A review of a helpful but unfocussed compendium
The Jews, Modern Israel
and the New Supercessionism
Ed. Calvin Smith, 164p, King's Divinity School, 2009.
There is much to gain and to commend in this small volume. It
represents the formal output of a weekend conference, and gains colour
and depth from the diversity of strengths and perception of the
participants. It steers carefully between the tidal force of anti-Zionist hatred which is still rising
in evangelical churches and the uncritical and often unevangelistic
devotion to Israel, sometimes verging on idolatry, expressed by some
dispensationalist believers. Yet, as might be expected in such slippery
heights, in places the volume yields significant concessions to either
camp. Nevertheless its principal fault is that, like many conference
proceedings, it lacks focus. What is the formal definition of the error
of supercession, what lies at its root? This is the crucial issue -
given its pivotal role in the genesis of Christian hatred of the Jews
and of reinforcing Jewish prejudice against the Messiah. Is it the
proposal that the land promise has been allegorised away (Vantassel and
to some extent Tony Pearce), a failure of hermeneutical method
(Prasch's fascinating and insightful chapter), a faulty eschatology
(Wilkinson), a failure to incorporate a vital thread in the
metanarrative of scripture (Smith), faulty exegesis of the term Israel
in the NT (Cheung), or an irreversible transfer of Tenach promises
given from Israel to the Church (Taylor). All these observations
contain considerable weight and validity, but how useful are they at
identifying the spring of the problem, and just as importantly the
route to the solution?
I suggest it is Vantassel and Wilkinson who come closest to the
solution, by reason of their proximity to the Puritan theologians who
possess clarity of sight of the skeleton of scripture. Perhaps it is a
lack of acquaintance with writers like John Owen, John Gill, or Goodwin
that deprives them of the insight that such early Christian Zionists
(though they would no doubt be surprised at the label) were driven not
so much by their conviction about the timing of millennium (on which
they differed), but by their primary focus on the Divine covenants as
both keys and seals to the glorious purpose of scripture. Far from
being hostile to a conviction of God's ongoing purpose for the Jewish
people and an ardent expectation of their return to the Holy Land, as
Vantassel suggests, these principles deeply undergirded them. Many
covenant and reformed theologians today are explicitly anti-Zionistic,
Robert Reymond, Palmer
Robertson, and William
Hendriksen to name but three, and they cite their covenant theology
in defence. However they are deeply out of harmony with many if not
most other writers from the same school, John Murray, Jonathan Edwards
or their many Puritan forebears, as Iain Murray points out in his
defence of post-milleniallism the Puritan Hope. I do not suggest that
the solution to a modern problem will be found ready made in their
writings. Even Gill and Owen, though princes of
covenant theology, are
not always consistent with each other or
with self in writing on the
land promise. However their burning priority to understand scripture by
the great landmarks of the Divine covenants is instructive. Their
intricate and sometimes paradoxical interrelation is the root that
bears the olive branches, both wild and native. This root misperceived
has lead to a wide variety of ecclesiological and theological errors,
and it is this root to which we must look for the real cause of
supercessionism, both of the old kind
and much more especially of the
new.
24/11/2010
