RE-INTERPRETING SCRIPTURE
/By Daniel C. Juster Th.D./ *
www.tikkunministries.org/newsletters/dj-sep07.asp

    Recently I was asked to review two books that have a very negative
    slant on the modern State of Israel. I wrote a lengthy letter to one
    of the authors and have had extensive dialogue with the brother who
    recommended one of the books. Both books emphasize in detail
    Israel's sins against the Palestinian Arabs (as if this should
    change our understanding of what Scripture says?). There is plenty
    of factual material for both Israelis and Palestinians to make a one
    sided case against the other. However, the most alarming assertion
    in these books was that because the New Testament does not
    explicitly emphasize the promise of the Land to the Jewish people,
    this must not be a continuing promise. In addition, both authors
    held that the New Testament re-interprets the Old Testament and
    universalized the idea of the Promised Land as a place for all God's
    people. "The meek shall inherit the earth."

    * The Concept of Re-interpretation*

    A recent book by a very prominent Catholic also used the idea of the
    New Testament as re-interpreting the Old. The Roman Catholic Church
    has repudiated replacement theology; the idea that the Church has
    replaced Israel or is the superceding ongoing meaning of Israel.
    However, this book described the Church as forming a new universal
    Israel with greater transcendent significance. It argues that the
    New Testament teaches that the Church, to a significant degree, is
    the fulfillment of the promises to Israel. The choosing of 12
    disciples is given as further evidence. In this viewpoint, old
    Israel is not rejected (which is contrary to official Catholic
    doctrine) but is certainly diminished.

    * Is the Land Promised to Israel?*

    Let's look at the easier matter first - the claim that the New
    Testament does not affirm the promise of the Land to Israel, but
    universalizes this promise as meaning the future inheritance of all
    believers. The New Testament Scriptures write to the specific
    situations at hand and do not present a systematic theology. There
    was no need to re-state what was clearly stated in the Hebrew
    Scriptures, the only Bible at that time. The Gospels were written to
    preserve the record of the ministry of Yeshua when the original
    Apostolic Company was dying out. The Epistles were written to
    respond to specific challenges in the Gentile congregations. Of
    course, these writings have applications for all believers in all
    times.

    However, when Paul specifically writes concerning the issue of
    Israel, because of the arrogance amongst Gentiles in Rome, he is as
    explicit as we could ever desire. Romans 9-11 is very clear. When he
    states in Romans 9, "Theirs are the covenants," such covenants
    obviously include the content of the promises within them. When Paul
    states in Romans 11:29, that "the gifts and call of God (to Israel)
    are irrevocable," the gift of the Land is again obviously one of
    those gifts. In addition, why would this issue of Land be addressed
    in the first century? The Land at that time was populated by Jews.
    Yes, there was Roman occupation and government. However, no one
    doubted that this was the Jewish land. It simply was not an issue!

    * Does the New Testament Have to Repeat the Content of the Hebrew
    Bible?*

    The viewpoint that the New Testament must directly speak about all
    important issues, even if clearly asserted in the Hebrew Scriptures,
    is a foolish one. The New Testament does not deal with some of the
    issues of economic justice, but the Hebrew Bible does when it
    enjoins the cancellation of debt on Sabbatical and Jubilee years. It
    does not describe how courts should operate, but this is a crucial
    issue. Are we to then conclude that just courts are now abandoned
    because this is not addressed? New Covenant Scriptures do not define
    what constitutes incest. Leviticus gives us the list of forbidden
    relationships. Are we to ignore this because it is not repeated in
    the New Covenant scriptures?

    This approach smacks of the very arrogance against which Paul
    speaks. If the New Testament re-interprets the Old so that Israel is
    now the Church and the Land is the earth, we have a huge problem.
    This approach does not allow the texts of the Hebrew Bible to speak
    on their own terms with the integrity of their straightforward
    meaning; the result is they can be made to say something other than
    what the author intended. That is the core problem with the whole
    concept of re-interpretation. For this reason, Messianic Jews do not
    like to use the terms Old Testament and New Testament, but instead
    use non-prejudiced terms like the Hebrew Scriptures and the New
    Covenant Scriptures.

    Scripture after Scripture in context states that the Jewish people
    will never cease to be a people before God and that they will
    ultimately inherit the Land, never again to be uprooted (Jeremiah
    23:5-8; 31:35-37; Ezekiel 36:24-28). This is sufficient for our
    teaching. With integrity, this cannot be re-interpreted as fulfilled
    by "the Church as the ongoing meaning of Israel," or by "the Church
    which is preserved and will inherit the earth."

    * The Church and Prophetic Analogy*

    The New Covenant Scriptures do speak of the New Covenant People of
    God, the Body of the Messiah, in terms that are analogous to what is
    said about ethnic Israel. It uses the very language of the Hebrew
    Bible to make such statements. Believers are called a royal
    priesthood reminiscent of Exodus 19 (I Peter 2:9, 10). They are
    called the Bride of Yeshua as Israel is called the Wife of God. What
    is going on here? This is not a matter of re-interpretation so that
    the original meaning of the text is now changed. Rather, the Spirit
    speaks new revelation by prophetic analogies to what was promised to
    ancient Israel. This new revelation tells us that the Body of
    Believers, rooted in Israel and called the commonwealth of Israel in
    Ephesians 2, has parallel promises to Israel. In Messiah, Gentile
    believers become children of Abraham. Hence, they are blessed with
    promises that apply to Abraham's descendants. Indeed, they will
    inherit the Earth, for in the Age to Come, the whole Earth becomes
    Promised Land. Thus there are many new applications for the
    promises. However this is the Age where the Jewish people come into
    their inheritance in the central Promised Land that is allotted to
    them. The meaning of the Passover-exodus will be applied to all
    nations. The whole earth will experience the prosperity promised to
    ancient Israel as a reward for faithfulness in their Land. This was
    anticipated in the prophets, for the earth will be full of the
    knowledge of the Lord (Isaiah 11:9). I call this theology "addition
    theology."

    Addition theology has many benefits. It recognizes that the New
    Covenant made with Israel includes Gentiles. It recognizes that the
    meaning of covenant relationship and priesthood has been expanded to
    include all who come to faith through Yeshua. It recognizes a bridal
    position for the Body of Believers that is no less than the position
    of the priesthood of the Jewish people. It embraces the universal
    fellowship that is the new reality brought into being by Yeshua. At
    the same time, it reaffirms the promises made to the Ancient Nation
    of Israel which should be taken in a straightforward manner. God
    does not speak in a fast and loose way so that His words can mean
    something so apart from what would have comforted the original
    listeners. Imagine saying to the ancient Israelites that the promise
    of never being again plucked up from their Land means that people
    from all nations would be called of God and would inherit the earth.
    These would have hardly been considered as adequate, comforting
    words of assurance directed to them as an ethnic people. The Jewish
    people understood these words rightly in their obvious sense.

    *Deriving our Theology from the Integrity of Each Text*

    This becomes very important to how we are to do theology. Wherever
    possible, we are to take every text in context as it was intended by
    the author and as it would have been understood. The meaning of each
    Bible text and each book is to be organized and harmonized with the
    assertions from other texts and books, but never by doing violence
    to the text. What do we mean by doing violence to a text? It is to
    re-interpret a text so as to forgo its intended meaning.

    The weight of the texts of the Hebrew Bible concerning the
    preservation of the Jewish people, their return to the Land and
    their inheritance in the Land are very clear and plentiful. This
    will be the natural conclusion of any open minded (unbiased) reader
    of the Hebrew Bible, unless he has been indoctrinated against a
    straightforward reading of the texts. So let us take heart and not
    be shaken! Those who work for the return of the Jews to their
    ancient Land and are part of the effort to bring the Jewish people
    to the knowledge of Yeshua are living out the truth of the Word of God.

    By Daniel Juster Th.D.