Israel-Palestine

WHOSE LAND IS IT ANYWAY?

There are two groups of people who claim ownership of the land now occupied by Israel in Palestine. The Jews claim it as theirs because it is their historic homeland; the Palestinians claim at as theirs because their ancestors have lived there and cultivated the land for hundreds of years.

In a previous chapter we saw that the land was not empty when the Zionist settlers arrived. There were indeed people living there who had deep ancestral connections to the land. We also saw that prior to the advent of Zionism, the majority of Jews did not conceive of themselves as a people in need of a land and had no intention of returning to the land of their ancestors.

Nevertheless, the Zionists insist that the Land of Israel - however defined - belongs to the Jews. It is 'their land' to which they are entitled to return. There are two related justifications that are offered for this. The first is the ethno-historical claim that it is their land because their ancestors lived there for centuries until they were forcefully evicted from it in Roman times. The second is the theological claim that it is their land because God gave it to them as an 'eternal possession'. In this chapter we shall consider each of these arguments in turn.

Argument 1: The land belongs to the Jews because their ancestors lived there.

This argument seems to rest on the idea that the Jews who are now living in Israel are the direct physical descendants of those who left in AD70. However, in most cases this seems unlikely for a variety of reasons. Steve Gregg explains:

''In 1970 the Israeli Knesset adopted legislation defining a Jew as one born of a Jewish mother or a convert.'1

'If a Jewish woman marries a Gentile man, then her children will be regarded as Jews, though they have only 50% Jewish blood. If one of her daughters marries a man of Gentile stock, then the children of this union will also be regarded as Jewish, though their bloodline is only 25% Jewish, and so forth. If this process were to continue through two more generations, then the great, great grandchildren would still be considered racially Jewish, though their bloodline would be 6.25% Jewish and 93.75% Gentile. Three more generations of the same would produce Jewish children who were less than 1% racially Jewish.

'Has such mixture of Jewish blood occurred in history? Biblically, we know of many cases - e.g. all of Jacob’s sons, as well as Moses and Solomon all married Gentile women. Salmon (a Jew) married Rahab (a Canaanite); Boaz (a Jew) married Ruth (a Moabitess); Bathsheba (probably a Jew) married Uriah (a Hittite); Esther (a Jew) married Xerxes (a Persian); Timothy’s mother Eunice (a Jew) married a Gentile man (Timothy’s father).

'The Jewish Encyclopedia, volume 6, says: 'The Israelites during the pre-exilic period did intermarry with the Gentiles... The offspring of marriages with the Idumeans and Egyptians were to be admitted to the congregation of the Lord... Marriage with converted Gentiles was no longer regarded as intermarriage.'

'The same authority states that, in 1900, 9.3% of Jewish marriages were racially mixed with Gentiles. From 1921-1925, about 42% of Germany’s Jews married Gentiles. Jews in every part of the world bear the physical characteristics of the Gentiles in the same lands, suggesting a high degree of racial mixing.

"Perhaps as much as a third of the Jews in Italy were not descendants of Abraham...but the descendants of Romulus and Remus, inasmuch as their ancestors were former pagans who had converted to Judaism as far back as AD100. The story was much the same in France and Germany.'2

'Time Magazine, in 1975, reported that one-third of American Jewish marriages are racially-mixed. Dr. Camille Honig, a Jewish authority, and literary editor of the Jewish Voice of California, wrote: 'If you studied Jewish types and communities in five continents, as this writer had the opportunity of doing, you would have realised that it is sheer nonsense, and very dangerous nonsense, as well as unscientific, to speak about a Jewish race.'

'The Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1973, volume 12, states: 'The findings of physical anthropology show that, contrary to the popular view, there is no Jewish race.'

'Of the nearly 4,000,000 Jews in Israel: 'Approximately 47% are Israeli-born, but their immediate forebears came from more than one-hundred different countries and spoke eighty-five different languages or major dialects. The two major groupings are European or Western (Ashkenazi) Jews, who make up about 31 per cent of the Jewish population, and Asian or North African (Sephardic) Jews, who make up about 28 per cent.'1

'The Ashkenazim 'are the Jews whose ancestors lived in German lands. The name derives from the traditional Hebrew name for Germany. During and after the Middle Ages, Ashkenazim spread all over Europe (except in the Mediterranean). From there they migrated overseas, retaining their Yiddish language.'3

'Then according to an article in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1973, volume 13, from the 6th century onward, an empire of people known as Khazars formed part of the western Turkic empire. They were attacked in 1016 by a coalition of the Russians and the Byzantine emperor, and their territories were thereafter made subject to Byzantium. In 740, the Khazar ruler, and probably the greater part of the ruling class, converted to Judaism.

'The Encyclopedia Americana, volume 16, says that the Khazars 'were a people, probably of Finnic stock, who lived around the Caspian Sea and in the spurs of the Caucasus mountains from about AD190 to 1100. Many of them adopted the Jewish faith from Jews who fled persecution at Constantinople during the 700s. The Jews of modern Russia may have an admixture of Khazar blood.'

'The American People's Encyclopedia, 1964 says: 'In AD740 the Khazars were officially converted to Judaism. A century later they were cursed by the in-coming Slavic-speaking people and were scattered over central Europe where they were known as Jews. It is from this grouping that most German and Polish Jews are descended, and they make up a considerable part of that population now found in America. The term Ashkenazim is now applied to this division.'

'The Jewish Encyclopedia, Third Edition, 1925 describes the Khazars as 'a people of Turkish origin whose life and history are interwoven with the very beginnings of the history of the Jews of Russia.'

'Arthur Koestler in The Thirteenth Tribe wrote: 'In the 1960s, the number of the Sephardim was estimated at 500,000 and the number of Ashkenazim at about 11 million. Thus, in common parlance, Jew is synonymous with Ashkenazi Jew.'

'Alfred Lilienthal, in What Price Israel writes: 'These Ashkenazim Jews have little or no trace of Semitic blood.''4

In summary, Steve says:

'It seems unlikely that many (or any) modern individuals are of unmixed Jewish ancestry. Through the generations since the last diaspora (AD70), being Jewish has largely been determined by religious and cultural practices - that is, by circumcision and (selective) Torah and Talmudic observance. Historically, a family observing Passover and a Saturday Sabbath has been regarded as a Jewish family, whereas a family observing Christmas and worshiping on Sunday has been regarded as a Christian family. Race has had little to do with it.

'The children of a family that follows Jewish culture and traditions are called Jewish, regardless of ancestry. On the other hand, multitudes today, whose parents identified themselves as Jews, and who were raised with that identity, are no longer observant of Judaism, but have embraced atheism, Buddhism, Christianity, and other non-Jewish beliefs and cultures. Their children, like their parents, soon lose any identity as Jewish.'4

One might also dispute the claim that the Jewish people were forcibly evicted from the land of Palestine by the Romans. It is true that many of them fled persecution following the Jewish–Roman wars of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. The Roman suppression of the revolts led to mass displacement, enslavement and forced migration, which significantly expanded the Jewish diaspora across the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. However, it is important to note that a large Jewish diaspora existed even before these Roman conflicts, often a result of voluntary migration for trade and economic opportunities, or the earlier Babylonian exile. 

It is also important to note that while many Jews were dispersed as a result of persecution in Roman times, a continuous, though smaller, community remained in the land. Which means that the Palestinians who presently occupy the land are at least as likely to be descended from Jews who lived in it in Roman times as are the modern day Jews who are now said to be returning to it. Indeed the Palestinians have more right to claim it as their land than do the Jews now settling there since most of the Palestinians have their ancestral roots in the land, whereas most Israelis have theirs in Eastern Europe or elsewhere rather than in Palestine. 

In spite of all this, Israeli scientists have been trying to prove that there is a genetic connection between the Jews of Roman Palestine and those of present-day Israel. However, even if such a connection could be proven, it would still need to be established that modern day Jews are entitled on this basis to take over the land from its present inhabitants. Ilan Pappe dismisses the logic of such a claim:

Argument 2: The land belongs to the Jews because God gave it to them.

So we come now to the claim that the Jews own the land because God gave it to them as an 'eternal possession'. We have already seen that the promises given to Abraham and his 'seed' were never inherited on the basis of physical descent from Abraham but on the basis of faith, like Abraham's, in Christ as the true seed of Abraham. It is through Him that Jews who were faithful to God under the terms of the Old Covenant received God's blessing and it is through Him that both Jews and Gentiles who are faithful under the terms of the New Covenant now together receive His blessing. 'If you belong to Christ' says Paul, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise' (Galatians 3: 29).

Elsewhere Paul makes it clear that all of God's promises to His covenant people are fulfilled in Christ. There are no exceptions. 'All the promises of God', he says, 'find their Yes in Him. (2 Corinthians 1: 20 ESV). And this, as we shall now discover, includes the promise of land. This promise, just like all the others, is fulfilled in Christ and inherited by all those who belong to Him. This strongly suggests that ultimately, the promise of land was never just about a parcel of land in the Middle East. Our inheritance in Christ is so much greater than that as we shall see!

Ilan Pappe, commenting on the early Jewish Zionists says:

'They wanted both to secularise Jewish life and to use the Bible as a justification for colonising Palestine. In other words, though they did not believe in God (they nonetheless believed) He had promised them the land.'5

Were they right and are Christian Zionists right to believe that God has given the land of Palestine to Israel forever? In order to answer this question, we will first of all consider the Promised Land, and what the Bible says about the nature of the promises given to Israel concerning it. We will then consider the promises given to Abraham, including the promise of land, and how the New Testament writers consider these promises to have been fulfilled.

The Promised Land

There are four features of the way the promise of land was understood in the Old Testament that are important for us to consider.

The land is a gift from God

The land originally known as Canaan was undoubtedly a gift from God to His people Israel. Colin Chapman says:

'The land is described with almost monotonous regularity as ‘the land which the Lord your God is giving you’ or ‘the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance’ or ‘the land which the Lord your God has given you’. These expressions are repeated so often that it is easy to miss the point. The land did not belong to the Israelites and their ancestors since the beginning of time. They could not claim that they had owned it from time immemorial. It came to them at this particular time as a gift from God. They had done nothing to deserve it, and they had not acquired it through their own cleverness or skill in war. God had said very clearly and simply: 

'The land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants.' (Leviticus 25: 23).

'Since this is how the land came to them, it must always be seen as something given by God – an undeserved, unsolicited gift. It is a sign of the incredible generosity of God.'6

The land belongs to God

Although given to the people of Israel as His gift to them, the land still remained God's. Israel were never the outright owners; they were more like stewards or tenants of the land God had given them. Munther Isaac puts it this way:

'When it comes to the question 'To whom does the land belong?' the Bible is crystal clear. The land belongs to God (Genesis 1: 1; Psalm 24: 1; Deuteronomy 1: 4). And so, when God promised biblical Israel the land, those promises were utterly clear that the land would remain God’s nevertheless: 'The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants' (Leviticus 25: 23). 'The land is mine,' says God! The land given to biblical Israel was always intended to remain God’s land.

'In response to the contemporary question of whose land it is, we can say with confidence that the land does not belong to any people, nation, ethnicity, or religion. It belongs to God.'7

Possession of the land was not unconditional

'The land in the Bible was given to biblical Israel as a gift, but that does not make it Israel’s property. The land is not simply an arbitrary gift for Israel’s enjoyment but rather a mandate that comes with responsibility. This is the reason why Israel was brought into a land in the first place. As Chris Wright puts it, 'Like all tenants, therefore, Israelites were accountable to their divine landlord for proper treatment of what was ultimately his property.'8

'Biblical Israel was given a land as part of a wider mandate from God. God gave them a land to live in so that Israel could subsist and embody the ideals of God on earth and serve as an example and a message to the other nations.

'Serious analysis of the biblical narrative will show that the land was not given to Israel unconditionally. The key word here is covenant, and in the framework of the covenant, the promises of the land were always conditional. Another way to look at it is this: because the land belongs to God, those bound in a covenant must respect the will of God for the land and not defile it. In biblical times, these demands from the land applied to the nations that were in the land of Canaan before the Israelites entered the land, and it applied to the Israelites when they dwelt in it. Leviticus 18 warns that if Israel does not keep the Lord’s statutes, the land would vomit them out as it did the nations before them.

'We can speak of several requirements that Israel was to observe if it was to stay in covenant with God. For example, they had to refrain from idolatry; worshiping other gods would cause Israel to forfeit its right to stay in the land. Another requirement was to enact justice. Perhaps no other sin in the Hebrew Bible was tied more directly to being expelled from the land than the sin of socioeconomic injustice: 'Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the LORD your God is giving you' (Deuteronomy 16: 20 ESV). According to Jeremiah, God would let the people dwell in the land only 'if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt' (Jeremiah 7: 5-6).

'I could list so many more texts that highlight the importance of justice in Scripture and that link the loss of land with injustice. If only Christian Zionists would take the demands of justice seriously! Indeed, all Christians should take these demands for justice as integral aspects of their faith.

'Here is the point: these laws and others are a reminder that the promises of the land were always contingent on obedience and faithfulness to the covenant.'7

The land was not given to Israel literally 'forever'

In Genesis 17: 8 God said to Abraham: 'The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.'

We have already seen, however, that the promise of land was conditional on Israel's faithfulness to the covenant - which means that it could be revoked if Israel were unfaithful. There are a number of other promises given in the Bible that were similarly said to be 'forever' but were ultimately revoked because of the unfaithfulness of those to whom they were given.

'For example, in 1 Samuel 2: 30, God tells Eli that although He had made a promise of eternal priesthood to the members of his family, using the term forever, He is now, surprisingly, revoking this eternal promise on the basis that 'those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be treated with contempt'. This is indeed amazing, and a challenge to any naive and simplistic literal reading of Scripture. God says, 'You will go before me forever' but then shortly afterwards says of what He had promised, 'Far be it from me!' 

'This verse and others in the Hebrew Scriptures show that eternal promises can indeed be revoked by God. Forever does not mean an absolute and irrevocable guarantee regardless of other factors such as faithfulness and obedience.'

'When God said, 'The whole land of Canaan...I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you' (Genesis 17: 8), 'everlasting' did not absolve Israel of responsibility. The promise was not meant to be a legal and binding document, valid at any time for anyone who claimed to be a descendant of Abraham. 'Forever' does not negate any element of responsibility and accountability. The Israelites were beholden to the covenant, to the promises of conduct and obedience made before God.'7

Furthermore, the Hebrew word olam (translated 'everlasting') need not necessarily mean 'for all time'. Whilst it clearly does mean 'for all time' when used of God, elsewhere it can simply mean 'for a long time'. So Colin Chapman asks:

'Does olam mean 'for all time' when it occurs in God’s promise of the land to Abraham and his descendants? Christian Zionists emphasise that God promised the land of Canaan to them 'as an everlasting possession' (Genesis 17: 8), and argue that this must be taken at its face value, demonstrating that the Jewish people have a right - a divine right - to the land for all time. 

'What happens, however, when we put the divine promise concerning the land alongside several other divine promises in the Old Testament that use the word olam, and ask if Christians interpret them all in a very literal way? In the following verses, the same Hebrew word olam is translated by the words 'forever', 'everlasting' and 'lasting' (italicised below):

• The land: 'I will give to you, and to your offspring after you...all the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession' (Genesis 17: 8).

• The Sabbath: 'It is a sign forever between me and Israel (Exodus 31: 17).

• The Passover: 'You shall observe it as a lasting ordinance' (Exodus 12: 14). 

• The festival of Tabernacles: 'You shall keep it as a festival to the LORD...as a statute forever throughout your generations.' (Leviticus 23: 41). 

• The Day of Atonement: 'This shall be a statute...forever' (Leviticus 16: 29). 

• The ordination of Aaron and his sons as priests: 'The priesthood shall be theirs by a lasting ordinance' (Leviticus 29: 7–9). 

• The line of king David: 'I will raise up your offspring after you...and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever' (2 Samuel 7: 12–13). 

• Solomon's temple in Jerusalem: 'the house of which the LORD had said, ‘In Jerusalem shall be my name forever’ (2 Chronicles 33: 4).

• The vision of God dwelling in the restored temple in Jerusalem: 'This is the place...where I will reside among the people of Israel forever' (Ezekiel 43: 7).  

'While Jews today still recognise their obligation to keep the festivals of Passover, Tabernacles, and the Day of Atonement, Christians don’t feel the same obligation. They have no difficulty in seeing the promise to Aaron about his priestly line and the promise to David about his royal line as being fulfilled in Jesus. They don’t believe that God still dwells in Jerusalem and its temple, because they see Jesus as the fulfilment of all that the temple symbolised. It is in Jesus that God has come to dwell among us. 

'If the word 'forever' (olam) is not understood literally by Christians in all these contexts, is there any reason to insist that the promise about the land 'as an everlasting possession' must be interpreted literally? Frederic Martin sums up the more convincing, non-literal way of understanding 'forever': 

'Careful study of the Old and New Testament demonstrate that it is better to understand the Hebrew word olam in a less absolute sense than the English words 'forever' and 'everlasting'. The term is better interpreted as describing something that is of 'indefinite continuance into the very distant future.' Practices that are described in the Old Testament as olam may last a long time, but they do not necessarily continue into perpetuity or apply in the future in exactly the same way they did before.'9 '10

Given that Israel's possession of the land of Canaan was clearly linked to God's covenant with them in the Old Testament it seems to me that olam should be understood to mean 'for the duration of the covenant'. When used of the land of Canaan, the priesthood and Old Testament festivals, as in the first six references listed above, it means 'for the duration of the Mosaic covenant'. When used in connection with David's kingdom and Solomon's Temple, as in the remaining three references above, it means 'for the duration of the Davidic covenant.' 

Israel's continuing possession of the land was linked to the Old Covenant and was the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham throughout the period when this was in force. But that was only stage one in the story of God's faithfulness to His promises. Much more was to come. When we come into the New Testament we discover that God has neither rejected His people nor abandoned His promises. He continues to be faithful to His people - who now include both Jews and Gentiles - and He continues to be faithful to the promises given to Abraham but now in a much deeper, wider and greater way through the New Covenant which is brought into effect through the sacrificial death of Jesus - the true Seed of Abraham.

The Promises Given To Abraham

When it comes to understanding the promises given to Abraham and his descendants in relation to land, and how these are being fulfilled today, the first question we must ask is: Where is this land and what are its borders? Tony Deik points out that in the Pentateuch alone, God gives three different borders to the promised land (Genesis 15: 18-20, Numbers 34: 1-12 and Deuteronomy 11: 24).11 In a podcast about his book, The Land Of Christ, Yohanna Katanacho says:

'Different Old Testament texts speak of different borders. Some of the borders are from the Nile to the Euphrates other borders are from Dan to Beersheba; other borders are smaller but the borders kept moving and so the question is a valid one: If God gave Israel the land what are the borders of this land?'12

He goes on to say:

'It seems to me that the fluidity of the land is intentional because ultimately God wants the whole earth to be blessed. God wants all the nations to come to Him and worship Him. And God wants to redeem humanity and every part of the world and this for me has been embodied clearly in Jesus Christ.12 

Munther Isaac says:

'The universal extension of the land can be seen in many passages and expressions related to the land, starting from Abraham’s time. In Genesis 13: 14–17, the land is delimited but its borders are not defined: 

'The Lord said to Abram...Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.'13 

In Genesis 22: 17-18 God says:

'I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.'

Later, in Genesis 28: 13-14, God tells Jacob:

'I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.'

Katanacho rightly comments: 

'It seems that the land of Abraham is not going to have fixed borders. It will continue to expand as it conquers the gates of the enemies, thus increasing in size both territorially and demographically. The land of Abraham will continue to extend until it is equal to the whole earth.'14

And Munther Isaac says:

'It therefore follows that we can speak of two concepts of the Promised Land in the Old Testament: the one realised – Canaan, and the one anticipated – the earth. Canaan, the land of promise, is the first stage in the realisation of the universal promise. The fact that the Old Testament continually speaks of these universal dimensions of the land makes Israel look forward and anticipate further expansions of the land, and this explains why Israel conceives of her kingship as ultimately or ideally universal.'13

Munther argues that the promise of land has been universalised in Christ. Whereas Psalm 37: 11 says 'the meek will inherit the land, Jesus says 'the meek will inherit the earth' (Matthew 5: 5). Whereas the commandment to 'honour your father and mother in Exodus 20: 12 includes the promise 'so that you may live a long time in the land' Paul interprets it for his readers in Ephesians 6: 2 as meaning 'so that...you may enjoy long life on the earth.' Most convincingly of all, when Paul refers to the land promised to Abraham in Romans 4: 13 he says: 'It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith.' By faith in Christ we inherit the earth and, for Paul, this is the fulfillment and universalisation of the promise given to Abraham that his descendants would inherit the land.

This is just what the Old Testament prophets had predicted. They envisaged that the kingdom over which the Messiah would reign would be a universal one. 

'For example, Psalm 2: 8 declares that God will give the king the nations as his inheritance and the ends of the earth as his possession. Micah 5: 4 says that the ruler of Bethlehem 'shall be great to the ends of the earth' (emphasis added), and Zechariah 9: 10 speaks of the coming king, that 'his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth' (emphasis added). Isaiah 54: 2-4 speaks clearly about the expansion of Jerusalem in the age to come.

'All of this pushes us to the conclusion that the theology of the land...is not about a small piece of real estate in the ANE or about the small ethnic group that inherited it. The land is part of a larger scheme that is about redeeming and restoring the whole of creation. The restoration of the whole earth starts with one particular land and one family. The particularity of Israel is not a hindrance to the universal mission, but rather the necessary and divinely ordained means towards fulfilling it. This movement from the particular to the universal is integral to the biblical pattern of redemption.'13

However, Munther is also keen to point out that land still has an important part to play in Christian theology:

'The apparent lack of attention given to the land in the NT, and the way Jesus and the NT writers diverted attention away from the Jewish nationalistic hopes in the first century have caused many to conclude that land is no longer important. However, the land is still important but now it has been expanded or universalised, and 'it has been universalised precisely with reference to land.'15

'The hope for eternity in heaven is very common in popular Christianity. Many Christians are heaven-oriented and not land-oriented, and many theological traditions provide an environment for such ideas to flourish... Whereas the Old Testament is about an earthly kingdom and earthly blessings, the New Testament is about a spiritual kingdom and spiritual blessings... The Christian mission is thus defined as primarily about then and there, not the here and now. The Christian hope is one of escape from this earth into heaven, not the restoration of this earth.'13

The universalisation of the land does not mean either the spiritualisation of the land promises of the Old Testament or their postponement to the future. The Kingdom of God, as envisaged by the Old Testament prophets has been inaugurated by Jesus. It is already here, and it is already growing throughout the world as a physical and earthly reality which foreshadows, albeit imperfectly, the physical and earthly reality of the new heavens and the new earth which will come into being when Jesus returns and the Kingdom of God is finally consummated.

'It is true that the kingdom of God comes in two stages (inaugurated, then consummated), but there is a continuation between what was inaugurated and what will be consummated. The consummation consummates what has already been inaugurated. This is different from speaking about two seemingly distinct phases, one spiritual and another physical.

'The New Testament theology of the land is in its essence missional as the first followers of Jesus are sent out to 'make disciples of all nations' (Matthew 28: 19) and as the kingdom of God thus becomes rooted and established in other lands as it once was in the land of Israel alone. Therefore:

'Israel in the land can and should function as a paradigm for the mission of churches in new lands. A missional theology of the land attempts to apply a Christian version of Israel’s theology of her land in each new land. It is essentially a movement from land (singular) to lands (plural).

'This means that the church must engage with the social, political, and economical spheres. It will not do for us to focus only on the salvation of souls or on the sins of the individuals. The biblical vision of redemption involves the redemption of lands and societies. The kingdom that Jesus inaugurated is not a spiritual or invisible one. The kingdom shapes social actions, such as how to treat the poor, marginalised, neighbor, enemy, money and possessions.

'A missional theology of the land also demands that we re-evaluate our definition and understanding of terms like 'evangelism' and 'gospel'. This will help us avoid the dichotomy that exists among many Christians today between defining the gospel as 'the salvation of souls' on the one hand and 'social action' on the other. The gospel includes both and the two cannot be separated. This is not simply a matter of 'both...and...' Rather, the two are one. To accept the salvation of Christ is to submit and participate in His kingdom agenda. To be saved is to join the community of faith that is committed to applying and promoting God’s kingdom agenda on earth. To be engaged in social action is to call people to believe in Jesus. When Jesus sent his disciples to the world he commanded them to 'teach them to keep my commandments' - and Jesus certainly commanded acts of love, compassion, generosity and justice. God’s mission, as seen in his instruction to ancient Israel and the great commission, is holistic, and therefore the mission of the church must be holistic as well.

'Finally, a missional theology of the land requires that churches define their mission in relation to territory. Churches do not exist in a vacuum or an ethereal reality. Location and context do matter. The mission of the church should be a response to the context and as such is defined by this context... This understanding of ecclesiology is extremely important. It emphasises the rootedness of the church in the land. A church in a particular land exists for the sake of that land and takes her mission agenda from it. The church, in other words, derives much of its purpose from its locale. This is not simply a matter of contextualizing the Christian gospel and making it more 'relevant.' This has to do with the self-definition of the church. This requires that each church identifies its territory and claims this territory as the realm of her vicegerency. The mission of the church in the world is, after all, a declaration of the sovereignty of the Son of God over all the lands of the world. The local church needs to apply this global reign of Christ in its own distinctive locality.

'It is crucial to underscore, of course, that declaring a territory as belonging to God and announcing Jesus as Lord over it is not done by military or political means. The church cannot rely on power or the secular authorities to implement the reign of God... The church conquers the world not by weapons or force. The kingdom of God expands through preaching and evangelism in both word and deed. The non-violent and sacrificial approach of the Messiah determines the nature of his reign and the method and approach of his followers. The kingdom, though violently resisted (Acts 14: 22), is to expand non-violently through sacrificial service and the power of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2: 3–5).'13

This illustrates the importance of reading the Old Testament in light of the New. It is vital to understand how the authors of New Testament, inspired by the Holy Spirit, understood the promises and prophecies of the Old Testament and their fulfillment in Christ. Failure to do so in relation to the nation and land of Israel in recent days has in my view resulted in misguided support from Christians for the genocidal campaign of the modern state of Israel in Gaza. To me, this is a salutary reminder of the importance of good theology. Bad theology not only damages the witness of the church throughout the world. Bad theology kills.

Munther deals with the theology of the Holy Land in much more depth in his book 'From Land to Lands, from Eden to the Renewed Earth which I highly commend. As usual, click on the image below to find out more and to order a copy from Amazon.

Conclusion

The idea that the land of Palestine belongs to the Jews because their ancestors once lived there, as we have seen, is entirely false. It has no legal or historical basis whatsoever. Even if it could be proved that the Jews who left the land in Roman times were the ancestors of those 'returning' to it today, this does not give them the right to take back the land from those who live there now and whose ancestors have rightfully lived there for centuries. 

We have also seen that to argue that the Jews of today own the land because God gave it to them is also entirely false. The Biblical and theological basis on which this is often argued is completely mistaken. To argue this way is to ignore how the New Testament writers understood the promises given to Abraham to have been fulfilled. They are quite clear that it is through Christ and those who are in Him that all God's promises - including the promise of land - are being fulfilled today. As Christians, Paul says, we are the true children of Abraham, the inheritors of all that was promised to him, not because we are his natural descendants but because like him we have been born into God's family through faith in Jesus Christ. And in Him we inherit not just a piece of land in the Middle East but the whole earth!

Notes

1. Funk & Wagnall's New Encyclopedia, 1979, volume 14

2. Jews, God and History by Max I. Dimont

3. Encyclopedia Americana

4. https://www.matthew713.com/sites/default/files/documents/what_are_we_to_make_of_Israel_2023.pdf 

5. Ten Myths Of Israel by Ilan Pappe

6. Whose Promised Land? by Colin Chapman

7. The Other Side Of The Wall by Munther Isaac

8. Old Testament Ethics For The People Of God by Christopher JH Wright

9. American Evangelicals and Modern Israel by Frederic Martin, quoting AA MacRae in Theological Word Book of the Old Testament edited by R Laird Harris, Gleason J Archer Jr and Bruce K Waltke 

10. Christian Zionism And The Restoration Of Israel by Colin Chapman

11. In a talk given at the Jesus, Justice And Gaza event in Rostrevor on 25 October 2025

12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEaVy-OOrcA&t=677s 

13. From Land To Lands, From Eden To The Renewed Earth by Munther Isaac

14. The Land Of Christ by Yohanna Katanacho

15. Jesus And Israel by David E Holwerda