by Rev. William E. Currie
November 1999
"Now that I've accepted Jesus as my Savior, shouldn't I convert to Judaism because Jesus is Jewish? I'm not as good before God as a Jewish believer!"
These are just a few of the questions I hear as I travel to churches around the country. The questioners are sincere; but they also reveal their confusion over how to interpret the Word of God. Interpretation is easily skewed by romantic notions of modern Judaism or by the belief that God has finished keeping His covenants with the Jewish people.
To understand the source of these flawed interpretations, take a step back into hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the science (and art) of biblical interpretation, including the study of the principles of exegesis. These principles are basic to the determination of the meanings of biblical texts. Scholars and lay people alike apply principles to interpret Scripture. Which ones should they apply?
A believer must settle the answer in his own mind before deciding what his relationship will be to the Jewish people and to modern Judaism. Do the Jewish people need to hear the Gospel? Should believers convert to Judaism to be assured of their closeness to God? What does the Bible say?
The two major methods long used to interpret the Scriptures are the grammatical-historical and the allegorical. The grammatical-historical method, often referred to as the literalist approach, gives each word the same meaning it would have in ordinary, customary usage. This method is based on a correct understanding of the use of each word in the days of the author — an understanding derived from grammar, logic, history, geography and archaeology. When Scripture makes common sense, says the literalist approach, seek no other sense, but take every word at its ordinary meaning unless the immediate context clearly indicates otherwise. This method has readers approach the meaning of words in Scripture in a straightforward way.
The allegorical method of biblical interpretation is also sometimes called "spiritualizing the text." The reader becomes the interpreter, looking for a hidden spiritual meaning that transcends the literal sense of the text. For example, in a class on Revelation in a seminary holding to the allegorical method, a professor I know of taught that there will be no literal millennial period with a literal reign of Messiah on earth. He stated that the thousand years referred to in Revelation 20:2 only speaks of this long period of time for the present age before Messiah returns to begin eternity. When a student asked about the text that says Satan will be bound for that "long period of time," the professor replied, "Satan is bound today, but with a long chain." The allegorical method is free to look beyond the literal words of the text to see another meaning.
I believe that objectivity in exegesis is lost with the allegorical method. God's Word becomes putty to be molded by the interpreter to mean what he desires according to his theological presuppositions. The prophetic Scriptures concerning the person and work of the Savior that have already come to pass (His birth, life, death and resurrection) were fulfilled in great literal detail, even to the very words uttered by Jesus on the cross. Why, then, can't believers expect the same literal fulfillment of other prophetic passages relating to His plans and purposes for the Jewish people, the Gentiles and the Church?
By accepting the grammatical-historical method of interpretation that maintains the objective authority of Scripture verbally (each word) and plenarily (fully) inspired in the original text, we can discern at least three distinct programs God has revealed about the human race. These plans concern the Gentiles, the nation of Israel, and the Church.
Scripture gives extensive revelation concerning the Gentiles apart from Israel and the Church. In Daniel 2, Daniel was given the interpretation of God's revelation through King Nebuchadnezzar's troubling dream. Daniel's interpretation foretells of the "Times of the Gentiles," an expression referring to the Gentiles' control over Jerusalem and the people of Israel. According to Daniel's prophecy, the "Times of the Gentiles" will end at the Lord's Second Advent, when the Gentile world powers are destroyed and the Kingdom of Messiah instituted. This judgment is seen in type by the "rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands — a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces" (Daniel 2:44).
During the millennium of Messiah's reign there will be living, redeemed Gentiles who will seek out the Jewish people with the desire to worship the God of the Jews. "Ten men from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, `Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you' " (Zechariah 8:23). The rest of the Gentiles will already be in a place of eternal judgment, separated from God.
Called out of Ur of the Chaldees, Abraham received several promises from God in Genesis 12:1-3: "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." The personal promises to Abraham were literally fulfilled while other promises are still being fulfilled ("all peoples on earth will be blessed through you").
Additional covenants between God and the Jewish people were made through Moses, David and Jeremiah. Some were unconditional, such as the contract with Abraham, while others were based on obedience. The Mosaic Covenant and the Palestinian Covenant (Deuteronomy 28-30) concerning enjoyment of the Land by physical descendants of Abraham were conditioned on obedience.
The Jewish people have never enjoyed the full extent of the land promised them by God in Genesis 15. Nor have they enjoyed the promises of the "new covenant" made with them in Jeremiah 31:31-40. This unconditional covenant, where God promises to "put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts" and says "they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest" has to be taken as literally as does the one made with Abraham, or there is no consistency in interpretation. The Church enjoys part of that new covenant, but only because Jesus in His shed blood is its mediator. For Abraham's physical descendents, this covenant has not yet been literally fulfilled.
Israel has a future as a nation in their land! Messiah will reign, and it will be a reign on earth from the city of Jerusalem. Satan will be bound and people in the flesh will enjoy the Land and the rule of Messiah. God has not yet fulfilled all of His promises to His people Israel.
As the Gentile program of God had a beginning with the creation of Adam and
Eve, and the nation of Israel with the call and covenants with Abraham, so too
the
Church has its beginning. On the Day of Pentecost, following the ascension of
the resurrected Savior, the disciples were commanded to return to the upper room
and await the advent of the Holy Spirit. On that day the Holy Spirit baptized
(placed) into one body the believers in that room. Then they, in the power of
the Holy Spirit, carried the Gospel to the Jews gathered in Jerusalem for the
Feast of Pentecost.
The formation of the Church was foreshadowed when Jesus, while in Caesarea Philippi with His disciples, asked his listeners who men said that He was. Some said that He was John the Baptist, others that He was Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. Then Jesus turned to his disciples. "Who do you say I am?" (Matthew 16:15). Peter's response, "Thou art the Messiah, the Son of the Living God" (Matthew 16:16), was given him by revelation from God the Father.
Upon Peter's confession of the deity of Messiah, the Lord said, "I will build my church" (Matthew 16:18). The Lord was saying that in the future He would do a new thing unrevealed before now. Immediately after this revelation the Savior began to speak of His coming passion and resurrection, when God would give His Son to die not only for the Jewish people, but for all mankind.
Now the Lord has been building His Church for almost 2,000 years. His body is neither Jew nor Gentile, but the sons of God (Galatians 3:26-28). Ethnic, gender, and social and economic distinctions are no longer significant. In Messiah, Jews and Gentiles are "one new man" (Ephesians 2:15).
The Gentiles will be judged, Israel will enter the millennial rule of Messiah, and the Church will be raptured into the air to "be with the Lord forever" (I Thessalonians 4:17). A sovereign God speaks clearly and in some detail concerning the beginning, purpose and end of each program for the human race.
Should believers seek to reach the Jewish people for the Messiah? His disciples started there, and the first church was formed in Jerusalem of Jewish people. The commission of Paul was to the Jews first, and also to the Gentiles. While today there is still resistance and "hardness of heart" (Romans 9) among many Jewish people, God is bringing to Himself through the preaching of the Gospel that "remnant chosen by grace" (Romans 11:5).
Should believers seek to be "more Jewish" to be closer to God and find some place of greater favor before Him? If so, why would God disallow such distinctions within the Body of Christ? Salvation is by grace alone, not by works of any kind. As Paul says in Romans 2: 28-29: "A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly, and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God."
Note: All Scripture quotations are from the New International Version.
Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics reported that as of the eve of Rosh Hashana (September 9, 1999), Israel's population had reached 6,145,000, an increase of 147,000 over the previous year. Seventy-nine percent of the population is Jewish, fifteen percent Muslim, and six percent Druze, Christian and "unclassified persons." Immigration accounted for 35% of the growth, over a third of which came from the Russian Federation.
Israel is home to nearly 8,000 Arab Evangelical Christians, according to Nizar Touma, pastor of a Nazarene Church in East Jerusalem and a member of The Messianic Action Committee. Touma reports that there are approximately 35 Arab Evangelical churches in the Land, including 20 within Israel, 14 in the outlying territories, and one in Gaza. Most of these congregations are able to support full-time pastors who have Bible school or seminary training.
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