocentric nationalism on the Middle East... The Christian Zionist programme, with its elevation of modern political Zionism, provides the Christian with a world view where the gospel is identified with the ideology of success and militarism. It places its emphasis on events leading up to the end of history rather than living Christ's love and justice today.118

Christian Zionism only thrives on a futurist and literal hermeneutic when Old Testament promises made to the ancient Jewish people are transposed on to the contemporary State of Israel. To do so it is necessary to ignore, marginalise or bi-pass the New Testament which reinterprets, annuls and fulfils those promises in and through Jesus Christ and his followers. This is no where more evident than in Galatians 4 where we are taught that we should no longer regard unbelieving Jews as descendants of Sarah and Isaac but of Hagar and Ishmael.

Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise. These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother... Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. (Galatians 4:21-28)

The promises made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph are therefore now to be understood as fulfilled only through those who follow Jesus Christ, for they alone are designated the true children of Abraham and Sarah. Jews who reject Jesus Christ are outside the covenant of grace and are to be regarded as children of Hagar. Paul takes Sarah's words of Genesis 21:10 and applies them to the Judaizers who were corrupting the faith of the church in Galatia.

Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman's son. (Galatians 4:30)

This paper has attempted to show why this injunction should be applied today toward those who demonstrate the same legalizing tendencies within Christian Zionism. This is no excuse for arrogance or anti-Semitisim which we all abhor. With sensitivity and compassion we are mandated to share our faith in Jesus praying that our Jewish friends find their Messiah and complete their faith. However, any suggestion that the Jewish people continue to have a special status before God, a separate and continuing covenant or exclusive rights to the lands of the Middle East is, in the words of John Stott, 'biblical anathema.'119 Stott gives three reasons why Christian Zionism should be regarded as beyond the boundaries of evangelicalism

1. The Old Testament promises about the Jews' return to the land are comforted by promises of the Jews' return to the Lord. It is hard to see how that secular, unbelieving State of Israel can possibly be a fulfillment of those prophecies.

2. The Old Testament promises about the land are nowhere repeated in the New Testament. The prophecy of Romans 11 is a prophecy that many Jews will turn to Christ, but the land is not mentioned nor is Israel mentioned as a political entity...

3. The Old Testament promises according to the apostles are fulfilled in Christ and the international community of Christ. The New Testament authors apply the promise of Abraham's seed to Jesus Christ. And they apply to Jesus Christ the promise of the land and all the land which is inherited, the land flowing with milk and honey, because it is in him that our hunger is satisfied and out thirst quenched. A return to Jewish nationalism would seem incompatible with this New Testament perspective of the international community of Jesus.120

The fundamental question Christian Zionists must therefore answer is this: What difference did the coming of Jesus Christ make to the traditional Jewish hopes and expectations about the land? Christians may not interpret the Old Covenant as if the coming of Jesus made little or no difference to the nationalistic and territorial aspirations of first century Judaism. Christian Zionists seem to read the Old Testament with the spectacles that the first disciples wore before their resurrection encounters with the risen Christ and before Pentecost. They seem to believe the coming of the kingdom of Jesus meant a postponement of Jewish hopes for restoration rather than the fulfilment of those hopes in the Messiah and new, inclusive, Messianic community.

In the process of redemptive history a dramatic movement has been made from type to reality, from shadow to substance. The land that once was the specific locale of God's redemptive plan served temporarily under the Old Covenant forms as a picture of paradise lost and promised but fulfilled and redeemed by a New Covenant in which the land becomes enlarged to encompass the entire cosmos. The exalted Christ rules from the heavenly Jerusalem demonstrating His sovereignty over the entire world. A regression to the limited forms of the Old Covenant shadow is therefore apostasy.

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. (Hebrews 6:4-6)

The reality cannot give way again to shadow, for in the will and purposes of God the shadows no longer exist. The light has come in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 8:13 provides us not only with a hermeneutical key to unravelling the Christian Zionist case, but also explains Paul's vehemence at the Judaizing tendencies corrupting the church in Galatia.

By calling this covenant "new," he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear. (Hebrews 8:13)

The destruction of the temple and sacrificial system in 70 AD fulfilled that prediction. The choice since then has been between two theologies. One based primarily on the shadows of the Old Covenant and one based on the reality of the New Covenant. Christian Zionism is an exclusive theology that focuses on the Jews in the land rather than an inclusive theology that centres on Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world. Christian Zionism provides a theological endorsement for apartheid and ethnic cleansing, rather than a theology of justice, peace and reconciliation which lie at the heart of the New Covenant.

Israel is a materialistic and apartheid State practising repressive and dehumanising measures against the indigenous Palestinians in flagrant disregard of universally recognised standards of human behaviour. Christian Zionists who believe the promises of the Old Covenant still await future fulfilment or endorse the behaviour of Israel would do well to heed Joshua's final words,

Now I am about to go the way of all the earth. You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed. But just as every good promise of the Lord your God has come true, so the Lord will bring on you all the evil he has threatened, until he has destroyed you from this good land he has given you. If you violate the covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, the Lord's anger will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from the good land he has given you. (Joshua 23:14-18).

Like Isaac's children Jacob and Esau, it is time to stop fighting over the birthright and start sharing the blessings.121

Garth Hewitt is a friend who has written many songs about the plight of the Christian community in Israel and Palestine. One of them, based on some verses from the Jewish Talmud, is called 'Ten measures of beauty God gave to the world'. I would like to close by using it as a prayer.

May the justice of God fall down like fire and bring a home for the Palestinian.
May the mercy of God pour down like rain and protect the Jewish people.
And may the beautiful eyes of a Holy God who weeps for His children
Bring the healing hope for His wounded ones For the Jew and the Palestinian.

^{1 Mike Evans, Israel, America's Key to Survival, (Plainfield, NJ: Haven Books), back page, p. xv..}

^{2 J. N. Darby, 'The Rapture of the Saints and the Character of the Jewish Remnant,' Collected Writings, Prophetic. IV, Vol. II, p. 154.}

^{3 The Final Battle (Palos Verdes, California, Western Front, 1995), back page & p. 3.}

^{4 Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth (London, Lakeland, 1970), p. 151.}

^{5 Hal Lindsey, The Final Battle (Palos Verdes: Western Front, 1995), pp. 250-252; Israel and the Last Days (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House, 1983), pp. 20-30.}

^{6 'Open Letter to Evangelical Christians from Jews for Jesus: Now is the Time to Stand with Israel.' The New York Times, 23 October 2000.}

^{7 Donald Wagner, Anxious for Armageddon (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 1995)}

^{8 The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983).}

^{9 Regina Sharif, Non-Jewish Zionism, Its Roots in Western History (London, Zed, 1983), p. 1 & 120.}

^{10 Anti Defamation League, http://www.adl.org/durban/draft.asp}

^{11 The United Nations. World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance Declaration adopted on 8 September 2001, section 1, 62 & 64.}

^{12 Uri Davis, Israel: An Apartheid State (London: Zed, 1987)}

^{13 'Wolf Prize winner raps government' Jerusalem Post , May 6, 1991.}

^{14 Edward Said, 'Really now - what's next' Al-Ahram Weekly, 10 - 16 June 1999, Issue No. 433.}

^{15 Paul Foot, 'State terrorism unpunished by the UN' The Guardian, 17th November, 1997; Katherine Metres, 'Israeli Ethnic Cleansing Undiminished in Jerusalem' Washington Report, September/October 1994, pp. 12, 85-86; Arjan El Fassed, 'Israel's Version of 'Ethnic Cleansing', Washington Post, 18 August 2001, p. 21; Na-eem Jeenah, 'Zionism is a theory of ethnic cleansing and racism' Daily Mail & Guardian, South Africa, 20 August 2001.}

^{16 The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983)}

^{17 Walter Riggans, Israel and Zionism (London, Handsell, 1988), p. 19.}

^{18 Ruth Rosen, 'Holocaustology, Past Oppression, Present Excuse?' Issues Vol. 13. 5.}

^{19 Rabbi Shlomo Chaim Hacohen Aviner, cited in Grace Halsell, Forcing God's Hand (Washington, Crossroads International, 1999), p. 71.}

^{20 Midrash Tanchuma, Qedoshim. Cited on www.templemount.org}

^{21 Sarah Honig, 'Adopt-a-Settlement Program' The Jerusalem Post, 2nd October 1995, http://www.bridgesforpeace.com/publications/dispatch/lifeinisrael/Article-12.html}

^{22 D.W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain. (London, Unwin, 1989), p. 88.}

^{23 Lewis Way, The Latter Rain, 2nd edn (London, 1821), in Bebbington, Evangelicalism., p. 88.}

^{24 Rob Richards, Has God Finished With Israel? (Crowborough, Monarch, 1994), p. 23.}

^{25 Kathy Kern, 'Blessing Israel? Christian Embassy Responds' Christian Peacemakers Team, Internet:menno.org.cpt.news@MennoLink.org 2 November 1997.}

^{26 Anne Dexter, View the Land (South Plainfield, New Jersey, Bridge Publishing, 1986), pp. 214-215.}

^{27 Christian Friends of Israel, Standing with Israel, information leaflet, n.d.}

^{28 Jews for Jesus,, Our Doctrinal Statement, www.jews-for-jesus.org}

^{29 David Brickner, Future Hope, A Jewish Christian Look at the End of the World, 2nd edn. (}

^{San Francisco, Purple Pomegranate, 1999)}

³⁰

^{David Brickner, 'Don't Pass Over Israel's Jubilee', Jews for Jesus Newsletter, April 1998.}

^{31 CMJ, The State of Israel: Why should we support it? (CMJ, St Albans, 1996)}

^{32 Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, 'This Land is Mine', Issues, 2. 4. www.jewsforjesus.org}

^{33 International Christian Zionist Congress Proclamation, International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem. 25-29 February 1996.}

^{34 Anne Dexter, View the Land (South Plainfield, New Jersey, Bridge, 1986), pp. 214-215.}

^{35 Dexter, View., p. 32.}

^{36 Sarah Honig, 'Adopt-a-Settlement Program' The Jerusalem Post, 2nd October 1995.}

^{37 'zionism.htm' Jews for Jesus FAQ, www.jewsforjesus.org}

^{38 'zionism.htm' Jews for Jesus FAQ, www.jewsforjesus.org}

^{39 International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (Jerusalem, ICEJ, 1993), p. 24.}

^{40 International Christian Zionist Congress Proclamation, International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem. 25-29 February 1996.}

^{41 'Christians Call for a United Jerusalem' New York Times, 18 April 1997, www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/united.html}

^{42 'Christians Call for a United Jerusalem' New York Times, 18 April 1997, www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/united.html}

^{43 Peter Walker, Jesus and the Holy City (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), p. 129.}

^{44 Walker, Jesus., p. 131.}

^{45 J. C. De Young, Jerusalem in the New Testament (Amsterdam: J.H. Kok/N.V. Kampen 1961), p. 106. Cited in Walker, Jesus., p. 131.}

^{46 John Calvin, The Acts of the Apostles 1-13 (Edinburgh, St Andrew Press, 1965), p. 29.}

^{47 Hal Lindsey, Planet Earth 2000 AD (Palos Verde, California, Western Front, 1994), p. 156.}

^{48 Hal Lindsey, 'World's fate hangs on 35 acres' FreeRepublic.com 21 February 2001.}

^{49 Yisrael Meida, cited in Grace Halsell, Forcing God's Hand (Washington, Crossroads International, 1999), p. 68.}

^{50 Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth (London, Lakeland, 1970), pp. 56-58.}

⁵¹

^{Brickner, Future.,}

^{52 Rich Robinson, 'Israeli Groups Involved in Third Temple Activities' Jews for Jesus Newsletter Issue 10, Adar 5753, 1993.}

^{53 Zhava Glaser, 'Today's Rituals: Reminders or Replacements' Issues., 8, 3.}

^{54 Nadav Shragai, 'Dreaming of a Third Temple', Ha'aretz, 17 September 1998, p.3. Cited in Randall Price, The Coming Last Days Temple (Eugene, Oregon, Harvest House, 1999), p. 417.}

^{55 Sam Kiley, 'The righteous will survive and the rest will perish' The Times, 13 December 1999, p. 39.}

^{56 Louis Rapoport, 'Slouching towards Armageddon: Links with Evangelicals' Jerusalem Post International Edition, June 17-24, 1984; Grace Halsell, Forcing God's Hand (Washington, Crossroads International, 1999), pp.63-73.}

^{57 Jay Gary, 'The Temple Time Bomb' Presence Magazine www.christianity.com/partner}

^{58 Thomas Ice and Randall Price, Ready to Rebuild, The Imminent Plan to Rebuild the Last Days Temple. (Eugene, Harvest House, 1992)}

^{59 Jews for Jesus review of Ready to Rebuild by Thomas Ice and Randall Price (Eugene, Harvest House, 1992), www.store.jewsforjesus.org/books/products/bk154.htm}

^{60 John F. Walvoord, 'Will Israel Build a Temple in Jerusalem?' Bibliotheca Sacra, 125 (April 1968), p.104.}

⁶¹

^{C.I. Scofield, Scofield Reference Bible (New York, Oxford University Press, 1945), p. 890.}

⁶²

^{The New Scofield Reference Bible ed. E. Schuyler English (New York, Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 864.}

⁶³

^{Cornelis P. Venema, The Promise of the Future (Edinburgh, Banner of Truth, 2000), p. 285}

⁶⁴

^{Leviticus 2:2, 9, 16.}

⁶⁵

^{Hebrews 7:14. Venema, Promise., p. 286.}

⁶⁶

^{Gary DeMar, Last Days Madness (Atlanta, American Vision, 1997), p.85.}

⁶⁷

^{Hebrews 2:17; Romans 3:25.}

^{68 Zhava Glaser, 'Today's Rituals: Reminders or Replacements' Issues., 8, 3.}

^{69 Matthew 12:6, 26:61, 27:40; Mark 14:58; 15:29; John 2:19-21.}

^{70 Romans 9:4; 1 Corinthians 8:10, 9:13; 2 Thessalonians 2:4.}

^{71 Revelation 21:22.}

^{72 1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 2 Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 2:21; 1 Corinthians 6:19.}

^{73 John 4:23-24.}

^{74 John 2:19, Mark 26:61, 27:40; Mark 14:58, 15:29.}

^{75 Hebrews 9:9, 23, 10:1-3, 11.}

^{76 1 Peter 2:5.}

^{77 1 Peter 2:7.}

^{78 John 1:14; 2:19-22; Colossians 2:9.}

^{79 John Noe, The Israel Illusion (Fishers, Indiana, Prophecy Reformation Institute, 2000), p. 16.}

^{80 John 1:14.}

^{81 Colossians 2:16-17; Hebrews 10:1, 5.}

^{82 Venema, Promise., p. 288.}

^{83 Galatians 3:1-5; 3:13-16; Hebrews 8:13; .}

^{84 Hebrews 6:4-6.}

^{85 DeMar, Last., p.86; Edward J. Young, The Book of Isaiah. 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1972), 3:520}

^{86 Edward Said, Orientalism (New York, Vintage, 1978)}

^{87 Jan Willem van der Hoeven, Babylon or Jerusalem? (Shippensburg, Pasadena, Destiny Image Publishers, 1993), pp. 132-133.}

^{88 Lindsey, Israel and the Last Days (Eugene, Oregon, Harvest House, 1983), pp. 38-39.}

^{89 Basliea M. Schlink, Israel at the Heart of World Events, (Darmstadt-Eberstadt, Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, 1991), p.29.}

^{90 Charlotte Observer, 16th October 2000}

^{91 Dave Hunt, 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem.' TBC, September 2000.}

^{92 Rob Richards, Has God Finished with Israel? (Crowborough, Monarch/Olive Press, 1994), p. 159.}

⁹³

^{Brickner, Don't.,}

^{94 Jim Eriksen, A Review of Who Are God's People in the Middle East? by Gary Burge (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1993), in Messianic Review of Books, Vol. 2.2 www.jewsforjesus.org}

^{95 Merrill Simon, Jerry Falwell and the Jews (Middle Village, New York, Jonathan David, 1984), pp. 63-64, 71-72.}

^{96 Charles Dyer, The Rise of Babylon (Wheaton: Tyndale, 1991)}

^{97 Walter Riggans, 'The Messianic Community and the Hand Shake' Shalom, 1, (1995)}

^{98 Cohen, Guildford.,}

^{99 Matthew 5:9.}

^{100 Matthew 5:44.}

^{101 2 Corinthians 5:16-20.}

^{102 James Price and William Goodman, Jerry Falwell, An Unauthorized Profile, cited in Grace Halsell, Prophecy., p. 72.}

^{103 Lindsey, Planet., pp. 243-244.}

^{104 Lindsey, Planet., p. 255.}

^{105 Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth (London, Lakeland, 1973); The Terminal Generation (New York, Bantam,); The 1980's: Countdown to Armageddon (New York, Bantam, 1981); Combat Faith (1986); The Road to Holocaust (New York, Bantam, 1989); Planet Earth-2000, Will Man Survive? (Palos Verdes, California, Western Front, 1994); The Final Battle (Palos Verdes, California, Western Front, 1995); The Apocalypse Code (Palos Verdes, California, Western Front, 1997);}

^{106 Hal Lindsey, The 1980's, Countdown to Armageddon, (New York, Bantam, 1981), back cover.}

^{107 Hal Lindsey, The Final Battle (Palos Verdes, California, Western Front, 1995), front cover.}

^{108 Lindsey, Planet Earth: The Final Chapter, p. 254.}

^{109 Lindsey, Planet Earth: The Final Chapter, p. 266.}

^{110 Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth (London, Lakeland, 1970), p. 155; Louis Goldberg, Turbulence Over the Middle East (Neptune, New Jersey, Loizeaux Brothers, 1982), p. 172.}

^{111 Don Wagner, 'Beyond Armageddon'. The Link (Americans for Middle East Understanding) Vol. 25 No. 4 October/November (1992) p. 3.}

^{112 Lindsey, Road., back page. Refuted by Gary DeMar and Peter J. Leithart, The Legacy of Hatred Continues: A Response to Hal Lindsey's The Road to Holocaust (Fort Worth, Dominion Press, 1989)}

¹¹³

^{Brickner, Don't.,}

¹¹⁴

^{Brickner, Don't.,}

^{115 Schlink, Israel, p.22.}

^{116 Regina Sharif, Non-Jewish., p. 7; see also Uri Davis, The State of Palestine (Reading, Ithaca, 1991), p. 28.}

^{117 Kenneth Cragg, The Arab Christian A History in the Middle East. (London, Mowbray, 1992) p. 238.}

^{118 MECC, What is Western Fundamentalist Christian Zionism? (Limassol, Cyprus, Middle East Council of Churches, 1988) p. 13.}

^{119 John Stott, quoted in Don Wagner, Anxious for Armageddon ( Scottdale, Herald Press, 1995) p. 80.}

^{120 John Stott, 'The Place of Israel'. unpublished sermon preached at All Soul's, Langham Place, London.}

^{121 Yehezkel Landau. An illustration given at St George's, Jerusalem, December 1998.}