Everyone is trying to all at once come up with the proverbial answer, realizing it’s got to be one of those obvious pieces to the puzzle … but they’re stuck in their thoughts.
After a few moments, I break through the silence with:
“Dear people, you all know the answer. You’ve learned it since Sunday school. The ‘Promised Land’ depicted in the New Testament, told by Jesus Christ, the Messiah, God in the flesh is, are you ready … the Spiritual Kingdom of God; and, can anyone tell me, where are the borders of this spiritual Promised Land?”
“None,” says the youngest kid in the room.
“The Deed of Trust of your Promised Land, the Spiritual kingdom of God is vested in the New Testament, set in blood on Calvary2. You know what I’m getting at, don’t you?”
You almost have got to be a Jew to understand Christianity. Salvation is so much more than a mere ticket to heaven before death. Eternity starts at the moment of your salvation. From that moment on, you’re enveloped in the spiritual kingdom of God with God’s Holy Spirit residing inside your soul, your being, your consciousness, your conscience.
And, how has this come about … God basically decrees, there’s no way that mankind can live up to the Law of Moses. So, God replaces the Law with redemption. In order to do so, God says: “I’ll redeem all their sins on the cross.” Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, God in the flesh, dies on Calvary, sheds His blood for all of mankind, rises up from the dead and returns to heaven. But before he departs, he endows us with a heavenly surprise: His Omnipresence through the indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit and His Spiritual Kingdom of the heart. And, just accept and repent.
“So why is Israel your business,” I grill the Evangelicals who come to my talks through word-of-mouth.
“Israel is old-time prophecies coming true … prophecies coming alive in our times.”
“Says who,” I query. “Tell me, cite one reference in the New Testament where Jesus Christ specifically talks about Modern Israel as a precursor to His Second Coming”?
Silence! Not one word! Because there is not a word ever uttered by Jesus, correlating Ancient Israel or Modern Israel to His Second Coming. But Jesus does prophesize the total and complete destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem:
“1Jesus left and was going away from the Temple when his disciples came to him to call his attention to its buildings. 2 ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you may well look at all these. I tell you this: not a single stone here will be left in its place; every one of them will be thrown down’ (Matthew 24: 1-2 Good News Translation GNT; Mark 13: 1-2; Luke 21: 5-6).”
If God is the same God in 70 CE and if Christianity has any validity, the temple in Jerusalem will NEVER, EVER be rebuilt.
The Good News, sermonized by Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, God in the flesh, is that God will never again reside inside an edifice made of stone. God, in the form of God’s Holy Spirit, dwells inside each and every believer; individual temples of human flesh, created in His own image; His own gems, more precious than stone.
Before Christ, God’s spirit has hovered in and around a select group of people. The Old Testament attests that the Spirit of God calls on priests, kings, prophets, and special people, i.e., Hagar, mother of Ishmael; Maria, mother of Jesus; and a handful of others. Ever since Jesus walked the land, God has chosen Jews and Gentiles3 alike to call on God’s spirit to reside in their hearts, in His omnipresence.
“But, you’ve got to want God to lead you by His spirit.”
We’re living in the New Covenant. All Israelites as well as all Jews and all Gentiles are equally Chosen. God has chosen us before we are born (Jeremiah 1: 5 GNT). And, it is up to us what we do with our ‘chosenness’ (Joshua 24: 15 GNT). That’s ‘free will.’ I want to make this point clear, you’re free to activate God’s spirit in your life. On the other hand, you’ve got no choice, no say in the matter, that you and all mankind are chosen, just like the Israelites in ancient times (Exodus 6: 7; 20: 2-4 GNT). As the Mishnah4 puts it: “You were born involuntarily (Talmud M. Avot 4: 22).”
“I don’t get it. Why am I chosen?”
“The word ‘chosen’ comes from the tradition of Ancient-Israel. But now all Jews and Gentiles are chosen. Everyone – all of mankind – is chosen or invited to seek God. It’s really a simple concept. You are a living Temple of God:
“19 Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and who was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourselves but to God (1 Corinthians 6: 19 GNT).”
All living ‘temples’ are chosen. It’s no longer a matter of ancestry (1 Timothy 1: 4-5). In ancient times, only Israelites are chosen whether they want to or not. They have no say in the matter. But what each person does with his or her chosenness is their business. That’s ‘free will.’
“Israel must drive out the Palestinians … it is written, it is prophesized,” many Evangelical Christians tell me.
“Where,” I challenge them. “Where is it written … has Jesus ever suggested the idea of ethnic cleansing; worse, genocide”?
“Yes, it is written in the Old Testament,” a response from many in the room.
“Does Jesus say anything in the Old Testament … I’m not talking about what is written in the Old Testament … LISTEN … I am asking you a direct question, a very important question, a question of life and death … has Jesus ever talked about driving out the indigenous people, the native-born Palestinians from their homeland?”
“NO”!
Invariably someone would state: "Israel has sinned ... the Ancient Israelites should have slaughtered all Canaanites5 but didn't. Now they, the [Modern eds.] Israelis, are paying for it.”
“Besides,” adding ‘insult to injury,’ “if Abraham didn’t sin and just waited until Sarah was ready to give birth to Isaac, there wouldn’t have been an Ishmael … and now the Middle East is swarming with Arabs …”
Honestly, this is what I hear ... once stated by a highly educated young man, a medical doctor, age thirty-something.
The Old Testament explicitly states that Ishmael never leaves Abraham's realm of love and paternity, and he never leaves the sphere of God's blessing. Ishmael, the seed of Abraham, builds a great nation too. And, though, God promises Abraham that he will have many generations through Isaac and Jacob, He promises the same to Hagar, which means Hagar is, in effect, a female patriarch; and, Hagar is the only biblical character – male or female – to call God by His name and to converse directly with God (Genesis 16: 13-15 GNT).
"Israel is for Jews only ... all Arabs should choose to leave, then there will be peace.”
"How? Where to?" I inquire.
"They [the Palestinians] should pick up their belongings, pack up and move into the greater Arabian landscape ... where they're wanted. They're not wanted in God’s Promised Land.”
I force myself and pray for strength and wisdom, to remain
