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A Christian pastor in congress called for making Gaza into another Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In other words, he agrees with Senator Lindsey Graham.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjKZfx-yzTQ
Having grown up as a Christian Zionist, I understand the root of this problem. It goes back to a misinterpretation of Genesis 12:3, “I [God] will bless those who bless you [Abraham] and the one who curses you I will curse.” This is commonly taken to mean that anyone who blesses the Jews will be blessed by God, and anyone who curses them will be cursed.
The practical outworking of this view says that Christians must support the Israelis at all costs and give them all the weapons they need to kill all Palestinians or expel them from the territory. In fact, they say that if we do not do this, then God will curse us. Protecting Israel, then, takes top priority, even over basic Christian morality.
The Christian pastor above is ignorant of the law of God as well as New Testament teaching. Who exactly are the children of Abraham? The pastor thinks they are the physical descendants of Abraham, and he assumes that the Jews fit that description. But what does the Bible say?
First of all, the Old Testament prophets did not give their unconditional support for the kingdoms of Israel or Judah. Much of their writings condemn their country. Did God curse them for this? No, it was the state that cursed them and turned them into martyrs.
Secondly, the pastor assumes that the Jews are the biblical Israelites. He fails to recognize that most of the prophets prophesied after the Divided Kingdom and that the term “Jew” is simply a modern English contraction of Judah. This ignorance makes many Christian pastors apply the prophecies given to Israel to the wrong nation.
This was reinforced in 1948 when the Zionists named their Jewish state “Israel,” even though some of the founders wanted to be more accurate and call it Judea or the Kingdom of Judea. In the end, they settled on “Israel” in order to trick the ignorant church into supporting the so-called “State of Israel,” as if this new state were founded by the lost tribes of Israel.
Regardless of this, Jesus tells us who the children of Abraham are NOT. John 8:39-41 reads,
39 They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. 40 But as it is, you are seeking to kill a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do. 41 You are doing the deeds of your father…”
Obviously, Jesus had a different definition of Abraham’s children. The Hebrew language often uses the terms father and children/sons to denote a one who does the deeds of—or who follows the example of—the one considered to be his father. There are children of wisdom, children of light, children of darkness, children of the devil, sons of Belial, etc. These terms are not to be interpreted in biological terms.
The apostle Paul makes the same point in Galatians 3:6-9,
6 Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. 7 Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. 8 The Scriptures, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.” 9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.
Hence, Abraham knew “the gospel” long before the Gospels were written. Paul implies that Abraham understood who his children were. He had a New Testament definition of his own children. They were those who shared his New Covenant faith in the promises of God, as seen in Romans 4:21- 24.
So if you have New Covenant faith, resulting in doing the works of Abraham, then you are Abraham’s children, regardless of your genealogy. You are the ones to whom Genesis 12:3 refers. If men bless you, they will be blessed. If men curse you, they will be cursed. Those who present their genealogy as proof of being children of Abraham will find themselves rejected by God. Even children of the devil can be descended biologically from Abraham.
Christian Zionists do not believe these things Jesus and Paul taught. For this reason, they find themselves on the wrong side of God’s Kingdom. They support an ungodly system that is run by children of the devil, and they think God will bless them for supporting genocide.
Jesus brought this issue to a head in John 8. The Israeli’s genocidal policy has again brought this issue to a head. If we know the truth, as Jesus said, and if we know the gospel, as Abraham did, then we will be on the right side of this conflict and will not be found supporting murder.