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Preamble: While Heaven is the primary theme of this current edition of Evangelical Christian, I trust you will understand dear reader if, for continuity sake, I continue with this, the fourth article in the series Why Israel? In fact, in keeping with this article’s anti-Semitic focus it is probably true to say that extreme anti-Semites believe Heaven can’t be Heaven if it has room for Jews. As Christians we know otherwise. After all, our Lord is Jewish and He “sits at the right hand of God “(1 Peter 3:22) or, as He said to His Jewish followers: “…I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” John 14: 2, 3 And here’s a good question: If, as the Apostle Paul declares in Romans 11:26,
“…all Israel shall be saved…” where will the ‘saved’ of Israel be, if not in Heaven?
Why Israel?
The recent controversy over the double airing by VisionTV of a program featuring fundamentalist Pakistani Muslim preacher, Dr. Israr Ahmad, and the public outcry which ensued, has once again raised the ugly spectre of anti-Semitism in Canada. While viewers were shocked that a Canadian television channel would give airtime twice to a man whose interpretation of the Koran required all Muslims to ‘either fight for jihad on the battlefield or finance it,’ it was Dr. Ahmad’s alleged anti-Semitic writings and Holocaust denials that fell under the spotlight of greater scrutiny.
The National Post, having illuminated the preacher’s darker side, reported that when Dr. Ahmad was asked to respond to VisionTV’s decision to ban him from its multi-faith religious channel, he “strongly refuted the impression that he hated the Jews or held anti-Semitic views.”(National Post, July 27). However, the fact that VisionTV did ban Dr. Ahmad from its airwaves, and subsequently issued an apology for giving a public platform to someone who “had made offensive remarks about people from the Jewish community in past speeches and writings,” suggests that where there is smoke there is fire. In other words, anti-Semitism is alive and well in Canada.
Anti-Semitism
Webster’s Dictionary defines anti-Semitism as hostility toward, or discrimination against, Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group. It’s not new and can be traced throughout recorded history as a plague which contaminated those it touched. Nations, cultures, and religious groups alike, have all been infected with its germs.
Anti-Semitism is reflected in the writings of the Early Church Fathers; it was evident during the so-called Christian Crusades when many Jews were killed by ‘Christian’ knights; it was promoted by leading figures of the Protestant Reformation; it was used to fuel the fires of hatred which culminated in the Holocaust. It has the power to mobilize millions and the potential to bring out the worst in humanity, yet who can explain its ability to seemingly permeate any and all societies?
How is it, that of all humanity’s racial plagues, anti-Semitism can lie more or less dormant through one generation only to surface with great veracity in the next? We know it existed during the Old and New Testament periods, but how has it survived until today? The answer to these questions may be found in other questions: What is it that sets the Jewish people apart, and why are they the focus of so much hatred and persecution? Historically speaking, Jews have been known for one major contribution, Monotheism. By their knowledge of, and devotion to, one God, the Jews distinguished themselves from all other nations: “And you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation…”
Exodus 19:6
A Unique Identity
Knowing who they were, and why, helped the Jews to survive successive occupiers in the land, or prevented them from being fully assimilated into other cultures during periods of prolonged exile. Whatever their circumstances, their unique traditions and feast days not only identified them as Jews, but also connected them to their Jewish roots in Israel.
Later, when Christianity gained prominence as the official religion of the Roman Empire under Constantine, Jews could no longer claim uniqueness in their Monotheism. Christians also believed in one God, the same God as the Jews. What distinguished Christian and Jewish beliefs was how each responded to the person, teachings and claims of Jesus of Nazareth. The Jews, in their general rejection of Jesus as Messiah, coupled with His death at the instigation of certain Jewish leaders, allowed their detractors to brand all Jews as Christ-killers. This undeserved label fuelled the fires of anti-Semitism through two thousand years of Church history. It continues to do so, at least in some Church circles.
Little wonder some Jews are reticent to embrace, much less trust, well-meaning Christians who reach out to them. Centuries of broken promises, persecution and betrayal under the sign of the Cross have left the Jewish collective heart deeply wounded.
Not surprisingly, this festering wound is all too sensitive to any and all expressions of anti-Semitism, something the VisionTV incident illustrates only too well.
But why are the Jews singled out?
Anti-Semitism, this plague which has been around since the time of Abraham, the first Hebrew, is best explained in spiritual terms: Quite simply, it is that what God loves, Satan hates. Since God chose to reveal Himself through the Jewish race, Satan, the ‘prince of this world’ as Jesus referred to him (John 12:31), despises all things Jewish.
As a result, the landscape of history is drenched in the blood of Jews. We need only look at Tevye, the fictional dairyman of Anatevka, Russia in the ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ as he gazed toward Heaven and spoke for all Jews: “God I know we are the Chosen People, but couldn’t you, just this once, choose somebody else?” As Tevye understood so well, the road ahead was seldom kind to the Chosen People.
And yet, somehow the Jews have weathered numerous anti-Semitic storms and survived. It’s been said that the fact that they exist at all is the greatest proof of God’s existence. Surely a people who have suffered so much - and survived - must have been sustained by some divine benevolence. And who can adequately explain Israel’s second birth as a nation in 1948 other than by the mysterious, unfolding of divine providence?
Modern Miracle
For nearly 2000 years Israel was a land virtually without people, and the Jews were a people without a land. No longer! Has there ever been another people group who returned to their ancient homeland following nearly 2000 years in exile among other nations?
Yet, in 1948, a new nation bearing an ancient name was born, a nation sifted and rescued as it were from the ashes of a terrible Holocaust. That the Jews are back in their ancient homeland, and that the land is responding once again to the footsteps of her lost children by giving her fruit in abundance, is nothing less than a miracle. Israel has become, as Ezekiel said she would, “like the Garden of Eden” (Ezekiel 36:35).
It has also been said that if Israel had existed as a place of refuge for the Jews prior to the rise of the Nazis, the Holocaust might have been avoided. It can also be said that this mystery of what may, or may not, have occurred belongs in the realm of the God who is sovereign over history. The God who promised:
“And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me. Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul.” Jeremiah 32:40-41
Rev. John Tweedie is the Chairman of Christians for Israel. His 8-unit DVD teaching series Why Israel is suitable for individual, church, and/or small groups. Each unit includes on location scenes and interviews recorded in Israel. Helpful leader and individual participant study guides are also available (www.whyisrael.ca).