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Another Gospel
Posted : 12 Nov, 2012 04:58 AM
November 9, 2012: Stephen Sizer On Christian Zionism
Christ died on the Cross to transform Israel from a physical house to the spiritual house of I Peter 2; 5-9. That transformation meant, first of all, that people no longer became God's people by their genetics. They became sons of God by faith, by a passionate knowing that "it is written" is absolute truth, by a rejection of opinion and the dialectic, and by their love of the truth of God's word, by becoming new creations in Christ, and by having some of the mind of Christ in them, and accepting the doctrines he and his apostles taught in the First Century.
Yet a new theology was developed which took over the majority of Christian evangelicals in the United States, and had an influence on other English speaking countries and was even spread to non-English speaking nations by American and British missionaries. This theology teaches that all physical Israel remain God's chosen people. Remember that in Acts 17: 6 the Jews complained that "These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also." Paul and Silas were the ones who the Jews complained had turned the world upside down and had also come to Thessalonica. The unbelieving Jews did not want their world turned upside down. They did not want the transformation that Christ brought to them, to change their religion from one in the physical to a spiritual faith.
Remember that this turning of things upside down was forecast back in II Kings. "And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down." II Kings 21: 13
Then Isaiah 29: 16 refers back to II Kings 21: 13 and points to Jeremiah 18: 1-6. "Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?"
Then Jeremiah 18: 1-6 says " The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
2. Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.
3. Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.
4. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
5. Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
6. O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel."
In the parable of the fig tree of Luke 13: 6-9 God the Father is in the role of the owner of the vineyard. Christ is the dresser of the vineyard and the fig tree is all physical Israel. The owner of physical Israel says in verse 7 that many times he came looking for fruit from physical Israel but found none and says why leave it to "cumbereth" the ground? But Christ the dresser asks the Father to allow him, the dresser of the vineyard, which includes physical Israel., to "dig about it and dung it," that is, to give it new nutrients, to give it new life.
It turns out that in giving all physical Israel new life, the dresser of the vineyard, Jesus Christ, pruned back physical Israel to a remnant, and that remnant was transformed into the spiritual in Christ.
Jeremiah 3: 8 says in language that is not metaphoric, which those taught that scripture must always be interpreted literally have difficulty with, that "And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also." Isaiah 50: 1 says "Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away."
That new theology developed in the 19th century in teaching that all physical Israel, not the remnant which accepted Christ, are now God's chosen people, and Christians are a new people of God alongside all physical Israel, but somehow lower in status, has tried to undo the transformation of Israel. That undoing of the transformation is focused more upon the revelation Christ gave to Paul.
In Acts 26: 13- 18 Paul briefly states his encounter with Christ on the Damascus Road: "16. But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee;
17. Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee,
18. To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me."
In verse 16 Christ tells Paul that he will appear to him again. Paul was given his revelation from the risen Jesus Christ.
But it is this revelation given to Paul that the new theology of the 19th century now called Christian Zionism by Stephen Sizer and others tries to overthrow. This revelation given to Paul by Christ is the heart of turning things upside down for all physical Israel, which Christian Zionism seeks to turn back the way it was before Christ. The followers of Christian Zionism may say they accept Christ and they are therefore not going back to the Old Covenant. But in being proxies for all physical Israel as the chosen people rather than accepting the revelation of Paul that entry into the spiritual house of I Peter 2: 5 is no longer by genetics, Christian Zionists have taught another Gospel and another Jesus.
Mixing parts of the Old Covenant with the New is of another spirit, and one part of that other spirit is what Christ said to James and John in Luke 9: 55, "Ye know no what manner of spirit ye are of. " James and John wanted Christ to allow them to call down fire on the village that rejected Christ. Christ came not to bring death, but he came to bring spiritual life and not physical death. Not killing people who do not accept your beliefs is part of the transformation from physical Israel to the spiritual house of I Peter 2: 5, which Paul refers to as the Israel of God in Galatians 6: 16.
Not being of the spirit of death is an important difference between transformed Israel and the theology presented by Christian Zionism with its support of war, which very well can intensify the tribulation that may be beginning.
http://www.stephensizer.com/2012/11/...le-east/#_edn2
November 9, 2012 by Stephen Sizer
"Joseph Miller narrowed the return of Christ down to the 21st March 1843, while Charles Russell more prudently predicted that Christ would set up his spiritual kingdom in the heavenlies in 1914. For many years, Russell�s popular sermons linking biblical prophecy with contemporary events were reproduced in over 1,500 newspapers in the USA and Canada.[vi] This sectarian speculation came to be embraced by mainstream evangelicalism largely through the influence of John Nelson Darby and others associated with a series of prophetic conferences held in England and Ireland from 1826 to 1833.[vii]"
"John Nelson Darby was a charismatic figure with a dominant personality. He was a persuasive speaker and zealous missionary for his conviction that God had a separate plan for the Jewish people apart from the Church. The churches Darby and his colleagues planted with the seeds of Premillennial Dispensationalism in turn sent missionaries to Africa, the West Indies, Australia, New Zealand and, ironically, to work among the Arabs of Palestine. From 1862 onwards his controlling influence over the Brethren in Britain waned Darby spent more and more time in North America, making seven long sea journeys in the next twenty years. During these visits, he came to have an increasing influence over evangelical leaders. His ideas also helped shape the emerging evangelical Bible Schools and �Prophecy� conferences, which came to dominate both Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism in the United States between 1875 and 1920.[viii] For sake of brevity, I am going to bypass the role of British politicians and Church leaders in the emergence of Zionism, relations with the Arab world and most significantly in the Balfour Declaration. Instead I want to focus on the role of evangelical theology in the USA."
"In parallel with Britain, the late 18th and early 19th Century also saw an explosion of millennial sects including the Shakers, Mormons and Millerites. Influenced by the French Revolution and the destruction of the Papacy in France, historic Premillennialism gradually became more popular. Between 1859 and 1872, resulting from his extensive tours throughout America, and reinforced by the trauma of the Civil War, Darby�s premillennial dispensational views about a �failing� Church and revived Israel came to have a profound and increasing influence upon American Evangelicalism. It resulted not only in the birth of American Dispensationalism[xii] but also influenced the Millenarianism associated with the Prophecy Conference Movement, as well as later, Fundamentalism.[xiii] Darby�s influence on end-time thinking was �perhaps more than that of anyone else in the last two centuries.�[xiv] In the absence of a strong Jewish Zionist movement, American Christian Zionism arose from the confluence of these associations, evangelical, premillennial, dispensational, millenarian, and fundamentalist.[xv] Those most closely influenced by and associated with Darby were James Brookes, Arno Gaebelein, D. L. Moody, William E. Blackstone and C. I. Scofield.[xvi]"
"William E. Blackstone was an influential evangelist and lay worker for the Methodist Episcopal Church, as well as a financier and benefactor. He also became an enthusiastic disciple of J.N. Darby.[xvii] In 1887 he wrote a book on biblical prophecy entitled Jesus is Coming, which by 1927, had been translated into thirty-six languages. The book took a premillennial dispensational view of the Second Coming, emphasizing that the Jews had a biblical right to Palestine and would soon be restored there. Blackstone became one of the first Christian Zionists in America to actively lobby for the Zionist cause. Blackstone took the Zionist movement to be a �sign� of the imminent return of Christ even though its leadership like Herzl were agnostic."
"Scofield may be regarded as the most influential exponent of Dispensationalism, following the publication of his Scofield Reference Bible by the Oxford University Press in 1918.[xxvi]
Yet while biographical works on the early Brethren, such as J. N. Darby and dispensationalists like D. L. Moody abound, Scofield remains an elusive and enigmatic figure. As a young and largely illiterate Christian, Scofield was profoundly influenced by J. N. Darby�s writings. Scofield popularised Darby�s distinction between God�s plan for the Jews apart from the Church, basing his reference notes on Darby�s own distinctive translation of the Bible.[xxvii] The combination of an attractive format, illustrative notes, and cross references has led both critics and advocates to acknowledge Scofield�s Bible to have been the most influential book among evangelicals during the first half of the 20th century.[xxviii] Craig Blaising, professor of Systematic Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary acknowledges, �The Scofield Reference Bible became the Bible of Fundamentalism, and the theology of the notes approached confessional status in many Bible schools, institutes and seminaries established in the early decades of this Century.�[xxix] Sandeen observes, �The book has thus been subtly but powerfully influential in spreading those views among hundreds of thousands who have regularly read that Bible and who often have been unaware of the distinction between the ancient text and the Scofield interpretation.�[xxx]"
"Hagee is the Founder and Senior Pastor of Cornerstone Church, an 19,000 member evangelical church in San Antonio in Texas. He is also CEO of Global Evangelism Television which broadcasts his programmes on 160 T.V. stations, 50 radio stations and eight networks into an estimated 99 million homes in 200 countries worldwide on a weekly basis. In 2006 he founded Christians United for Israel with the support of 400 other Christian leaders. Last year he admitted:
�For 25 almost 26 years now, I have been pounding the evangelical community over television. The bible is a very pro-Israel book. If a Christian admits �I believe the Bible,� I can make him a pro-Israel supporter or they will have to denounce their faith. So I have the Christians over a barrel, you might say.�[lxiv]
The assumption Hagee makes, that Bible-believing Christians will be pro-Israel, is now the dominant view among contemporary evangelicals. In March 2007, Hagee was a guest speaker at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference. He began with these words:
�The sleeping giant of Christian Zionism has awakened. There are 50 million Christians standing up and applauding the State of Israel��
As the Jerusalem Post pointed out, his speech did not lack clarity. He went on to warn:
�It is 1938. Iran is Germany, and Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler. We must stop Iran�s nuclear threat and stand boldly with Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East� Think of our potential future together: 50 million evangelicals joining in common cause with 5 million Jewish people in America on behalf of Israel is a match made in heaven.�[lxv]
At the July 19th, 2006 Washington DC inaugural event for Christians United for Israel, after recorded greeting from George W. Bush, and in the presence of four US Senators as well as the Israeli ambassador to the US, Hagee stated :
�The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God�s plan for both Israel and the West� a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ.�[lxvi]
Are we therefore surprised when Muslims wrongly assume that such views reflect Christianity as a whole? So how significant is this movement in America? The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life estimates there are 20-40 million Christian Zionists in America. "
"Is there any sign that the re-election of President Barak Obama on Tuesday will result in any change in US Middle East policy or will we simply try harder to impose our definition of peace and our version of democracy?...........Naim Ateek insists, there is no such thing as �benevolent empire�.[lxvii] Because of the special relationship, Israel has become an integral part of the American Empire. The economic, military and political bonds are so intertwined they are unbreakable, regardless of whether the Democratic or Republican party are in power."
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