by David Webb

I want to examine the concept of Christian Zionism, which I regard as heresy, and a particularly pernicious one, given that it is linked to genocidal policies. It is somewhat disconcerting or even flabbergasting that those in America who claim to be the strongest Christians are the very ones who support Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. I should be careful not to represent myself as a Creeping Jesus—a term found in one of William Blake’s poems about which there is an interesting write-up in Wikipedia. Like most “Christians” today, I am more interested in Christianity as a cultural artefact of Western society. I like the hymns, the liturgy, the Bible, stained-glass windows. I should not pretend to a deeper real belief than I have—but all the same I think the spiritual texts that sustained our ancestors are of relevance to us too—and they do not support the idea that Christians should support a state set up in 1948 in the Middle East.

It is important to point out that opposing Zionism does not mean we should not show love to Jews. St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, argued that we should not be boastful or arrogant towards the Jews. He compared the true church, the true Israel, to an olive tree, and said that some branches (many of the Jews, the “natural branches”) had been broken off from that tree through their unbelief, and that the Gentiles were being grafted into the tree. We should not boast against the branches that have been lopped off. All citations here are from the Roman Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible online.

18 Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. 19 Thou wilt say then: The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. 20 Well: because of unbelief they were broken off. But thou standest by faith: be not highminded, but fear. 21 For if God hath not spared the natural branches, fear lest perhaps he also spare not thee. 22 See then the goodness and the severity of God: towards them indeed that are fallen, the severity; but towards thee, the goodness of God, if thou abide in goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. [Romans 11]

We can also bear in mind that when the crowd calling for Jesus to be crucified shouted (in response to Pilate’s attempt to dissuade them from choosing the death of an innocent man) “His blood be upon us and our children” (Matthew 27:25), Jesus did not say, “It’s a deal. You and every Jew henceforth will be held accountable”. In Ezekiel 18:20, we read “The soul that sinneth, the same shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son: the justice of the just shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him”.

However, Jesus himself did not accept the proposition that descent from Abraham alone would render a man just in the eyes of the Lord:

7 And seeing many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them: Ye brood of vipers, who hath shewed you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance. 9 And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham for our father. For I tell you that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. [Matthew 3]

This alone refutes the American-derived nonsense of Christian Zionism. The whole of St. Matthew’s Gospel is essentially a dialogue between Jesus and the Pharisees. As Wikipedia argues, “Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, Pharisaic beliefs became the foundational, liturgical, and ritualistic basis for Rabbinic Judaism”. To argue that the modern-day “Judaism”—a religion that has little in common with the worship instituted in the days of Moses, and is largely based on texts (the Talmud and other works) written in Babylon in the AD period—is the religion of a chosen people ignores the fact that Jesus himself was harshly critical of the Pharisees, from whose beliefs Rabbinical Judaism ultimately sprang.

Jesus healed the servant of a centurion (a Roman soldier and not a Jew, although the ethnicity of the servant is not stated). He marvelled at the centurion’s faith and goes on to say that many Gentiles would be saved whereas many Jews would go to hell:

10 And Jesus hearing this, marvelled; and said to them that followed him: Amen I say to you, I have not found so great faith in Israel. 11 And I say to you that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. [Matthew 8]

Those who come from the east and west and end up with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in heaven, are the Gentiles (from the nations to the east and west of Israel). The children of the kingdom are the Jews themselves.

The fact that the Jews ought to have found it easier to accept the Jewish Messiah is shown in the following vignette:

18 As he was speaking these things unto them, behold a certain ruler came up, and adored him, saying: Lord, my daughter is even now dead; but come, lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live. 19 And Jesus rising up followed him, with his disciples. 20 And behold a woman who was troubled with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment. 21 For she said within herself: If I shall touch only his garment, I shall be healed. 22 But Jesus turning and seeing her, said: Be of good heart, daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour. 23 And when Jesus was come into the house of the ruler, and saw the minstrels and the multitude making a rout, 24 He said: Give place, for the girl is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn. 25 And when the multitude was put forth, he went in, and took her by the hand. And the maid arose. [Matthew 9]

The woman with an issue of blood of twelve years’ standing was Jewish. All she had to do to be healed was to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment. The Early Church Fathers saw this as meaning that the Jews were quite close to Christianity: they had the Law and the Prophets and merely had to accept that Jesus was the Messiah foretold in their own scriptures. The Jews were ailing, but by touching the hem (i.e. recognising Christ) they would be healed. By contrast, the Gentiles were spiritually dead. Some of them worshipped animals or engaged in human sacrifice or other practices that had no connection to true worship. The ruler who wanted his daughter resurrected was a Gentile and signified the more distant relationship the Gentiles had to travel: they needed, not just to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment, but to be resurrected entirely.

The parable of the labourers in the vineyard is ultimately about the relation of Jews and Gentiles to the true church. Those who had laboured all day (i.e. the Jews who had been God’s people since the days of Abraham) were dissatisfied that those who had done only an hour’s work (the Gentile Johnny-come-latelies) were getting the same reward. The connection of the passage to the Jews and the Gentiles was made by the Early Church Fathers. Here is the passage:

9 When therefore they were come, that came about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. 10 But when the first also came, they thought that they should receive more: and they also received every man a penny. 11 And receiving it they murmured against the master of the house, 12 Saying: These last have worked but one hour, and thou hast made them equal to us, that have borne the burden of the day and the heats. 13 But he answering said to one of them: Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst thou not agree with me for a penny? 14 Take what is thine, and go thy way: I will also give to this last even as to thee. [Matthew 20]

Two chapters further on, Christ relates the parable of the marriage feast. Those invited to the wedding (read: the Jews), refused to come. So the king ordered the streets to be scoured to find anyone willing to come (read: the Gentiles):

4 Again he sent other servants, saying: Tell them that were invited, Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my calves and fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come ye to the marriage. 5 But they neglected, and went their own ways, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise. 6 And the rest laid hands on his servants, and having treated them contumeliously, put them to death. 7 But when the king had heard of it, he was angry, and sending his armies, he destroyed those murderers, and burnt their city. 8 Then he saith to his servants: The marriage indeed is ready; but they that were invited were not worthy. 9 Go ye therefore into the highways; and as many as you shall find, call to the marriage. 10 And his servants going forth into the ways, gathered together all that they found, both bad and good: and the marriage was filled with guests. [Matthew 22]

Verses 12-13 show that the new guests, invited to the wedding from off the streets, were still expected to be worthy. Those not wearing wedding garments (read: the unrighteous) would be cast into the outer darkness. It seems the Pharisees knew the underlying meaning of these parables and the way in which they related to the Jews and their belief in their primacy:

15 Then the Pharisees going, consulted among themselves how to insnare him in his speech. 16 And they sent to him their disciples with the Herodians, saying: Master, we know that thou art a true speaker, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou dost not regard the person of men. 17 Tell us therefore what dost thou think, is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? 18 But Jesus knowing their wickedness, said: Why do you tempt me, ye hypocrites? [Matthew 22]

This is in the same context as the parable of the marriage feast: the Pharisees were trying to trip Jesus up for implying that the Pharisees and their disciples were not responding to the call to the “feast” and would be replaced by others. Later in the same chapter, Jesus showed the Pharisees that they didn’t understand their own scriptures:

41 And the Pharisees being gathered together, Jesus asked them, 42 Saying: What think you of Christ? whose son is he? They say to him: David’s. 43 He saith to them: How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying: 44 The Lord said to my Lord, Sit on my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool? 45 If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? 46 And no man was able to answer him a word; neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions. [Matthew 22]

This is in reference to Psalm 109:1 (which is Psalm 110:1 in the King James Version), where we read:

The Lord said to my Lord: Sit thou at my right hand: Until I make thy enemies thy footstool. [Psalm 109]

If the author of the Psalm, King David, refers to the Messiah as “his Lord”, how is it that the Messiah was also be the son of David? The Pharisees could give no answer. The Christian church teaches that Jesus, as a man, is the descendant of David, but he is also God, and therefore David’s Lord too. This escaped the Pharisees.

Finally, with the crucifixion of Christ, the veil in the Temple separating off the holy of holies was rent:

[50] And Jesus again crying with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. [51] And behold the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top even to the bottom, and the earth quaked, and the rocks were rent. [Matthew 27]

This signified that the Jewish Temple no longer had God’s favour and the Jews as a collective were no longer God’s exclusive people (although those Jews who accepted Christ would be saved in the new church and indeed would form the kernel of the new Israel in the form of the disciples). You could ask whether the Jews themselves have any traditions relating what happened upon the death of Christ. It turns out there is something most commentators have overlooked, in a writing in the Talmud called Tractate Yoma 39b:

The Sages taught: During the tenure of Shimon HaTzaddik, the lot for God always arose in the High Priest’s right hand; after his death, it occurred only occasionally; but during the forty years prior to the destruction of the Second Temple, the lot for God did not arise in the High Priest’s right hand at all. So too, the strip of crimson wool that was tied to the head of the goat that was sent to Azazel did not turn white, and the westernmost lamp of the candelabrum did not burn continually. And the doors of the Sanctuary opened by themselves as a sign that they would soon be opened by enemies, until Rabban Yoḥanan ben Zakkai scolded them.

It’s not necessary to go into the Jewish interpretation, as this forms no part of the Christian Bible, but the miracles the Jews claimed to regularly take place in the Temple stopped happening in AD 30 and this was the case right up to AD 70, when the Temple was destroyed by the Romans. The lot used to choose the scapegoat sent into the wilderness to take away sin stopped falling on the right side, as it always had, and the crimson wool on the scapegoat failed to turn white—showing the atonement had failed. The doors of the sanctuary kept opening by themselves—showing this place no long had God’s favour. This happened from the very year Jesus was crucified until the destruction of the Temple.

The Stoning to Death of St. Stephen (Rembrandt)

St. Stephen was the first Christian martyr, stoned to death by the Jews, while the Pharisee who would become St. Paul looked on approvingly and looked after the coats of the Jews who took off their outer garments the better to be able to stone Stephen to death. Stephen was a Jew—a Hellenised Jew, as some Jews in 1st-century Palestine spoke Greek—and he was not motivated by “hatred of Jews”, but this is what he told them:

[51] You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do you also. [52] Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them who foretold of the coming of the Just One; of whom you have been now the betrayers and murderers: [53] Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it. [Acts of the Apostles 7]

For saying this, he was stoned to death, as shown in the image above, a painting by Rembrandt. His feast-day is December 26th. St. Stephen did not say that the Jews were still God’s people after “betraying and murdering the Just One”.

St. Stephen’s complaint that the Jews were “uncircumcised in heart” implies that circumcision in the Mosaic Law was only ever an outward sign of removing evil from one’s heart. St. Paul picked up this distinction—after he had his conversion on the Road to Damascus and became the great apostle to the Gentiles. He stated in his Epistle to the Romans:

28 For it is not he is a Jew, who is so outwardly; nor is that circumcision which is outwardly in the flesh: 29 But he is a Jew, that is one inwardly; and the circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God. [Romans 2]

A whole theology is thereby created where the new Israel, the real Israel, the spiritual Israel, replaced the physical or fleshly Israel. Those who were mere descendants of Abraham, but who were not righteous were fleshly Israel. The spiritual Israel included Gentiles who were not circumcised as long as they had the circumcision of the heart, not the flesh. The Israel of God was now the Christian church. The theology set out in St. Paul’s letters is regarded by the Christian church as inspired by God the Holy Ghost and this view is therefore a requirement of all those who claim to be Christian—including the Southern Baptists in the US, whether they recognise it or not.

Abraham was “justified” (i.e. held righteous before God) by his faith, not on account of performing works specified in the Mosaic Law, which came after his time, or even being circumcised:

1 What shall we say then that Abraham hath found, who is our father according to the flesh. 2 For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. 3 For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice. 4 Now to him that worketh, the reward is not reckoned according to grace, but according to debt. 5 But to him that worketh not, yet believeth in him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reputed to justice, according to the purpose of the grace of God. [Romans 4]

St. Paul’s letters require very detailed and close reading, but he argues that circumcision for Abraham was only an outward sign of the faith that he had even before he was circumcised, and that means that Abraham is the father of all who share true faith, circumcised or not:

11 And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the justice of the faith, which he had, being uncircumcised; that he might be the father of all them that believe, being uncircumcised, that unto them also it may be reputed to justice: [Romans 4]

If Jews had “inherited” the right to justification, then that is not the same thing as justification by faith:

13 For not through the law was the promise to Abraham, or to his seed, that he should be heir of the world; but through the justice of faith. 14 For if they who are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, the promise is made of no effect. [Romans 4]

We are all spiritual sons, the spiritual seed, of Abraham if we share the true faith, whether we are members of the fleshly Israel that had the Mosaic Law or not:

16 Therefore is it of faith, that according to grace the promise might be firm to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. [Romans 4]

All who have the true belief inherit the promise made to Abraham, whether or not they are his descendants. This is because not all fleshly Israel is the spiritual Israel. Gentiles who believe are the spiritual heirs of the Abrahamic promise (just as Isaac was born to Abraham’s 90-year-old wife Sarah in fulfilment of a divine promise):

6 Not as though the word of God hath miscarried. For all are not Israelites that are of Israel: 7 Neither are all they that are the seed of Abraham, children; but in Isaac shall thy seed be called: 8 That is to say, not they that are the children of the flesh, are the children of God; but they, that are the children of the promise, are accounted for the seed. [Romans 9]

St. Paul then goes on to quote the Old Testament prophet Hosea (Osee) who had prophesied in Hosea 1:9-10 that people (Gentiles) who were originally not God’s people would become God’s people:

22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction, 23 That he might shew the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he hath prepared unto glory? 24 Even us, whom also he hath called, nor only of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles. 25 As in Osee he saith: I will call that which was not my people, my people; and her that was not beloved, beloved; and her that had not obtained mercy, one that hath obtained mercy.[Romans 9]

He then quotes Isaiah’s statement (in Isaiah 10:20-22) that only a “remnant” of the Jew would be saved.

27 And Isaias crieth out concerning Israel: If the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved. [Romans 9]

Part of the difficulty of Pauline theology is that Bible prophecies often have more than one meaning, namely praeterist, historical and futurist interpretations. The praeterist interpretation of Isaiah 10 is that of the return of a small number of Jews from the captivity in Babylon in 538 BC. St. Paul then applies this to the way a small number of Jews became the nucleus of the Christian church founded at Pentecost. The building of the Second Temple by the remnant returning from Babylon therefore prefigures the way a Jewish remnant (essentially the disciples and the 3,000 Jews baptised at Pentecost in Acts of the Apostles 2:41) built the Christian church from Pentecost onwards.

In the passage comparing the true church to an olive tree, stating how faithless Jews were branches that were lopped off, and Gentiles were grafted in, St. Paul points out that the Jews can yet be grafted in again:

24 For if thou wert cut out of the wild olive tree, which is natural to thee; and, contrary to nature, were grafted into the good olive tree; how much more shall they that are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? 25 For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery, (lest you should be wise in your own conceits), that blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in. 26 And so all Israel should be saved, as it is written: There shall come out of Sion, he that shall deliver, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.

The passage stating that the Jews are in part blind “until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in” may imply that there will be a large conversion of the Jews to Christ before the Second Coming. “And so all Israel should be saved”. But here we need to be careful: does this mean that all fleshly Jews will be saved? If so, this contradicts Christ’s own teachings. It is more likely that it means that eventually there will be a movement towards Christ among the Jews and in that manner all the spiritual Israel will be saved, including those of the fleshly Jews who choose to take part, those olive tree branches who choose to be regrafted in to the true church, the good olive tree.

In his Epistle to the Galatians, St. Paul addresses the promises made to Abraham and applies them, not to the Jews, but to the Christian church. Let us look at he passages in Genesis referred to recently by the US senator, Ted Cruz, when claiming that we are required to “bless Israel”. We read:

2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and magnify thy name, and thou shalt be blessed. 3 I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee, and IN THEE shall all the kindred of the earth be blessed: [Genesis 12]

This refers to those blessing Abraham, not those blessing the Israeli nation today, and explicitly states that in Abraham (in Abraham’s descendant Jesus) all nations will be blessed. There is little sign that the State of Israel is a blessing to all surrounding nations today. This passage more clearly refers to the eventual widening of the church to all nations. Later in Genesis we read:

17 I will bless thee, and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is by the sea shore: thy seed shall possess the gates of their enemies. 18 And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. [Genesis 22]

This “seed” sounds like it is referring to all descendants of Abraham (which it must be recalled include the Arabs and, indeed, the Palestinians and people of Gaza today), but St. Paul has a different interpretation:

6 As it is written: Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice. 7 Know ye therefore, that they who are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. 8 And the scripture, foreseeing, that God justifieth the Gentiles by faith, told unto Abraham before: In thee shall all nations be blessed. 9 Therefore they that are of faith, shall be blessed with faithful Abraham. [Galatians 3]

Here St. Paul states that all those who have the same faith, including Gentiles, are classed as the children of Abraham. He then addresses the “seed”:

16 To Abraham were the promises made and to his seed. He saith not, And to his seeds, as of many: but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. [Galatians 3]

The seed in which all nations would be blessed, is not the State of Israel, but Christ alone. He continues:

28 There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you be Christ’s, then are you the seed of Abraham, heirs according to the promise.

The seed here is Christ, and also anyone who is Christ’s, whether Jew or Gentile. This is not Senator Cruz’s interpretation of Genesis at all—but Christians are required to have St. Paul’s view, not Ted Cruz’s.

In the next chapter, St. Paul draws an allegory with Abraham’s two sons. One was Ishmael, by the slave girl Hagar, and the other was Isaac by the free woman Sarah. Of course, fleshly Israel descends from Isaac and Sarah, but St. Paul argues that we, the Christian church, the spiritual Israel, are the spiritual descendants of Isaac, and spiritually speaking the fleshly Jews who are against Christ are the spiritual Ishmaelites. This is because Christians are justified by the Abrahamic promise, not by fleshly descent from anyone.

22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, and the other by a free woman. 23 But he who was of the bondwoman, was born according to the flesh: but he of the free woman, was by promise. 24 Which things are said by an allegory. For these are the two testaments. The one from mount Sina, engendering unto bondage; which is Agar: 25 For Sina is a mountain in Arabia, which hath affinity to that Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. [Galatians 4]

Genesis 21:21 tells how Hagar and Ishmael were sent off into the Sinai desert after quarrelling with Sarah. The “Jerusalem that now is” (the fleshly Jews who rejected Christ) are declared to be in bondage—bondage to the Mosaic Law and not heirs of the Abrahamic promise—and thus compared to Hagar and Ishmael sent off into the desert towards Mount Sinai.

In the next chapter, St. Paul argues that if you accept the Mosaic Law now and circumcise yourself, you are back in bondage and void of Christ:

1 Stand fast, and be not held again under the yoke of bondage. 2 Behold, I Paul tell you, that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. 3 And I testify again to every man circumcising himself, that he is a debtor to the whole law. 4 You are made void of Christ, you who are justified in the law: you are fallen from grace. [Galatians 5]

In the following chapter, St. Paul states that Jews who insist that the Gentiles be circumcised don’t even keep the Mosaic Law themselves and are merely seeking to “glory in your flesh”. Towards the end of the epistle, St. Paul describes the Christian church, including the Gentiles as “the Israel of God”:

13 For neither they themselves who are circumcised, keep the law; but they will have you to be circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh. 14 But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. 16 And whosoever shall follow this rule, peace on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.[Galatians 6]

St. Peter also had the same view, that the Christian church was the new Israel. Compare a passage in Exodus with the first letter of St. Peter:

[5] If therefore you will hear my voice, and keep my covenant, you shall be my peculiar possession above all people: for all the earth is mine. [6] And you shall be to me a priestly kingdom, and a holy nation. Those are the words thou shalt speak to the children of Israel. [Exodus 19]

Here we notice the Israelites are told they would be God’s peculiar possession if—and only if—they kep their covenant with him. They would be a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. The destruction of the first Temple in 587 BC followed by the Exile in Babylon suggests the Jews did not keep the covenant. St. Peter writes:

[9] But you are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people: that you may declare his virtues, who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: [10] Who in time past were not a people: but are now the people of God. Who had not obtained mercy; but now have obtained mercy. [1 Peter 2]

Where the fleshly Jews were once a priestly kingdom and a holy nation, the Christian church is now a kingly priesthood and a holy nation. That the spiritual Israel is a holy nation made up of people from many human societies, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, etc, is stated by the words “who in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God”.

Let’s take a look at some passages in the Old Testament. The fact that the true church, the holy nation, would eventually widen out from the Jews and embrace all nations, was stated in Jacob’s blessings of his sons before he died in Genesis:

[10] The sceptre shall not be taken away from Juda, nor a ruler from his thigh, till he come that is to be sent, and he shall be the expectation of nations. [Genesis 49]

Here the Jews will remain God’s exclusive people until the Messiah comes—and the Messiah would be the expectation of all nations, including the Gentiles. Now that the Messiah has come, the Jews are no longer exclusively the chosen people. Jeremiah also stated that a new covenant, a new testament would come:

[31] Behold the days shall come, saith the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Juda: [32] Not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt: the covenant which they made void, and I had dominion over them, saith the Lord. [33] But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, saith the Lord: I will give my law in their bowels, and I will write it in their heart: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [Jeremiah 31]

Here it is explicitly stated that the old covenant would be void. The new covenant, by writing the law in bowels and hearts, would not be like the prescriptive Mosaic Law, with animal sacrifices and outward circumcision. This law in the bowels and hearts is essentially the same thing as St. Paul’s references to circumcision of the heart and not the flesh.

It is important to understand that the full Mosaic Law technically came to an end with the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in 587 BC, at which point the Ark of the Covenant vanished. This was a wooden chest plated with solid gold, with two golden cherubim on top, from between which God spoke. Within the chest were the Tablets of the Law given to Moses, a pot of manna consumed by the Israelites in their 40-year wandering in the Sinai after leaving Egypt and Aaron’s rod (which performed miracles during the 12 plagues of Egypt). There is no record that the Babylonians took the Ark of the Covenant in 587 BC. It disappears from the historical record entirely.

The Bible teaches that the Ark of the Covenant did not need to be protected by human hands. When the Ark was being transported, Uzzah (or Oza) who sought to steady the Ark was struck down by God:

[6] And when they came to the floor of Nachon, Oza put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it: because the oxen kicked and made it lean aside. [7] And the indignation of the Lord was enkindled against Oza, and he struck him for his rashness: and he died there before the ark of God. [2 Samuel 6]

For this reason, the disappearance of the Ark has to be understood to be God’s purpose. When the Second Temple was built, there was no Ark. There was a veil dividing off the Holy of Holies, but in the Holy of Holies itself there was no Ark and no golden cherubim from between which God spoke. After all, when the veil was rent upon Jesus’ expiry, there was actually nothing in the Holy of Holies behind the veil in any case. This pointed to an eventual end to the old covenant based on outward symbols—circumcision, animal sacrifices, the divine presence from the Ark—and so it is correct to see the Second Temple are a foreshadowing, a prefiguring, of the eventual building of a spiritual temple in the form of the Christian church. The Christian church is the Third Temple.

Isaiah wrote that God doesn’t need the sacrifice of animal victims, and all the other features of the Mosaic Law, which if anything were given to the ancient Israelites in line with their limited ability to understand spiritual matters at the time:

[11] To what purpose do you offer me the multitude of your victims, saith the Lord? I am full, I desire not holocausts of rams, and fat of fatlings, and blood of calves, and lambs, and buck goats. [12] When you came to appear before me, who required these things at your hands, that you should walk in my courts? [13] Offer sacrifice no more in vain: incense is an abomination to me. The new moons, and the sabbaths, and other festivals I will not abide, your assemblies are wicked. [14] My soul hateth your new moons, and your solemnities: they are become troublesome to me, I am weary of bearing them. [15] And when you stretch forth your hands, I will turn away my eyes from you: and when you multiply prayer, I will not hear: for your hands are full of blood. [Isaiah 1]

These provisions of the Old Law would be replaced by Christ’s sacrifice and by the need for genuine righteousness rather than adhering to legalistic prescriptions.

The Epistle to the Hebrews was once thought to have been written by St. Paul, although early on its provenance was questioned. The early Christian Origen of Alexandria wrote in the third century that the style of Hebrews was different to St. Paul’s, and thought that it may have been penned by another, possibly Clement of Rome, the third or fourth bishop of Rome. It must have been written by someone in St. Paul’s immediate circle, however, as St. Timothy, St. Paul’s travelling companion, is mentioned in Hebrews 13:23. The writer of Hebrews discusses the First Temple and its Ark in the Holy of Holies:

1 The former indeed had also justifications of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary. 2 For there was a tabernacle made the first, wherein were the candlesticks, and the table, and the setting forth of loaves, which is called the holy. 3 And after the second veil, the tabernacle, which is called the holy of holies: 4 Having a golden censer, and the ark of the testament covered about on every part with gold, in which was a golden pot that had manna, and the rod of Aaron, that had blossomed, and the tables of the testament. 5 And over it were the cherubims of glory overshadowing the propitiatory: of which it is not needful to speak now particularly. [Hebrews 9]

The priest entered into the Holy of Holies only once a year, signifying that Christ had not yet opened the way into the real Holy of Holies by his sacrifice:

6 Now these things being thus ordered, into the first tabernacle the priests indeed always entered, accomplishing the offices of sacrifices. 7 But into the second, the high priest alone, once a year: not without blood, which he offereth for his own, and the people’s ignorance: 8 The Holy Ghost signifying this, that the way into the holies was not yet made manifest, whilst the former tabernacle was yet standing. [Hebrews 9]

Christ is now the high priest who by his own sacrifice, and not the blood of goats or calves, has entered into a more perfect tabernacle than the Holy of Holies of Solomon’s Temple:

11 But Christ, being come an high priest of the good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hand, that is, not of this creation: 12 Neither by the blood of goats, or of calves, but by his own blood, entered once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and of oxen, and the ashes of an heifer being sprinkled, sanctify such as are defiled, to the cleansing of the flesh: 14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who by the Holy Ghost offered himself unspotted unto God, cleanse our conscience from dead works, to serve the living God? 15 And therefore he is the mediator of the new testament: that by means of his death, for the redemption of those transgressions, which were under the former testament, they that are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance. [Hebrews 9]

This development was already looked forward to by the building of the Second Temple with no Ark of the Covenant at all. The way in which the Second Temple prefigured the real spiritual temple, the perfect tabernacle, that would have Christ’s presence was also highlighted by the prophet Haggai. Ostensibly discussing the building of the Second Temple, he wrote:

[7] For thus saith the Lord of hosts: Yet one little while, and I will move the heaven and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land. [8] And I will move all nations: AND THE DESIRED OF ALL NATIONS SHALL COME: and I will fill this house with glory: saith the Lord of hosts. [9] The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. [10] Great shall be the glory of this last house more than of the first, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place I will give peace, saith the Lord of hosts. [Haggai 2]

This text is not talking about the arrival of a sacrificed lamb or other animal victim. As we see here, the Desired of All Nations shall come—and not just the Desired of the Jews. The reason why the glory of this last house (the eventual spiritual temple of the church) would be greater than Solomon’s temple is because Christ himself would be the sacrificial victim and God’s presence would fill the house with glory in a way that no wooden box inlaid with gold could do. This cannot be understood of the Second Temple (built by Zerubbabel who led the Israelite remnant back from Babylon to Israel) in which the Holy of Holies was completely empty behind the veil.

Zechariah speaks of the building of a future Jerusalem without walls. The note in the Douay Bible shows the church teaches that this must mean the spiritual Jerusalem, the church of Christ:

4 And he said to him: Run, speak to this young man, saying: Jerusalem shall be inhabited without walls, by reason of the multitude of men, and of the beasts in the midst thereof. 5 And I will be to it, saith the Lord, a wall of fire round about: and I will be in glory in the midst thereof. [Zechariah 2]

There may be a praeterist interpretation of the next verses, talking of the return of the remnant from Babylon, but St. Paul indicated above that the remnant returning to Israel prefigures the role of a small number of Jews in adopting the true faith at Pentecost and becoming the core of the new Christian Israel of God:

6 O, O flee ye out of the land of the north, saith the Lord, for I have scattered you into the four winds of heaven, saith the Lord. 7 O Sion, flee, thou that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon: 8 For thus saith the Lord of hosts: After the glory he hath sent me to the nations that have robbed you: for he that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of my eye. [Zechariah 2]

The phrase “the apple of my eye” refers not to the State of Israel, but to the Christian church, which is the Israel of God. People of all nations will join with this Israelite remnant in the new church:

11 And many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and they shall be my people, and I will dwell in the midst of thee: and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me to thee.[Zechariah 2]

I will admit that many Americans will take a very literalist view of every passage in the Bible, and thus will struggle to understand the writings of St. Paul, which see events in the Old Testament as allegories foreshadowing the new covenant. The passages in Romans, Galatians and Hebrews are hard to understand, for sure. Nevertheless, references to all nations being blessed in Abraham’s seed, and to many nations joining with the Israelite remnant and becoming God’s people, do not match up with the role of the State of Israel in the world, which has invaded most of its neighbours and holds the Palestinians in a desperate state of subjection. Neither is there any sign that the Jews are attempting to convert the nations to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and thus form the core of a multinational church. If these phrases mean anything, they refer to the Christian church. Those who think you can be a Christian while supporting ethnic cleansing in the Middle East have effectively abandoned Christianity altogether. Curiously (or maybe not) their views on the Middle East dovetail with those of the CIA and the Deep State. This suggests that American Christianity has been subverted, or has subverted itself, and that American Christians are no longer teaching the same faith that has been taught for 2,000 years. If you approve of the bombing of a Christian church in Gaza, then you are touching the apple of God’s eye—and will receive your comeuppance in due course.