Why Israel’s return changes how we read the Bible

Ever since the nation of Israel returned to the map midway through the last century, Christians have been divided as to her significance. 

Some see her reappearance after an absence of nearly 2,000 years as a clear work of God, while others see it as no more than a work of man. Some see the modern nation as the resurrection and continuation of her biblical forebear, while others see no connection between old and new other than some shared characteristics. 

Needless to say, each group tends to react very differently whenever Israel hits the headlines, and the effects can divide families, friendships, and even churches. 

The division also seems irresolvable, as both groups claim legitimate biblical reasons for their position.The first group point to the many covenant promises and prophecies in the Old Testament that support the case for a future restoration of the nation, while the second group point to the fact that Jesus made the way of salvation equally available to all nations through faith alone.  

And so the two groups seem destined to remain at a seemingly insurmountable impasse. 

Changing perspectives 

Except it’s not as insurmountable as it seems. 

There is a way to break the deadlock. 

But it means both groups being open to looking at the Bible story in a different way. 

The Bible does have an overarching storyline, and understanding it is key to correctly interpreting the whole book. The catch, however, is that it doesn’t tell us what its storyline is. Given that it’s a compilation of 66 books written by about 40 authors over 1,500 years, this is not surprising, while it’s clearly a miracle that such a book has a coherent storyline at all. Nonetheless, it has always been up to the reader to discern what that storyline is. 

But how should a reader reliably discern this? Well, past examples show that this involves identifying the storyline that makes best sense of the Bible’s full content as well as its outworking in history. And that means readers have tended to come up with different storylines at different times. 

Israel’s story 

Take the days of Jesus, for example. At that time, the scriptures just comprised what today we call the Old Testament. These are primarily focussed on the nation of Israel, while the history of God’s activity in the earth for many centuries had also been mainly centred on that nation. It’s therefore fair to say that the people of that time had a distinctly Israel-centric view of God’s story. Their hope and expectation of the Messiah was that he would come to restore the Kingdom of God to their nation and re-establish their supremacy over all the other nations.  

We see this in the question the disciples repeatedly asked Jesus after his resurrection: “Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?” (Acts 1:6). They thought it was time for the Kingdom to subdue the nations, but Jesus responded that it was time instead for the Kingdom to spread to the nations. It was time for the Great Commission. He knew they didn’t perceive the full story of God and so challenged their expectations. 

And that challenge had to continue long after he ascended. Even after the Holy Spirit was poured out on the first disciples, it still took the persecution and scattering of the Jerusalem church, an angelic visitation to a Roman captain, and a rooftop vision to Peter for the gospel to be first preached to the Gentiles. Old-story mindsets are hard to shift! 

The Church’s story 

But shift they did, and the gospel was soon spreading fast into surrounding nations. The documents that would later comprise the New Testament were being written, distributed and collected, and the final shape of the Bible was starting to take form. At the same time, the newborn Church was starting to change form as it grew from exclusively Jewish to majority Gentile, and this introduced new influences and different ways of thinking.  

There would be one event above all others, however, that would soon push this different way of thinking towards a different take on the Bible’s storyline, and that was the sacking of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70. This wasn’t the first time the people of Israel had been exiled from their land, but it was the first time since the Church had begun and this time it looked permanent.  

So it wasn’t long before certain early church fathers were declaring that it was permanent, and this growing new perspective had a significant effect on their understanding of God’s story. Now rather than being about an earth-based physical expression of the Kingdom of God centred on Israel, the story was increasingly seen as being about a spiritual heaven-based expression of the Kingdom centred on Christ and his Church. That, in turn, shifted the emphasis of the Bible story to being primarily about how we can be saved from the earth into this heavenly kingdom, and this overarching understanding of the Bible as a story of salvation has generally stood firm and shaped the Church’s thinking ever since. 

A different story? 

But now back in the present we find that history has thrown yet another another curve ball: despite the assertions of the early church fathers, Israel has once again returned to the map. 

So how should we respond to this today? 

Well, as we’ve already noted, one response is to double down on the storyline and point out that modern Israel has no place in it, while the counter-response is to point to the promises of the covenants and prophets and argue that modern Israel should have a place in it.  

But there is a third response: shouldn’t we now be looking for a different storyline? After all, the right storyline is up to the reader to discern and should make best sense of the Bible’s full content and its outworking in history. That’s why the Church changed the story when history took Israel off the map, so shouldn’t we be doing the same now that history has put her back? 

Or to put it another way, what sort of storyline might the early church fathers have identified in the newly formed canon of scripture if they were convinced Israel’s story was not finished? What might that have given us today? 

Rethinking the story 

We can only speculate of course, but if the early church fathers were convinced that Israel would one day return, they certainly would have given themselves an easier task of interpreting the Old Testament prophets. The eventual restoration of Israel is a common theme in those books, so believing it to be true makes for much plainer reading.  

Take Isaiah chapter 2, for example. That starts with a vision of Jerusalem which is said to apply specifically to the “last days”, and it’s one where all the nations of this world are at peace because of the rule of God that goes out from the city. If Israel’s days ended with Jesus, then visions like this have to be reinterpreted to either apply to the nation in the past or symbolically to the Church in the future. But if Israel’s days are not over, then the vision can be taken as read. 

And with this clarity of vision in mind, the church fathers may have noticed that their freshly compiled New Testament concludes with John describing a very similar vision: a golden age where the nations of the earth are at peace under the rule of the Son of God. 

Furthermore, they may then have recalled that Jesus commanded us to pray for just such a vision to come to pass: “May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10) 

And as they followed this trail of breadcrumbs back through the Old Testament, they would have found that the origin of this vision appears on the very first page of the Bible, before the story of sin and salvation had even begun: “Then God blessed them and said: ’Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it.’” (Genesis 1:28).

In other words, if we don’t close ourselves off to the idea that Israel has an ongoing role in God’s story, our eyes become open to seeing the storyline which that role reveals. Not just the storyline of salvation which began with the Fall in Genesis chapter 3, but the story of God’s Kingdom that began with the Call in Genesis 1: the call for humanity to fill the earth and govern it on God’s behalf. This is the story being launched on the first pages of the Bible and the story being fulfilled in the very last pages of the Bible. 

Testing the story 

But is it a story that makes best sense of all the content in between? 

Well actually it is, and more so than the story of salvation on its own.  

It makes sense of the calling on Abraham to become a nation through whom God would bless all nations. This was about more than Israel’s job of birthing and hosting the world’s Saviour; it was about her job of birthing and hosting the world’s King and his Kingdom. 

It also makes sense of the Church’s calling to go make disciples of all nations. This wasn’t and isn’t just about getting people from every nation into the Kingdom; it’s about spreading the Kingdom into people of every nation. It’s about the original call to fill the earth in preparation to govern it. 

And it of course makes sense of Israel’s return today. 

The combined visions of Isaiah and John depict King Jesus ruling all nations from Jerusalem, in partnership with the redeemed nation of Israel and the fully global Church. This will be the completion of the original call on mankind to fill the earth with God’s Kingdom, but needs both Israel and the Church to be united in service to the King. Israel returning to the map in our day therefore means the fulfilment of this vision is close at hand. For as Paul wrote in Romans 11:26-27: 

“Some of the people of Israel have hard hearts, but this will last only until the full number of Gentiles comes to Christ. And so all Israel will be saved. As the Scriptures say, ‘The one who rescues will come from Jerusalem, and he will turn Israel away from ungodliness. And this is my covenant with them, that I will take away their sins.’”

Reclaiming the story 

So there is much to commend the Kingdom storyline as a better way of understanding the Bible today. It makes plainer sense of the Bible’s full content than the salvation storyline, and better sense of its current and future outworking in history. This will only become more valuable to us as history moves towards its conclusion in the days ahead. 

But none of this diminishes the significance of the Bible’s salvation story; rather, it’s only in the wider context of the Kingdom storyline that the salvation story gains its full meaning and urgency. Meaning, because it opens up what we’re saved for: to co-rule with the King. And urgency, because the King is coming back very soon!  

We see the same marriage of storylines in the main message of Jesus’ ministry. He would open his appeal with the salvation storyline by urging his listeners to, “Repent of your sins and turn to God.” But to justify his appeal, he would then point to the Kingdom storyline: “For the Kingdom of Heaven is near!” And so the Kingdom story explains the salvation story. 

Now that Israel has returned to the map and the Church is reaching all nations, we need to get back to telling the Bible story the same way Jesus did. 

For it’s never just been about Israel or the Church. It’s always been about the Kingdom.