When Keeping Israel Goes Wrong
Sen. Ted Cruz, and others, reveal that a difference in theology is more than just a difference of opinion – it is a contrast in the essential framework that lays out our course of action.
In an interview that was released on Tucker Carlson’s channel on June 18, Sen. Ted Cruz had some rather eye-popping things to say about Israel.
Eye-popping for Orthodox Christians, that is. For many in Cruz’s circles and who share the same background, these were rather typical statements that wouldn’t inspire any kind of debate at all.
“As a Christian growing up in Sunday school, I was taught from the Bible that those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed,” the former presidential candidate said. “From my perspective, I want to be on the blessing side of things.”
This quote already reveals much in its transactional nature, but let's continue on.
“Where does my support for Israel come from?,” Cruz later asks. “Number one, because biblically we are commanded to support Israel.”
The question that Carlson continued to press Cruz on, and that Cruz was unable to give a clear cut answer to, is simple: What is Israel?
Is it the current government of Israel? Is it the people who inhabit the land that is now inside the borders of the nation-state of Israel? Is it the Jewish people in general?
David Friedman, who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Israel from 2017-2021, reacted to the interview with a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying:
“Israel has always been Israel; it has always had leaders, some good some not. The Bible has never qualified the mandate to ‘bless Israel’ with who was leading it.”
Cruz responded to Friedman’s post, which contained more than what is shared above, by saying:
“...Tucker really argued that when the Bible says ‘Israel,’ it doesn’t mean… ‘Israel.’”
It is sad to understand that many of our nation’s politicians have fallen victim to a simple word concept fallacy. In their view, it’s called “Israel,” therefore it must be the Israel of the Bible.
It would be more easily forgivable if this were just a misguided, and logical, conclusion of the practice of Sola Scriptura. Instead, this theology leads to fits of bloodlust from prominent members of government.
On the Iranian side of the geopolitical equation, a message from the current U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, was shared by President Donald Trump on Truth Social on June 17. In the long text, Huckabee said, “No President in my lifetime has been in a position like yours. Not since Truman in 1945. I don’t reach out to persuade you. Only to encourage you. I believe you will hear from heaven and that voice is far more important than mine or anyone else’s.”
Notice the mode and intent with which Huckabee formulates this message – first comes the planting of the idea, second comes the mention of a “voice from heaven.” This isn’t a seeking of guidance from the Holy Spirit, but rather an attempt to disguise one’s own personal will as the Holy Spirit.
And it reeks of Zionist dispensationalism and Manifest Destiny-esque motives.
To add to the mix, Florida Rep. Randy Fine posted on X on June 17:
“I love my country. And I also love the place that God promised to His chosen people. To those who hate people like me, your rage makes us stronger. You will lose, as everyone who has challenged us has, from Pharaoh… to Haman… to Hitler… As the Ayatollah is about to find out. Bombs away.”
After some digging, “bombs away” appears to be Fine’s default foreign policy position on all things Israel.
While speaking about Israel and Hamas in an interview on CNN on June 16, Fine said that the U.S. nuked the Japanese twice in order to get unconditional surrender. “That needs to be the same here,” he said. “There is something deeply, deeply wrong with this culture, and it needs to be defeated.
When pressed by CNN’s Sara Sidner on if he had legitimately just called for the nuking of Gaza, Fine stated that he had not, but rather that we should not negotiate with evil.
“Nuking Gaza would be a terrible idea,” he said. “The fallout would drift into Israel, it would kill the hostages.”
“But you’re not worried about it killing women and children in Gaza who are the innocents?,” Sidner asked.
“I think that war is a messy thing, and I think that when you defeat evil you have to do what is necessary,” Fine replied. “... We didn’t sit down and go, ‘Oh no, civilians might die. Let’s not get Japan to surrender.’ I believe the Palestinianism in Gaza is on a level of evil that we saw in Japan and we saw in Germany back in World War II. I believe that Israel needs to do what is necessary to defeat it, and I won’t apologize for that.”
Back on September 27, 2024, Fine also posted that, the first time he shook Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hand, he “did not wash it until I could touch the heads of my children.”
In all of this remains the question – what is Israel? Interestingly enough, while Cruz argued that the nation has existed for thousands of years, he also acknowledged that there was a time where it didn’t exist and then was “recreated” in 1948.
If we are commanded to bless Israel then, let us look to the Christians who lived at a time when there was not a nation-state or governmental entity which bore the name. If they sincerely cared for the commandments of God, then we can presume that they would have had a firm grasp on what Israel is and how to honor it.
In Robert Chazan’s collection of medieval European documents titled “Church, State, and Jew in the Middle Ages,” we find that, “The Church considered itself to be the ‘True Israel,’ the genuine heir to the legacy of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob… In the Christian view, Judaism had lost its vitality and viability and had degenerated into the fossilized remnant of a once eloquent vision.”
While this quote comes from documents that express the Roman Catholic attitude, this is something on which Orthodox and Catholics align. In the second century, St. Justin Martyr stated, “Christ is King of Israel, and Christians are the Israelite race.”
The beginning of Genesis 12, and particularly Genesis 12:3, which is often cited by those who believe in a biblical commandment to bless the modern secular state of Israel, is explained by St. Paul in Galatians 3:28-29:
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
And even earlier in Romans 9:6-8:
“But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, ‘In Isaac your seed shall be called.’ That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed.”
Abraham’s physical seed is Christ, and Christians mystically become children of Abraham through belief in the promise. That promise was fulfilled in the incarnate Christ.
If we were to continue to refute the beliefs of individuals like Cruz, Huckabee, and Fine, there is ample ammunition in the New Testament. The cursing of the fig tree and parable of the tenants in Matthew 21 and what is said about those who “say they are Jews, and are not” that we find in both Revelation 2:9 and Revelation 3:9 are examples.
And since people with this theological framework often quote verses regarding the Old Testament covenant, Jeremiah 31:31-36 also lays out clearly that all those who are in the New Covenant “shall know Me,” (meaning Christ, who the Jews rejected) and that, “If those ordinances depart from before Me, says the Lord, then the seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before Me forever.”
There is also a prophecy recorded by Moses in Deuteronomy 31:15-18:
"Then the Lord appeared at the tent in a pillar of cloud, and the cloud stood over the entrance to the tent. And the Lord said to Moses: 'You are going to rest with your ancestors, and these people will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake Me and break the covenant I made with them. And in that day I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed. Many disasters and calamities will come on them, and in that day they will ask, 'Have not these disasters come on us because our God is not with us?' And I will certainly hide my face in that day because of their wickedness in turning to other gods.'"
While there are many times throughout the Old Testament where the people turn away from the one true God, this breaking of the covenant finds its culmination in the destruction of the temple by the Romans in 70 A.D., which was prophesied by Christ in several Gospel accounts.
As the temple was the central place of worship for the Jewish people, and the constant reminder of God's presence among them, its destruction symbolizes something much more than the loss of a building. It is a complete breakdown in their relationship to God through their ultimate act of covenant breaking - the rejection of God in the killing of the Messiah.
This is why, in the Song of Moses just one chapter later in Deuteronomy 32, the prophet says, "Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people." The people of Israel was never synonymous with the tribe of Judah, and God's very promise to reconstitute Israel was the promise of the Gentiles everywhere into Israel - the people of God.
In the Sola Scriptura framework, though, other verses will be appealed to and any number of interpretations will be cited based on the individual’s reading of them. So, we must also appeal to science.
This is also a losing case for dispensationalists. If the people of Israel are a consistent people who have existed for thousands of years and are chosen by God, and should be honored as such, and if they don’t believe that those people are those individuals who are in the Church, then we should genetically track who the descendants of the ancient Jews are.
Unfortunately for their case, DNA indicates that Palestinian Christians are 88-97% Israelite, as they participated in a beautiful, ancient tradition – remaining in their homeland and converting to Christianity.
In an article from Orthodox Reflections titled, “Who are the Palestinian Christians,” a key point is shared:
“Palestinian Christians, and many Muslims as well, are the actual descendants of the Israelites – the Children of Abraham. Rabbinic Jews, by and large, are either not descended from the Israelites, or are so to a markedly lesser degree… This fact absolutely destroys Christian Zionism, particularly of the Dispensational variety, which believes dogmatically that modern Rabbinic Jews are the descendants of Abraham, to whom all the Old Testament covenants and prophecies still apply.”
The very Palestinians who have been displaced, oppressed and killed by the secular state of Israel are the very Palestinians who, if one were to make an argument for a material/regional people of Israel, would make the strongest case.
Now, the refuting of the dispensationalist idea of what Israel is, and who the descendants of the ancient Jews are, is one thing. The more alarming and immediate concern lies in what role dispensationalists believe the state of Israel holds in their misguided eschatology. These beliefs did not even take root until the 19th century, when John Nelson Darby introduced his theology of dispensation. This spread even further when Cyrus Ingerson Scofield published the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909, which relied heavily on dispensationalism in its notes.
In their eschatological view, Jews are a cog in the end-times equation which includes the rebuilding of the temple, the coming of the Antichrist (who then defiles the temple), the pre-tribulation Rapture, and after those left behind suffer, an earthly rule which includes a thousand-year reign following the second coming of Jesus.
“The Israel-church distinction means that promises and covenants made with Israel cannot find a complete fulfillment with the church since the church is not Israel, and God must fulfill His promises with the group to whom the promises originally were made” the Gospel Coalition, a reformed evangelical website, states.
Because of that, dispensationalists need Israel to go to war. They need the fulfilment of these prophecies by a secular nation, as they reject their fulfilment in the Church. They need a literal interpretation of Revelation to play out, as they have no Divine Liturgy in which it plays out each and every week.
For them, “Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it” (Revelation 1:3) doesn’t serve as an encouragement to participate in the mystical icon of heavenly worship we find in Christ’s Body – the Orthodox Church – but rather creates an almost schizophrenic need to attach oneself to any geopolitical movement that could be seen as the spark that ignites the beginning of the end.
This is the truest, most direct form of anti-semitism. No call to repentance and belief in Christ, no care for the salvation of the Jewish people, and a shallow, wordly care for the preservation of the state of Israel’s people insofar as they are carrying out dispensationalist prophecies. Once they do that, whether they live or die is of no concern – the elect will be raptured into the heavens, leaving them behind.
“For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add him to the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
He who testifies these things says, ‘Surely I am coming quickly.’
Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.”
- Revelation 22:18-21
